Awesome, yet Practical / Boring, but Practical: Rather than attempt to come up with a large ad-hoc list here, I shall just point out that the Empire’s hat, or one of them, is largely based on playing the former as straight as possible while averting the latter, inasmuch as the
Illicit Drift, Narijic System, Freeport Loop – Mission Elapsed Time +0:00:01 In the base of the crater in which the pod had impacted – aided by the requirement for stealth of the illicit drift, which couldn’t afford to reveal its position by installing local defense systems, never mind by
Awesome Personnel Carrier: The V40 Ralihú – as used by the Exploratory Service and the Imperial Legions – with its full-environment sealing (operate on any planet, including underliquid; also, climate control), all-directions sphere-drive, vector-control facility for better ground-holding and brief off-ground hops, plus ability to drop from orbit and hover for recovery,
In honor of (I can honor the weirdest things) it being February 29, our calendar’s leap day, a half-dozen facts about the leap day for those using Imperial Standard Time: 1. First, it does have one, as IST is based on the rotation and orbital periods of Eliera, the
My colleagues have spent most of this issue telling you all the conventional reasons why you ought to visit the Empire: the outstanding natural beauty, the many places of historical significance, the music, the food and wine culture, the chance to experience their literary, gaming, and entertainment culture up close,
Awesomeness by Analysis: Actually quite common, given the sheer amount of computing power people carry around in their heads. The Super Senses and ability to tap into other local devices wirelessly for additional input data doesn’t hurt, either.
From a friend’s post on Google+ about his universe: One thing that strikes me is that the most advanced worlds have only symbolic clothing, if any. With Sufficiently Advanced Technology they can regulate the microclimate continuously or greatly increase the body’s temperature tolerance. I assume obesity is also
Another interesting article here (hat tip: Eclipse Phase blog), concerning the gender distribution of the future, and in particular its technologies, complete with real-world examples of the differential between the (assumed-male) public sphere and (assumed-female) domestic sphere. And here’s a relevant paragraph for you: One of the things that
It was raining on Magen two weeks later, too, and the rain beating down on the starscrapers of Magen’s corporations and the mere skyscrapers of its stockholders flowed in rivulets and gushing streams down their sides, along the skybridges, and cascaded in waterfalls off edges and balconies, these waterfalls
Crash. Shit. That would be the cerrúr… The cerrúr, unusual though it definitely was in a place like this, was arguably not the strangest of the Rock’s residents, except perhaps to the most cursory of glances. Even the most ordinary part of the motley band was more than a
Super Senses: Naturally, with various enhancements here and there, with the new Imperial baseline involving enhancing vision to include a substantial chunk of infrared and ultraviolet (everything from 500 nm through <300 nm), better imaging resolution, low-light sensing and thermal imaging, better sensitivity to motion, angle, and range, and
Awesome, but Impractical: Given just how many tinkerers there are (see: Home Inventions) around the place, this happens a lot. Fortunately, the Imperial Military Resource Board and its commercial parallels are pretty good at filtering out the ones impractical enough to get people killed and battles lost before they hit