ssc init –neutral –nocontext –personafile:24601.mindstate ssc run What… where? You are in a simulation space, Subject Two Four Six Zero One. We do, of course, know your real identity as well as the false identity you were using during your attempted infiltration of the Wynérias research colony, but
So, regarding those “Ethnographical Questionnaire” chunks I have posted occasionally – I conclude that I’m going to start posting smaller chunks, on the grounds that (a) it takes me so damn long to finish a section, and (b) smaller and more often is better than giant and occasional.  So, that
“Smuggling is a prestigious career with a long and honorable tradition – being invented something like seven minutes after trade itself. Ideologically speaking, the smuggler and the Market Liberty Oversight Directorate are identical in theory, only differing in application. Markets, like information, want to be free. Demand leads to supply, which
The distinction between the three generally accepted primary Eldraeic dialects is both informal and quite simple: “Low Eldraeic” is the language as it is actually spoken day to day, using the common-sense medium of language features and vocabulary that are of use to most of the people most of the
A random thought I posted elsewhere, on the importance of worldbuilding to (my) writing: I know writers differ on this point, but for myself, I can’t have LĂse VaravĂ©len walk down the street without knowing what the street looks like – is it gravel, or concrete, or slabs of black
Energy Weapons: Present, even if by and large Kinetic Weapons Are Just Better and therefore much more used. Lasers and grasers exist, despite their limitations, primarily as heat-pumping weapons, knife-fight range point defense, and as blinding lasers, as do electrolaser stunners/anti-machine weapons, with all their limitations of atmospheric composition
Kinetic Weapons Are Just Better: For most things, yes. It’s not that they don’t have perfectly functional energy weapons, or power cells which can manage the job – if you can run a mass driver that can get a flechette or slug up to a respectable fraction of the
Energy Economy: While the esteyn is not a pure energy currency (it remains, in our terms, a fiat currency using indices to carefully balance the money supply against the productivity of the economy), in the modern era, given the ready availability of nanofacs, energy forms a major part of these
Enemy Civil War: Given the Empire’s preference for deviousness and indirection, not to mention preemption, by way of military policy, this happens surprisingly often. Well, okay, still not all that often, but if a society has a crack in it that a skillful warrior-philosopher/memeticist can use to get
Question: As master of an Empire-registered tramp trader, when may sophonts appear on the cargo manifest of your vessel? Answer: Under four circumstances: 1. When you are transporting steerage-class passengers under contract to a passenger line, and such passengers are both onloaded from and offloaded to port-side passenger processing as
Encyclopedia Exposita: I never could resist doing this, and I have so many metafictional books to choose from! (See, in face, much of the Fic-a-Day section.)
Empathic Environment: Much of the Empire has one of these, one way or another. On a  small scale, this is because of the assorted Genii Locorum around the place, the house brains and city manager AIs and planai and other assorted minds at least one of whose functions is to