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’
Hidden Depths: Demographically, in immortalist civilizations, the average person you meet has centuries of personal history behind them. A lack of hidden depths is really more unusual in those parts, and requires some considerable effort to live out the same decade again and again and again and again…
(This has absolutely nothing to do with my writing, and everything to do with the fact that I play far too much Kerbal Space Program, and am ridiculously susceptible to earworms. And maybe writing it down will at least help with the latter.) The Minmus Colonial Anthem (ttto: the South
It seems perhaps worth, in light of that last trope, describing one of those situations in which the Empire leaves people free to pursue their own foreign policies, if they so desire, so let’s skip right to the big one.  It is, if you will, an argument in two
Heroic Neutral: This is the way the Empire’s foreign policy, to the extent that it has one, is supposed to work. (See Awakening the Sleeping Giant, Hegemonic Empire, et. al.) Of course, where it all falls down is that that’s the way the Empire’s foreign policy is
Heroic Lineage: Arguably exists, since the histories of virtually every eldraeic House includes an adequately large cast of heroic characters. Of course, it’s not In The Blood, as genetic determinism doesn’t actually exist, but it does rather inspire people to emulate their illustrious ancestors.