airlock
prophylock (n.): Used primarily by free traders, a prophylock is a collapsible docking module used when rendezvousing with untrusted vessels for cargo transfer. Similar to a standard docking module, a prophylock is a cylinder with an IUSI-P or IUSI-F androgynous adapter on each end, one to attach to the host
meta
With reference to Jade Nekotenshi’s comment here, the graph to the above taken from this survey, methinks, reveals another key application of the so-important primitives-barbarians dichotomy. See, if you don’t have these technologies, that just classifies you as “primitive”. That’s a term of art, not a value
trope-a-day
Bright Castle: Oh, they’ve got lots of these. One of the quirks of having to lead by sheer force of arête rather than force is that it helps to build a bloody impressive seat to impress people with your leadership qualities from; as such, generations of castle architects have
Expansion Renewal Union
From: Alvis Antarianus, Expansion Renewal Union To: Heriath Calliste, Inevitable Justice Foundation Subject: Re: Cleaning up the Union once and for all Look, your proposed operation is well designed. I’ll give it that. But there’s no chance whatsoever that it’ll pass the Senate. Galactic Relations or State
meta
A new writing blog for a shiny new posthuman SF universe appeared yesterday in my website logs, from a long-time reader here, and I just had to tell y’all to go check it out. The site’s brand new, but there’s already some juicy content there, and if
trope-a-day
Bold Explorer: While I shall leave specific examples to individual fics and so forth, they have a lot of these in the Imperial Exploratory Service, and especially in the first-in scouts and volunteers to crew (as infomorphs) far horizon probes. You have to be a little bit crazy to go
ethics
The first part of acting in accordance with jírileth is the easiest: do as thou wilt. To exercise the power of choice comes naturally to all who think, as it must, and in the hearts of the eldrae qalasír burns bright. We do as we choose, obeying only our need
trope-a-day
Body Backup Drive: Standard practice in civilized transsophont space, using cloned replacements grown specially – or, for budget body use, travel, or temporary copies, any one of a large number of premade ‘vatjobs’. These replacements are designed never to be fully sophont on their own, though; their brains are designed to
Precursors
Exhibit 137: The Empty Box There are lots of empty boxes in the galaxy, but only one is the Empty Box. This simple, small cube of tarnished silver and lead, recovered from a Precursor site on Omane (First Expanses), is unique because it is exactly that: empty. It contains no
trope-a-day
Boarding Pod: What, this? (See here for details of – rare – use.)
meta
So, what I’d like to do is for you to go and read the comment series starting here – and note, this is an invitation for y’all to criticize me, not the commenter, so however much we may disagree, let’s keep it civil, please – and give me your
trope-a-day
Blood Sport: This, obviously, gets much easier when you have noetic backup technology to ensure that you don’t run out of people quite as fast as you otherwise might. Even so, in the Empire and other civilized polities, this is usually limited to martial arts competitions where death is