“…to refer to the Consolidation as the Consolidation Wars, as is the practice of certain critical historians, is to do the period an injustice. While the foreign policies of the time were largely if irregularly driven by the Senate axis revolving around the Immanent Destinarians, the Sons of Liberty, and
Hover Board: Yes, those of you who want a ludicrously overcomplicated hard-to-control method of transport can have a vector-control board (or, indeed, its predecessors with regular old rockets. Or fans, even, for you boring safety-lovin’ types.). Have fun!
Hostile Terraforming: In the Worlds, pretty much any straight ecopoesis carried out on a currently life-bearing world is considered this, and even sensible-but-dubious regimes steer clear of it because it is, in effect, burning down an asset. Ecosystems are extremely valuable informational resources, and not to be casually overwritten. On
Hostage Situation: You’re going to take the habitually armed people who can’t be killed hostage? And this was your good plan?
Horse of a Different Color: The cerrúr is a four-horned, hexapedal, browsing animal, but it fills much the same niche as the horse, as historically early basic transportation/power and later prestige transportation. Despite much wishful thinking and a few attempts, no-one ever managed to breed a bandal large enough
Horde of Alien Locusts: Much more common (although still by no means common) in the form of out-of-control von Neumann replicators (“hegemonizing swarms”) than as lifeforms. Fortunately, most things this single-minded are not terribly efficient, innovative, or adaptable – intellectual monocultures rarely are – so they rarely become a serious problem, or
And another thing… …influencing all this, which I meant to mention in the last post, is more of a species-nature issue. Humans have a hard-wired norm-seeking instinct. Our monkey-brains are hardwired to generate error signals when they perceive that we are being disagreed with by other human-shaped objects. It is
A question that came up in a G+ discussion sprung from this post: Both the military and business have a legitimate need for secrecy/non-transparency — does the eldraeic equivalent really operate with complete transparency? There so, they would say, speaks the voice of statism and paranoia – probably with one of
Hopeless War: Averted, for the most part. With regard to one kind of hopeless war, well, the Navy and Legions are just that good at the general category of activities listed under “killing people and breaking things”, and so have usually been able to bring things to a successful conclusion
Honest Adviser: The non-sophont AIs built to advise various runér, Senators, etc., are programmed to be this. And provably so! With code reviews! You can do this with sophonts, too, digital or biological, these days – given the ability of geas nanotech, alethiometers, and the ability to muck about with the
Holy City: For the Empire, Ellenith, the holy city which serves as the center for the Church of the Flame, being built around the Dome of Unity, the 6th of the temples along the Shining Path, the seeress Merriéle‘s path to her conversation with the gods atop the mountain
“As you have been told, it is not Legion policy to require you to carry swords in anything but dress uniform, nor is it Legion policy to use them in combat.” “As you will soon find out, many creative souls before you have decided to use them anyway as personal