Teddy Gatz quotes from Bugonia (2025)

Teddy Gatz

It all starts with something... magnificent. A flower. Just a flower. Then a honeybee. Very fragile. Very complicated. The bee gathers pollen and deposits it in another flower's stigma. It's like sex but cleaner. And nobody gets hurt.

Teddy Gatz

Welcome to the headquarters of the human resistance. Despite our general suspicion and disavowal of all extant governing bodies, and despite the fact that you, as an Andromedan, are not subject to the human rights guidelines detailed in the Geneva Conventions, we nevertheless endeavour to adhere to those guidelines out of the humanist principles to which they aspire.

Teddy Gatz

I know who you are. I know what you are.

Teddy Gatz

We're just leveling the playing field. It's not torture. Torture is what it's done to us.

Teddy Gatz

That's for Don, you **** virus.

Teddy Gatz

Because I know exactly what you're going to say. You're going to say that I'm in some kind of Internet-induced autohypnotic feedback loop, and-and gatekeepers, and-and norms, and all that weak hegemonic horseshit. But that is precisely the limp-dick rhetoric that you've been instructed to counter the human insurgency with. That's the **** hyper-normalized dialectic by which you've convinced seven and half billion people that they're not your captives. To keep us believing in these **** false institutional, **** 'shy-boleths'.

Teddy Gatz

A degree from a university? From a credentialist scam for laundering privilege? Amazing.

Teddy Gatz

99.9% of what's called activism is really personal exhibitionism and brand maintenance in disguise.

Teddy Gatz

I want you to know... this is really difficult for me as well. You killed my family, you killed my community, you killed my co-workers and you killed the bees. So given that, you should really appreciate how professional I'm being by not gutting you.

How can you tell them apart?

Teddy

Well, you have to know where to look. There are signs.

What about these people?

Teddy

No, no, they're fine. I mean, they're not fine-fine, but hollowed. You know, like the rest of us. Harmless. Hopeless. And that's the way they planned it. To make us the same as the bees. A dead colony, atomised in a trillion directions with no way home again.

Michelle

Where's my hair?

Teddy

Your hair has been destroyed.

Michelle

You shaved off my hair?

Teddy

Yes, we've shaved off your hair.

Michelle

Why have you shaved off my hair?

Teddy

To prevent you from contacting your ship.

Michelle

My ship?

Teddy

Your ship.

Michelle

What ship?

Teddy

Your mothership.

Michelle

You're a credit to your species, Teddy, truly.

Teddy

Well, I'm just... trying to help.

Teddy

Lies.

Michelle

Truth. What's the difference?

Look, Teddy, um, I know it was a long time ago, what I did to you, man...

Teddy

It's fine.

No, it wasn't fine. It was wrong, but I promise you it's not because I liked it. It was just, you know, probably some weird power thing. I was-I was young and lost, and I promise you, dude, I never, ever did that to anybody else.

Teddy

Just forget it. It's done. Seriously.

Really?

Teddy

Mm-hmm.

Michelle

About bees? Uh... Complex society. Work ethic. They do their duty, they build their worlds without complaint or piety or self-obsession.

Teddy

Mm-hmm. All true. Which is why they're so easy to exploit, right?

Michelle

I just admire their resolve. That's all. Even in the face of peril.