In a post elsewhere, reference was made to this trope page, and the generic problem of saying “ladies and gentlemen” when addressing a group of people which may include those who deem themselves members of neither category. This, of course, is a problem which my universe had to solve a
Opposite Sex Clone: Fairly trivial, for an Imperial level of bioengineering (X-doubling, made easier by earlier eugeneering out of bad recessives, or synthetic X), and done (a) on a relatively infrequent basis for reproduction and (b) rather more often to produce spare (empty) bodies of the other sex. See Gender
Half Human Hybrid: Even generalizing this to allow for the lack of humans in the known part of this universe, and even taking into account the amount of xenosexuality going on (refer back to Boldly Coming and Interspecies Romance) – no. Just no. There are absolutely no half-anything anythings wandering around,
Interspecies Romance: See under Boldly Coming, essentially, with a little more long-term in the relationship and somewhat more effort to put into appreciating or overcoming, as necessary, one’s differences. But since I am of the opinion that, inasmuch as they all occupy the same universe with the same concrete
Had To Be Sharp: The kaeth, whose metal-rich and naturally radiation-enhanced world did not produce, shall we say, the gentlest ecology ever, especially pre-astrobleme. Many early resource-competition wars in their history probably also helped.
Guns Akimbo: Played straight in its single-target version, but not in its multi-target version; despite the modifications listed under Firing One Handed making this look possible, but for most people, unless you have some fairly radical improvements to your vision system, you’re still only going to hit one target
Seeing as I wrote a little earlier on why my universe is compliant with one of the common misconceptions about space travel, I figured I’d follow it up with a few words on the other one I bend all out of shape: Rockets Are Not Hotels. Well, actually, I’
As explained here… (In short, down, when under thrust, is determined by the direction of your drive axis, and specifically, is the direction your engine is in – because it’s pushing you the other way.) I feel somewhat bad, sometimes, for violating this one here and there, sometimes quite egregiously,
Gunboat Diplomacy: The traditional Imperial diplomatic transport is a cruiser-class naval vessel. Need I say more? (And the Empire in particular is quite notorious for this; the Don Pacifico Affair would not be in the least out of character for them, because No One Gets Left Behind.) Also, refer back
Grows on Trees: While not something that occurs naturally, the Imperial penchant for bioengineering have produced quite a lot of varieties of fruit and many more plants of pharmaceutical value than nature allows for, along with creations like an industrial bamboo-analog, metal-leaching plants that pull traces of metal from depleted
Tree Top Town: More than a few, actually. Eliéra is – in a self-reinforcing cyclical way – cooler, wetter, and much more forested than, say, Earth, silviculture takes an equal place with agriculture, and one could put forward a not unreasonable thesis that eldrae are natural forest-dwellers in the same sense that
Grey Goo: Mostly averted, for the simple reason that the power (and thermal management) requirements are something of a bugger. Breaking a great many of the chemical bonds which make up Stuff requires substantial amounts of energy, which is inconvenient for something the size of a nanite that’s trying