Month: April 2012

Trope-a-Day: Space Elves

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Space Elves: Yeah, yeah, yeah…  (Says so right in the subtitle, see?)

Well, let’s just say that many, many years ago (say twenty) there was a lot more fantasy in my speculative-fiction worldbuilding, which didn’t quite wear off until somewhat fewer years ago (say ten).  The remaining elvishness (see: Our Elves Are Better) of the eldrae is a combination of that part which I consider justified, and that part which is pure legacy code.  (And that get their essential body plan the scientifically-justifiable way; see Human Aliens.)

And in the genre that brought us, say, the asari, the minbari, the vulcans, the syreen, etc., etc., and plenty of even physically closer-to-elvish examples, I’m not exactly worried about it, either.

Of Things Dug Up

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Artifact #19,246: the Sapphire Sphere

Unearthed during the Iniscail excavations, located in a central position in the third lefthand side room of chamber seven. The Sphere is a dull matte sphere two spans in diameter, a pale blue in color and emitting a constant glow of the same color. The Sphere weighs five stoneweight.

– Excavator Taris Veran-ith-Vere

ANNOTATIONS

1

Artifact 19,248, located nearby, is an ornate brass stand which may be intended to hold the Sphere.

– Excavator Taris Veran-ith-Vere

3

Intended usage: a light source, perhaps? Or given the position of respect it was found in, possibly a religious symbol?

– Academician Halir Muetry-ith-Mirari

4

A light source? Of which we’ve found no others of its kind in the entire rest of the complex? Are you seriously suggesting that we’ve found a Precursor ornamental lamp?

As for a religious symbol, if we called everything we dug up and couldn’t understand a religious symbol, we’d have nothing but. And there’s no reason to believe the Precursors even had religion.

– Academician Iridal Selequelios-ith-Serris

8

Whatever temperature the surrounding room is in, the Sphere maintains a constant temperature, around blood heat. Intense heating or cooling can change it locally, but it returns to its normal temperature unnaturally fast.

– Academician Hieras Octarthius-ith-Octian

14

The Sphere cannot be opened by any method familiar to us, nor does it possess any discernible power source.  Exposure to sunlight or common chemicals effects no change or reaction.

– Academician Hieras Octarthius-ith-Octian

33

The Sphere is unresponsive to attempts at verbal or telepathic interrogation.

– Academician Hieras Octarthius-ith-Octian

372

In light of the inability to open the Sphere with conventional methods, drilling, or chemical erosion, I have submitted a request for explosives.  Perhaps careful blasting will let us investigate the interior.

– Academician Isif Larathyr-ith-Lyrian

374

Academician Larathyr-ith-Lyrian has been dismissed from the Initiative. Firstly, Precursor artifacts are very rare, and while permission may occasionally be granted to perform destructive testing on those of which we have multiple examples, no such testing is to be proposed on unique examples.

Secondly, blasting? After what happened to the Penjel facility, a researcher proposes blasting?

NO EXPLOSIVES! EVER!

– Supervisor Kendrian Cyprium-ith-Reyne

1118

With today’s better measurement instruments, the constant temperature of the Sphere is recorded as 307.54 degrees. No variation in this was observed over a half-year period. Nor has any previously-undetectable variation in the intensity of the glow been identified.

– Academician Excellence Hieras Octarthius-ith-Octian

2019

The Sphere doesn’t just emit blue light. It emits monochromatic blue light of wavelength 464 nm along with thermal radiation appropriate to its temperature.

– Academician Sinté Quendocius-ith-Quendocius

4311

Under new scanning series, the Sphere appears to be opaque to neutrinos. It’s another datum, I suppose, but still no progress in identifying anything that might be in there.

– Senior Technician Vivalíé Peressin-ith-Peressin

5096

The Sphere may be the device referred to in sections 91.4 and 93.2 of the damaged inscriptions from the Mazir asteroid site. Relevant translatable phrases include its description as a ’resonant monoluminor’, as an ’automorphous facilitator’, and ’the purpose of noetic energy-conversion for dynamic change’, although, per 33 above, it remains opaque to mental interrogation.

While this in itself provides little insight, it is hoped it may provide some possible directions for future research.

– Linguist Excellence Ciriath Essenye-ith-Estrey

6522

No, clear it for shipment to the Museum. It’s been sitting on the supervising researcher’s desk as a paperweight for nearly 1,400 years at this point. If it wasn’t a danger then, it’s not going to start being one tomorrow.

– Administrator Excellence Antar Calaris-ith-Calir

7322

Oh, for the love of –

It is a lamp. Of course it’s a lamp. ’Resonant monoluminor’ – makes light of one color via resonating electrons. As for the rest – ’automorphous’, ’noetic’, ’dynamic change’ – it’s a light you think by, or rather, a light you learn by.

Five millennia to discover that we’ve found a self-powering Precursor library lamp. We’re the best in our field, ladies and gentlemen.

– Academician Excellence Iridal Selequelios-ith-Serris

END OF FILE

Trope-a-Day: Our Elves Are Better

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Our Elves Are Better: Well, of course they are.  I refer you to the comments under Can’t Argue With Elves, etc., in re impossibly beautiful sexy immortal billionaire genius demigods.

Probably closest (although not all that close) to the High Elves stereotype, although averting the whole Medieval Stasis thing quite dramatically with For Science! and its industrial consequences.  And while the super-sumptuous clothes and the delicate jewelry is about right, historically they preferred swords with a bit more heft to them than a rapier, and clockpunk auto- or pocket-crossbows.  (In the modern era, they prefer Very Large Guns, big stompy Powered Armor suits, and antimatter grenades, a weapon combination which one imagines would make actual elves blanch.)

And while Cultural Posturing is sometimes in play – although, as I point out, who isn’t it in play for? – they’re quite willing to admit members of other species, or more accurately other cultural groups, to the People As Awesome As Us club.  Once they get to know them, anyway.

To cover other things, played straight:

  • As per the High Elf stereotype, taller and slimmer than humanity.  Also lithe and nimble, but (an aversion here) not fragile in the sense of either Fragile Speedster or Squishy Wizard – among the things that come along with immortality are toughness and a pretty solid immune system, otherwise that immortality wouldn’t be worth the genome it was encoded on, now would it?
  • Pointy Ears, yes, if no larger than human ears.
  • Long lived (naturally possessed of what would be called the Lesser Immortality, i.e., never aging past a certain point, although being able to be killed).  No reincarnation, however, at least not until they got around to inventing it.  Are not quite immune to Who Wants to Live Forever?, but definitely don’t suffer from it until time periods measured in millennia have passed.  And yes, accompanied by relatively low birth rates.
  • While not no facial hair, limited facial hair; small beards and moustaches only.
  • Yes, very, very pretty; exactly an Inhumanly Beautiful Race.  Of course, they started out merely distinctively pretty.  The modern situation has to do with millennia of competitive genetic engineering to turn this up to eleven (hah, almost typed “up to elven”) and beyond, to the point at which they’re probably a walking danger zone to other hominids who haven’t grown up around them.  (Or else plunge straight into the Uncanny Valley… after all, mythologically, the sidhe were probably in this sort of territory, and yet if you were looking for adjectives to describe them, you’d reach for eldritch before you got to hot, right? Right.)

And averted:

  • Not terribly big on respecting nature in a Green Aesop sense.  (Although they would, in the general case, point out that they are nature, and therefore the things they do are also a part of nature, so therefore, for example, the mighty pile of concrete and stone that is the Merianreth Gorge Dam is every bit as natural as, say, a beaver dam – and every bit as beautiful, but then, understand that an eldrae would gaze appreciatively upon the beauty of a well-constructed oil refinery).  But science is good, and technology is good, and while nature is doing its best against entropy in a blind and undirected sense, now that there are minds in the universe, it can be improved, or rather clarified, into what it ought to be.  Gardens are beautiful, but they need gardeners.
  • In the Space Elves sense, while they do have access to both Organic Technology and some Crystal Spires without Togas, both are mere subsets of a much larger set of technology, in which they are not the absolute majority.
  • Not magical; there is no magic in this universe.  Such Psychic Powers as there are are exactly as magical as WiFi.
  • Hair colors other than those mentioned do exist, as does curly hair.  (In some rare cases, mostly kireldrae, aquatic clades, and the silvertouched, so do some of those unnatural hair colors.)
  • While they do make things that are designed to be beautiful, durable, delicious, and just plain better than anything else they might be competing with, the Creative Sterility is very definitely averted.  Remember, this is For Science! (and For The Arts!, for that matter).
  • Not all that much of a strong warrior tradition, as a species.  The sentinel darëssef (see: Fantastic Caste System) has one, but it’s hardly the biggest of the darëssef; any of the aesthants, the executors, the plutarchs, the technarchs and the hearthmistresses are more plentiful.

And yes, they certainly can claim to be above being above people.  Only inferior species need to put other species down to feel superior.

The degree to which I may have been influenced by Jürgen Hubert’s Elves: A Case Study of Transhumanism In Fantasy Worlds is actually not all that great – concepts predate, etc., as I’ve been working on this universe for a long time – but it’s still worth reading anyway.  See also the Real Life section of the trope’s comment on what we might do to ourselves if we acquired good human genetic engineering.

On Your Feet or Not At All

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“What is the meaning of this… display?”

The kneeling petitioner winced as my steel-shod flamestaff slammed into the flagstone by his ear, then winced again as, looking up, he caught a glimpse of my face.  “Stand up, man, you and these others.  We’ll have no such heathen prostrations here.  You insult the Flame.  Lord Elmiríën will not be pleased by this.”

They quickly scrambled to their feet, their leader white-faced and stammering.  “Forgive us, ah, my lady – um, your holy -”

“Acquiescent.”

“My lady acquies-”

“Just ‘acquiescent’.  Acquiescent Muetry of Elmiríën.  What is your purpose here, postulant?”

“We are travelers, Acquiescent, from Indimór.  We sought only to give thanks for the safety of our journey, and intended no offense.  We ask forgiveness.”

“I see.”  I sighed inwardly.  One day, it would be nice to hear of a foreign god that didn’t expect people to plant their faces in the dirt.  “Then know, postulant, that the eikones of the true faith desire no worshipful subjection, no flattering prayers or praise of their magnificence rendered meaningless by the praiser’s offered lack of worth.  Such things insult the Flame that burns within you as within Them; as above, so below.  They desire rather that you grow along Their path of principle so that you may stand in Their sight and have your worth be known.”

“They are the light by which we see the perfection of the Twilight City, and hope to emulate it in ourselves.  To worship the light, to bow before the light, rather than aspire to the light, rather than seek the light, is to condemn your soul to a base nature, forever lost in shadow.  Do you understand this?”

“I… not completely, Acquiescent.”

“Think upon this matter, postulant.  If three days hence you still wish to seek the favor of Elmiríën Patterner, seek out cleansing at the House of Entélith, and First Instruction at the House of Aláthiël.  Until then, this place is closed to you.  Now go from here.  Thus speak those who acquiesce to Elmiríën, the One Word of Truth.”

Taking It With You

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Accessing Your Funds

It is possible for you to access your funds directly on most of the core Associated Worlds, including all worlds of the Fringe, which are serviced by the Imperial Banking and Credit Network or one of its affiliate clearing networks.  Direct funds access is also possible on select other major worlds and colonies where First Commercial has branches, using our premium tangle clearing facility.

However, other worlds are affiliated with alternative clearing networks due to local regulatory or legal requirements, or remain unaffiliated. On these worlds, direct funds access is impossible, but First Commercial maintains correspondent relationships with local banks across the Worlds. If a correspondent bank exists on the world you intend to visit, we can provide you with a letter of credit which can be drawn upon there, or a bank draft with which to establish a local account.

If no correspondent bank exists, it may be possible for us to establish a chain of correspondent banks to put funds in place in advance of your visit, or to purchase locally acceptable negotiable instruments or cryp (where anonymous untraceable funds are permitted by local law) on your behalf which you can use to establish a local account.

Please note that specie, unprovenanced gemstones, and precious metals are not recommended for this purpose due to their low mass-value and volume-value.

Access Technologies

Where direct funds access is available through affiliate networks, a variety of different technologies may be required to access local financial networks rather than the Universal, including one-touch credit bars, cards encoded using magnetic stripes, holographic or other optical markings, or physical encoding, or even smart-paper or printed checks manually delivered to a central clearing house. First Commercial can provide you with any of these as required, appropriately encoded to draw upon your account.

You should be aware that while the Imperial Banking and Credit Network affiliate agreement requires adherence to its privacy, anti-fraud, minimum clearance time and fee structure constraints, many of these affiliate networks do not support advanced feature sets including smart contracts, metrics checks, immediate clearing, and referral of purchases to you or your muse for validation. As such, remote access to your funds via these networks requires disabling these security features on your First Commercial account, or setting up a separate foreign drawing account without these features.

For those unfamiliar with these technologies, a cautionary note: virtually all of these, unlike the Empire’s familiar Purchase Threshold ™ system, require that you present goods you wish to purchase to a cashier and perform the transaction explicitly. Do not simply leave with your selected goods; this will not cause them to be purchased.

Thank you for considering First Commercial’s foreign travel and retrocompatibility services.

– leaflet, First Commercial Bank of Seranth

Trope-a-Day: Who Wants To Live Forever?

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Who Wants To Live Forever?: This is the standard point of view of the ephemeralists.  Of course, since none of them are immortal, they don’t really have much standing to judge the issue, and in debate, well, funny how it will always start to suck in another century.  Or two.  Maybe three.

And the conspicuous lack of immortals lying down to make an end of it all would seem to suggest that any number of people do, in fact, want to live forever.  Can’t beat empiricism.

Meanwhile, In The Intergalactic Void

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Elsewhere Society Deep Probe One.
En route to Greater Ancíël Whirl.
Velocity: 0.9 light.
Mission Elapsed Time (empire-time frame): 1 kiloyear.

The stargate cruised onward through the empty void, its linelayer’s drive shut down after its last major vector change, leaving the galactic disk and acquiring its destination.  Against the stars, its motion was imperceptible, with only a few high-energy photons as particles impacted the bow shield to indicate its true speed, a far cry from the foreshock of a lighthugger within the galaxy out here in the dustless halo.

A few lights sporadically glimmered on the habitat modules clamped to the side of the linelayer, populated by occasional astronomers, physicists, a few tourists, and mystics mindcast in for the experience of the void and the view.

No one visited except by ‘casting; while the stargates did compensate for relative velocities, the near-luminal speeds and relativistic distortion this one had achieved while en route already were well beyond their capacity to cope with for transporting mass.

So for the most part, the stargate cruised on alone.

1,000 years elapsed. 200,000 years to run.

Trope-a-Day: Powered Armor

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Powered Armor: In multiple kinds.  Regular legionary armor (also used by the Watch Constabulary, and indeed similar suits without the militarization are used in the civilian construction and other hazardous-environment industries) provides only moderate power-assist, but does come with kinetic barriers, self-contained environmental support/NNBC protection, medical and tactical computer support, and limited vector-control flight ability.  (Although those limited assists do still let you wuxia it up with the best of them… only with overpowered guns.)

The full combat exoskeleton of a heavy legionary is a walking tank with interchangeable heavy weapon packs that turns it Up To Eleven, letting its wearer punch out small buildings, throw respectably-sized vehicles, dance a merry jig amid venting fusion plasma, and toss around nuclear grenades at close range.  (And yes, they have civilian versions, too.  They’re used for things like cleaning up melted-down reactor cores from the inside, while they’re still hot.)

Both of them include substantial mesh-networked combat drone control capability.

It Is Become Death, the Destroyer of Worlds

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“I don’t believe it’s that the Transcend doesn’t want the competition.  Of course, that’s exactly what I would say in either case, so there’s very little point in my denial; I’ll leave that up to your viewers to decide.”

“It’s not a matter of freedom of information.  There’s no secret contract or midnight visits from anyone who doesn’t exist keeping us from publishing.  But I don’t think it needs any conspiracy, or even any collaboration, to explain the Consensus.”

“Given the number of messy, spectacular, and civilization-terminating failures that we’ve seen, historically, even among people who’ve worked out the science for themselves – how enthusiastic would you be about handing out to amateurs the secrets of computational theogeny?”

– Academician Alwyn Steamweaver, ICIN interview on the Corícal Consensus

Always The Gap

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“Welcome to the 60° Line.  This station is Lip Shuttleport.  This is an express Stem train, terminating at Docks and Locks, calling at Outer Interchange, Centerpoint, Underwater, Inner Interchange, Conclave Mall Axial, Hydrogen Habitats, Station Control, Manufacturing Hive, and Reactor.  Please note that stations between Station Control and Reactor are accessible to authorized personnel only.  Docks and Locks is our last station stop.  Passengers, please mind the gap.  Mind the gap.  The next station is Outer Interchange.  Change there for League of Meridian, Silicate Tree, and D!grith Association Enclaves, First Distributed Cryptobank, Ellore Modular Industries, the Nebula Club, Rithka Arcology, meridian transfers and local routes.  Please stand clear of the closing doors.”

– maglev announcement, Conclave Drift

Trope-a-Day: Organic Technology

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Organic Technology: It does exist in the universe (see, for example, the Gardeners of Rechesh we mentioned back in Flesh Versus Steel and the qucequql, who went an organic-technology route due to their underwater origin, or for Imperial examples, the bioengineering esseli, and the colonists of the planet Kythera (Imperial Core)).

However, while there exist organic fundamentalists (the aforementioned Gardeners of Rechesh), they are crippled by the disadvantages of their technology.  Organic structures just plain aren’t that good at a great many tasks, including handling high energies, radiation, etc., etc., and very often, the things that they are good at are different from their inorganic equivalents.  A cortexture is a perfectly good organic neural-net computer built out of actual neurons, but it would be wasted performing the same tasks as a regular inorganic processor, or quantum processor less efficiently when it can do the jobs suited for neural-net processing more efficiently.  The right tool for the right job, say sensible users…

…such as the esseli and the Kytherans – and the qucequql – who are a more logical lot, and are more than happy to use organic technology where it makes sense, and wrap it up in a nice neosteel hull with a perfectly inorganic fusion reactor the rest of the time.  Or engage in bionanotech games with materials and devices that couldn’t strictly be said to be one thing or t’other.

Doing Good By Doing Well

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So few people appreciate estxíjir.

Tonight, for example, I had dinner with some local Telememe associates. The meal itself was merely ordinary, vatsteak and the usual trimmings, but the service, on the other hand, was exceptional.

Our waitress had truly mastered her art within the parameters of available perfection. Every interaction was tuned to a nicety, attentive but not intrusive. Our every requirement was supplied almost before we knew of it. Dish followed dish without delay or interruption, one long flow of elegance and precision.

That was estxíjir, for all that she couldn’t have been familiar with the concept; the true dedication to purpose even in the smallest things. Sadly, I don’t believe anyone else there troubled to notice.

(I left a 27 exval-note behind as a service-contract bonus. That, they noticed.)

– Sarané Telithos-ith-Telir, travel diary

Trope-a-Day: Inhumanly Beautiful Race

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Inhumanly Beautiful Race: Quite possibly, since the eldrae started out a very pretty people and have been engineering further in this direction for a long damn time; of course, it’s not like they aren’t happy to sell this technology on the open market in the interests of a more beautiful universe.  (And, of course, assuming they don’t fall directly into your Uncanny Valley; the trouble with being a product of postsophont genetic engineering is that you look like a product of postsophont genetic engineering.  This troubles the eldrae not at all, but your awe/unease/horror/fear may vary.)

A Good Man

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“Vinav Amanyr-ith-Amaranyr is a good man.”

“You are surprised to hear me say that?  You shouldn’t be.  Many of our Renegades are – the ones who become Renegades because they’ve seen the Galaxy’s problems and can’t stand not doing anything about them.”

“So what do you do about poverty and oppression?  You can try and persuade people that things have to change, and you can ask Valeä Andreth’s people how slowly that works, and at what cost.  Or you can join the belligerati and try advocating Imperial takeovers, but everyone knows how well they work, or rather don’t.  But in any case, you’re pushing a mountain uphill because the root of all these bad things is nothing but bad ideas, and ideas that run in parallel with one’s species-nature are hard to kill, however insane or counterproductive they might be.”

“Or you can take the short road, and reason that the solution to bad ideas is better people, and that you can save a lot of life and time if you can create better people here and now.”

“And so, you can reengineer a grab-bag of autoevolutionary improvements from the alpha baseline into a contagious self-replicating neurovirus – say, the cognitive bias eliminations, the empathy enhancement, the motivation restraint, the self-deception resistance, and the neophobia and xenophobia removal.  Then you spray it generously into the planetary atmosphere, and let the bad ideas kill themselves off.”

“It’s a good plan, simple and elegant.  Worse, it’s a plan that could take only a matter of days to execute.  It probably would work, if we let it, and – and I’m fairly certain this is the rationale he’s using – former citizen-shareholder Amanyr-ith-Amaranyr will get the retroactive consent he’s hoping for, because it almost certainly would improve the lives of everyone on his target world.”

“So, yes, Vinav Amanyr-ith-Amaranyr is a good man, and because he’s a good man who cares deeply for the well-being of his fellow sophonts, he’s about to violate the first ethical principle by performing non-consensual modifications on the minds of millions.”

“And that’s why we have to kill him.”

– induction briefing, Operation <blank>, ISS Internal Security & Surveillance Directorate

Trope-a-Day: Uncanny Valley

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Uncanny Valley: Largely averted where other species are concerned, simply because they’re far enough apart in appearance from each other that it never comes into play.  (Now, eldrae and humans, both being humanoids, are probably close-and-yet-far-away enough to fall right into this where each other are concerned – proportions off, and yet too perfect, too serene, move too smoothly, body language is all wrong – yet another reason why I don’t plan on touching that particular First Contact.)

A recognized phenomenon in robotics design where androids and gynoids are concerned; mostly averted in practice because it is a recognized phenomenon, and so cybershells of this kind tend to be either very, very good indeed, or deliberately robotic enough not to trigger it.  And if you really want something that looks that human species-like, you can always go bioshell.  Of course, much the same thing applies to bioshells with certain types of extreme augmentation, which their designers have to take into account.

This whole thing, of course, is all inconvenient enough that it’s an instinct the bioengineers are working hard on ripping out through their xenophobia elimination program…

Saravoné’s Code

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This is the Code of Saravoné,
the Just One, the Scale-Bearer,
by whom all Law is upheld.

To live is to exist
to possess
to act.
All that lives shares this wellspring:
existence, property, will; a single threefold truth.
All crime transgresses against this truth;
by using another for one’s own ends.
Murder, theft, slaving; the three Darknesses.
All are the same.

One alone may stand alone;
the many depend on each other.
A branch, a city, a House, a land, a world
Stands upon myriad pledges.
The obligations of Tárvalén are sacred;
to violate them is to violate the will.

All that lives and thinks.
All that reasons and knows itself.
All possess these things.

An attack on one is an attack on all;
an attack on all is an attack on each.
To defend another is to defend yourself;
when all are defended, justice is done.

The Law is eternal, the person is not;
to live forever is not to exist in eternity.
To trade the eternal for the ephemeral
is to sacrifice a greater thing for a lesser.
This trade has no worth.

Therefore act with coldness of mind.
Hatred and vengeance;
love and clemency;
anger and destruction;
compassion and forgiveness;
these do not serve the Law.

Can you restore the dead to life?
Remake the shattered oath?
Restore ash to unburnt wholeness?

All things have their balance.
All obligations must be met.
All debts must be paid.
This is the rule of mélith.

This is the Code of Saravoné,
the Just One, the Scale-Bearer,
by whom all Law is upheld.

Trope-a-Day: For Science!

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For Science: Played terrifyingly straight, at least from dear old neophobic humanity’s point of view; while the Imperial science establishment does have a few notions of ethics (informed consent – while the Monument to the Martyrs of Science is large, it’s also to volunteers, really – sophont and prosophont rights, externalities), they don’t care much at all about the Potential Applications, social consequences, naturalistic fallacies, squickiness, or any other such pathetic mewlings from the WEAK, the INFIRM OF PURPOSE, the people who OBVIOUSLY don’t understand that KNOWLEDGE and PROGRESS are MORAL IMPERATIVES, and so on and so forth, and are happy to condemn anyone standing in the way of SCIENCE in exactly those stereotypical “bigoted, barbaric, knowledge-resenting knuckle-dragger” terms mentioned.

The formal motto, indeed, of the Fellowship of Natural Philosophy is “Knowledge is its own justification” – and the only reason that their informal motto isn’t “We do what we can, because we must” are meta-level copyright concerns.

Trope-a-Day: Potential Applications

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Potential Applications (Just Think of the Potential): Worrying too much about the Potential Applications in the negative sense (you can have all the enthusiasm you want about them in the positive sense) will get you thrown right out of the Fellowship of Natural Philosophy¸et. al., as an Obstructively Naysaying Regressive Luddist Knuckle-Dragging Neophobe, and among the All who will be Shown, and so on and so forth.

(If you look really hard, some of their more sober members may occasionally admit that there have been some problems caused by Science, but as they will immediately tell you, the solution to any and all of those is obviously MORE SCIENCE!!!  After all, as the traditional condescension would have it, “The problems of knowledge have never been solved by ignorance; nor the problems of capability by incapability.”)