Inhumanly Beautiful Race: Quite possibly, since the eldrae started out a very pretty people and have been engineering further in this direction for a long damn time; of course, it’s not like they aren’t happy to sell this technology on the open market in the interests of a
“Vinav Amanyr-ith-Amaranyr is a good man.” “You are surprised to hear me say that? You shouldn’t be. Many of our Renegades are – the ones who become Renegades because they’ve seen the Galaxy’s problems and can’t stand not doing anything about them.” “So what do you do
Uncanny Valley: Largely averted where other species are concerned, simply because they’re far enough apart in appearance from each other that it never comes into play. (Now, eldrae and humans, both being humanoids, are probably close-and-yet-far-away enough to fall right into this where each other are concerned – proportions off,
This is the Code of Saravoné, the Just One, the Scale-Bearer, by whom all Law is upheld. To live is to exist to possess to act. All that lives shares this wellspring: existence, property, will; a single threefold truth. All crime transgresses against this truth; by using another for one’
For Science: Played terrifyingly straight, at least from dear old neophobic humanity’s point of view; while the Imperial science establishment does have a few notions of ethics (informed consent – while the Monument to the Martyrs of Science is large, it’s also to volunteers, really – sophont and prosophont rights,
Potential Applications (Just Think of the Potential): Worrying too much about the Potential Applications in the negative sense (you can have all the enthusiasm you want about them in the positive sense) will get you thrown right out of the Fellowship of Natural Philosophy¸et. al., as an Obstructively Naysaying
Thank you for your purchase from Viridian Verdance. The flame lily is a flowering perennial shrub of EliĂ©ra’s cold mountain regions, especially the mountains of TelĂrvess and the Caliváry, known for its large, fluted blue-purple upraised flowers in early spring and its unusual adaptation to late frosts, and makes
Cultural Posturing: All the Great Powers of the Worlds are prone to this – with varying degrees of justification (see, for example, Can’t Argue With Elves, when their sensibilities are particularly offended, and remember that these are the people who consider pride a virtue) – and have been since before your
When you become a sniper, they cut out your hearts. This is not a metaphor. It’s a difficult series of surgical operations, considering all the things they did to your skin and bone and sinew when you passed the Anvil to prevent the enemy from getting near either of
Creative Sterility: Completely averted; even the technical non-sophonts (non-volitional sapients) can be creative; you just have to tell them to be. But in general there’s no art form that doesn’t have some digisapient, etc., practitioners.
“Me? I’m a logotect. I make words – well, there’s lots of kinds of us, some specializing in ordinary words, some in jargon, or in seals, or in meaningful names, or whatever. Technically, I’m a euphemigen. I’m the opposite of a normal eonymic; I make words that
Everything Is An iPod In The Future: “Right now, being cutting-edge is all about plain black and white (maybe pastel colors if you’re lucky), translucent plastic, smoothed edges, screens that slide and flip out, touch screens, unobtrusive buttons, minimalist advertising and displays, lights that come out of nowhere and