trope-a-day
Year Outside, Hour Inside: Thanks to relativity, truth in television for lighthugger crews, who slowly build up a hefty time differential (and cultural delta) with the parts of the universe operating on the empire-time frame. (Hint: if there’s a family member or social grouping you just can’t live
blogging from a to z
(Alternate words: none.) “What’s it like, being a Fusion?” “Our isonomial gnostic net gives us tremendous parallel processing abilities. We can multitask -” “No, sorry, that’s not what I meant. I understand the noetic architecture of mass-minds, in a textbook sense. But what does it feel like to
trope-a-day
The Xenophile: Well, as established in the previous post, there’s a lot of xenophilia going on, nudge-nudge-wink-wink, but as that implies, there’s also a lot of regular old xenophilia in the sense of this trope going on too, certainly by human standards. After all, that whole tribalism/xenophobia
biological determinism
(Alternate words: none. Also, for the avoidance of doubt, I’m assuming you submitted it in the spirit of my single usage of it in this trope-a-day back in 2014, rather than as the more-commonly-seen abbreviation of “Christianity”, because it’s not like there is any of the latter *there*
trope-a-day
Weirdness Magnet: Imperials aren’t weirdness magnets. They don’t need to be weirdness magnets. They’re industrial-scale weirdness manufacturers. (Okay, and Weirdness Magnets, because weirdness finds them comfortably familiar.)
blogging from a to z
(Alternate words: Walk, whitelist, wellspring.) The Dreamhall on Kythera is without a doubt the most… fragrant supercomputing center in the Empire. As much can be said of Kythera as a whole – when you’re heavy biotechnology users, living in buried hives along with an entire commensal symbitech ecosystem, a certain
trope-a-day
Virtual Danger Denial: Very strongly averted just about everywhere advanced, because this attitude coupled with ubiquitous computing and mind-machine interfacing, as well as when Everything is Online, is not survival-oriented, shall we say. (Yes, you can catch a fatal STI from cybersex.) In the modern world, you can safely assume
blogging from a to z
(Alternate words: None.) “Okay, now spin the central kitchen island three-quarters. Good. Now back it up half the width of the range.” Minil Cendriane looked around the floor of her house, checking gaps and eyelines revealed by the AR overlay. “No, that still doesn’t clear enough space. Save this
trope-a-day
Unreliable Expositor: My version of the Imperial Repository of All Knowledge is exactly, 100% correct, complete, and conclusive. Despite their best efforts, however, the Repository of All Knowledge isn’t quite that good, and anything any individual person, publication, or professor in-universe may know comes with that same lack of
blogging from a to z
(Alternate words: Undeath, universal, ugly, ultimate.) “I’m not sure I understand why you’ve come to see me.” “As I said, I’m the undertaker for Cantrel Steamweaver, of Socket City, Golden Groves.” “I have had some dealings with him in the past, but -” “Ah. I see. Perhaps
trope-a-day
Tastes Like Purple: Comes along with switching bodies and having sensory modalities available to you that aren’t part of your natural heritage. Until your mind and brain both adapt to the new information they’re receiving, you tend to spend some time staggering around babbling about how everything tastes
blogging from a to z
(Alternate words: Tear, terms, thinking, tutorial. Actually, I have a pretty good idea for tutorial, but the darn thing just won’t gel. So you get this bit of silliness instead.) The music was pounding again – not that it ever stopped – on the main floor of Polythalience, enough so that