military
“There are two types of boarding action: non-contested and contested. “The former is only moderately terrible: which is to say it is usually carried out in the course of routine inspections or interdictions, or after surrenders, and the starship being boarded has obligingly hove to when requested; one has been
trope-a-day
(Sorry for the delays in the next part of Darkness Within, folks – having some trouble getting it to gel in my head.) The Unpronounceable: Quite a few, due to all those species that don’t use spoken language the way we understand it: as mentioned previously, esseli names are DNS
trope-a-day
Unlimited Wardrobe: Played mostly straight – the flexibility is not unlimited, after all – by smart clothing, which can offer a variety of style modifications (via inbuilt MEMS), color changes, and other self-reshaping properties on the fly. (And, of course, at home there are cornucopia machines.) Played entirely straight by virtual clothing
Lumenna-Súnáris System
I/7. Melíeré Class: Melíeréan Orbit (period): 7.24 au (7,116 T-days/19.5 T-years) Orbit (ecc.): 0.12 Radius: 38,372 miles Mass: 9.81 x 1027 kg Density: 3.08 g/cm3 Cloud-top gravity: 5.43 g Axial tilt: 22° Rotation period: 14.0 T-hours Black-body temperature:
trope-a-day
Universal Universe Time: Subverted. On the one hand, it’s played straight; just about all of the Associated Worlds sync to empire time/weavetime, the consensus establishing-a-common-relativistic-reference-frame timebase agreed to and broadcast by all the stargates – see Microts for more details – so that there’s some agreement with everyone else
trope-a-day
Universal Ammunition: Not quite universal, but so far as regular guns go (see Bottomless Magazines for the description), there are very few different types of standard magazine cartridges (metal for slicing up), powercells (which are just the fast-discharge versions of regular battery equivalents), and heat sinks which cover virtually everything
Darkness Within
FROM: CS GRITFIST (FIELD FLEET RIMWARD) TO: FIELD FLEET RIMWARD COMMAND (CS ARMIGEROUS PROPERTARIAN) *** ROUTINE *** FLEET CONFIDENTIAL E256 *** OVERDUE FOLLOWUP REF: TASK GROUP R-4-118 REF: OVERDUE STATUS, CS GUTPUNCH 1. AS PER TASK GROUP ORDERS ORIGINATING CS UNDERBELT, HAVE PROCEEDED WITH COHORT, CS GOUGER, TO LAST KNOWN POSITION CS GUTPUNCH,
trope-a-day
Ungovernable Galaxy: A reflection of the truth, long before you get to the size of an entire galaxy, at least when you’re talking about centralizing-hierarchist structures. As they scale up, they start bottlenecking horribly – there’s a reason why most growth patterns matching this structure stall out well before
trope-a-day
Undying Loyalty: What a personally-focused estxíjir is (see: Blue and Orange Morality); not common – although more frequently emulated through I Gave My Word – but a recognized trait of the greatest leaders. Also, the reason why the bandal, or dog, is the symbolic animal and avatar associated with Tárvalén, the Binder
medicine
The small rot (also known as: miner’s carbuncle; brass-hand’s growth; smelterman’s tumor; spacer’s neoplasm; cancer): The small rot, by any of its various names, is a dysfunction of normal cell growth processes in which genetic and/or epigenetic mutations imbue cells with the ability to replicate
trope-a-day
Two Of Your Earth Minutes: Mostly averted, between the Translator Microbes and that most people using measurements internationally (or between species where that amounts to the same thing) are using either Accord System measurements or Imperial Standard, which just happen, since the latter uses a sensible Planck base and the
pattern identity
More from Specialist290, because it’s post-dinner: A few small questions regarding pattern identity and the metaphysics thereof: 1. Are there any possible scenarios where two forks of the same personality can diverge from one another significantly enough for them to be regarded as different persons, when the result of