Death Is Cheap: Because Death Is Not Permanent, obviously.
Unless you’re the one who inflicts it, in which case there are instrumentalities designed to ensure that that death was very, very expensive for you.
(Permadeath, now – that’s not cheap.)
Bastion (Arvael II, Palaxias System) has no ring. It does, however, have an arc. The Hainadar Memorial fills, currently, approximately 6° of its orbit around Bastion in a thin, sparkling ring segment. The elements of the arc are simple spheres of tinted diamondoid, colored by service: silver for the Navy,
To Absent Friends: Played straight, with extra poignancy added for more cosmopolitan Imperials due to the number of people who are absent because of death from old age, which in the outworlds there’s more of around than they might care to think of. Often turns into something of an
Specialist290 e-mails with some questions. (Also some compliments, for which thank you kindly, but what’s getting responded to here are the questions…) Here goes: 1. Are there any major subcultures / subcommunities within the Empire that deviate significantly from the “ideal norm” enough to be noteworthy without actually violating the
death-equivalent existence: It is a cliché, at least among Imperials, that “there are no fates worse than death”. A living sophont, after all, possesses the capacity for choice and action, and thus to better their situation – or, failing that, at least the capacity to be acted upon, in ways that
WANTED ADVENTURERS, BOUNTY-HUNTERS, AND SOLDIERS OF FORTUNE In recent months, at least one starship of scavver low-lives have been picking the bones of our deceased brethren rightly and properly committed to the Deep, walking bright on the dead orbit, and stealing genes, grave-goods, and the memorials set out for them.
Inspired by this comment: I’ve always been of the opinion that, given the Associated Worlds’s existing tech base and attitudes towards continuity of personal identity and such, there must be a “small” subculture of thrill-seekers who deliberately expose themselves to lethal danger purely out of curiosity as to
See this? Sorry, Mark Zuckerberg. Your plan to put an end to disease is a sickeningly bad idea Well, one place where Renegades come from is when, having read too much of this kind of disgusting ephemeralist agitprop, and noting that advocating for prohibitions or even prohibitionary attitudes on life
(Okay, so I found one more…) Names to Run Away From Really Fast: In the Imperial context alone, Imperial Hand, Fifth Directorate, and any Imperial military officer, agent, or private contractor whose House name is “Sargas” are the chief contenders. In the Worlds as a whole, Operatives of the Conclave
So why is that a Trope-a-No-Longer-Day, I hear you cry? Well, because I’ve run out of pre-written ones, and the demands on my time these days are such that – especially if I want to keep prioritizing writing at all – I can’t take enough time out to go through
Creepy Cleanliness: To more than a few foreign visitors, yes. As William Gibson said in Disneyland With the Death Penalty, “Was it Laurie Anderson who said that VR would never look real until they learned how to put some dirt in it? Singapore’s airport, the Changi Airtropolis, seemed to
Real Money Trade: The problem is that it’s hard to define what qualifies as “real money” versus “game money” when the Mythic Stars MMO alone has an internal economy bigger than some respectably-sized planets. The logical consequences of this apply in full, including the follow-up to the city guards