Incredibly Obvious Bomb: In the Empire, this is the essential difference between a nuclear weapon – which is a specifically military purchase, and using which under most circumstances will have you up on capital Use of Instruments of Regrettable Necessity Without Appropriate Authority charges, and a nuclear device, which you can
KALATRI Biocode: O-LDL-D11 The kalatri, best known as the dominant sophont species of the Voniensa Republic, are a warm-blooded oxygen-breathing species, originating from a protein-lipid biochemistry with nucleic-acid based genetic information storage. In terms of standard interspecies morphology, they are upright bipedal lacertians, possessing a squamous integument in shades of
Immortality Hurts: No, it really doesn’t. For the most part, it was engineered, and the people who wrote the design specs thought about these issues. And included bug-out and even opt-out switches. And no-one makes you inload the final memories of the version of you that got itself killed,
Immortality Bisexuality: Might look that way (well, not for the galari, who have no concept of sex, or sex, or gender), but it’s actually the result of desire control, etc., as listed under Bi The Way and Everyone Is Bi. The rest of the immortals weren’t inclined this
Immortality Begins At Twenty: Played mostly straight with the eldrae and eldrae-designed immortagens. Well, late twenties, dignified early thirties, anyway, and it doesn’t take all that much longer after that before the combination of bodily reflections of the experience of age and biological youth to make it very, very
For sundry reasons which are assuredly of no interest to you, gentle readers, I have been granted an abundance of writing time, something which for the past year and a half I have been eking out in dribs and drabs here and there. So, this weekend notwithstanding, you should hopefully
The Immodest Orgasm: While this is unlikely to ever appear on screen… well, despite not being quite the hedonists the Culture are – having a few other things to do other than amuse the Minds – they do have access to high levels of biotechnology, and believe in excellence in all things.
Order in Council, 64th Meeting of the Stellar Council, 4941. We deem it regrettable that the once-proud name of the Valonar Interactate, once associated with the highest ideals of liberty and technological progress and a beacon for civilization in the Expansion Regions, has now become a byword for the fall
I’m Melting: This is what happens to people who are being devoured by certain types of nanoweapons (the generic name is nanoburn) whose mode of functioning is to rip you apart, molecular fragment by molecular fragment, until what’s left is a pile of organic sludge. This is, of
I’m a Humanitarian: There is, of course, absolutely nothing special about the tissues of sophont species – yours or others’ – that stops them from being grown as fauxflesh in a carniculture vat in the exact same way that any other tissues can. It’s certainly, ah, outré (I believe is
I Know Your True Name: In the Empire, the UCID (Universal Citizen Identifier), or for non-citizen-shareholders, its lesser cousin the SI (Sophont Identifier) is a unique and unambiguous technological True Name. You can’t do much with it, though, unless you also happen to have the proper ackles, which they
“I Know You’re In There Somewhere” Fight: Averted. If you think one of these is going on, you’re being Wrong Genre Savvy, and quite possibly, you’re being suckered by someone who thinks that they know that you’re Wrong Genre Savvy. Neither downloading-and-replacement, nor editing into compliance