trope-a-day
Blood on the Debate Floor: It’s not usual. That said, it has nonetheless happened and occasionally still does, especially in the early days when any hint of the sort of sentiments that led up to the Drowning of the People reoccurring would tend to lead rapidly to the defenestration
Imperial State Security
mercenary (n.): A source who is working for us in exchange for money (typically discreetly delivered cryp) and detailed explanations of where all their body parts are likely to be found in the event of a contract default. A pleasure to work with, relatively speaking, because all the cards are
non-canon
So, I was chasing links this morning and ended up at a State Department travel advisory, and then this just wrote itself, really… “The Ministry of State and Outlands alerts Imperial citizen-shareholders that the quadrennial elections are scheduled to take place in Blatantly Obvious Expy near the end of this
trope-a-day
Blade Below the Shoulder: Some types I and II exist; the former because a strap-on “weapon pod” is a standard accessory for quick-draw weapons, some of which might as well be blades, and the latter because – well, while they’re as impractical as concealed weapons as any other cybernetic implant,
Nucleodyne Thrust Applications
The headquarters of Nucleodyne Thrust Applications was not, it was widely held, the most elegant of the habs in close orbit about MelĂerĂ©. The double-torus housing both the living spaces and the corporate offices, adorned about the docking hub with the stylized silver atom over flaring golden sun of the
trope-a-day
Bizarre Seasons: Eliéra’s seasons aren’t actually all that bizarre, but they are more complicated than the standard model. It has something resembling our earthly seasons (based on the binary system it occupies, rather than non-applicable axial tilt: it is summer when the planet is between the stars, increasing
Hope Hegemony
“I don’t know why I’ve been connected to you, but could you kindly redirect me to Kejor Nreslin?” “He’s not available. He’s been – reallocated.” “Then let me talk to whoever has replaced him.” “Dammit. That’s me. But I can’t talk to you.” “What?” “I
trope-a-day
Bizarre Alien Sexes: While the eldrae started out with the standard two (male, female), biotechnology has since added two more to their repertoire (neuter, hermaphrodite). And the standard taxonomy of sexes in their language, which has to cope with other species, includes two more – the most common mappings of other-species
worldbuilding
While going over the old “How to Tell if You’re Imperial” post, this particular entry stood out to me:If you have an appointment, you’ll be sure to turn up a couple of minutes late. While you’ll apologize if you’re more than five minutes late, being
non-canon
From today’s utterly-non-canon-but-it-got-stuck-in-my-head department of advertising snippets: The myrmidonic carbonizer. It’s the top of our range. The myrmidonic carbonizer. Erodes muon metals in seconds. The myrmidonic carbonizer. For when you absolutely, positively need to split quarkonium. Our critics have accused our research department of being questionably sane. Well,
trope-a-day
Bizarre Alien Senses: Well, hell, who doesn’t have some sort of bizarre senses? Especially since it gets very tricky if you count the whole electromagnetic spectrum as one – i.e., “ultravision” and “infravision” are both strict subsets of “vision”. As, for that matter, is sensing gamma rays – and other
Resplendent Exponential Vector
From: Capt. Isvieve Kalyn, Procurement, Resplendent Exponential Vector To: Adm. Gilad Tsurilen, Bureau of Innovation Subject: FAT NINJA progress report Security: SECRET (GREEN)Â FAT NINJA Development on project FAT NINJA itself is essentially complete. Our research contractor has successfully demonstrated a prototype design capable of using intense paragravitational fields to