To touch this abomination with anything less perfectly attuned to its nature than the carefully dispersed wings of an engine field would be like an ancient, fragile rocket ship falling into a sun, like a wooden sea-ship encountering an atomic blast.
The quote from Iain M. Banks' "Excession" illustrates the concept of confronting something fundamentally incompatible with oneself. It suggests that attempting to engage with a perilous and alien force requires an equal measure of precision and appropriateness, akin to a finely tuned technological mechanism. Ordinary methods or materials would be disastrously inadequate against a profoundly chaotic or destructive entity.
This analogy draws comparisons between advanced space technology and older forms of transportation to highlight the dangers of mismatch in approaches. Just as a fragile rocket ship cannot survive the heat of a sun, or a wooden ship cannot withstand a nuclear explosion, human attempts to handle powerful, otherworldly phenomena must be executed with the utmost care and sophistication.
