The Eldraeverse

…building civilizations with my space elves in space.

Category Archives: Trope-a-Day

Trope-a-Day: Everything Is Online

1 Comment Posted by on May 12, 2013

Everything Is Online: Played entirely straight, including just about every piece of technology you can think of – infrastructure, houses, vehicles, appliances, even the simplest packaging will have at least an identity-location-and-v-tag beacon on it – and including people’s brains (which is where your modern chap keeps his PDA); all hooked up using pervasive wireless mesh networking.  Only the most paranoid of organizations or those working with incredibly dangerous technologies air-gap their networks, because it’s so incredibly inconvenient in the modern world.

But then, IIP is different from IP inasmuch as it has security baked right in – it’s impossible to send or receive any traffic, for one thing, that’s not all duly certified and encrypted and authenticated – and many of the network managers, routers, security systems, and so forth are artificially intelligent and quite capable of running their own little panopticon, so while it’s not impossible to perform great feats of hacking using Everything Is Online, it’s a damn sight harder to do than our Internet might make it look.

And there generally are local overrides, just in case.

Trope-a-Day , , , ,

Trope-a-Day: Every Device Is A Swiss Army Knife / Magic Tool

Leave a Comment Posted by on May 11, 2013
IT IS NOT AN OMNI-TOOL. WRONG UNIVERSE, DAMMIT.

NO, IT IS NOT AN OMNI-TOOL. WRONG UNIVERSE, DAMMIT.

Every Device Is A Swiss Army Knife/Magic Tool: The ubiquitous nanolathe is pretty much the poster child for these two: basically, it’s a bunch of processors, a future-iPad-equivalent, a complete universal network interface, a pocket-sized nanofac, and a bunch of miniaturized nanomanipulators, vector effectors, and a few other tools built into one handy gauntlet-style package that still permits full hand use and is wearable with most clothing.  It can make a wide variety of useful objects (described by software recipes) on the fly, interface with, analyze, debug, modify, and repair just about anything recognizable (including lifeforms), operate as a remote control for even the most complex devices, scan for any number of things, perform a wide variety of computational tasks, let you communicate in a variety of ways, operate as part of your personal-area network, and chill drinks.

Also, it runs apps.  And there is almost certainly an app for that.

Trope-a-Day , , , , ,

Trope-a-Day: Every Bullet is a Tracer

1 Comment Posted by on May 10, 2013

Every Bullet Is A Tracer: Justified for non-slugguns, inasmuch as modern slugthrowers kick their tiny dust-grain bullets up to such a high velocity – a respectable fraction of c – that they plasmate the air they hit on the way to their target.  The bullet doesn’t glow, but the resulting plasma bolus does.

(The disadvantage that this has, that firing gives away your position unless you turn the muzzle velocity way down, has been noted by the relevant tacticians.)

Trope-a-Day ,

Trope-a-Day: Even Evil Has Standards

1 Comment Posted by on May 9, 2013

Even Evil Has Standards: Not in general played any straighter than it is in reality – the dumb and brutal kind of space pirate/raider, in particular, is infamous for atrocities – but seen on occasion.  A lot of Renegades, even the gone-plain-and-simple-evil ones, still have their instincts and culture programming, and as such tend to avoid slaving and other blatantly choice-stealing, and often adhere to codes circling around the twisted form of mélith that could be summarized as “those who aren’t asking for it shouldn’t get it”.

Trope-a-Day , , , , , ,

Trope-a-Day: Eternal Prohibition

Leave a Comment Posted by on May 8, 2013

Eternal Prohibition: Averted, because no-one in the Empire would consider it reasonable to ban anything that, say, didn’t cause immediate homicidal mania in the first place.  Your psychochemistry is your own business, and no-one else’s – except the plentiful dealers in recreational chemistry.  And enhancement chemistry, like nootropics, mnemotropins, etc., etc.  Some of which are even used in breakfast cereal.

Don’t even ask what they put in the fruity oaty bar…

Trope-a-Day , , , , , , , ,

Trope-a-Day: Eternal English

Leave a Comment Posted by on May 7, 2013

Eternal English: Let me put it this way: immortality plays merry hell with linguistic drift.  (So does conscious linguistic engineering, but the ongoing presence of a very large body of speakers of the old version certainly helps.)

Trope-a-Day , ,

Trope-a-Day: Eternal Engine

Leave a Comment Posted by on May 6, 2013

Eternal Engine: Quite a few of the Empire’s – and other advanced civilizations – larger factory complexes (mostly in space, to avoid heat-dissipation and environmental problems, but including things like most of ecumenopolitan Qerach) are like this, including city-like size.  The interiors are not particularly friendly to biosapiences, mostly because they’re very, very automated, so they’re not actually designed with the thought that anyone might go in there in person in mind.

Trope-a-Day , ,

Trope-a-Day: Equal-Opportunity Evil

Leave a Comment Posted by on May 5, 2013

Equal-Opportunity Evil: Most Renegades, at least the ones that aren’t actually crazy.  While they tend to have substantial disagreements with Imperial ethics (see: Blue and Orange Morality, Black and White Morality) – which the Imperials would probably argue is a sign of being, to some degree, sanity-impaired – they also tend to be sane and rational enough to recognize that Irrationalist Bigotry Is Irrational, belike.

Trope-a-Day , , , ,

Trope-a-Day: Enforced Cold War

1 Comment Posted by on May 4, 2013

Enforced Cold War: A lot of them, in various places in the Worlds.  The Great Powers with seats on the Presidium (see: The Alliance) may not agree on much, but one of the few things they do agree on is the importance of not letting major wars break out and upset their comfortable status quo.  Lesser powers, therefore, must content themselves with relatively minor regional conflicts, brushfire wars and shadow operations.

Trope-a-Day , , , ,

Trope-a-Day: Energy Weapons

Leave a Comment Posted by on April 10, 2013

Energy Weapons: Present, even if by and large Kinetic Weapons Are Just Better and therefore much more used.  Lasers and grasers exist, despite their limitations, primarily as heat-pumping weapons, knife-fight range point defense, and as blinding lasers, as do electrolaser stunners/anti-machine weapons, with all their limitations of atmospheric composition and humidity.  Plasma lances exist too, although they only work at point-blank range, even in space, due to dissipation.  (And regular flamethrowers, of course.)  There are microwave heaters and other kinds of algetics.  And there are limited-use, short-range, vector-control based gravitic weapons (based off the tractor-pressor principle, either to yank, slam, or vibrate).

But for all that existing, it’s still the slugthrowers that see the most use.

Trope-a-Day , , , , , , ,

Trope-a-Day: Kinetic Weapons Are Just Better

1 Comment Posted by on April 9, 2013

Kinetic Weapons Are Just Better: For most things, yes.  It’s not that they don’t have perfectly functional energy weapons, or power cells which can manage the job – if you can run a mass driver that can get a flechette or slug up to a respectable fraction of the speed of light, yep, you can power a laser with it too, just fine.  Nor do energy weapons lack their place – lasers are a damn fine way of pumping heat into things, which is very handy in starship combat, for example, and electrolasers (fire the laser to ionize a path through the air to your target, then dump a lot of voltage down it) make excellent stunners and anti-machine weapons, and EMP weapons are also handy for the latter, if really hard on the infrastructure.  Blinding lasers are effective on at least many species and relatively humane.

But in practice, it’s a lot easier to solve the problems of making really awesome kinetic weapons than of dealing with beam dispersion (while you can do some cool blasting-shit-apart – not slicing it up – with a big laser or graser, you would generally prefer not to have to let it get that close), atmospheric humidity (a big problem for electrolasers), and other such things, and in some cases vulnerability that varies sharply by the precise way the energy is delivered, and suchlike.  So while energy weapons of various types are part of the arsenal, in the special uses for which they excel, the jack-of-all-trades weapons still Throw Stuff At You Really Damn Fast.

Trope-a-Day , , , , , , ,

Trope-a-Day: Energy Economy

Leave a Comment Posted by on April 8, 2013

Energy Economy: While the esteyn is not a pure energy currency (it remains, in our terms, a fiat currency using indices to carefully balance the money supply against the productivity of the economy), in the modern era, given the ready availability of nanofacs, energy forms a major part of these indices (the major indices used are the prices of energy, computational cycles, volume, and standardized feedstock mass; the former two usually predominate).

See here for more.

Trope-a-Day , , , , , , , ,

Trope-a-Day: Enemy Civil War

Leave a Comment Posted by on April 7, 2013

Enemy Civil War: Given the Empire’s preference for deviousness and indirection, not to mention preemption, by way of military policy, this happens surprisingly often.  Well, okay, still not all that often, but if a society has a crack in it that a skillful warrior-philosopher/memeticist can use to get them fighting each other rather than running around fighting other people, the Stratarchy of Indirection and Subtlety considers that a net win.

Trope-a-Day , ,

Trope-a-Day: Encyclopedia Exposita

Leave a Comment Posted by on April 6, 2013

Encyclopedia Exposita: I never could resist doing this, and I have so many metafictional books to choose from!

(See, in face, much of the Fic-a-Day section.)

Trope-a-Day

Trope-a-Day: Empathic Environment

Leave a Comment Posted by on April 5, 2013

Empathic Environment: Much of the Empire has one of these, one way or another.  On a  small scale, this is because of the assorted Genii Locorum around the place, the house brains and city manager AIs and planai and other assorted minds at least one of whose functions is to make sure that things are arranged to their people’s liking before their people consciously realize that they want things that way.  (And since they can usually do so in cooperation with their people’s muses, which live inside their heads, they’re very good at it.)

On a larger scale, this is because to some extent people believe that the pathetic fallacy, if not how the world does work, is certainly how the world ought to work.  It would be appropriate.  And so the Transcend, constructed as it is from the trillions of minds of its constitutionals, and intertwined with, as it is, the weather-control systems and other infrastructure of every developed world, makes sure that it jolly well does work that way.

Trope-a-Day , , , , , ,

Trope-a-Day: Genius Loci

1 Comment Posted by on April 4, 2013

(‘Bout time I got back to these, I think.)

Genius Loci: Quite a lot of them, from the simple usually-non-sophont AIs that run people’s houses and apartments (the “house brains”) to the increasingly sophisticated “city managers” and other AIs that run cities, provinces, transport networks, ports, and so forth, up to the planai and other archai that are responsible for the infrastructure of entire planets and star systems.  And, of course, to a large extent the Transcend can be interpreted as a Genius Loci for the Empire as a whole.

(This, of course, from the local perspective, is merely the realization of ancient thoughts on animism.)

Trope-a-Day , , , , , , ,

But I Don’t Need One For This!

Leave a Comment Posted by on March 16, 2013

“Be advised that, following the recent series of incidents involving Imperial tourists, the Hierarchy of Transportation has added the following vehicles to the list of those requiring licensure for use on public roadways: flitters, hovercraft, psychokinetic amplifiers, skyhooks, grav-boards, floater disks, spiderpalanquins, rollagons, subterrenes, miniblimps, unispheres, brachiators, all forms of self-mobile furniture (specifically including beds, couches, and chaises longue), walking mecha, tilt-turbine hats, bouncecraft, autokites, powered boots, vector-control harnesses, self-laying slidewalks, nanocreeks, spacer pikes, gengineered snakes, fusion-assisted pogo sticks, jet-powered rocket pants, and cyberfeet.”

“In addition, vehicles with no axles shall be deemed vehicles with two axles for the purposes of road tolls.”

- law enforcement bulletin, seen somewhere in the Expansion Regions

Trope-a-Day , , ,

Trope-a-Day: Emotions vs. Stoicism

1 Comment Posted by on February 9, 2013

Emotions vs. Stoicism: Mastering talcoríëf (literally cold-mindedness; metaphorically, cool reason and mastery of passions) is very, very important to the eldrae.  There’s a reason why their deep history were days of Glory and War and Wonder and Strife and Terror, and they don’t want to revisit those any time soon.

(Which is not to say they behave like Vulcans; clearly, even to human eyes, they do emote – just have a Stiff Upper Lip, old chap, except among the closest of friends, and would certainly think we desperately need to get in touch with our rational sides.

Also, it should be noted, it is extremely unwise to forget that under the talcoríëf, they still burn.  Those who forget this fact, especially if they think they can take advantage of it, tend to swiftly learn that ice destroys even more thoroughly than fire, if not as swiftly.)

Trope-a-Day , ,

Trope-a-Day: Emergency Transformation

Leave a Comment Posted by on February 8, 2013

Emergency Transformation: This is another thing that tends to happen a lot – not so much for the Imperials themselves, who are used to changing bodies, and for that matter substrates – “at home I’m a humanoid; at work I’m a squidbot” -  like other people change suits, but as you might expect from people who do that, they do keep the appropriate scan-and-compile machinery around when a friend of theirs seems to be about to get dead, because, well, the standard medical treatment for that is to have your brain scanned, your mind-state compiled, and your selfness reinstantiated in another body equipped with proper universal noetic architecture.

This works about as well as you might imagine when you consider the number of people in the universe who remain fundamentally uncomfortable with the algorithmic view of mind (“souls are software objects”) even if they aren’t actual biochauvinists/carbon chauvinists, or who are concerned that some immaterial essence isn’t going along with the transfer, or some such.  And, of course, the Imperials are about as equipped to deal with this one as they are the Cloning Blues (“What sort of fucked-up society spreads memes like this around anyway?”) in the sense of not really having much empathy for any position quite so weird.

And there’s only so far slapping people upside the head with science will go.  Or explaining yet again that if you think you’re you, and remember being you, and act like you, then you are you to within all relevant standards of you-ness, ‘kay?  And, hey, you got immortality, light-speed-plus travel and optional superpowers out of this deal, so could you maybe stop whining for a minute and learn to enjoy not being dead already?

Yeah.  Like that.

Trope-a-Day , , , , ,

Trope-a-Day: Eloquent In My Native Tongue

Leave a Comment Posted by on February 7, 2013

Eloquent In My Native Tongue: Eldraeic native speakers tend to come across this way, tending to be either stilted and concise (if they’re aware of it and overcompensating for that by grotesquely simplifying everything, Eldraeic being, ah, very enriched in language features indeed – an approach which is somewhat shameful, but possibly the best compromise they can manage between perfection as defined as accurate communication and perfection as defined as proper use of the foreign tongue) or verbose, over-precisely and redundantly qualified, and pedantic (if they’re simply letting the translator run away with it) in other languages.

(See also: Call a “Smeerp” A Rabbit, Curse of the Ancients, I Do Not Speak Nonverbal, Japanese Honorifics, Mathematician’s Answer, Sesquipedalian Loquaciousness, Sophisticated As Hell, Spock Speak, Starfish Language, and Translator Microbes.)

Trope-a-Day , ,

← Older posts

Follow

Get every new post delivered to your Inbox.

Join 667 other followers

%d bloggers like this: