Trope-a-Day: Crystal Spires and Togas

Alistair Young

Mar 28, 2012 — 1 min read

Crystal Spires and Togas: Well, the Imperials have the crystal spires down. Although, a little unusually, this wasn’t the follow-on from the “big, shiny, and sciency!” period (that is happening simultaneously) – it’s just that the saerymaharvéi silverlife, descendants of Precursor materials-processing nanites, left the surface of Eliera scattered with giant readily-accessible lumps of crystal right from day one. The school of architecture stuck, intermingled with art deco, the closely related Gernsback style, a soupçon of (often literally) organic designs, and highly polished steampunk/clockpunk/electropunk in-your-face mechanism, even when it’s really ultratech with “holographic” interfaces. With big chrome fins.

Note: this is not a Gilded Age. That’s hammered gold, you philistine.

There are not, however, togas. Also, the technology isn’t all that so-subtle-it-can’t-be-seen; sleek and shiny it may be, but it’s almost as obvious as in Steampunk. Imperials like their tech.

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