How we cite our quotes: (Part.Chapter.Line)
Quote #1
Interest groups, mircropolitics—they really were fragmenting. One hundred people only, and yet they were too large a community to cohere! And there was nothing [Maya] or Frank could do about it. (2.4.40)
Even on the Ares, deciding where a community begins or ends is a tricky proposition. On the one hand, all of First Hundred makeup a community, but they also have communities within communities within communities.
Quote #2
It was strange how the group was changing again, how the feel of it was changing. [Nadia] could never get a fix on it; the real nature of the group was a thing apart, with a life of its own, somehow distinct from the characters of the individuals that constituted it. (3.4.77)
The themes of community and identity come together in glorious confusion. The community is made up of individual identities, but also seems to exist beyond the individuals that make it up. It's a bit of a tangle.
Quote #3
In a larger society, [Michel] told [Maya], the claustrophobic village atmosphere of Underhill would begin to dissipate; this would give a better perspective on certain aspects of things. (4.2.29)
Ha—no such luck, Michel. If anything, the larger societies popping up on Mars later in the story only cloud perspectives all the more.