blincoln's Journal: Required Reading

He looked at the ships again. The twelve black shapes were larger, fatter versions of Nightshade, their hulls swelling out to a width of perhaps two hundred and fifty metres at the widest point. They were as fat-bellied as the old ramliner colonisation ships, which had been designed to carry many tens of thousands of frozen sleepers.

But what about the rest of humanity? What about all the old ships that are still being used?

[We've done what we can. Closed Council agents have succeeded in regaining control of a number of outlaw vessels. These ships were destroyed, of course: we can't use them either, and existing drives can't be safely converted to the stealthed design.]

They can't?

Into Clavain's mind Skade tossed the image of a small planet, perhaps a moon, with a huge bowl-shaped chunk gouged out of one hemisphere, glowing cherry-red.

[No.]

--- Alastair Reynolds, Redemption Ark