Most laws concern subjects that exist.  This is not, however, strictly necessary. The most obvious example of this is the language of the Fundamental Contract and the Imperial Charter which consistently refers, when discussing the fundamental and civic rights, the requirements for citizen-shareholdership, and so forth, the word darav, “sophont”
Eternal Engine: Quite a few of the Empire’s – and other advanced civilizations – larger factory complexes (mostly in space, to avoid heat-dissipation and environmental problems, but including things like most of ecumenopolitan Qerach) are like this, including city-like size. The interiors are not particularly friendly to biosapiences, mostly because they’
Equal-Opportunity Evil: Most Renegades, at least the ones that aren’t actually crazy. While they tend to have substantial disagreements with Imperial ethics (see: Blue and Orange Morality, Black and White Morality) – which the Imperials would probably argue is a sign of being, to some degree, sanity-impaired – they also tend
Enforced Cold War: A lot of them, in various places in the Worlds. The Great Powers with seats on the Presidium (see: The Alliance) may not agree on much, but one of the few things they do agree on is the importance of not letting major wars break out and
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