trope-a-day
Trope-a-Day: Science Is Bad
Science Is Bad:Â Averted, and widely and publically mocked any time someone might consider suggesting it.
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Eupraxic Order of Reason
Masks
There are two, among those organizations known universally in the Empire, that traditionally wear full-face-hiding masks. The first of these is the Masked Order of the Unnamed, eikone of seals, secrets, and mysteries. The intrigants who serve the Unnamed wear masks of the same serene, beautiful face, anonymous within their
Circle of Silken Flowers
Trope-a-Day: School of Seduction
School of Seduction: The Circle of Silken Flowers (see: Platonic Prostitution, Band of Brothels) has its Velvet Academies (which concentrate just as hard on the arts of the salon and many other required topics, of course), and so forth. Â Rather classier, I suspect, than most of the examples given; after
meta
The People Who Sing Them Have No Social Conscience
So, I’m a little thrown off my stride today by receiving another e-mail from a reader who is of the opinion that, while okay, maybe not message fiction, but that I need to be more socially conscious in my writing, perhaps a bit less impractically utopian and touching on/
trope-a-day
Trope-a-Day: Scavenger World
Scavenger World: Leaving aside companies like Probable Technologies, ICC and their professional xenoarchaeology-for-profit efforts, this is subverted; while there are any number of vultures happy to pick over cemetery worlds to loot them of recoverable goods or materials, or indeed of waiting around worlds about to become such worlds (i.
hospitality
Traveler's Charge
Many of the settlers of Talentar, who would later become dirt farmers and ecopoetic line techs, were drawn from rural areas of Eliéra, seeing an opportunity to apply their sophisticated knowledge of modern agriculture and silviculture to the problems of making this new world blossom. It is from these settlers
trope-a-day
Trope-a-Day: Scars Are Forever
Scars Are Forever: Averted. The self-repair systems of the natural immortals – and included in just about all commercial immortagens – don’t do scarring. No point in living forever if you can break down by degrees, after all. There’s actually a minor cosmetic-medicine industry in arranging for people who want
meta
It's a Shanty!
Reminded of it by seeing it posted on Google+ today, here’s something I’d been meaning to post to the “relevant-to-our-interests” section for a while: the nearest Earth equivalent to one of the old space shanties enjoyed, no doubt, by old spacers and spacehands of the Imperial Merchant Navy
trope-a-day
Trope-a-Day: Scale of Scientific Sins
Scale of Scientific Sins: All of them. Absolutely all of them. Automation: Of just about everything, as exemplified by the sheer number of cornucopia machines, AI managers and scurrying utility spiders. Unlike most of the people who got this one very badly wrong, however, in this Galaxy, almost no-one is
picture dictionary
S is for Starport
(A belated continuation of the Picture Dictionary series.) S is for Starport Where great ships take flight. They climb to the stars, On pillars of light. T is for Transcend The home of the Powers. No gods in the heavens, And so we made ours. U is for Uplifts Potential
trope-a-day
Trope-a-Day: Sapient Ship
Sapient Ship: Well, while the sophont ship AIs are not actually bound to their ships (they’re regular infomorphs hired for the position, so the captain of CS Repropriator one day may be the admiral on board CS Sovereignty Emergent some years later, and the retiree drinking whisky in the
Imperial Military Service
The Other Right-Hand Rule
3.72 (a): Personnel of the Imperial Military Service who are missing their dominant arm, or whose dominant arm is severely injured, at the present time shall be permitted to render the hand and blade salutes with their off-hand. 3.72 (a) (i): An exception to the above shall be