trope-a-day
Dyson Sphere: The Empire has two, although neither by that name, the concept *there* having been devised by Cirys Minaxianos. One, a Cirys bubble, is at Esilmúr (Imperial Core); a thin layer of light-sail material surrounds the star, held up by photon and solar wind pressure in much the same
Imperial State Security
The official history of Imperial State Security records that Istar Sargas [Alphas I Amanyr’s left-hand man, and founder of the ISS] was assassinated in 742, and control of the Directorates moved to the Imperial Security Executive, at the time a hand-picked body of his division heads. Unofficial history and
trope-a-day
Drugs Are Good: The Empire’s culture has no problem with hedonic, et. al., drugs. You have, after all, the right to do anything you want to yourself, and really, they’re no worse than any other form of entertainment. Especially since you buy them from legitimate businessmen, not “legitimate
Places To Go
Silicate Sanctuary Worlds: The renegade digisapiences of the Silicate Tree have two “sanctuary worlds” for biosapiences who flee into their space and are, or have been, of utility to them. These worlds are named Zero One (Galith Waste), a barely eusylithic habitable world and One Zero (Csell Buffer), a eutalentic
trope-a-day
Drop Pod: The Piton-class drop pod and Fist-class triple drop pods, specifically, the former of which drops a single heavy legionary from orbit to ground, and the latter of which drops three light legionaries likewise. A modified Fist is also used to drop equipment packages. (Unlike many variants on this
Eldraeic Transcend
Kicking this one uphill from a comment to an actual post, since it may clarify matters for any other readers, too, with questions in this area: Okay. Let me try this again. All minds, as defined in the ‘verse, are Minskian societies of mind, masses of independently running agents on
meta
Today’s this-very-much-belongs-in-my-universe, courtesy of Borderlands 2 and a New-U station: “If any idiot ever tells you that life would be meaningless without death, Hyperion recommends killing them.”
trope-a-day
Do Not Adjust Your Set: The obvious canonical example is the Emergency Notification System, run jointly by the Watch Constabulary and Emergency Management Authority, which can send out a signal across the IIP mesh network preempting every device to deliver an emergency notification. Subverted inasmuch as it can be overridden
Senate
CALMIRÍË, ELIÉRA – The new composition of the Chamber of the People following the 7124 reselection has had little effect on the balance of the Senate, indicate the latest declarations of branch affiliation reported by the Scrupulous Monitor of the Will of the People. The only statistically significant shift identifiable in
trope-a-day
Doing in the Wizard: Played straight in the most literal sense possible: if there’s magic, miracle, or straight-up literary conceit around, you can be absolutely sure that there’s someone *there* figuring out how it could work and/or how it can be reverse-engineered, because that’s how you
trope-a-day
Measuring the Marigolds: Should you, gentle reader, ever find yourself transported by some magical tornado to one of the locales about which I write, don’t try and explain this one to the locals. Really. Just… don’t. Expect a lengthy lecture on how The World Is Just Awesome, but
property rights
(Seeing as we’re discussing the amount of trouble people can get into through bad deals, it seems like an appropriate time to mention a certain generous legal provision…) inalienable property: Private property not subject to seizure in mediatory proceedings, in collection of a debt, or in bankruptcy. While any