Having used the word, guess I should define it, huh? sédármódan (pej.): 1. Democrat. 2. Voter. 3. Mutual slaver (lit. “owned owner-of-sophonts”); compare dármódan (“slaver”). It should be noted that the definition of this term reflects Imperial local attitudes and political taxonomies, in which any governance apparatus not meeting their
No Place For Me There: Again, the Fifth Directorate. They may be necessary monsters1, but they know that they’re monsters. Retirement from the Fifth involves an extensive memory wipe and having the traits that made you useful to them and dangerous to everyone else wiped away, a degree of
“Lunar Transshipment One, Station Ops, this is CMS Greed and Mass-Energy in slot ailek corse three five on flight plan code niner-three-zero-eleven-one. Request taxi instructions for orbital maneuvering transfer zone, over.” “Greed and Mass-Energy, Station Ops. You are cleared to proceed from outer docking to transfer zone via outbound lane
I Come In Peace: Actually, the usual first words exchanged are usually something like 0000 0001 0001 0010 0011 0101 1000 1101, or some such, while communication is still being invented between the contactor and the contactee (i.e., First Contact Math). But if we’re limiting ourselves to words
Named Weapons: Inevitably, since mechanimism is such a pervasive memeplex, where all the custom-designed and customized, personalized, prototype, historically significant, or merely used-by-one-person-in-a-tight-spot-or-for-a-long-time weapons are concerned. Even leaving aside the ones which are run by animating intelligences, who of course have names by virtue of being animating intelligences. Granted, while
Since today’s trope-a-day was quite short, and tomorrow’s will be also, I thought I’d take a moment and share my Pinterest board where I stash assorted imagery that I find inspirational, writing-wise, for general delectation. (Note that none of these are my pictures, nor were any drawn/
I Am Legion: Any Fusion (permanent hive mind, although Self-Fusions, being copies of the same mind to start with, often stick to the singular) or conflux (temporary ad-hoc group consciousness), for a start… (Notably, the Transcend as a whole is not known for this: as a collective consciousness of individuals
Hyperspeed Escape: A theoretical tactic, beloved of armchair admirals: drag half of a stargate pair with you to the battle, and then – if you’re losing, or if you’re ambushed – escape through it and disable/collapse it behind you such that the enemy can’t follow. This, of course,
“We believe that for a specialized organ to arrogate to themselves the responsibility and sole right to provide other people’s safety as a matter of course is merely another form of mutually regressive servitude. The enforced helplessness of the protected invites ignorance, vulnerability, and oppression; the hubris of the
Hyperspace Lanes: The Portal Network version, inasmuch as the stargates are entangled potential wormhole termini, and as such, each one only leads to its counterpart. Getting between non-adjacent stars requires a whole lot of in-system travel between gates at the intermediate nodes.
Hunter of His Own Kind: Marginally fulfilled by those members of the ISS Internal Security and Surveillance Directorate, and Fifth Directorate, who deal with the Empire’s little Renegade problem. The downside, as it is occasionally pointed out, of the whole immortal billionaire genius demigod thing, is that when one
Humans Are Ugly: Extending this trope to interspecies relations in general, it is usually averted because the species in question are just too far from each other; by and large we, for example, don’t find earth’s “alien” species – trees, flying fish, pythons, trilobites – ugly, per se, because we’