Machine Empathy: It looks this way – actually, it mostly is this way, thanks to those population demographics that made it necessary, due to lack of a large disposable workforce, for the Empire to adopt automation as early and as often as possible, and therefore ensured that lots of people not
Technopath: A ubiquitous talent in the more civilized Worlds (largely because Everything Is Online, including people’s brains – usually with both regular old WiFi and a high-bandwidth laser-port in the back of the neck that interfaces with any of a large number of comfortable chairs.) This is also how the
Luke Nounverber: Averted. While the third name, the attributive name, is often of Nounverber form, attributive names generally are epithets. Not all of them are to be taken strictly literally – there is some “mere puffery” going on, especially in, say, foe-names – but enough are that it is perhaps less than
I was yesterday sent a link to an interesting article, noted as “in conjunction with the eldraeic conception of religion”. Herewith, then, some commentaries and sparked notions. (Note: The blog this article comes from appears to be associated with the neo-reactionary movement. If that makes you want to comment in
Ludd Was Right: Severely and harshly averted. Low-tech societies aren’t even all that good at surviving the cataclysms of nature, much less the realities of galactic realpolitik, which, in its hotter moments, could accurately be summed up as “Hey, space is a tough place where wimps eat fiery plasma
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