Tuon
"Things don't just get handed to you in Thanasis. The rich get richer and the poor are left to rot. The only way out of the cycle is The Rising. Your grandfather recognised that - that's why he wrote his name down. He realised, Tuon, that if you want something you have to take it. Your grandfather didn't want to starve any longer, didn't want to see another child die, and so he took a chance.
But still we're not like the Houses. We can't grow fat on what your grandfather did, oh no. Every one of us have had to claw out our own place here, amongst the Ascended. That's the real kick in the teeth isn't it? No matter the number of son's and daughter's we send to the front line our blood will never be right. So we keep on prove to them we deserve to be here, that our blood, Stryker blood, has more of the dragon in it than any of them."
- General Furyk Stryker to his daughter, Tuon, the night before The Rising.