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
trope-a-day
Pillars of Moral Character: Yes, the Imperials too have their own version of that traditional “duty is heavier than a mountain; death is lighter than a feather” proverb. And could indeed deliver a fine lecture, if needed, on the analog of on and giri – they just call that one mélith.
Gwyath logarithmic development scale
anoetic (adj.): 1. lit. “without thought”, “no thought” 2. by extension: simple, simplified, easy to use 3. by extension: non-programmable, non-customizable, push-button, turnkey 4. by extension: export model – A Peripheral Trade Glossary
trope-a-day
Pieces of God: Played straight if unusually in an entirely non-supernatural way – inasmuch as the Transcend is a cross between a regular seed AI and a collective consciousness of synnoetic AI soul-shards (see: Touched By Vorlons) grafted into the minds of all of its constitutionals. So while the greatest concentration
Exterminomachy
Little is known of the culture, former civilization, and even biology of the skrandar species. Extreme xenophobes, they had little interaction with the species of the Worlds even post-contact. The destruction of their homeworld along with the rest of Skranpen (Charred Waste)’s1 inner system in the self-induced nova of
trope-a-day
Piecemeal Funds Transfer: Played straight, as the original trope suggests might be the case, with certain non-mainstream anonymous/secure cryptographic currencies (known as “cryp scrip”, or just “cryp” for short), in which each currency unit is its own cryptographically signed token that must be processed individually and sequentially to do
trope-a-day
Photographic Memory: On the list of enhancements built into people, with the note that it is originally only eidetic short-term, and requires voluntary “fixing” to persist as long-term eidetic memory; it also includes the ability to suppress and erase them on demand. (These to avoid being Cursed With Awesome.) A
medicine
First, on a personal note, an apology to regular readers that things have been a little slow and irregular around here recently; for the last week or so I’ve been fighting off a dose of some inconsiderate virus whose symptoms appear to include bitter sinus headaches and sleeping eighteen-plus