There is, in short, competence and competence. The Accord on the Law of Free Space is rather generously written, to cover all our polities at whatever stage of progress they may be and however much investment in training they can afford. The Imperial Navigation Act is rather more tightly written, on the other hand, insofar as reserving their spaceways for those who can meet a certain higher standard allows them to have nice things, sadly compromised by the realities of free trade and passage.
The Fraternal Order of Astrogators and Sailing Masters, on the gripping hand, considers anyone who cannot complete an interstellar voyage using naught but a printed ephemeris, slipstick, stopwatch, and sextant to be a disgrace to the profession.
Snippet
Do Not Taunt Happy Fun Hole
SINGULARITY INJECTION ZONE
DANGER
NOT ONLY WILL THIS KILL YOU,
AND NOT ONLY WILL THIS KILL YOU PAINFULLY,
BUT THE SUBJECTIVE TIMESPAN OF YOUR AGONY WILL BE EXTENDED TO INFINITY
(IF YOU DO NOT UNDERSTAND WHY, START RUNNING NOW)
– seen in Unit 3, Dark Star Power Plant, Xavéral
Gordon Gekko’s Mistake
Of course desire causes suffering. But only as a strict subset of the fundamental truth: desire causes everything.
The corollary to this of course is not merely that greed is good, but that greed is the universe’s only true anentropic force. In other words, greed is the Good.
– the Covalanites at the ecumenical conference
(which they funded)
Eldraeic Modifier of the Day: boz
In formal Eldraeic, the modifier boz indicates that a word is being used in a vernacular (possibly referring to a local dialect or borrowing, although most commonly indicating a way the word has come to be used in Trade) fashion, rather than in accordance with its proper definition. The modifier boz is derived from the word bosh (“a mush or porridge; a soft, wet, pulpy mass”). This is in no way, gentle reader, a commentary on the Conclave of Linguistics and Ontology’s perceptions of the sort of mentality that resorts to vernacular to express itself, and if you believe any part of that sentence, please contact me for an exciting investment opportunity in the Three-Ended Wormhole Corporation.
– “Wordplayer’s Corner”, the Imperial Infoclast
The Way of the Will
Mentalics is a bastardized discipline, dating back to its origins. To be fair to the ancients, they lacked the knowledge and conceptual grounding to differentiate the farspeech family of disciplines, based around the EM-sensitivity of the liacoré complex of the brain, and the psychokinetic family, based around phased-array nanopicosomes interfaced with the peripheral nervous system. Both logically appeared to fall under “the will is the deed”. One may place more blame, perhaps, on more recent thinkers for adding mechanical enhancements via cerebroergetics and other aids and incidents into our field, and yet.
It is what it is. The breadth of our field requires like breadth of preparatory study, which we shall now begin.
– Academician Alder Kamini,
Ellenith Cerebral Academy
Jargon (1/n)
burlies: archaic military slang for troops formally designated, at the time, as grenadiers; specifically, those equipped with a BRL (“Backpack Rockets Launcher”) as their primary weapon, specializing therefore in high-angle indirect fire. While the derivation from the acronym is obvious, a secondary cause was the effect of the BRL and its control package on the profile of those equipped with it.
(Just a random thought I had today. Incidentally, today I also learned a new word: flathatting.)
Time-Directional
Continuity? It includes the memory of where it came from and the seeds of where it’s going. That’s why it’s called a mind-state vector and not a mind-state scalar.
Glendyr Issarthyl, brainpeeler, extranet interview
Father One-Punch
While little but myth remains about Evéris Vennistál, the life-bound bodyguard of Loran Camríäd, Théarch of the Deeping at the time of the foundation of the Empire, one tangible artifact passed down through the modern era is his signet ring. While appearing to be a massive piece in solid gold, as befits Vennistál’s background as an eminent itinerant of Kalasané, the ring later known as Evéris’s Final Argument was fashioned of practical gilded steel: well-suited for the purpose to which he put it in legend, that of felling those who sought to dispute matters in ill-pleasingly informal ways with a single blow, leaving behind it only the sygaldry of the one who defeated them.
– Artifacts of the Early Imperial Era, University of Calmiríë
Unmilitary Posture
Perhaps they would have been more successful had their god spent more time teaching them how to stand, rather than how to kneel.
Gen. Cassian Amarens,
13th (“Winter Wolves”) Imperial Legion,
after the final assault on Firital
Quintenary?
quaternary weaponry: Among heavy infantry, who use the M-70 Havoc combat exoskeleton, there are three official categories of weaponry:
- primary weaponry: the heavy tribarrel, flamer, and target designator built into the exoskeleton;
- secondary weaponry: additional hardpoint-mounted weapons provided by a modular weapons back, such as the BP-400 Conflagration;
- tertiary weaponry: weapons carried by, rather than attached to, the exoskeleton.
Quaternary weaponry, therefore, is a term that shows up principally in aftermath reports, meaning “punched to death”. Insofar as the M-70 Havoc provides a twenty-four-fold physical strength multiplier to its wearer, the use of quaternary weaponry against armored troops, vehicles, buildings, and occasional field fortifications is far from unknown.
— Blackjacket’s Dictionary
A Man Lives After His Life, But Not After His Honor
In accordance with regulation updates promulgated in IMS general update 5172/3, the use of imaginary numbers in legion designation is reserved for allocations to einherjar.
General Staff Bulletin, Summer 5172
The Lady Offshore With The 16″ Guns
“Honestly, I think the primary motivation to develop warships that can descend into the atmosphere and hover in a menacing, fight-in-the-shade manner has nothing to do with any of the technical rationales you hear bandied about.
“It’s so that when someone says to you, ‘You and what army?’, you can just point upwards and say, “No, no, me and that Navy.
“Who wants that? Everyone who’s ever led a shore party in hostile territory, just about. It’s nice to be able to intimidate people without a telescope.”
– Commander Eril Tsurilen, Imperial Navy,
extranet interview
Quadropodia Is The…
I can sit up and use a keyboard perfectly well without having my limbs twisted around into an imitation hominid, thank you most kindly. (You anthropocentric jackass.)
Rhif Oüärwaff,
second-iteration dar-bandal,
quoted in Morphology Is Not Cosmetology
“Accidentally”
To clarify the ongoing rumors:
It is NOT true that people who kick the floor-cleaning robots in ISA-administered starports tend to have their luggage accidentally rerouted to Geydagan Down, where it is pillaged by a bunch of black-hole cultists, torn apart, used to clean up after ritual sacrifices, and recycled as toilet paper. The floor-cleaning robots are professionals, after all.
It IS true that we let everyone think so, because those sophs who are bothered by the notion more or less deserve to be.
– ISA Planetary Relations, internal update 7216/3, “Overheard…” column
The Naming of Everything
If language is not correct, then what is said is not what is meant;
if what is said is not what is meant, then what must be thought remains unthought;
if what must be thought is not thought, then what must be done remains undone;
if this remains undone, apprehension of truth and beauty will deteriorate;
if apprehension goes astray, the people will act poorly in helpless confusion.Hence there must be neither arbitrariness or ambiguity in what is said.
Aurí Péng, philosopher of Ochale, quoted in the charter of the Conclave of Linguistics and Ontology
This matters above everything.
Author’s note: This is inspired/based on a quotation from K’ung-fu-tzu, on the Rectification of Names (see The Analects of Confucius, book 13, verse 3, for the original), modified in accordance with the then state of Imperial philosophy. I think it fits quite well.
Bad War
grubby shoot: military (primarily mercenary) slang for a mission or contract which pits them against a sufficiently low-tech opponent (q.v. grubby, slang for low-tech locals) that the conflict is hopelessly one-sided and victory requires little or no effort.
Reputable mercenaries and regular military units tend to loathe grubby shoots, as they lack all dignity, honor, and opportunity for valor. Their commanders also note that they have a strongly deleterious effect on morale and troop quality, and thus avoid taking such missions – especially for the long term – whenever possible.
Unfortunately, there are plenty of disreputable mercenaries and militaries out there, usually amateur and pillage- and atrocity-prone, and more can often be created ad hoc by arming the local grubbies with advanced weapons.
– A Star Traveler’s Dictionary
Got To Be Sharp
“And this is our design for a sword edged with a topological defect. We probably shouldn’t go to prototype before we can better simulate the consequences, though.”
“Why, what are the consequences?”
“‘If on your journey, you should pass through the universe, the universe will be cut.’“
– overheard at the Eye-in-the-Flame booth, ArmsCon 7900, Everlasting Science Fair
What a Half-Bit
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Keyless
A prison the size of the universe is still a prison, the philosopher Arlannath once said. Today, with the release of Phukale™, we can say that a universe the size of a prison… is still a universe.
Academician Ranoj Tsoroloth
Irreality Vault researcher
on the release of the first custom-designed phukalic containment universe
Snippet: Today, at the Vector
(Inspired by the Inevitable Certainty Engine, of course.)