“Thirty-Two Tons, this is Clajdia SysCon, we’re going to need you to abort your next maneuver, recompute for previous burn time plus twelve minutes, crossing traffic drone freighter DF-01369. Over.” “Clajdia SysCon, Thirty-Two Tons, negative on that, we have traffic priority over drone freighters. Over.” “Thirty-Two Tons, Clajdia SysCon,
…an administrative question. So far, I’ve only been posting links to actual fiction pieces through Patreon. But as you know, that’s not all I post here. So, since that’s just an arbitrary choice, I thought I’d ask y’all about your preferences for it: [polldaddy poll=
The chfsssc, or rather the chfsssc‘s environmental armor, sat in the parking lot below the conference room, glowing dully red even in the bright afternoon sun, the low rumble-throb of its internal reactors clearly audible from inside. Around it, the tarry surface steamed and slowly melted in the radiant
Speaking of handy little Mathcad tools, this one is a generic delta-v approximator for planet-to-planet Hohmann transfers, based on the same mathematics as this Stack Overflow answer: http://space.stackexchange.com/questions/1380/how-to-calculate-delta-v-required-for-a-planet-to-planet-hohmann-transfer As mentioned there, it makes various assumptions, including that the bodies’ orbits around their sun are
Man In The Machine: A few early examples (some of which are even still around), but in the more modern day – and with the caveats mentioned under Cyborg – it’s virtually always easier, and more comfortable, just to go full infomorph (i.e., Brain Uploading) than try to keep the
Incidentally, just to let you all know, the twin problems that have afflicted my productivity for a while – first, computer breakages and the repair thereof, followed in swift succession by second, mind-fuzzying incompetence-generating plague – look to be all done with, or at the least, clearing up rapidly. Normal service in
Manchurian Agent: You might at first think that given the advanced sophotechnology of the Empire and some of its peer civilizations, with appropriate technologies for mental editing, gnostic overlays, and thought-viruses, that Manchurian Agent would be something that happened an awful lot. But no, largely because with appropriate technologies for
Mama Bear/Papa Wolf: The Transcend, towards its members. See the second paragraph of No One Gets Left Behind for the details, there. Not all that uncommon in its members, either.
Magnetic Weapons: Almost all of them, in fact. Happiness is a warm coilgun1. (And a plentiful supply of exchangeable heat sinks, because even fancy superconducting orichalcium coils3 can’t stop the Second Law.) Handgun versions fire super-tiny flechette projectiles at mind-croggling speeds, because, well, like the picture implies… …it ain’
So, as those who follow my Google+ account will know, I use PTC Mathcad to do the various calculations behind the scenes to reality-check my work, starship designs, orbital parameters, etc., etc. And being the kind and generous soul that I am, I thought I might clean up and share
Or, A Typical (Paraphrased) Exploratory Service Response To The Embarrassing Problem of Xenodeism: “So you’re some sort of gods?” “That depends.” “Depends?” “If you mean: do we possess assorted skills, powers, devices, and other techne capable of duplicating pretty much any miracle attributed to the mythological deities of yore,
Magically-Binding Contract: In two forms, both technically nonmagical if you don’t count the Clarkian sense. Firstly, regular old smart-contracts, which are self-enforcing, inasmuch as the contract itself takes the form of an AI which acts to enforce/fulfil itself – which can, relevantly, cover anything from simple supervisory work, to