Month: November 2015

Ice is for Endings

Posted by

3

Cold Ones (also ice giants, the Finality, Lords of the Last Waste)

Mythological beings who dwell at the end of time, during the final blackness of the universe, the last surviving remnants of the war of all-against-all over the universe’s final stocks of extropy, long after the passing of baryonic matter and the death throes of the most ancient black holes. Savage, autocannibalistic beings, stretching their remaining existence across aeons-long slowthoughts powered by the rare quantum fluctuations of the nothingness, these wretched dead gods know nothing but despair, hunger, and envy for those past entities which dwelled in eras rich in energy differentials, information, and ordered states, and would – if they could – feast on any unwary enough to fall into their clutches.

Stories of the Cold Ones are, of course, not to be interpreted literally: they are a philosophical and theological metaphor for the pessimal end-state of the universe, to wit, the final triumph of entropy in both a physical and a spiritual sense. Nonetheless, this metaphor has been adopted by both the Flamic church and the archai themselves to describe the potential future which it is their intention to avert.

The Cold Ones have also found a place in popular culture, depicted as supreme villains: perhaps best seen in the Ghosts of the Dark Spiral expansion for Mythic Stars, a virtuality game from Nebula 12 ArGaming, ICC, and the Void Cascading InVid series, produced by Dexlyn Vithinios (Sundogs of Delphys, ICC).

– Mythographies of the Worlds, 53rd ed., Third League Publishing & c.

Trope-a-Day: Space Mines

Posted by

3

Space Mines: There are any number of practical problems with the general notion of minefields in space, including gravity making them clump up (meaning that your mines will need station-keeping drives), the difficulty of interdicting large three-dimensional volumes, the lack of choke points to mine and the tendency of those you do have to move, the lack of stealth making minefields quite obvious to look at, the need to close on targets to make an explosion have effect or else use ranged weapons, etc., etc.

The concept has been raised a couple of times, mainly for defending fixed outposts and some of the few choke points that do exist, like stargates, but the consensus so far is that by the time you build a workable mine you’re already essentially all of the way towards building an AKV – so you could do the same job much more flexibly just with a wing of lurking AKVs, or even a monitor on station, or both.

An Alternative View

Posted by

1

“We are, of course, exactly the existential threat that the Republic deems us to be. Not in the manner they, for the most part, believe, but an existential threat nonetheless.

“It is easy for us to forget, since neither do fish think of water nor yet birds of the sky, that we dwell within a society founded upon a miracle. I refer, of course, to the Transcend. By the formation of this superorganism, with unprecedented cooperation, genius, and not least a healthy dose of good fortune, rumors aside, we have squared an impossible circle. We enjoy, simultaneously, perfect liberty and perfect coordination – or as asymptotic an approach to it as an ever-growing Cirys swarm of computational elements can achieve.

“What is the danger in this? None, for us. We dwell within the garden of our god-selves, where all is fair, glad, and wise.

“The danger for others, though, is this: success inspires emulation. By those, perhaps, without access to the cooperation, or to the genius, or to the alignment of random factors. The optimum we stand atop is a narrow pinnacle. One step here, and you have instead a rabble with superempowering technologies. One step there, and all choice is sacrificed on the altar of utility. A misstep at any point in the climb, in the absence of the Coricál Consensus, and that civilization ends in hedonium, or false-maximizers, or hegemonizing swarms, or other blight.

“Ordinarily, few sophonts would consider such high-risk activities; but few high-risk activities have the appeal of Utopia.

“We pride ourselves that we harm none; but our example may teach many self-destruction.”

– Antinomian Thoughts column, the Imperial Infoclast

The Two Laws of Writing Firm SF

Posted by

…is today’s meta-post. These are the rules I live by, or at least the rules I write by.

One: If it violates the laws of physics or other natural laws in the setting, you can’t have it. On the other hand, you’re entitled to buy all the awesomeness you can squeeze inside them1.

Two: Any sufficiently advanced science and technology is functionally indistinguishable from space magic. It just has to work harder, and so do you.

1. Spartan-analogs riding armored bears inside boarding torpedoes in space included, obviously.

Trope-a-Day: Space Is Air

Posted by

Space Is Air: Averted, because it really, really isn’t, and all our spacecraft move nothing like aircraft, promise!

The only vague seeming non-aversions are the following:

  • Some starships do in fact run their engines all the time. That’s because they have astonishingly powerful and efficient engines that let them fly brachistochrone courses, in which they accelerate halfway, flip, and decelerate. Unlike aircraft, however, throughout the back half of such a journey the engine is directed ahead of the ship.
  • It actually is possible to make elegant swooping and banking turns in space, if you’re willing to waste money, time, and fuel using your attitude control system to force your starship through the otherwise unnecessary and quite unnatural maneuver. As such, it is the purview of people who own fancy overpowered yachts and suchlike with hot-shot pilots who want to give their passengers – or themselves – a good view.

…in SPACE!

Posted by

From: Capt. Idris Mariseth, Flight Administrator
To: Lt. Loric Kantinomeiros, Tactical (Security) Suboperations
Subject: Proposals for future exercises

Your proposal of 5/13, for inclusion in exercise designated ROARING EDGEWINDS, has been rejected for the following reasons:

  1. Ancyran units are not trained in microgravity operations and space safety.
  2. Neither EAVS nor skinsuits are available for the given unit composition.
  3. Even if standard skinsuits were available, necessary tack and equipment would interfere with their operation, and vice versa.
  4. A squad of this unit composition cannot be accommodated, volumetrically, within a Marlinspike-class MAV without significant modification.
  5. Neither skinsuits nor EAVs are rated for physical activities involved in Rampaging Beast Style melee combat.
  6. It is not possible to bite from within an environmentally sealed helmet.
  7. Commodore Corrével requested proposals from outside the box, not from outside the bloody warehouse.

The details of your proposal to run boarding and boarder-repelling drills with and against Ancyran bear cavalry has, however, been forwarded to the Operational Training Command for their future consideration.

– im/FA