Month: May 2015

ConQuesT

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So, there’s some good news and some bad news:

The bad news is that posting may be a wee bit irregular for the next few days.

The good news is that that’s because we’ll be at ConQuesT!

(Well, okay, technically I’m not there wearing my author’s hat, I’m there with Foam on the Range, wearing my soap-company hat. But feel free to stop by and visit in the dealers’ room anyway, and you can pick up some shiny SF-themed soap while you’re there. Or, hey, some shiny regular soap. I ain’t particular on that point.)

Hope to see you there!

Trope-a-Day: Operator Incompatibility

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Operator Incompatibility: This does happen a fair bit, given the sheer number of species and clades in the setting, but less than you might think.  After all, given the potential markets, there are entire professions which exist purely in order to work out ways to overcome this sort of user interface problem – or, at the very least, make it easy to reconfigure the user interface, dynamically if possible, for users with alternative senses and/or manipulators. (And enough devices are network-controlled these days that it can often be cured with no more than a software patch.)

Vigorous Meritocracy

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1

“There is something to be said for lanect governance. Not a lot, but something.

“That something is that lanect polities are some of the truest meritocracies in the Worlds. Any lanect, regardless of birth, sex, race, wealth, or popularity who – by some talent of wit, gripe, cunning, or main strength – is able to seize some degree of power within the racial hierarchy may carve his skull, name himself Warmark, and command whatever holdings he can as his “‘ak”. Indeed, such a lanect will enjoy the utter loyalty and unquestioning obedience of the uncarved, non-entity lanect from whose ranks he rose – until and if another ambitious one rises.

“Such a one is then thrust immediately into the hierarchy of Warmarks, all simply titled so, that dominates lanect space – from those mightiest who can claim multiple systems as their holdings, down to those at the bottom who can dominate little more than two streets together or at most a small factory. This hierarchy is, too, determined by ability: one who can dominate another Warmark, will. Lesser Warmarks offer service to the greater in exchange for protection from their peers, while in turn plotting to replace the greater if they can. If and when they do, they are immediately accepted in that position: success is all that matters to legitimize a lanect Warmark, not the origin of the Warmark nor the methods of his success.

“But what is most to the credit of the lanect is their whole-hearted embrace of these principles. Many species, in such an environment, would plan to avoid having strong rivals in their service that might replace them, and seek out an overlord weak enough to be unable to make harsh demands upon them, or embroil them in dangerous affairs.

“And yet, despite the remarkably high mortality among Warmarks, whose average lifespan is less than a third of the species average of 99.4 years – even the longest-lived on record, Stantur of Nemp, only lived to be 42 before his assassination in the nuclear destruction of Stanturaken – virtually all lanect Warmarks seek to attach themselves to the greatest destiny they can find that will have them among those higher, and surround themselves routinely with the smartest, toughest, most devious advisers and lieutenants that they can successfully dominate, despite – in a majority of cases – creating their own worst rivals and eventual successors. Indeed, those few who have lived at least some time after being deposed have been recorded taking pride in creating a successor more fit to hold power than they.

“We may not want to live under a lanect meritocracy, but we should, I deem, honor their willingness to live up to their principles to the exact and final end which those principles demand.”

– Sophontology of the Lanect ‘Aks,
L. Airin Makarios, RT,
Imperial Exploratory Service

 

The Canals of Talentar

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“How are we doing? All on schedule?”

The largest monitor showed the reddish, ragged rock of a cliff face, roughly torn, a notch in its top revealing the ribbed end of a silvered balloon wedged into it, held down by a curved framework of steel plates. Above, a zeppelin hung in the yellow sky, lowering a large crate down towards it.

“Physics package is on its way now. Supervisor on-site says, give him half an hour for hook-up and check-out, no more. Gas mix is nominal; pressure in the balloon is nominal and stable. Fill compressors are unhooked and clear.”

“Good, good. Topology?”

“Final check is done. Satellite altimetry says we’ve got good slope in the channel all the way from here to the Basin. We cut this, it’ll pour.”

“Safety?”

“Boreal traffic control confirms there are no ships within two hundred miles of the intake. Project security reports the existing cut and the Basin are clear of people.”

“Very well. Sound the warning sirens now; let’s make sure people have lots of time to get out of our way.”

* * *

Thirty-six minutes later, the crate had been landed and ripped open to reveal a gleaming silver bullet, now mounted to the end of the balloon. The zeppelin, its job done, had left the scene under maximum power. All within the camera’s view of the cliffside site was quiet and still.

“Final safety checks?”

“The Boreal is still clear; the channel and the Basin too. ATC shows the skies are clear. Our work crews have all reached safety range. We’re clear for firing.”

The geotect pulled a molecular key from his pocket, and inserted it into his firing console.

“Enable.”

“Empire Nucleonics 3.75m Directional Primer Charge, Series V. Permissive action link recognized. Authenticate serial code DPC11479322-V.”

“Authentication: SHATTER, APEX, MONARCH, ACE, FIREBALL, COMET.”

“Authentication confirmed.”

“Set tamper for 29 miles, full diameter. Activate detonation sequence, minimum count.”

“Detonation sequence running. 72 seconds and counting.”

* * *

The monitors whited out, intolerably bright; distant thunder swept over the bunker. To the observers in orbit, a bright line drew itself across the surface of the planet, and faded slowly away.

* * *

“Okay, let’s reset the monitors, and give me a view of the Boreal opening.”

“Already done, estrev.”

“…then give me an infrared view.”

The darkness of the monitor cleared, to show a mound of rubble at the end of a new, ragged gash cut in the planet’s surface, faintly glowing with heat. A few trickles of water trickled down its surface, then more spurted out from gaps in its face, until in slow motion the wall toppled – house-sized boulders bounding past the camera borne by a wall of water, clawing and tearing at the walls of the widening fresh-cut channel.

“Nicely done, gentlesophs. How much initial flow do we expect – thirty, forty miles an hour? Someone tell Chairman Lanqin that he’ll have his riverfront property by tomorrow afternoon.”

Trope-a-Day: Only Mostly Dead

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Only Mostly Dead: Slightly alive.

Namely, the state between corporeal death (what medical science, say today, calls “dead”), and the point at which your brain has decayed sufficiently that the very best scanning technology and interpolation can no longer reconstruct a mind-state sufficiently accurate to meet the legal definition of “close enough to you to be you” (information-theoretic death).

The degree to which I regret that prior usage prevents me from actually calling this state “only mostly dead” in-universe cannot possibly be overestimated.

The Deep Sky

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GHOST WHISPERS EXPN

CONFIDENTIAL / GHOST WHISPERS
TRANSPARENCY RELEASE UNLESS CANCELLED

ORIGIN ASTROCOORD//HADAL//SUPER-SIZE SYNTHETIC APERTURE
CONTACT CONTACT CONTACT

This is a GHOST WHISPER ALERT, profiled as POSSIBLE HIGH ENERGY (GWYATH 12+) CIV EMISSIONS DETECTION.

Approximate originating coordinates are ρ 14.129, θ -29.163, φ 18,322 local (contralateral Arilíäza). Event footprint includes GRAVITIC FLASH and THERMAL ANOMALY class indicators. Patterned electromagnetic emissions above the informational entropy threshold were NOT, repeat, NOT detected.

No shift detected (relative velocity drift-relative zero). No encoding detected. Probable contact event type UNINTENTIONAL.

Unable to classify further. Promote to EYEBALL for study. No further action required.

ENDS.

Trope-a-Day: One World Order

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2

One World Order: Averted.  Most species have more than one government.  Even the Empire, huge as it is and prone to casual memetic imperialism and absorption as it also is, has spawned splinters – not just the individual Renunciates and Renegades, but some actual other eldraeic governances created by minority factions that just couldn’t get along with the overall libertist-technepraxic consensus. (Given the predicates of said consensus, Imperial relations with these are usually, albeit not always, remarkably toxic – with the splinters being seen as something between heretics and just plain old bastard-coated bastards with bastard-flavored filling.)

Many governments also include more than one species.  Looked at either way, no-one speaks for all.

Also, even the supposedly all-encompassing Associated Worlds and Conclave of Galactic Polities don’t encompass everything.  The Voniensa Republic prefers to stand aloof from the whole situation, smug gits that they are, and horrified by the sheer lack of control of the whole thing.  There are plenty of still balkanized planets around, whether the countries have come together to create some international body to deal with offworld affairs or are each trying to conduct their own interstellar policy.  And, heck, encouraged by the fact that at least two of the major powers in the setting are functioning libertarianesque polities that shamelessly encourage this sort of thing, there are a lot of independent habitats out there that have taken advantage of the vastness of space to declare themselves the Sovereign Polity of Brad & Janet, pop. 5, or just straight-out sovereign not-owned-by-any-government individuals, m’kay?

Unity is not where it is at, today.

Pickpocket

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3

Siari’s Bore
Mer Dinévál Countermass Station
Seranth

“Excuse me, ser. Enforcer Jynne Cerron, Watch Constabulary; my colleague, Pén Cieng, Throat-Grip Defense. I’m afraid we require a word with you.”

The lanect thus addressed started, and turned to look at them with an instant protest.

“I haven’t done anything!”

“Regrettably, ser, you are the subject of a complaint we have received from a citizen-shareholder regarding the theft of certain items from their person four point one minutes previously, supported by supplied lifelog and oversight evidence, which constitutes probable cause for this inquiry per Valentia’s Code. You have the right under the Transparency Act to view this evidence, if you wish…? No?”

“This is outrageous! I had nothing to do with this –”

“I regret that too, ser, but I am afraid that a complaint has been made against you and an inquiry deemed justified by overwatch. You may, of course, file a complaint if you wish. Now, I see that you are carrying an embag. Would you open it for me, please?”

“I don’t consent to a search!”

“We don’t intend to violate your privacy, ser, and no search is called for. You don’t need to empty the bag, and may conceal the opening if you wish. Just unseal it, please.”

The lanect fumbled briefly with the seal on the embag, and simultaneously, a small, electronic voice spoke in distress:

“…am being stolen! I am an Aelaviel High Fashions ‘Highfall’ purse in flame red, belonging to Citizen Aríë Harradeln, and I am being stolen! Please return me to my proper owner! Repeat: I am being…”

“Thank you. Unfortunately, the stolen property has now confirmed that it is in your possession. You are under arrest by the Watch Constabulary. You have the right to give a full and complete accounting of your actions…”

As the lanect took to his heels in flight, grabbing a handguide for the nearest drag, she switched seamlessly to the public announcements channel.

…in answer to our questions. If you feel we have overlooked any information relevant to your case, you have the right to call it to our attention. If you feel we have misunderstood or misconstrued any…

“Why do they always run?” her colleague grumbled. “Ops, give me a two-second kill on autodrag four, Siari’s Bore, frame eleven. Constabular override.”

…of your answers, you have the right to provide further elaboration or explanation. If you are confused by our questions or procedures, we will explain them to you. You may provide evidence against others as part of your answers…

The autodrag slammed to a brief halt, enough to let momentum take over, tossing the fleeing lanect up and over his handguide, breaking his grip on it and sending him hurtling into the air.

…but false accusations will be punished. You have the right to engage an advocate to help you to prepare for trial…

“It makes them feel better, probably,” she replied. The sound of cursing drifted to them from where the lanect drifted helplessly in mid-air. “Briefly, anyway. Tell the courthouse we need a drone pickup to take this guy straight to arraignment. I’ll have the report filed by the time he gets there.”

…but no right to refuse to answer questions before your advocate is available. Do you understand these rights?

Trope-a-Day: One Riot, One Ranger

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One Riot, One Ranger: Played straight, inasmuch as there are people around in various agencies (the Constabulary’s “Specials”, ExSec, the Shadow Fleet, the Imperial Hands, the Operatives of the Presidium) with that sort of omnicompetence and air of authority.  Very useful instrumentalities to have in various special circumstances.

Mildly subverted when some of them come with their own entourage.

Grossly subverted with horrible cheating when they know the rioters aren’t going to be impressed by a chat – so they send in one legionary in his combat exoskeleton… and a lot more combat drones slaved to its tactical processors.  An Army Of One, indeed.

Baby Needs A New Typewriter Ribbon

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No, this isn’t a bleg.

(Well, not for money, anyway.)

But just a quick note to say that if you’ve read my books, and especially if you liked ’em, I’d really appreciate it if you’d head on back over to Amazon and leave me a review. Reviews drive visits, visits drive sales, and sales mean that I get to keep writing, and my fat dog gets to keep getting fatter.

May I have some more?

May I have some more?

Go on. Say no to that face. If you can.

Trope-a-Day: One Product Planet

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One Product Planet: Averted, in its strict form.  The realities of interstellar economics, logistics, and costs of transportation mean that it’s almost always more practical to maintain a decent-sized agricultural and manufacturing base at home, rather than import all your food and goods, for anything but the smallest of outposts.

Played straight in a loose form, in which certain worlds are known for certain of their (mostly unique) products, for example:

Big Dumb Object: Within the Empire, the partial Dyson sphere at Corícal Ailek (which exports thought) and the Dyson bubble at Esilmúr (which exports antimatter and other forms of stored energy in unwholesomely large quantities) would qualify.

Capital: For the Empire, that’s Eliéra, the throneworld, which does indeed export governance – to such extent as the Imperial governance is all that centralized, and indeed, can be bothered to govern.  For the Worlds as a whole, that would be Conclave (Imperial Core), where the Conclave of Galactic Polities sits and attempts to bring some order to the chaos, with all the associated politicking, corruption, intrigue, and scandal you might expect.

Exotic: A number of these, from the shell-world of Thalíär (Principalities) – mostly exotic from the point of view of the tourism industry – to the blue-white giant in the Ringstars and the black hole out in the Last Darkness constellation.  Also, certain exotic matter products are primarily manufactured near the high-energy environment that best supports them, and so have major factories out by Esilmúr, also.

Factory: Qechra (Imperial Core), a corporate conlegial colony world completely overtaken by autoindustrialism, with a manufacturing capacity of holy crap how much!?. It’s more of a showpiece than anything else, and secondarily a place to manufacture ridiculously large items, but it also serves the valuable purpose of being a worrisome sleeping giant.

Farm: Yes, in the sense that there are more than a few worlds that take pride in exporting their local specialist products, from specialist flowers to unique local booze.  No, in the sense that just about every world, or at least system, can manage to feed itself locally, and there are no worlds absolutely dependent on their imports of agricultural products, or mighty grain-ships ploughing the spacelanes.

Gates: The closest you get to this are the systems in any given constellation which house the long-range gates to other constellations, and thus are about as close as anything gets to being bottlenecks. (For the Imperial Core, these are Almëa, Meryn, Ocella, Sy, and Vervian Systems).

Military: It doesn’t export military forces – if anything, it imports them – but the Palaxias (Imperial Core) system is essentially given over to the Imperial Navy and its Prime Base, which also houses a large amount of the rest of the Imperial Military Service by default. Also, to a lesser extent, the six systems out in the fringes where the IN keeps the mobile naval bases for its sextant fleets.

Mines: See once again the Imperial energy production facility at Esilmúr; aside from such rare and specialized facilities as it, though, resource gathering tends to be distributed all over the place.

Science: The corporate conlegial research colony at Wynérias (Imperial Core) is notorious for its pursuit of unrestricted research FOR SCIENCE!, as is – even more so – the private conlegial colony at Resplendent Exponential Vector, but they’re hardly the only place where Science happens.  Or even where FOR SCIENCE! happens.

Service/Cultural Center: Most notably, Seranth (Imperial Core) is the largest and most prosperous tradeworld the Empire, or even the Worlds, have to offer.  It’s by no means, under the general principle I mentioned above, an entire planet of Wall Street, but the Seranth Exchanges do dominate the local economy, and the floating cities of Seranth probably are All Manhattan, All The Time.  It’s a very dominant commercial center, and only just eclipsed as a cultural center by Delphys (Imperial Core) for entertainment and art, and Viëlle (Imperial Core) for media in general.

Underworlds: Nepscia (Galith Waste) is infamous throughout the Worlds for its red market.  Litash (Dark Sea) was even more infamous for both that and acting as a major pirate center, before it got strangelet-bombed out of existence.

Trope-a-Day: One-Hit Kill

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One-Hit Kill: Your mileage will almost always vary, given the amount of variant tech out there, but a sluggun – and the S-11i Mamabear in particular (see: BFG) – will do this to most regular infantry (they are, after all, designed as anti-materiel weapons), and one in which you put antimatter-grenade slugs will one-hit kill just about anything… assuming you’re in the sort of war and on the sort of battlefield where they let you use weapons like that, which tends to be the problem there.

Trimodal NTRs

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3

Well, folks, it’s terrible sketch day again here at the Eldraeverse…
20150512_174156202_iOS

So, this is my approximate representation of what exactly one of those “trimodal NTRs” I keep talking about as the engine of choice for shuttles, lighters, and suchlike planetarily-landing craft looks like in cross-section. It is anything but a complete engineering diagram, especially inasmuch as the profile of the engine looks roughly cylindrical here, which of course it isn’t, especially on the inside; in actuality, it requires some pretty fancy variform properties in order to seamlessly switch internal profiles between those suited for a ducted-fan, for a ramjet, for a scramjet, and for a rocket – it being intended as a design that will function in all flight modes from the ground up to orbit – but I can’t properly represent those.

But it should give one an idea of what the major components are, with the possible exception of the cooling systems.

The core of the engine is the toroidal pebble-bed fission reactor that provides its power.

In its first mode, intended for low altitude, low speed flight modes, the reactor runs at low power, and while it does dump its waste heat into the airstream, it’s not used for thermal power. Instead, it generates electricity which is fed to the magnetic inductors, which in turn rotate the counter-rotating fans at each end of the engine. In this mode, the whole thing acts as a simple ducted-fan (usually a tilt-fan, for maneuverability).

In its second mode, once it’s got up to sufficient speed to make ram compression work, the flight control system feathers and locks the fans, shifts internal profile, and turns the reactor up to high (thermal) power. It then becomes a nuclear-thermal ramjet (yes, just like Project Pluto, although with better shielding), and the cascade vanes come into play for thrust vectoring. Once you’re going fast enough, continued internal profile shifts let it function as a nuclear-thermal scramjet, too.

And finally, once you start running out of atmosphere, the flight control system commands the iris valve to seal off the intake entirely, and the injection ports to open and squirt good old liquid hydrogen in there in place of the ram air, at which point it’s switched from being a nuclear-thermal ramjet to a nuclear-thermal rocket, suitable for use in circularizing at apoapsis and making your orbital rendezvous.

When you plan on landing planetside again, you run through the same three modes in essentially the opposite direction, with some pauses for aerobraking in between.

(Side note: it wasn’t actually intended at the time of design, but it seems to me that this also makes a pretty good representation of what’s inside those engine pods you see on the side of your Firefly-class transport ship…

…Jetfire Technologies, ICC, warns that kicking anyone’s henchman into your engine intake will void the warranty.)

 

Author’s Note: I Have The Death Sentence…

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Seeing as that last was pretty much a blatant Star Wars reference, I feel the urge to point out that a thermal sword is not, actually, the local lightsaber equivalent.

It’s a short one of these with a hilt stuck on it.

Which is to say, it’s the exact opposite of a more elegant weapon for a more civilized age; it’s an ugly-ass weapon that’s precisely what you would expect the denizens to cobble together from wreckyard salvage down at your local wretched hive of scum and villainy.

(Also, given the somewhat harder universe parameters, even if it were possible to solve the many and varied physical, engineering, and practical problems involved in waving about a hand-held magnetic bottle of plasma at all, the laws of narrative integrity would require that you die a horrible, fiery death on first encountering an enemy with magnets…

…how do they work?)

I Have The Death Sentence…

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2

The alley behind “Hirsk’s Friendly”
Nepscia (Galith Waste)

The body lay propped up against one of the floatway walls, the hole that was its face steaming and smoking by turns.

“Sishk, did’y at least get which twelve systems before’y stuck a thermal sword through his head?”

“’E threw a grenade at me!”

“Y’re a linobir. Y’d grow back, and we’d get paid.”

“Bir-Rehsa, he said. Bir-Rehsa, Lan-Tak-Yar, Qern, Moglom, an’ Athra were all in ‘is bragging.”

“Shit, five different constellations t’start?”

“You know what they’ll want for proof of death?”

“Athra’s Impie. They’ll want his brain, and y’flash-boiled his brain.”

“They cn’ave that, then. A coupla trophies an’ my promise’ll get us paid on Bir-Rehsa an’ Moglom. Think the aklaks’d take a gene-print?”

“Proves y’got him, doesn’t prove y’killed him. And I’ve no clue what they’d want on Qern.”

“And ‘ow we going to get ‘im there, while you’re makin’ plans?”

“Next problem, that is. C’mon, pick him up and we’ll get him outside before he starts stinkin’.”

Trope-a-Day: One Gender Race

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One Gender Race: There are a few of these, most of them having got that way via their evolutionary process never having figured out sex, or natural hermaphroditism, or merely looking this way because of extreme sexual dimorphism; but also some exceptions – digisapiences, for example, have neither sex nor gender by default, although some of them adopt one.  Many bioshells are manufactured in only one sex, usually neuter, and some clades – usually the made-to-an-ideal kind, likewise, without said usually.

But there are occasional weird exceptions.  The shan kari, for example, are recovering from an approximation of this state (very slowly, because it did quite the psychological number on them, too), the anti-self-replication code in their robots having, through generalization, led to something of a Gendercide.  Oops.

Grounding

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2

A far light in the sky, a faint rumble like distant thunder… soon drowned out as the klaxons screamed again over the hard-packed clay of Isahan Interplanetary.

“Oddly Specific Impulse, nuclear heavy-lifter out of Vevery, grounding! All personnel, clear pad eight! I repeat: Oddly Specific Impulse, nuclear heavy-lifter out of Vevery, grounding! All personnel, clear pad eight!”

A series of thuds and locking clanks betokened the closing and sealing of the access ramps. For a minute more, the landing pad was silent, a dark-gray disk of layered graphite, sapphiroid and cerametal slabs nearly a mile wide within the ring of its earthen berm. From that far back only the most discerning eye could make out the lines between the slabs, so carefully were they cut and fitted together – even, or perhaps especially, those concealing the accesses and other pad facilities.

Much easier to make out were the rail-less “hot” shaft at the center of the pad, ringed with black and yellow caution markings, and the giant, blocky digit-eights and inward-pointing arrows at each cardinal point, inlaid in white metal. That did not require a discerning eye, merely an incautious one; the prompt radiation dose you’d receive from a vantage point atop the berm wouldn’t kill you, but the vomiting and blue-blotch syndrome was unlikely to be pleasant. Nor was the rest of what an octet of nuclear lightbulbs at full thrust would do to your senses.

The light dropped lower. With suddenness it flared bright, and thunder bloomed across the plains. It had come close enough to the ground that our hypothetical watcher – or the screens at port control – could make out the polished metal of Impulse’s forward hull, a curved silver bullet, but her aft hull remained hidden. In space, the superheated hydrogen gushing from her roaring drives would be invisible, but down in the atmosphere it ignited as soon as it mixed with the air; Impulse descended on a column of flame, which washed back up around her as she descended, wrapping her aft hull in a fiery cloak through which only the edges of her tailfins showed.

Lower and lower she dropped, almost imperceptibly slowing, as if she would dash herself to pieces on the ground. Her pilot was of no mind to waste reaction mass, and had saved all his deceleration for the last seconds of flight. Her flame touched the pad, gushed sideways, kinked as a last-minute side-slip properly aligned her drive plume with the “hot” shaft which swallowed it whole, leaving only a few curls of fire to wash out over the width of the pad. Above, aligned on the lee edge of the berm, the tall radiator fins which carried away drive heat from pad and shaft alike burst into carmine life.

Down further she sank, crossing these last few hundred feet as slowly as the thousands before them had been swift. The roar of the engines eased a little. Down, and down some more. Contact. Impulse thudded onto the pad, resting on the reinforced trailing edge of her tailfins, and her pilot expertly killed the drives, thunder disappearing into echoing silence. Without sound, it seemed, Impulse dropped her drive shroud into position, a cylinder of lead-composite to confine drive radiation to the shaft where it belonged, and from the edges of the pad the sprinklers rose and fired, drenching heated pad and searing hull alike with water that turned almost instantly to steam.

From far away the announcer spoke again.

“Oddly Specific Impulse, nuclear heavy-lifter out of Vevery Station, has now grounded at pad eight. Service team stand by. Rad-check team, commence sweep. Disembarkation may commence in twenty minutes.”

Trope-a-Day: One Federation Limit

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One Federation Limit: Averted.  In addition to the Empire of the Star, there is also the Temporary Empire, the Seventy World Empire, and so forth, including several Imperiums.  In addition to the Voniensa Republic, there’s the Quave Republic.  There’s the Blue-Green Federation, Vissevu Federation, and several other Federations and Confederations.  There are also multiple Leagues, Accords, Concords/Concordats/Concordiums, several Corporates, Combines, and at least one Syndicracy, and a number of Free Zones, Cooperations, Primacies, Unions, Exarchies, Assemblies, Alliances, Pacts, Spheres, and Commonwealths.  Among others which, so far, are singular in my conception of the Worlds.  (And for the Atlas Shrugged readers among us, precisely one People’s State, which is – or was, post-Core War – exactly the kind of hellish abortion of a governance you’d expect it to be from the name.)