Low Culture, High Tech: Happens an awful lot, due to the absence of any Alien Non-Interference Clause, and the common interpretation of general free trade statutes by free traders as “can (and will) sell anything to anybody who wants it”. If they don’t read the manual (or, in many
Loud of War: What the war pipes were originally invented for, and never mind their usage to rally and direct the troops. Also, if you recall the lampshading of the lack of battlefield stealth under Bling of War, what the speakers on the Powered Armor and Awesome Personnel Carrier are
candle (n.): A candle, or putt-putt, is the simplest transport spacecraft that can be devised, consisting essentially of a tank of hypergolic rocket fuel powering a thrust motor and a simple reaction-control frame. The pilot, supported by their vacuum suit, rides the candle – the tank itself – in much the same
Lost Colony: Not played straight, for the most part, simply because with the stargate network, virtually every system is visited on at least an infrequent basis (for routine maintenance checks, if nothing else) and/or receives at least basic extranet service, so most colonies would never have a chance to
Loss of Identity: Given how often it’s done (see: Body Surf), everyone in a modern transsophont civilization is pretty clear that body-swapping doesn’t cause it. The mind is not the plaything of the body – fundamentally, at least, even if it may distort the way it plays out. Strictly
Deep recon and forward scouting is the job of the recon destroyers. And contrary to “Running Cold”, it’s not a particularly stealthy job. For all the boffins dream about stealth starships and talk airily about basement universes and domain walls and dimensional transcendence, I’ve never seen one. And
Look On My Works, Ye Mighty, And Despair: As mentioned, the galaxy is an old place, positively littered with the ruins – and boasts – of civilizations dead and gone. Curiously enough, this has not put an end to hubris in general, nor in specific stopped the Imperial Service routinely appending epithets
It was a wet, cold, shivery, gray afternoon at the dying end of autumn. Fog blanketed the waters of the bay and veiled the other towers in a manner that made them look almost respectable; almost. The harbor towers had been little more than frameworks of heavy, rejected ship-timbers and
Longevity Treatment / Immortality Inducer: Immortagens, which are Exactly What It Says On The Tin, along with mind-state backups. (Previously anagathics, too, but technology marches on, etc., and why settle for a few extra centuries when you can aim for eternity?) The Empire, or groups within it rather, works hard on
A Long Time Ago, in a Galaxy Far, Far Away: Well, a spiral arm far, far away, anyway, inasmuch as I’m writing about places that aren’t Earth and species that aren’t human. (And as such, strictly speaking, relative time periods are all unestablished.)
Long Game: Happens quite a lot; of course, since many people (eldrae, galari, immortagen-takers, most postsophonts, AIs, etc.) live for very, very long times. Of course, it’s not so much a Long Game from their point of view, except for the immortagen-users; just a question of having a different
Living in a Furniture Store: Played fairly close to straight in most advanced civilizations. This is what a self-aware, AI-driven home and extensive household robotics does for you – everything’s clean and organized and nice, and apart from the odd robot zooming through making it happen, without you having to