Darkness Within
Sometimes Athnéël’s random factors are kind. I grin like an idiot, staring into the hole my obliging drones have cut into the engineering bulkhead. Although, to be fair, that might be the oxy-tox. It’s there. It’s intact. A geodesic sphere wrapped in golden foil, glittering in the
eldraeic language
sef-affiën: flying fish; lit. “spume-dancer” from Old Cestian sef (“spume, the foam at the crest of a wave”) and affiën (“dancer, to dance”).
trope-a-day
Improvised Microgravity Maneuvering: Literally every vaguely physically plausible version of this has been tried over the eldrae’s history in space. Actually, so have most of the physically implausible ones, but they didn’t work out so well. Yes, even the ones that sound like the punchlines to off-color jokes.
asymmetrism
PALAXIAS (IMPERIAL CORE) – In the weeks following the suicidal asymmetrist attack on the Numeropolis Drift mathematics research station in the Athra (Ringstars) System – which punctured the habitat hull causing thirty-seven temporary deaths and the permanent deaths of two visiting fellows from the Sseydri Gerontocracy – denials of responsibility have continued to
trope-a-day
Immortality Inducer: It doesn’t look like much, an immortagen. Most of the time, it looks like a pint of grayish fluid in a bag, a little saline, with a faint rainbow sheen. Intravenous tubing included. Responsible medical supervision not included. But inject it into your veins – ah, then the
Council for the Promotion of Scientific Irresponsibility
GLASSY DRIFT, ONDRAMEIR (BANNERS) – Responding to condemnations from the government of the United Viridian States and the Worlds United on Matters of Scientific Concern regarding their publication to the open extranet of nearly one petabyte of confidential scientific data originating within the States’ Secretariat for Military Affairs, the Council for
trope-a-day
Illegal Religion: Well, now. While neither the Fundamental Contract nor the Imperial Charter considers freedom of religion a fundamental right (those would all be much more, um, fundamental), it is, in most ways, a strict subset of those which it does recognize. The latter does, however, mention freedom of philosophy
trope-a-day
Hyperspeed Ambush: Hard to arrange, given the nature of FTL in the ‘verse; it generally requires that the ambushees be approaching or otherwise close to a stargate while your fleet remains at the other side of the pair, and yet and at the same time has access to real-time information
eldraeic language
ulath-urlar: The lowest form of self-deception; being deceitfully kind to oneself, and needlessly flattering the prettiness of one’s adopted worldview.
food and drink
“The only well-known foodstuff to come out of the Hope Hegemony is a salty but otherwise tasteless algal nutrient sludge grown in massive, floating offshore farms. “That citizens of the Hegemony at home universally praise the efficiency and nutritive value of this sludge – while former citizens of the Hegemony abroad
trope-a-day
Hyperspace Is a Scary Place: It’s not so much hyperspace in the SFnal sense as the Void Between the Worlds, but the primordial chaos/cacoastrum of the bulk/plenum is, by and large, not a very scary place, because it invariably kills you before you have the opportunity to
trope-a-day
Human Weapon: In some ways (and inserting obligatory not-human disclaimer), many members of the sentinel daressëf would count, what with the various military-basic upgrades and then the possibility of various special upgrades on top of those. On the other hand, strongly averted because the Imperials are smart enough to treat