âWhat dâyou mean, why the delay? Oh, youâve not been to PhĂlae before, I suppose.â The pilot gestured through the window at the white-blue marbled planet below them. The hypercane sprawled across the oceanâs surface for over two thousand miles, an ugly whorl of cloud mottled at
The First Distributed Exclavine Republic is seeking to open new franchise-nations in the Expansion Regions, in or adjacent to the Cordai Gap constellation, and is therefore looking for comment, business opportunities, and investment partners among all existing polities, private organizations, and consortia within this region. Consider the advantages of bringing
Brown Note: Basilisk fractals, and their audible, etc., equivalents, which is to say, various forms of sensory input that can take advantage of cognitive bugs to actually crash your mind â and, at least theoretically, can implant thought-virus programming, although that capabilityâs never yet been seen in the wild. Most
Brought Down to Normal: Hard to play straight, insofar as superpowered is the new normal (see Everyone Is A Super), and no-one takes to being crippled terribly well. Also notably subverted when someone gets a clever idea and assembles the equipment necessary to jam all communications, decohere tangle, and otherwise
âMy people take it as a point of pride that we can write a note to cover anything, anything at all, that a customer brings to us; and so far, we always have.â âWe almost failed once, being asked to handle liability for a project whose design included âa dynamically
Bonded Storage, Landfall Downport, ViĂ«lle The battered cryotube stood in the middle of the warehouse office, and steamed slowly. âSo, what do we know?â âIt came in on the IV Mekahaktakt Mktik out of the Kaylin Cache route; they offloaded a large batch here. The rest all processed successfully, so
Everyone Is A Super: Goes right along with averting No Transhumanism Allowed, in those societies that lean that way. The more inclination, the more super.
âYour attention please, gentlesophs and adjuncts, and on behalf of Captain CorrĂ©vel and the remainder of the crew, welcome aboard the IS Elegant Locus, operating Interstar flight 963 from Mer DinĂ©vĂĄl Countermass Station, Seranth, to Star City Highport, ClajdĂĂ€. I am Galry Inurian-ith-Inuriannon, your purser for this flight.â âAt this
No Transhumanism Allowed: Averted (or rather inverted into Transsophontism Is Mandatory). Hard. (As in, anyone who doesnât qualify as some sort of transsophont is living in Hicksville or on the moral equivalent of a nature preserve.) Also beaten, mocked, eaten by nanobots, shot at with antideuterium pellets and tossed
Brother-Sister Incest: Legal (see here; although note the constraints on reproduction since, well, genetics). Also very, very rare, because itâs not like the Westermarck effect doesnât still exist.
Todayâs question for Dr. Science is, âWhy do lighthuggers have to stay so far out? Canât they use the same highports as normal starships?â While it would certainly be more convenient to avoid the lengthy shuttle trip to meet a lighthugger, the risks attached to the amount of
Grounded at Sanctuary on MĂĄrch (Innia Rise). Just for future reference, let me quote the description of this world from the Directory: âMĂĄrch â while not the oldest or largest of the freesoil worlds, MĂĄrch is certainly the most notorious. After the Accord on Refuge-Seeking Sophonts was firmly rejected by the