Choice of Two Weapons: Historically, more like choice of three. The traditional weapons of the Old Empires were the Two Swords, one long with a gentle recurve that could be wielded either one- or two-handed; the other short and stabby on the pattern of the Roman gladius, which doubled as
From the logs of the CS Proximate Valiance, assigned to the MĂrlan system: At Courtly falling 17 standard, CS Proximate Valiance, having recently departed the refueling facilities of the gas giant CálmĂerĂ©, received a distress call from the vicinity of Chanith, the 87th moon of the said gas giant. This
Sword and Gun: As they say, it’s a flexibility-maximizing classic for those who find it easy to handle a weapon with one hand (and, y’know, there are some biomods that do that). It’s usually pistol and the longer of the Two Swords for formal dress, and pistol/
(Part one is here.) “Many long years passed, as the faithful bandal waited before the gate,” the priest continued his story, “until with time and chance the man died too, and his spirit also approached the gate; and the spirit of the bandal bounded up and ran to meet him.
My apologies, fic-a-day followers, but due to a bad case of mental fatigue involving many, many missing hours of sleep, today’s fic-a-day will be delayed until tomorrow.  (And, no, tomorrow’s won’t be delayed; you’ll just get two then.) Sorry ’bout that, but I’m guessing you’
Hyperspace Arsenal: Given a nanolathe, some raw materials, any required rare components, and a little time to do on-demand manufacturing… essentially, see Hammerspace.
Hammerspace: While there is no actual Hammerspace technology – yet, the ontotechs are still working on it (see: Bigger on the Inside) – the ability of the ubiquitous desktop nanoforge and the hand-held nanolathe to produce small objects essentially on demand does create much of the same effect as being able to
The statue stood in the center of the temple’s atrium, a tall stern-browed figure, its left arm holding a bundle of scrolls while its right hand reached down to rest upon the head of, and scratch behind the ears of, the wolfish bandal sitting by its side. With the
“I am an algetic composer. I am not a torturer.” “Indeed, I can recite more detailed information about the selective stimulation of pain centers than most people. That doesn’t change the reality of what I do, you understand? I am not some damned savage dealing out pain for interrogation
Bigger on the Inside: Averted… so far (as referenced in Stop Fittling With That and its Author’s Notes). The possibility is acknowledged to exist – the field of ontotechnology is working on it even now, in the present of their timeline, under the generic name of “dimensional transcendence”, and it
Ave Machina: Smile when you say that, squishie! Well, sort of. The Imperials subscribe to the elegance of design, logic, and purity of the machine parts of the trope, but, well, this is a trans/postsophontist setting (even outside the Empire, which completely idealizes those notions, nothing-but-the-pure-flesh baselines are rare,
High in the mountains of CimonĂĂ« lies the black-spired citadel of the Aellakhassren, the Order of Beautiful Death, the finest students of ktenology the Empire has to offer. Not death-worshippers, they would have us be clear; their order takes Ithával and KalasanĂ© as exemplars, save those few who, by profession,