Gargle Blaster: Several of them, indeed. Most notable would be much vereldrae liquor (made from only fruit and sap, really, but distilled in ways designed by demented alchemists and with a kick that mules or moonshine would envy â and a lot of these are flammable), essentially everything brewed on Paltraeth
I have, so far, sat down on at least three to five occasions to attempt to wrap some firm-SF details around the group of technologies in my universe which go under the general name of âvector controlâ. Thus far, I have devised three to five different versions of the mass
Military Moonshiner: Played straight for some reason, despite the fact that neither the Imperial Navy nor the Imperial Legions is a dry organization. (Also in the Imperial Exploratory Service, which contains the expected number of people who consider âcan we make booze out of it?â to be one of the
Futuristic Superhighway: Well, now. They have lots of those. Apart from a few changes in materials, most of them look much like roads everywhere; the differences come in the technology buried in the road, such as the built-in power grid that lets vehicles recharge as they drive, and warms the
Futuristic Pyramid: The pyramid is a popular shape â albeit sometimes adorned with side-decks, spires, bridges, etc. â for arcologies in particular, and also other large buildings, both for convenient load-bearing purposes, and inasmuch as it leaves plenty of room for gardens and balconies at all levels.
Future Food is Artificial: Played straight in one area, but averted in two more, depending on which end of the food range you are sitting at. Averted first because there still is plenty of natural food at the high to middle end of the range. Sure, itâs expensive, because
Functional Addict: In the past, quite a few of these, inasmuch as the Empire never has had any particular laws â and really canât â against one type of hedonic or pragmatic pharmaceutical or another. Averted, however, in the modern era⌠via the unconventional answer that the best solution to addiction
From a Single Cell: Well, by and large, this does not apply to individual people. Physical constraints are generally a bugger, and Healing Factor is about the best one can do. Otherwise, time to dig out the backups. Civilizationally, on the other hand, this is what the Civilization-Backup Ships are
Healing Factor: Another thing on the list of Stuff That Gets Engineered Into Everybody, although itâs not exactly the bizarre cinematic version that lets you come back from one cell, and beheading, exploding, or other long-term loss of essential functions will still kill you. It does, however, include an
Friendly Fireproof: Your modern weapons, seeing as they contain fairly sophisticated software and personal-area network integration, tend to come with FFI (Friendly Fire Inhibition) to ensure that this is realized in real life; they just plain wonât fire at targets positively identified as friendly. (Yes, of course thereâs
Donât do this. Donât ever do this. There is one other small point to make, it occurs to me, regarding lasers and appropriate uses of same. One of which is that the Imperial Navy, by and large, uses carefully targeted laser weapons for short-range point defense, the intent
Frickinâ Laser Beams: Invisible. Recoilless. Travel at the speed of light. In short, just like actual frickinâ laser beams. (See Energy Weapons and Kinetic Weapons Are Just Better for where they are used, and why theyâre not usually considered the primary weapon set in the Eldraeverse, which I didnâ