A Star Traveler's Dictionary
navigational awareness system: The most dangerous part of space flight, interface vehicles excepted, is close-orbit maneuvering, or rendezvous, in which one craft must maneuver near to, or even to touch, another safely. Since neither starships nor habitats are small, it only takes a minor accident to involve a lot of
eldraeic language
Some more words and phrases, since I’m feeling linguistic this morning: esélmór: remembrance; memory-token (from esél “remember” + mórés “token, representation”); an object kept to stimulate the memory. ethé: soft, yielding, comfortable feäl qalasír: necessity (internal; an irrefusable demand of the soul); from feäl – abstraction operator – + qalasír “driving energies of
fort badge
One of the better known traditions in the Legions is the collection of fort badges. When you successfully pass training at one of the Legions’ many specialized facilities, you are awarded a small ceramic badge to display with that fort’s crest. Officially, this is so that legionaries with particular
eldraeic language
cagshálvéth: (lit. “sewer-food”; from cagshálla “sewer” + evéth “food”; the former itself from cagál “shit” + shálla “pipe”) a derogatory term applied to yeast-based and (especially) mycogenic foodstuffs, typically by outworld dirtsiders who haven’t figured out yet that a larger circle of life doesn’t mean that they aren’t eating
dynamic structure
The difficult part of constructing extremely tall buildings and other large structures is not, despite initial appearances, the use of dynamic compressive members, electromagnetic coupling, paragravitation, and other such tricks to make the entire structure hang together. That part is child’s play. The difficult part is arranging that, should
Gray Wasting
Hearken, ye citizen-shareholders of the Empire of the Star, great and glorious beyond all greatness and glory, to this Harmonious Proclamation of Deliberate Wisdom and Thoughtful Contemplation, the seventeenth of this current session. Know that your Emperor, Calan Amanyr, First of His Name, by Right of Coronargyr and Chartered Mandate
bactry
BROADCAST // PHÓLARAE LABSWARM & ADJUNCTS // INFRA UNCLASS ALL ECS STATIONS ANNOUNCE IMMEDIATE PREEMPT EMERGENCY MANAGEMENT AUTHORITY // ALERT 6981/11/04 This is an EMERGENCY MANAGEMENT AUTHORITY alert for all residents of the Phólarae labswarm and adjuncts. Related travel advisories have been dispatched to regions proximal. An enhanced lactobacillus culture having
Gilea & Company
In answer to your questions, gentlesophs, and in view of both the composition and the promise of confidentiality promised by this committee, the Directorate have authorized me to make the following statement: It is true that loans authorized by our polity banking department underwrote much of the recent Naxklak-Tlafotl Conflict.
Incomprehensible College
nilgularity: One less, meaning more, than a singularity. If a singularity is a point at which a physical function takes on an infinite value and reality nearby thus becomes unreliable, a nilgularity is a point at which that physical function becomes transfinite and reality rejects it entirely. A hole in
economics
So, disclaimer up front: this isn’t actually mine, for a large part. It was inspired by a couple of verses posted on Twitter by Eliezer Yudkowsky back in March, it stuck in my head, and I kept thinking that I should do something with it. So what I ended
Amphisbaena-class battleship
Amphisbaena-class battleship “Half ahe… that way.” – Capt. Olavi Corel, first captain of Amphisbaena Displacement: 125,000 long tons Length: 330 m (at waterline: 316 m) Beam: 84 m (at waterline: 48 m) Draft: 12.1 m Propulsion: 4 x Empire Nucleonics, ICC 64 MW “Fat Salamander” fission reactors 8 x
ethical calculus
“A computational system has reached the threshold of making ethical judgements when it no longer parses the equity operator as the semantic equivalent of the equality operator.” – Introduction to Polymorphic Software (3rd ed.), Sarval Estantel