Trope-a-Day: Fast Tunnelling

Fast Tunneling: Those hypothetical subterrenes mentioned in the Real Life section of the trope? Yeah. They have those. All those radioactives and, later, fusion reactors means you can afford that kind of energy budget.

Trope-a-Day: Faster Than Light Travel

Faster Than Light Travel: Means wormholes, which you have to drag to where you want them STL first.  (Or, for transmission only, tangle channels – which, for the physicists reading this, do not work by Quantum Entanglement As We Know It.)  For more details of which, see Cool Gate, Casual Interstellar

Trope-a-Day: Fantasy Pantheon

Fantasy Pantheon: Yes, indeed, in the shape of the Triad that emanate from the Flame, their 48 Divine Ministers and Aspects, some divine oddities like the Court of the Seasons, the Court of the Muses, and the Elemental Hexad, and their exarchs (for which read angels, kami, devas, genii loci,

Trope-a-Day: Fantasy Contraception

Fantasy Contraception: Full fertility control is built right into the genome of each alpha baseline, and therefore into every clade built on top of that alpha baseline.  The male reproductive system does not produce gametes and the female one does not cycle (or their alternate-species equivalents) until instructed otherwise by

Trope-a-Day: Fantastic Slur

Fantastic Slur: Assorted people both outside and unfond of the Empire return this with interest, contributing “shinies” (style with no substance, plus tech-obsession, plus a poke at the unfortunately-timed coinage of “Bright Empire” on a public newscast), “coggies” (part-machine), various where-relevant cultural references to zombies, possession and pod people (reinstantiation,

Military Uniforms

Among the things I have finalized recently in my notes are the details of the field dress uniforms for the Imperial Legions and Imperial Navy, and since I have them all finalized and polished up as of now, I present them for your envisioning pleasure: Field dress (Imperial Legions &

Trope-a-Day: Fantastic Racism

Fantastic Racism: In the universe in general, in many places.  Species vs. species, meat vs. metal, augments vs. baselines, oxygen-breathers vs. methane-breathers, elder races vs. younger races, oh, and let us by no means forget the good old intraspecies kind.  While not all species evolve with xenophobic jerkery coded right

Fantastic Measurement Systems: Some Notes

Copied and pasted from the G+ comment thread on this trope-a-day, as I deem it worth repeating for other interested parties: Jasper Janssen: I assume there is lots of vocal arguing about why don’t you simply adopt a straight duodecimal system, get with the program man, it isn’t

Right There In The Name

“…and in exchange, you can keep anything you loot.” “You’re not too clear on the concept of ‘mercenaries’, are you?” “We’re fighting to overthrow our oppressors!” “So, it’s a good cause. My livers are quiverin’… You want goodwill rates? Fine. I’ve got my own bills to

Trope-a-Day: Fantastic Measurement System

Fantastic Measurement System: Well, yes.  Both for money (the esteyn, to match base-12 Imperial mathematics, uses the 288-system: 12 selenis to the lumenis, 24 lumenis to the esteyn, and also goes down so far as to include special units for micropayments and up so far as to include units convenient

Trope-a-Day: Fantastic Light Sources

Fantastic Light Sources: Unusual light sources include the fancy “sourceless glow”, or “light-cloud cyberswarm” which is basically a hovering cloud of tiny glowing microbots; and gratuitous use of bioluminescence, from the mundane glowing spheres of microbes in solution used as non-power-dependent emergency lighting, through the bioluminescent organ-strips inside the organic

Trope-a-Day: Fantastic Ghetto

Fantastic Ghetto: The Galith Waste, home to the Silicate Tree loose alliance of renegade artificial intelligences, could reasonably be said to be one of these, especially considering the hostile attitude of the civilizations that gave rise to them, and their habit of running patrols around the connections into the Waste.