The link there, equating them, feels unreasonably generous given John's position. His reluctance. Whether Marcus has named the thing for what it is or not, it is a truth: John has dithered along the edges of the entire business, half in and half out. Half a participant.

What a strange thing it is, to be so yoked to a future, a lineage, continuing on beyond him. When John entertains thoughts of the future, it rarely strays beyond his own end point.

"There's something to it, you know," John says, rather than belabor the point of far off generations, of his own ignorance. "Your friends and their settlement. Intermingling would be better, but places like Nascere are few and far between. And too far northwards to tempt."

That distance all the more pronounced for their current setting, alien and unsafe.