Apathetic Citizens: Averted in the Empire; also actually illegal, since after the first equivalent to the (popular understanding of the) Kitty Genovese case demonstrated the bystander effect, the Senate decided to make it really clear that when the Imperial Charter said that citizen-shareholders had the responsibility to defend their fellow
1 Let’s see, status board – blue across? 2 Blue across here, check. 1 Cabin ventilation; filters to micro, flow to high, temperature down to set-point 20. 2 Check. 1 Access panels stowed and covered? 2 Check. 1 Got the tethers and jets? 2 Right here. Honey wine, my dear?
Angel Unaware: Technically, the Transcend is everywhere. (Or at least everywhere any of its infrastructure, or any of its members, are.) This sort of thing, therefore, is arguably happening all the time, in background processing. Treat its constituents badly, and you will affect the metamind’s opinion of you, which
For those who might be a mite curious, Stop Fittling With That is set in “present-time” – that is to say, the furthest future point of my defined timeline (although, obviously, not the end of their history), so those mentioned technologies are things that won’t actually appear anywhere in the
Congratulations, my students, on your successful completion of the first half of Ontological Engineering. When you return in two months, it will be time for each of you to choose the research project you’ll be carrying out for the next two years. And with regard to that, I would
(No, don’t worry, I’m not turning into a political blogger, here.) But I did read an interesting little hypothesis which means I may need to revise my little internal guess as to what the Empire’s Gini coefficient, or your preferred measure of income inequality, is.  (I say
One of the most potent of these extremely rare drugs is the unassuming, shimmering nanofluid sold as cháldar. The nanites suspended within the fluid are a modification of the standard brain-alteration nanites used for downloading mind-states into organic brains, modified to have an erratic temporary effect. One who injects a
And I Must Scream: The number of things that one could theoretically do that fall into this category, given the dark side of virtual reality (where torture can’t kill you, only make you wish you were dead) and the ability to pervert sophotechnology, is as infinite as the possibilities
Ambition Is Evil: Averted. This is the sort of thing (along with the human cultural notion that seems incapable of separating “ambition” from “total backstabbing fuckery”) that would strike the Imperials as utter irrationalist lunacy. “Sure… pursuing one’s goals, achievement, progress, advancement, and deeds of renown without peer are
And, based on that last story, it looks like I’ve elected to use the Egan-style ve/ver/vis pronouns for the neuter gender (the friend, although it never comes up, was a kaliatar; a neuter member of a trisexual species). Still haven’t settled on which English pronouns to
I will find my death here in the Exclaves. He – that outworlder – beat my friend to death. Not for profit. Not for a plan or a revenge or some twisted necessity. Slowly, and for his pleasure, because ve was an alien, and he hated all that was wider than his
Wealth is not virtuous. Wealth is virtue. Does gold have value? Does silver, or polished kal-gems, cogs or brights or stones or staves, bars or bills, serren-shells or scrip, shares of stock or notes of hand? Can shining metal feed you? Can a mound of scrip build a home? Will