trope-a-day
Baleful Polymorph: While a transfer and not a polymorph, there are certain distinctly not-nice people who find it… amusing… to upload their captured enemies’ minds into, say, their tropical fish rather than just keep them in dead storage, if it turns out they might be useful later. Although, really, spending
habitat
[an excerpt from] A Contract Written Under the Fundamental Contract and the Seal of the Guild of Formal Obligation, And in Accordance with the Traditions of the Stellar Empire, Between and Among: First Distributed Exclavine Republic (Holdings), ICC, their successors, or assigns, hereafter the party of the first part, and
trope-a-day
Badass Longcoat: Ah, yes, the traditional garb of the adventuring classes, not to mention the more… rakish of the free traders. Whether it’s a duster or a greatcoat, it looks cool, contains plenty of Hammerspace even without exotic technologies, can conceal any amount of discreet gadgetry within the fabric,
worldbuilding
[Regarding this] So what happens in those cases where a soph finds that their qalasĂr demands them to do something that goes against the Fundamental Contract? (More specifically, what’s the moral obligation in those cases where their only possible choices are “Commit an unspeakably heinous crime” and “Repudiate your
trope-a-day
Badass in a Nice Suit: Yeah, we’ve got lots of these. Basically all of ’em who aren’t either (a) in the military, and thus in uniform, or (b) possessed of a preference for Badass Longcoat. (Conveniently, dilatant fabrics make it possible to get reasonable armor protection without spoiling
Listel (Principalities)
Listel (Principalities) was always a marginal world. An atmosphere too thick, clouds too hazy with hydrocarbons and too prevalent, an ecology containing some worrying chaotic irregularities, and the whole, moreover, orbiting a primary which – while not technically qualifying as a flare star – nonetheless possessed a rough and turbulent cycle that
trope-a-day
Balance Between Good and Evil: Strongly averted in eldraeic theology, the Flamics preferring to espouse the notion that good (i.e., light, the Flame) should cheerfully extirpate evil (darkness, Entropy) from the universe and feel jolly happy about it. Good Needs Evil for contrast, forsooth! The thing about light, you
Places To Go
Bastion (Arvael II, Palaxias System) has no ring. It does, however, have an arc. The Hainadar Memorial fills, currently, approximately 6° of its orbit around Bastion in a thin, sparkling ring segment. The elements of the arc are simple spheres of tinted diamondoid, colored by service: silver for the Navy,
trope-a-day
Bad Moon Rising: Played very literally straight on one world in the Peravera (Kaylin Cache) system, where the local – quite large – moon has an unstable orbit and is descending rapidly towards the Roche limit. Fortunately, the world in question is uninhabitable; but since it’s going to become even more
Exchequer
CONFIDENTIAL (RED) / EYES ONLY GLITTER TARNISH EXCHEQUER INTERNAL Welcome, operative of the Imperial Exchequer. If you are reading this document, it is because you either have need to know for, or have independently discovered, the weaponizability of the currency validation system. To recap: the modern esteyn possesses full verifiability against
trope-a-day
Bad Soph Bar: There’s one everywhere, typically right in the middle of startown. Even in most of those places which are, otherwise, quite a long way from being Wretched Hives, or anything like. Oddly enough, they never seem to be closed down, or attract much of a response from
Silver Crescent
“This… is a much honored tradition back in the Crescent. When required by our qalasĂr to do something truly inadvisable, we always sit down with a bottle of whisky and make a long, comprehensive list of all the reasons why we really shouldn’t do whatever we have to do.