worldbuilding
…I am sometimes asked. Well, this: Cash Means Freedom, Which Is Why So Many Officials Hate It Especially when it comes to foreign governments and their “monitoring economic activity”, “manipulating the economy”, “tax compliance”, and such-like fetishes, which is also why it’s so fond of its fierce banking privacy
Imperial Charter
…continued from parts ten, eleven, and twelve. SECTION XIII: THE EUPRAXIC COLLEGIUM (Note: this entire section was added by the Eleventh Amendment, passed in 0000 as a response to the steady increase in the power available to individuals, which (with reference to incidents in the few years immediately preceding it)
trope-a-day
Cool Key: Quite a few of them, historically – between the locks made to key, in various ways, off people’s signet rings to the keys which are themselves intricate pieces of clockwork machinery, thus making locks hard to pick because substantial parts of the lock are, in point of fact,
crime
Groggily, the prisoner raised his head as the door above him slid open. He tensed his muscles, but the welded wire bonds that attached him to the ore cart were too strong; all his struggles achieved was the cracking open of old scabs, and the oozing of more pinkish-yellow blood
Imperial Charter
…continued from parts eight and nine. SECTION X: MATTERS FISCAL Article I: On Currency The Empire shall establish a single unit of exchange to use in commerce between the nations of the Empire and with those beyond its borders, and this shall become the base for the coin, currency and
trope-a-day
Continuous Decompression: Averted in exactly the hard-SFnal ways one might expect it to be. Specifically, among other things: (a) Explosive decompression be explosive, yo. Specifically, the air doesn’t hang around producing wind and blowing things around; it leaves. But also: (b) Most decompression is not explosive. Mostly, the air
trope-a-day
The Empire has no true ecumenopolis within its borders. As those who are prone to wryly comment on such things might say: The many do not exist; the few lack the ecumene; and the one lacks the polis. The few, of course, are those beehive colonies occupying the biggest asteroids
Imperial Charter
…continued from part seven. SECTION VIII: THE RUNÉR Article I: Functions of the Runér Each demesne of the Empire shall be governed by a duly appointed runér (Note that since the Empire recognizes multiple forms of government, a runér is not necessarily a singular entity. Letters patent are routinely issued
trope-a-day
City on the Water: Several, even once we discount a few borderline cases like Landing, Phílae, which is really an Underwater City whose uppermost decks happen to stick out of the water. Also on Phílae, most notably, are the several temporary floating cities likely to be present at any time,
Resplendent Exponential Vector
Syntric Station, Free-Floating Lab Module 11-5 is simultaneously one of the greatest successes and greatest failures of the independent research programs here at Resplendent Exponential Vector. The advertised purpose of the research going on in FFLM 11-5 was an attempt to create invincible shielding. In this, the researchers both succeeded
meta
Just a quick note to mention to my readers that a few of us writy-types have put together a Google+ community for flash fiction and nanofiction, and I’ll be posting a few things over there from time to time, as will several other folks worth the reading. Why not
Imperial Charter
…continued from part six. SECTION VII: THE SENATE Article I: Functions of the Senate The functions and powers of the Imperial Senate shall comprise the following: * To prepare and present to the Imperial Couple for enacture detailed legislation in any and all areas of authority of the Imperial government, as