military
This one goes out to all my readers who have spent time deployed somewhere really, really, exquisitely tedious… From: Master-at-Arms, CS Ablator To: All Personnel, Task Group SPIKY POTATO Subject: Prohibitions That Should Not Have To Be Explicit It has come to my attention that due to the less than
eldraeic language
vaníälathdar: (lit. “beyond-knowledge-person”) Ultracrepidarian, or less formally, “bullshitter”; one who holds and/or gives opinions on matters which are beyond their knowledge.
trope-a-day
Intangibility: Has yet to be successfully developed, for most of the reasons given in the trope page (although I disagree on one major point: intangible objects can and probably should have mass; it’s the electromagnetic interaction they need to be lack in order to properly interpenetrate). There is one
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.