trope-a-day
War for Fun and Profit: Mostly averted; the major arms manufacturers can make just as much money, what with upgrades, exercises, and replacements, from the peacetime market, especially once ongoing Space Cold Wars and loss-of-inventory-due-to-privateers-and-military-risks premiums have to be factored into the equation. And the usual run of security companies,
Talentar
(Sorry for the low activity levels, folks. It’s taking me longer than I’d like to shake off this miserable respiratory bug, and I can’t claim to be doing very much at all recently. But here, have a snippet inspired by longer-work-plotting activity.) “She started out life as
trope-a-day
Walking the Earth: And, indeed, Flying the Space. A period spent doing this is considered a more or less essential part of one’s later education, in the Empire. Got to spent some time figuring the world out, after all.
trope-a-day
Waistcoat Of Style: Played straight, for both sexes (cut appropriately differently). The Empire is a “thingist” culture that particularly enjoys its little pocket gadgets for this and that and the other thing, so obviously, you need a garment specially adapted for keeping them in, starting with your fob… terminal. (And
Lumenna-Súnáris System
I/8. InlĂ©tanĂłs Class: MelĂerĂ©an Orbit (period): 14.48 au (20,126 T-days/55.14 T-years) Orbit (ecc.): 0.2 Radius: 47,449 miles Mass: 2.968 x 1027 kg Density: 1.59 g/cm3 Cloud-top gravity: 6.69 g Axial tilt: 16.4° Rotation period: 11.8 T-hours Black-body
Stellar Express
“Ma’am, I am a bonded secure courier for the Midnight Runners, a subsidiary of Stellar Express, ICC. In accordance with the terms of our corporate tort coverage, I am required to inform you that, should a message recipient attempt to detain or interrogate me, or otherwise bypass my internal
trope-a-day
Voluntary Shapeshifting: In a variety of limited forms. There are clades which possess a limited ability to change shape within the general parameters of their species (shifters); which are designed to shift between multiple shapes, usually two, although limitations on this and parts reuse tend to make neither shape look
trope-a-day
Virtual Ghost: As mentioned in earlier tropes, everyone who chooses to die “permanently”, rather than being reinstantiated again, which is to say, chooses to move beyond individual corporeal existence, has their mind-state uploaded into the Transcendent soul-ocean to become part of the collective consciousness. Sometimes, when it’s particularly important,
Imperial Charter
(Because you can’t have one without the other…) Article V: Responsibilities of the Citizen-Shareholder To permit the fulfillment of the purposes of the Empire, as laid down in this Charter, all citizen-shareholders of the Empire agree and contract, by virtue of their citizenship, to fulfill the responsibilities here laid
trope-a-day
(This is actually yesterday’s.) Vestigial Empire: There aren’t any really obvious Vestigial Empires – the Empire and the Consolidated Waserai Echelons are still vigorous; while the Voniensa Republic is near its clionomic control limits short of the kind of reforms their ideology won’t permit, it’s not yet
Imperial Charter
Article IV: Imperial Rights of the Citizen-Shareholder The Empire guarantees the following inalienable civic rights to all Imperial citizen-shareholders, over and above the fundamental rights of all sophonts. Right of Person and Property:Â In recognizing the sacred and fundamental Right of Domain, the responsibilities of the citizen notwithstanding, all Imperial
trope-a-day
Utopia: Well, the Imperials would certainly like to think that they live in one, or at least an asymptotic approach to one, anyway. Of course, as we pointed out back in Imperial Dream, the Empire is a utopia for people who think the way that the Imperials think people ought