Trope-a-Day: Leave Behind a Pistol
Leave Behind a Pistol: This is not, it should be said, Imperial policy when dealing with the former great or good who have gone bad but still retain a shred of honor. It is merely Imperial practice.
Alistair Young
Epistolary Experiment (12/30)
Captainâs log, 11204.9. Weâve come alongside the eighteenth belt mining facility in our securing patrol of Ădeln System. On our way in, we tracked what appeared to be a merchant freighter inbound to the station, presumably lacking the delta-v to go elsewhere. Well, it wasnât a
Trope-a-Day: Le Parkour / Combat Parkour
Le Parkour / Combat Parkour: Something of a standard part of the skillset, even for getting around normally, in the modern era. This tends to come from three places: one, common exposure to how one gets around in microgravity; two, lots of habitats and inhabited planets/moons having less than âstandardâ
Trope-a-Day: Latex Space Suit
Latex Space Suit: Yep, these (âskinsuitsâ, as opposed to âhardsuitsâ) are in common use â by the civilian spacer, anyway, who has no use for, for example, vacuum-sealed hardshell combat armor â although without the ridiculous semi-Stripperiffic elements (Sheer, you say? Heh. That fabric may contain pores, but it also contains MEMS,
Cyber Monday Sale
IT IS CYBER MONDAY! So, Iâm having the obligatory sale! If you donât yet have my first book â a second is expected to follow early in the new year â nowâs your chance to pick up the Kindle e-book for just $0.99. If you do , on the
Trope-a-Day: Latex Perfection
Latex Perfection: Unfortunately, no longer nearly so useful as it once was, due to the difficulty of compensating for all the exotic sensoria of all the species out there, never mind the sheer range of possible sensors. (Mass-market cameras, for example, tend to cover everything from high radio bands through
Trope-a-Day: Laser-Guided Amnesia
Laser-Guided Amnesia: Memory redaction. Exists as a technology specifically to let people forget (a) traumatic memories, (b) merely unpleasant memories (âletâs agree that this argument never happened, loveâ), and (c) memories which one is contractually obligated not to have (i.e., a very effective non-disclosure agreement â although the separation
On Thanks, And The Meanings Of Thanks
In appropriateness for Thanksgiving, the question of the nature of thanks. In an etymological discussion on Google+, back in July, which some of you may remember, in which various languagesâ ways of saying âthank youâ were discussed and their comparative original meanings â in terms of obligation, or gratitude, or mercy,
Apologies...
âŠfor the delay in bringing you various things. I regret to say that my writing is presently being interrupted by, ah, irritating hardware problems, which honestly, Iâm not all that thankful for. Unlike, say, my readers, for whose patience I am particularly thankful right nowâŠ
Trope-a-Day: Large Ham Title
Large Ham Title: Played straight in formal introductions; everyone from the Empire to relatively local branches issues an assortment of titles, and formal protocol, at least, is to use all of them, or at the very least all that could possibly be relevant, in introductions. (Remember, pride is a virtue.
Divergence
In the anonymous-questions box today, I received an inquiry into what the point of divergence, as it were, was that led to the eldrae Spaceflight Initiative developing with vigor into exactly the kind of space program we didnât get? Well, Iâve touched on a little bit of this
Trope-a-Day: La RĂ©sistance
La RĂ©sistance: The Resolutionist Faction (your local name may vary; itâs not like they can agree on one) are a loose coalition of hundreds, if not thousands, of separate groups, struggling valiantly against the lack of tyranny imposed by the Empire and, to a lesser extent, the Accord of