...building civilizations with my space elves in space.

Crazy Eddie

As a brief cultural note, today, I happened to be looking something up on the Atomic Rockets Future Mythology page, and was reminded of Crazy Eddie. (The one from Larry Niven & Jerry Pournelle's The Mote in God's Eye, obviously. Even if, sad to say, that

Plumbing the Depths (2)

The DEEP STAR PROGRAM WANTS YOU To Make A New Life Around A New Star! Following the successful launches of our first three interstellar colony ships, we are preparing two more for launch in 3036, and we are still recruiting both colonists and crew for Destiny Ascendant. Destiny Ascendant is

Plumbing the Depths (1)

Skystream Station Talentar High Orbit Lumenna-Súnáris System 3034 The stars drifted by slowly beyond the sweeping arc of clary defining the outer edge of the bar, glittering clear and steady through the pristine vacuum of the inner system. Seated by the window, Cathál Rian-ith-Ríëlle sipped her beer, and thumbed desultorily

Status of Tags/Fixes

Complete back through: December 2019 (This means we have passed the point at which Discourse comments were introduced. Progress can be expected to be slower from this point forward, since I need to copy the WordPress comments across.)

Spooooky

Okay, folks, we're doing this. At midnight tomorrow (that would be midnight following 29 October 2024, Central Daylight Time), we'll be cutting over to the new shiny Ghost-based site instead of this old, busted WordPress one. Not everything is finished, because some things are very hard

Things Still To Be Done

Here, for your edification, is a list of all the things still to be done in migrating over here from WordPress, but which I know about and so which you don't need to remind me of. They'll be struck through as they're done, and

Request for Migration Suggestions

So, for my birthday, which it is, I have decided to get myself freedom from WordPress. (Why, you ask? Many reasons, like being sick of its breakage and security issues, not to mention that it takes a rather more expensive droplet – it’s hosted on DigitalOcean – to serve this site

Put A Ring In It

The term “ring-magazine” refers to a design philosophy used in current-generation Imperial Navy capital ships, other than carriers, along with a number of the larger, quadruple-turreted cruiser classes. To review, these types – unlike the smaller destroyers and frigates – share a common general plan dictated by the requirements of military starship

Skillsets

There is, in short, competence and competence. The Accord on the Law of Free Space is rather generously written, to cover all our polities at whatever stage of progress they may be and however much investment in training they can afford. The Imperial Navigation Act is rather more tightly written,

Speak Eldraeic Like A Semi-Literate Barbarian (3.5): Some Érélar

In which we begin to discuss the arguments that are slotted into the predicates. Specifically we’re going to talk about érélar (from e, diminutive prefix, plus rélar, argument-word). You may consider these the equivalent of pronouns, insofar as they are words which stand in the place of full arguments

Integral Annihilation

A curious feature of Imperial academia is the antidegree (occasionally and unofficially referred to as the dishonorary antidegree). One cannot, of course, simply revoke a degree obtained without fraud; it is a time-bound certification of ability which stands as testimony to the competence of its holder at that time. However,

Repent, Horologist! Said The Tick-Tock Man

Ladies and gentlemen, I take you now to - the calendar! Specifically, I take you to the Harmonious Calendar, the standard calendar used by Imperial chronometrists ever since the Founding (although in its basic structure it required little adjustment, primarily the setting of a new base point/year zero, and