(It’s been a while since I’ve worked on this project, for one reason or another, starting with being somewhat blocked on Q. If you’re a relatively new reader who’s never seen the previous entries, therefore, I suggest clicking on the “picture dictionary” tag, at the bottom
Holodeck Malfunction: Utterly averted, with the possible minor exception of someone using a virtual reality version of a basilisk hack on you, but that’s not a malfunction, that’s deliberately exposing you to something that would be equally bad for you if you perceived it through any other sensory
Hold Your Hippogriffs: Is the Transcend autocredent1? Do the mezuar compute in the woods2? 1. Yes, like most recursively self-improving intelligences, it knows itself quite well. 2. Technically no, since the mezuar, as collectively-sophont trees, are the woods. But close enough for metaphorical work.
Since in the ongoing series about the Legions I’m obviously going to be talking about their guns, seems to me that I ought to maybe describe the terminology used for those just a bit so that you know what I’m talking about. That is, inasmuch as terminology has
(I also want to note that I could equally well title this series “The Empresses’ Sword” – the word, after all, is identical and gender-affix free in the original Eldraeic. Not my fault that English is an annoyingly inflexible and imprecise language… …but alternating would probably confuse folks and make it
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