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

Shipshape

I saw this picture today, via an Astral Codex Ten post on distinguishing human art from AI art, but that is not the context in which I reference it: Instead, I merely point out that it would be an accurate representation of what the Royal Alatian (later Imperial) Navy would

My To-Fu Is Stronger Than Yours

Pressed bean curds are a common item in many Eliéran cuisines, in recipes both savory and sweet. I refer to them using this long description since, despite being identical in many ways and produced from the same small group of plants, they are one of the very few foodstuffs to

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: September 2018 (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