trope-a-day
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
reaction drive
Well, folks, it’s terrible sketch day again here at the Eldraeverse… 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
worldbuilding
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
Nepscia (Galith Waste)
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
trope-a-day
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
Skyblaze-class HLV
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
trope-a-day
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
trope-a-day
Once Is Not Enough: With the regenerative capabilities, smart cardiovascular nets, auxiliary hearts, and suchlike they engineer into people these days, you should be mindful of this trope, aversion of Only a Flesh Wound notwithstanding. That goes doubly for races like the kaeth, whom nature has equipped with a particularly
communications
“Greetings, Citizen Asamis! You have reached the voice communications service of Bora Phylarius. Unfortunately, my principal is off-world at the moment and cannot be reached by real-time dataweave services. “If you are calling about a non-urgent matter, a message may be forwarded using non-real-time services. Current estimated time until receipt,
trope-a-day
Only a Flesh Wound: Averted. Sure, modern transsophs have all kinds of enhancements for durability and healing – smart cardiovascular nets, auxiliary hearts, better blood clotting, etc., etc. Those will help you if something slips past equally modern milspec combat armor with full kinetic barriers, or against a (very) glancing hit
Aftershocks
GORBIS (CORDAI GAP) – The Syndic of Tribunals has indicted all former officials of the People’s Bureau of Safe and Sustainable Technologies, nearly six hundred thousand in total, on a range of charges of which the most significant are 17 billion counts of cognicide by willful deprivation. Executions are expected
trope-a-day
Omniscient Morality License: The Fifth Directorate would claim in public – well, insofar as they can meaningfully be public – that they operate under something closely related to one of these, granted by necessity in dealing with existential threats and other matters of that magnitude. Subverted inasmuch as, internally, starting to think