eldraeic language
valëssef (n.): a principle of Imperial culture, valëssef is literally translated “I-am-ness”, the particular aspect of oneself that one is manifesting at any particular time, or to put it another way, who one is in relation to present circumstances and present company. This peculiarly eldraeic concept is tied strongly to
worldbuilding
(also, questions from August; and since it’s a slow month, I’m going to throw in some questions from comments, too.) It’s been pretty well established that the eldrae place an immense value on pride and personal achievement, to the point that they hold people in contempt for
laser
“You will hear it said that lasers have ‘a pathetically low range’ and are ‘suitable only for point defense and the inner engagement envelope’. To put this statement into its proper context, one must understand the proper scale of starship engagements; i.e., that the pathetically low range in question
economics
Real Money Trade: The problem is that it’s hard to define what qualifies as “real money” versus “game money” when the Mythic Stars MMO alone has an internal economy bigger than some respectably-sized planets. The logical consequences of this apply in full, including the follow-up to the city guards
wormhole
(An in-universe explanation as to why the Empire, et. al., prefer to use their special – i.e., yes, per here, space-magic enhanced – wormhole technology.) A common question among newcomers to the field of spacetime engineering, especially as it applies to wormholes, is the reasoning behind our use of dynamic wormholes
stargate plexus
In partial apology for the lack of artwork thus far, I bring you a map of the Associated Worlds, constellation by constellation! Key-wise, gold constellations represent the Imperial Core and Fringe, blue the mainstream Associated Worlds, purple the Expansion Regions, and green the Periphery. Red constellations represent the off-the-edge-of-the-map places,
Eye-in-the-Flame Arms
The MMR-144 Parasol rockets launcher. No, it’s not a rocket launcher. It’s a rockets launcher. That’s because the MMR-144 fires a single unguided projectile which acts as a bus for twelve smart missiles, which deploy at the apex of its trajectory and hunt target areas according to
religion
It occurred to me that the parallels that I drew here make less sense, and inviting comments and thoughts is less useful, inasmuch as to the best of my knowledge I never actually clarified (except in one still-to-be-completed series, by implication) exactly who all the eikones of the Church of
Cultural Crossovers
So here’s a question I was asked recently: In the vein of questions about media, let’s throw at the Eldrae the 70mm IMAX versions of the entire Marvel Cinematic Universe (note, entirely cinematic, nothing from TV) with enough cultural footnotes to understand the context. Assuming all movies are
biotechnology
Living Battery: Given the amount of biotechnology around the place, it should not surprise you that there are, yes, more than a few living batteries. It’s just that they’re all lifeforms specifically created to serve as living batteries – large cultures of Spheroporus electri inside microbial fuel cells, artificial
religion
(The kind that’s made of ideas, not the kind that outgrabes…) So, Mark Atwood sent me a link to this: Who worships an evil god? Someone has realized that the lovecraftian gods are effective as myth because they are basically the eikones of the human species, hiding in plain
trope-a-day
Literal Genie: This is what you get quite often if you have a big ol’ liking for Asimovian AI-constraints, because it turns out it’s bloody hard to write (in, y’know, code) a version of the Second Law – A robot must obey the orders given it by human beings