The good thing about starship disasters is that they so rarely turn into catastrophes. Which is to say, sure, you can kill yourself, and you get your crew and your passengers killed, and if you try hard enough, you can go hurtling out of the system into the deep black
Pimped Out Dress: Well, of course, for much the same reasons as The Dandy and his Distaff Counterpart, The Fashionista are so ubiquitous; namely, that arête, to be acknowleged, must be demonstrated. It’s not universally appropriate for this purpose, of course, but when it is, it is. The ur-example
FROM: CORE COMMAND (STRATEGIC READINESS DIVISION) TO: ADM COMMANDING, HEAVY CAPITAL FLOTILLA RELAY TO: ALL UNITS, HEAVY CAPITAL FLOTILLA ***** ROUTINE ***** FLEET CONFIDENTIAL E2048 ***** STRATEGIC ACTION MESSAGE FLT ADM QUANDRY, COMMANDING HEAVY CAPITAL FLOTILLA: 1. THIS MESSAGE CONSTITUTES AN EXERCISE ORDER. 2. AS OF THE RECEIPT OF THIS MESSAGE, YOU ARE
Pillars of Moral Character: Yes, the Imperials too have their own version of that traditional “duty is heavier than a mountain; death is lighter than a feather” proverb. And could indeed deliver a fine lecture, if needed, on the analog of on and giri – they just call that one mélith.
anoetic (adj.): 1. lit. “without thought”, “no thought” 2. by extension: simple, simplified, easy to use 3. by extension: non-programmable, non-customizable, push-button, turnkey 4. by extension: export model – A Peripheral Trade Glossary
Pieces of God: Played straight if unusually in an entirely non-supernatural way – inasmuch as the Transcend is a cross between a regular seed AI and a collective consciousness of synnoetic AI soul-shards (see: Touched By Vorlons) grafted into the minds of all of its constitutionals. So while the greatest concentration
Little is known of the culture, former civilization, and even biology of the skrandar species. Extreme xenophobes, they had little interaction with the species of the Worlds even post-contact. The destruction of their homeworld along with the rest of Skranpen (Charred Waste)’s1 inner system in the self-induced nova of
Piecemeal Funds Transfer: Played straight, as the original trope suggests might be the case, with certain non-mainstream anonymous/secure cryptographic currencies (known as “cryp scrip”, or just “cryp” for short), in which each currency unit is its own cryptographically signed token that must be processed individually and sequentially to do
Photographic Memory: On the list of enhancements built into people, with the note that it is originally only eidetic short-term, and requires voluntary “fixing” to persist as long-term eidetic memory; it also includes the ability to suppress and erase them on demand. (These to avoid being Cursed With Awesome.) A
First, on a personal note, an apology to regular readers that things have been a little slow and irregular around here recently; for the last week or so I’ve been fighting off a dose of some inconsiderate virus whose symptoms appear to include bitter sinus headaches and sleeping eighteen-plus
The Philosopher: The Imperial educational system is more or less designed to encourage this, on the general principle that the unexamined life leads to many things, most of which should not be encouraged.
Dirani Station 0.15 light-orbits from Anniax (Imperial Core) Beneath the heavy lead-perfused sapphiroid of the observation gallery, the opposite side of the station twisted, or rather the view of it did. The other galleries, the enormous magnetic coils that dominated the space at the station’s center, heat exchangers,