Trope-a-Day: Here There Be Dragons

Here There Be Dragons: Seen on star charts which include the Resplendent Exponential Vector system, and in particular, that moon given over to the biogenesis project working on creating the mythologae the way they really ought to have been.

(They haven’t managed to actually create any dragons yet, but no-one wants to be caught by surprise when they do.)

Trope-a-Day: No Conservation of Energy

No Conservation of Energy: Averted, dammit, despite the best efforts of generations of mad scientists to rip physics a new one on this point.  (That, and the rest of the laws of thermodynamics.  Well, mostly those, as the Empire has a lot of people running around who take the second, and to a lesser extent the third, laws of thermodynamics as something of a personal affront.)

Trope-a-Day: Mad Science Laboratory

Mad Science Laboratory: While a lot more modern, sleek and high-tech than the stereotypical example described – well, these days, anyway – in the Empire the “gentleman scientist” never quite went away, and came back in force with greater wealth and the cornucopia machine making it a lot more practical, just as Home Inventions did.  There are a lot of pocket laboratories attached to people’s houses here and there, and their robotic assistants, too.

A decent amount of madness, too.  “We do what we can, because we must.”

Will Not Take No For An Answer

Some people have an issue or two with science, because it keeps saying no to all their fond notions. Geocentrism? Turns out that not only is your world not the center of the universe, but it’s an insignificant speck in the middle of undreamt vastnesses and eternities. Souls, destinies, the vital field? Nothing but interacting matter and energy. And for those of us who grew up with heads full of myths and legends, no airthia, no phoenixes, no xoxixa, no basilisks…

While an object of great resentment in many civilizations, those more sensible do overcome their disappointment with a decent respect for truth and appreciation for the many vistas of wonder it opens up in due turn.

But these are not the only two reactions possible. On Resplendent Exponential Vector, for example, it inspired Aurel Minaxianos, Professor of Less-than-perfectly-Sane Creative Biology, to attempt to miniaturize an alchemic furnace to the point that it could be conveniently fitted into an eyeball.

Fortunately, he wasn’t able to achieve actual carbon-silicon transmutation, but a half-ton lizard that can give you terminal neutron poisoning with a glare is a big enough problem.

Especially when you lose the damn lizard…

– Hunting Journal, Calis Sinyé