Lady of War: Inasmuch as the martial arts are part of the educational curriculum for both sexes in the Empire, this is something of an archetype; certainly the archetype for female members of the sentinel darëssef. (With the stipulation that grace and reserve – and an elegant fighting style – are also
Knighting: Somewhat different; the actual title in the Empire is lathlé, which literally means “holder of certain privileges” – and are given out for a rather wider variety of reasons – and depending on exactly why you’re being appointed as one, where you are being so designated, from the Court of
Knight Templar: To a lot of people in the galaxy, the Empire, based on their unapologetic status as a libertist-technepraxic ideological state, willingness to tell the rest of the universe that they’re all doing it wrong and other forms of earnest ideological propagation, and utter devotion to, oh, I
Well-Intentioned Extremist: Plenty of them. The Empire’s (and Rim Free Zone’s – not that they’re really coherent enough to spend much time dealing with them, unlike the Empire, which understands that they’re both staggeringly counterproductive and vaulting merrily across the Moral Event Horizon) principal embarrassment in this
So let’s talk a little about the setting of our ongoing fiction, the Associated Worlds. First: they’re big. Really, really frakkin’ big. Sci-fi writers with a sense of scale big. I mean, you may think it’s a long way down the road to the chemists’, but… Ahem.
Utopia Justifies The Means: The motivation behind any number of Renegades – usually inspired by some form of Post Historical Trauma who have plans to “bring order/freedom to the galaxy”. Reminders that the “order” in the Empire’s “Order, Progress, Liberty” motto is supposed to be emergent order, or just
From: Surana Irithyl-ith-Issarthyl, Office of Military Procurement To: Isvieve Dalael, Terrible Aspect Station, Resplendent Exponential Vector Subject: Re: Boson “laser” Thank you most kindly for your offer, but considering the thus-far limited nature of the conflict, the Imperial Navy is not in the market for experimental superweapons at this time.
Knight Errant: A relatively common profession among the young and frivolous (or the old and recapturing being frivolous – telling which is which is a useful survival skill if you’re on the other side), under a variety of job titles, including any and all of “adventurer”, “weirdseeker”, “freelance troubleshooter” and
LIBIDIGENS vs. APHRODISIACS A libidigen, in short, is as close as you can get to the classical myth of an “aphrodisiac” or “love potion” without running headlong into the Coercive Substances Act and its painful consequences. Certain substances once considered potential aphrodisiacs may be considered Class 0 Coercive Substances, of
Klingons Love Shakespeare: While cultures also are very different (see: Culture Clash), there’s enough commonality among near-median species that this sort of thing happens all the time, between any pair of species you might care to name. Even if it’s only about one small, weirdly idiosyncratic cultural element
…is what I have been thinking about this morning, seeing as it’s likely to come up before all that much longer in ongoing writing. So here, have a snippet that, I think, illuminates some cultural differences: Article V: Salvage of Persons 1. No remuneration is due from sophont persons
Klingon Scientists Get No Respect: Notably averted, (see Fantastic Caste System) at least for the skilled classes (as mentioned, say, in the real life section of the original trope), via the formal corporate equality of the darëssef and, indeed, the way people actually behave. (Notably averted for the serviles, the