trope-a-day
Ungovernable Galaxy: A reflection of the truth, long before you get to the size of an entire galaxy, at least when you’re talking about centralizing-hierarchist structures. As they scale up, they start bottlenecking horribly – there’s a reason why most growth patterns matching this structure stall out well before
trope-a-day
Undying Loyalty: What a personally-focused estxĂjir is (see: Blue and Orange Morality); not common – although more frequently emulated through I Gave My Word – but a recognized trait of the greatest leaders. Also, the reason why the bandal, or dog, is the symbolic animal and avatar associated with TárvalĂ©n, the Binder
medicine
The small rot (also known as: miner’s carbuncle; brass-hand’s growth; smelterman’s tumor; spacer’s neoplasm; cancer): The small rot, by any of its various names, is a dysfunction of normal cell growth processes in which genetic and/or epigenetic mutations imbue cells with the ability to replicate
trope-a-day
Two Of Your Earth Minutes: Mostly averted, between the Translator Microbes and that most people using measurements internationally (or between species where that amounts to the same thing) are using either Accord System measurements or Imperial Standard, which just happen, since the latter uses a sensible Planck base and the
pattern identity
More from Specialist290, because it’s post-dinner: A few small questions regarding pattern identity and the metaphysics thereof: 1. Are there any possible scenarios where two forks of the same personality can diverge from one another significantly enough for them to be regarded as different persons, when the result of
worldbuilding
Specialist290 asks: In addition to my previous queries, an additional historical / etymological one: Does the presence of “Lords of the Admiralty” in the Empire’s military hierarchy imply, like their *our*-world British counterparts, that their duties were once concentrated in a singular office of “Lord High Admiral” whose role
trope-a-day
2-D Space: As mentioned under Space Is An Ocean, averted – indeed, one of the major motivations for splicing the ability to better handle the third dimension into people’s brains, and later one of the major reasons why Space Fighters flown by meat don’t exist, is to avoid losing
Darkness Within
Z plus four seconds Mind-state transmission received: 3.301229 exp 16 octets validated. Identity confirmed: Isif Alclair-ith-Alclair [UCID and mindprint match]. Reinstantiating… Dynamic mind-state analysis confirms mental integrity. Cannot contact Am-I-Me service [no endpoint]. Cannot contact Identity Tribunal (proxy) [no endpoint]. Cannot contact incarnation insurance provider (proxy) [no endpoint]. Identity
trope-a-day
Twin Maker: While teleportation doesn’t exist, mindcasting, forking, and reinstantiation, along with more exotic sophotechnology, can create much the same effects. (Although, in mindcasting, the first step is to perform an orderly shutdown, because while you can happily transmit a static mind-state vector, transmitting a running one is a
spotter
spotter (n.): An ancient spacer’s tool, dating back almost as far as the navigator’s sextant, the engineer’s multi, or the medtech’s hand effector, used for locating and profiling distant objects in space: a boon to anyone who has to manage a docking bay, shift cargo in
trope-a-day
Turbine Blender: Very much averted as anything somebody might want to do. Those turbines are expensive. (And even though they can build much stronger turbine blades with the state-of-the-art in the Worlds’ materials science, that’s because they want to operate them in the new envelope thus opened up – and
Lumenna-Súnáris System
I/6/n. e’Luminarien (“The Belt”) Class: Asteroid belt Orbit: 2.24 au (avg.) Orbit (ecc.): varies, mostly under 0.25 Blackbody temp.: 176 K (avg.) Next up, dividing the inner more-or-less rocky planets from the outer gas giants, and scattered over a much bigger area of space than