No, the other kind…. Government Drug Enforcement: Well, it’s not unknown. The Equality Concord – you see what I meant under Generican Empire? – used to use a variety of interesting pharmaceutical cocktails before they figured out that the right kind of neuroprosthesis worked even better for enforcing the requisite egalitarianism,
Government Conspiracy: Usually averted. The government’s powers are sufficiently constrained and working around the Transparency Act is enough of a pain that, for the most part, private-sector conspiracies are more effective.
The Government: Even though there is one, sort of averted in the (remarkably ungoverned) Empire. There, it mostly means the Imperial Service, which is about as thin as air – apart from keeping their Universal with them, spending the Citizen’s Dividend, and mailing in their three-four percent on Empire Services
Good Republic, Evil Empire: Well, sort of – arguably, from one point of view, the Voniensa Republic are the good guys for those who like their humanity (or rather X-anity for various values of X, mostly kalatri) coddled, their transhumanism prohibited, their lifespans finite, their computers in their place, their technologies
In reality, the first orbital bear attack happened 137 years later, when a stage-one ursine uplift working as a nanny-bodyguard intervened successfully, if vigorously, in a child kidnapping case at the interplanetary cycler-port on Vevery Station. After hearing the testimony of the children and bystanders, the Near Orbit District Court
Miralà Muetry-ith-Muetry floated in the center of Oculus Station’s stellarium. The view was at its most magnificent – the station had just passed periapsis and was approaching zenith, leaving the whole Eliéran Upperside spread out below her; a fuzzy-edged whorl of silvery-gray cloud over continents calen-green and fidur-blue amid the
Principles Zealot: What the Empire is routinely accused of, given their stance on Honor Before Reason and that this is, essentially, the cynical view of same. At least somewhat averted inasmuch as you’re still alive to have that opinion, zakhrehs. (Which is to say, it possesses sufficient flexibility not
Honor Before Reason: While it has occasionally been claimed about the Empire (mostly by people who have more experience with I Gave My Word than with their Combat Pragmatism, which is more confusing that enlightening on that point), if you were to ask – or observe – an actual Imperial on that
Good Is Not Nice: For the Imperials, while distinctly subordinate to its cousin trope, Light Is Not Good, this is played very straight on the occasions that Light does align with Good. Good, for a start, has principles (see: Principles Zealot). Good is an appallingly ruthless Combat Pragmatist. Good believes
Light Is Not Good: Well, the Imperials certainly look the part of “light”, being all shiny and glowy and identifying with all kinds of light- and flame-based imagery, philosophically and religiously, but “good” – well, unless your personal morality identifies the good really strongly with knowledge, beauty, excellence, negentropy, self-integrity, obligation,
Gondor Calls for Aid: Played rarely, but straight, on the responding end by the Empire as a polity, which has a firm policy of avoiding entangling alliances, but sometimes just can’t help itself. (Played straighter on this end by volunteer groups like the Sanguinary Enforcers of the Liberty Ethic.
Kythera System, Lunar Transshipment One, outer docking zone CMS Greed and Mass-Energy The bridge of Greed and Mass-Energy was a typical example of Middle Empire Baroque – which is to say, wood paneling over the glassboard walls and be damned to the mass penalty, polished brass fittings, subdued lighting, comfortable and