Among the things I have finalized recently in my notes are the details of the field dress uniforms for the Imperial Legions and Imperial Navy, and since I have them all finalized and polished up as of now, I present them for your envisioning pleasure: Field dress (Imperial Legions &
Fantastic Racism: In the universe in general, in many places. Species vs. species, meat vs. metal, augments vs. baselines, oxygen-breathers vs. methane-breathers, elder races vs. younger races, oh, and let us by no means forget the good old intraspecies kind. While not all species evolve with xenophobic jerkery coded right
Copied and pasted from the G+ comment thread on this trope-a-day, as I deem it worth repeating for other interested parties: Jasper Janssen: I assume there is lots of vocal arguing about why don’t you simply adopt a straight duodecimal system, get with the program man, it isn’t
“…and in exchange, you can keep anything you loot.” “You’re not too clear on the concept of ‘mercenaries’, are you?” “We’re fighting to overthrow our oppressors!” “So, it’s a good cause. My livers are quiverin’… You want goodwill rates? Fine. I’ve got my own bills to
Fantastic Measurement System: Well, yes. Both for money (the esteyn, to match base-12 Imperial mathematics, uses the 288-system: 12 selenis to the lumenis, 24 lumenis to the esteyn, and also goes down so far as to include special units for micropayments and up so far as to include units convenient
Fantastic Light Sources: Unusual light sources include the fancy “sourceless glow”, or “light-cloud cyberswarm” which is basically a hovering cloud of tiny glowing microbots; and gratuitous use of bioluminescence, from the mundane glowing spheres of microbes in solution used as non-power-dependent emergency lighting, through the bioluminescent organ-strips inside the organic
Fantastic Ghetto: The Galith Waste, home to the Silicate Tree loose alliance of renegade artificial intelligences, could reasonably be said to be one of these, especially considering the hostile attitude of the civilizations that gave rise to them, and their habit of running patrols around the connections into the Waste.
Fantastic Fruits and Vegetables: Well, yes. Did I mention the multiple planets? And the genetic engineering? An important caveat, of course, is that you can’t actually eat most of them, different biochemistries being the annoying thing they are, although trace element supplements, extensive food treatment before/during cooking, and
Fantastic Fighting Style: Quite a few. The common characteristic of almost all of them, it should be noted, given the Imperial sensibilities towards casual violence, is that almost all of them are militantly unsuitable for “social” fighting. There are sparring forms, but still. These are killing arts, even the ones
Waif-Fu: Some of the Empire’s Fantastic Fighting Styles (coming tomorrow) are like this – particularly those like, say, Silken Courtesan Style, which was intended for the courtier or courtesan required to fight when out of armor and with only opportunistic weapons (and which does include over 200 ways to inflict
Among the first known of all nanorobotic machines were the so-called mechal elementals, the maintenance mechanisms of Eliéra. While the common conception of that artificial world is that its ecology is maintained and guided by the computation and matter editation layers buried in its core, this perception is false – these
Fantastic Drug: Why, yes, the Empire has fantastic drugs! Lots and lots of them. Nootropics and mnemotropins to think better, stimulants for times of stress, myrmidonics for combat stress, relaxants for times of not-stress, hedonics to serve after dinner, and goodness knows how many more specialized pharmaceutical products. Hundreds of