Battle Aura: Not really a battle aura – since it’s hardly restricted to military situations (see: Mundane Utility), but those implanted effectors used for mechanical psychokinesis do, under the right circumstances, bleed off excess energy in the form of photons, in turn in the form of nice light shows. Which
Mundane Utility: Is everywhere in the Empire. They have pretty much no qualms whatsoever about using ultratech devices for pretty much any purpose. As if using nanotech “living metal” tools to save the trouble of having to, say, carry screwdrivers of different types around wasn’t enough, a generation or
I must apologize once again that the fic-a-day posting will be delayed by a gap of one, two, or a couple of days, as as is an unfortunate springtime tradition, I appear to have contracted some variety of Death Plague, which has a regrettable disabling effect on my creative faculties.
Power Perversion Potential: Well, we’ve already mentioned the potential of forking, haven’t we? (Rhymes with gleesome, but requires fewer people.) And the applications of techlepathy and psychokinesis are also fairly obvious and well-explored territory. And then there’s microgravity and body-swapping (and its subset, gender-swapping) and desire control
Batman Gambit: …the resort of the Empire’s and the Worlds’ ample supply of the The Chessmaster – at least when the Chessmaster in question isn’t one of the weakly godlike superintelligences. They prefer Xanatos Gambits.
…as every child learns, computing as we know it today originated with the invention of the Stannic cogitator. Stane Vitremarvis-ith-Vidumarvis of Azikhan, working in the family business of manufacturing mechanical calculators and automata cores, was the first to make the conceptual breakthrough that in addition to accepting fixed programming, such
Written in honor of a news story I read today regarding the as-yet-not-fully-relevant Moon Treaty and the existing Outer Space Treaty. ”While this Court admires the ambition, chutzpah, and indeed hubris of the World Assembly of the ettreo of Sarine in asserting the right to control the entire circumcelestial sphere,
Xanatos Gambit: What the weakly godlike superintelligences who are very, very good at reading the future do (as The Chessmaster) when playing against all those parts of the galaxy that aren’t also weakly godlike superintelligences. (When they are, things move into Gambit Pileup territory very quickly indeed.)
The Chessmaster: The various weakly godlike superintelligences as they attempt to outmaneuver one another in the search for that Optimal Future; even more so when they’re playing against lesser intelligences. Also, everyone with a socially-focused valxĂjir or estxĂjir who lives long enough, to one degree or another. After all,
VĂöle Leiraval-ith-LindrĂa loved her job as a first-in prospector. Not just from having grown up in the crowded hives of Kythera, although, as she admitted to herself, that may have had something to do with it. But quite apart from the chance to be alone with her own thoughts, she
Gambit Pileup: The more or less inevitable, continuous, and ongoing consequence of people who see social-fu as something to be mastered every bit as much as any other excellence; a society that despises violence and coercion – and, for that matter, outright fraud – and as such places a premium on the
“So. What did the tests show? Metabolics.” “His vitality monitors are showing some lactic acidosis. Oxygen saturation’s in spec, but it’s still not enough for that latest round of muscle ops at full capacity. I say we push another unit of breather hemocules.” “We’re already close to