trope-a-day
Point Defenseless: Utterly averted. The automated point-defense systems – usually plasma lasers or other Energy Weapons, for their speed and reaction time, gridded across the hull – will rip to pieces just about anything that gets within their range in an colorful orgy of photonic destruction, unless it’s extremely fast, capable
military
So, while it now seems to have disappeared from the Internet, my article on Non-Standard Starship Scuffles appears to have come in for some little criticism: First, for having FTL in it; and Second, for assuming that space battles will take place in open space, the commenter apparently not seeing
trope-a-day
Pocket Dimension: Alas, outside virtual reality, this seems to require basement universes (requires very high-energy physics, being worked on) or dimensional transcendence (requires emergent ontotechnology, also being worked on). Being worked on very enthusiastically by starship manufacturers, I note, because holy mother of crap what would being able to keep
trope-a-day
Plug’n’Play Technology: Played mostly straight, at least in the Empire. They’ve had a lot longer to work on it – and for various technologies to stabilize – and the consumers are both savvier about this sort of thing (because tinkering, integrating, and even Home Invention is so common) and
Aftershocks
CALMIRÍË, ELIÉRA – The Imperial Senate today rejected unanimously the petition of the Temporary Tyrancy of Ódeln for admission to the Empire as a stage-1 colony world. Announcing this decision, Incorruptible Secretary Tirill min Dinkoss stated, “While the Imperial Charter permits flexibility in local governance beneath its core principles, provided that
trope-a-day
Planet Spaceship: Some of the largest city-ships (and, of course and rather more frequently, drifts and drift clusters) can reach large asteroid/small moon size fairly readily. Offset somewhat, non-moving-under-power-habitat-wise, because when you’re in space, it’s not like you actually need to connect structures together to make ’em
Spaceflight Initiative
MET+0:02:20 “Ah, Flight, we may have a problem here. Give me the telemetry numbers on thrust, commanded versus actual?” “Skyreach, we show 92% actual versus 100% commanded. We’re running diagnostics, but assume you are still go at this time.” “Status on the Roughneck?”, Laras queried the
trope-a-day
(Incidentally, if you were wondering what I was doing this weekend, I was attempting to nail down the characters for my next ongoing longer series. I think I have a good handle on four of them, as of now. The fifth… is troublesome.) Planet of Hats: Trying very hard to
trope-a-day
The Plague: In the ancient pre-Imperial past on Eliéra, the Gray Contagion, a wasting disease with the same sort of morbidity and mortality as the Black Death. It was responsible for one of the two great prehistoric population diebacks there (the one not caused by the astrobleme/ensuing Winter of
starship
The good thing about starship disasters is that they so rarely turn into catastrophes. Which is to say, sure, you can kill yourself, and you get your crew and your passengers killed, and if you try hard enough, you can go hurtling out of the system into the deep black
trope-a-day
Pimped Out Dress: Well, of course, for much the same reasons as The Dandy and his Distaff Counterpart, The Fashionista are so ubiquitous; namely, that arête, to be acknowleged, must be demonstrated. It’s not universally appropriate for this purpose, of course, but when it is, it is. The ur-example
berserker probe
FROM: CORE COMMAND (STRATEGIC READINESS DIVISION) TO: ADM COMMANDING, HEAVY CAPITAL FLOTILLA RELAY TO: ALL UNITS, HEAVY CAPITAL FLOTILLA ***** ROUTINE ***** FLEET CONFIDENTIAL E2048 ***** STRATEGIC ACTION MESSAGE FLT ADM QUANDRY, COMMANDING HEAVY CAPITAL FLOTILLA: 1. THIS MESSAGE CONSTITUTES AN EXERCISE ORDER. 2. AS OF THE RECEIPT OF THIS MESSAGE, YOU ARE