Serious Business: The corollary of valxĂjir and estxĂjir (see: Blue and Orange Morality) is that they can focus on even things that an outside, or outworld, observer would deem trivial. Probably quite a few of those things. Everything from board games to wine is often taken very seriously indeed. It
Greetings again, readers! In this month’s issue of A Taste of Taste, we’re going to talk about the humble burger. One of the simplest foods imaginable – a simple patty of spiced ground meat grilled over flame and slipped inside a bread pocket, along with some simple garnishings and
The Dandy / The Fashionista: Common among younger Imperials, who are pursuing the cultural ideals of beauty and excellence just as hard as they can, the more so to give them weight. (Looking awesome is an aspect, if far from the entirety, of being awesome, after all.) They do eventually settle
The ecology of Eliéra is uniquely complex in the known Associated Worlds, since it is not, as most are, the product of either natural evolution, or ancient or modern ecopoesis. Rather, a few unique survivals excepted, its ecology is a mixture of species from three separate origins and their coevolved
”There have been many questions raised in this body and elsewhere, since our Reorganization, concerning the new status of the Empire and of our new Transcend. Some of them have come attached to transparently political proposals – to the discomfiture of our true hive-mind members, such as our honorable friends representing
Scenery Porn: The Imperials, who as mentioned are quite the bunch of aesthetes, expend copious amounts of money and effort to play this straight in reality. By and large, all this shaping and polishing of the scenery works, when given long enough to bed down and settle in. The effects
CS Silk Gauntlet, Quarterdeck, Mistmorn+15 (first watch). “Commander’s Defaulters!” The haft of the Master-at-Arms’s axe thudded on the deck plating. “Accused will advance and stand.” The legionary corporal who entered the room and stood before Flight Administrator Commander Allatrian-ith-Aplan’s desk snatched off the beret of his
Emotion Bomb: Played straight with, essentially, the “glamor” that comes along with the (see Can’t Argue With Elves) whole engineered-over-millennia impossibly beautiful immortal genius demigod thing. Somewhat subverted because it’s an entirely – well, mostly – unintentional effect of the eldrae trying to live up to their incredibly high opinion
One light-day outside Galáré system. The long plume of the fusion torch flickered out, and the great ship began to rotate slowly, end over end, bringing the foreshield once more into alignment with its direction of travel. The wide radiator vanes of the drive module glowed a bright cherry-red from
Big Fancy House: Subverted, inasmuch as it’s not so much a symbol of wealth and status, as just a reflection of the way that the propertarian-minded eldrae just plain can’t stand to live all squished up on top of each other. (See also starship cabins, inefficiently large volume
“In general, you will find in fiction that most Contact missions are portrayed as relatively subtle. In reality, this is almost never the case. The experience of the Exploratory Service shows that when one makes contact in too subtle a manner, one is actually signaling – in a remarkably effective pan-species
Can’t Argue With Elves: The eldrae, and indeed the Imperials in general, so not just the Space Elves, live this trope, being profoundly elitist and unashamedly, even if they bothered to notice, arrogant about their superiority in almost every way to anyone else and generalized personal awesomeness. That literally