Ace Custom: Happens a lot, aided and abetted by the highly modular and modifiable nature of Imperial technology. (Indeed, both the Navy and the Legions positively encourage the practice – as long as you stick to the standard interfaces and thus do not muck up the supply chain, or drop below the baseline performance – on the grounds that they enjoy keeping their opponents in a state of perpetual confusion and disorientation with regard to what can actually be expected out of their hardware.)
vehicles
Truth In Nomenclature
damnfool switch (n.): Engineering / aerospace jargon. Damnfool switch is an alternate term for the Master Envelope Interlock Disable switch; i.e., that switch which disables the hardwired safety features preventing the pilot, sailing master, or other operators from commanding maneuvers or equipment operations known to cause damage to, or the potential destruction of, the vehicle. (See also: redlining.)
The damnfool switch acquired its sobriquet due to the near-universal consensus that not only would only a damn fool disable said interlocks in anything other than a dire and imminent emergency, but that most of the people who have disabled them under such circumstances were also damn fools at the time.
idiot light (n.): The warning light, usually located next to the Master Alarm indicator, that indicates that the damnfool switch has been engaged; so named because the illumination of the idiot light indicates that an idiot surely must be in command of the vehicle.
– A Star Traveler’s Dictionary
Trope-a-Day: Hover Board
Hover Board: Yes, those of you who want a ludicrously overcomplicated hard-to-control method of transport can have a vector-control board (or, indeed, its predecessors with regular old rockets. Or fans, even, for you boring safety-lovin’ types.). Have fun!
But I Don’t Need One For This!
“Be advised that, following the recent series of incidents involving Imperial tourists, the Hierarchy of Transportation has added the following vehicles to the list of those requiring licensure for use on public roadways: flitters, hovercraft, psychokinetic amplifiers, skyhooks, grav-boards, floater disks, spiderpalanquins, rollagons, subterrenes, miniblimps, unispheres, brachiators, all forms of self-mobile furniture (specifically including beds, couches, and chaises longue), walking mecha, tilt-turbine hats, bouncecraft, autokites, powered boots, vector-control harnesses, self-laying slidewalks, nanocreeks, spacer pikes, gengineered snakes, fusion-assisted pogo sticks, jet-powered rocket pants, and cyberfeet.”
“In addition, vehicles with no axles shall be deemed vehicles with two axles for the purposes of road tolls.”
– law enforcement bulletin, seen somewhere in the Expansion Regions