Hollywood Tactics: Very much averted (disclaimer: future screw-ups not covered, but I shall at least try to take proper tactical advice). The Legions are very keen on, among other things, formations, combined arms tactics, avoiding open-field battles, flanking, suppressing and covering fire, using all the available dimensions (even if #4
Leukocyte-class Medical Research & Cauterization Cruiser Perhaps the most heavily armed vessels of any civilian class, albeit in a highly specialized mode, the Leukocyte-class medical cauterization cruiser was produced by a collaborative initiative between Islien Yards and the Riverside Eubiosis Foundation in response to an Imperial Ministry of Public Health
This is the first – in what turns out will be several – posts on the Imperial Legions, how they’re equipped and how they work in practice. But before getting into the details of how the Imperial Legions are equipped, it’s important to understand what they are. The Legions are
Hive Caste System: There are some species like this; thanks to alien biology, they don’t, however, look just like Earth insects. Also, some of them aren’t this way naturally – they retrofitted specialized biological castes to themselves with good old-fashioned bioengineering… some adding worker castes below, others preferring to
Space will kill you in any number of ways. So, in fact, will most planets that aren’t your homeworld or close copies of it. Simple risks will kill you, if you don’t keep a weather eye on them. Radiation, vacuum, dioxide, heat. Leaks, breakdowns, inefficiencies. Not paying attention
Highly Conspicuous Uniform: Most notably, the Watch Constabulary’s fluorescent/illuminated bright-yellow trim on their black-and-shiny-white armor, but that’s because – in their multiple roles as law enforcement, paramedics, and disaster-response crew – they’re supposed to stand out because when you need one, you want to be able to spot
Higher Tech Species: Lots of them, arguably. The Imperial member species are this for most, if not all, of the Associated Worlds. The elder races – which, despite the technical definition based on the information entropy of their communications, in practice means “significantly older than the oldest of the current galactic
I saw a link today to this article, concerning the prospect of engineering predation out of the ecology in the interest of eliminating suffering (see also the Hedonistic Imperative), and was reminded of this particularly marvelous quotation from Terry Pratchett (Vetinari speaking): “I have told this to few people, gentlemen,
High Class Call Girl: Absolutely all of them (see: Platonic Prostitution – but this applies even outside that market segment, say with the Eldinimieuthunimis offworld – Band of Brothels, and Unproblematic Prostitution). Given the local cultural attitudes, no-one is interested in servicing the hypothetical low end (at least in the Empire, those
Unproblematic Prostitution: Played absolutely straight in the Empire for all seven of the listed common elements – and mostly straight in those offworld locations the Eldinimieuthunimis is operating in the negotiable affection business and enforcing their cultural prejudices with a will – but it is to be noted that this is very
DROPSHIPS: EMPIRE OF THE STAR The final entry in this section, affectionately known to the Imperial Legions as the “Big Ugly Breakfast 1” – and less affectionately known to almost everyone else as “Good gods, what is that thing?” – is the Flapjack-class cavalry dropship (Eye-in-the-Flame Arms/Artifice Armaments). Uniquely among Imperial
Hidden Elf Village Planet: There are a decent number of these – people who have seen the greater Galaxy and decided that they’d prefer not to have anything to do with it – and they’re often appropriately hard to get to, since most of them exist in systems that don’