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Before I devote too much additional energy to reposting my material here, can I get a shout out of folks who are engaged? Need to think about conserving for forums where this might be better-suited. Thanks!

SMACER guntokka seen with early-model data wheel. Note the mechanical prosthesis replacing the left arm. The data wheel was a mono-directional information-retrieval device used for mind-machine interface during the late twentieth century. Distinguishing components included a high-capacity tape...

Landing Pod workshops could be turned to war-making but were suitable only to a point. Like the designers of Unity itself, they settled for the proven, if less capable, designs of another era. The mercenary was the freest person on Planet. Armed to travel, he roamed wherever the whistle of...

Popular mythology blames administrative incompetence and corporate malfeasance for most cases of colony death, but the historical record is replete with examples of self-immolation over social conflicts. Unity's destruction at the hands of nihilistic sociopaths seeking only the emotional high...

Popular mythology blames administrative incompetence and corporate malfeasance for most cases of colony death, but the historical record is replete with examples of self-immolation over social conflicts. Unity's destruction at the hands of nihilistic sociopaths seeking only the emotional high...

Responders restore network connectivity at Epsilon Center shortly after a bombing raid by Ascendancy Needlejets. An official policy of pacifism brought no relief for the Cybernetic Consciousness. The Prime Function struggled to understand why this should so. Her units had violated nobody's...

Commencement Day celebrants stroll the main promenade of University Commons in the company of friends and family come to tout their success. The attractions seen in this painting were permanent in nature. On the far left can be seen the recovered hull of Experimental Satellite-76, the first...

Captain Victoria Reyes resigned her commission in the United States Army in 2039 to serve the secessionist Republic of Texas. Her open letter of intent, published contemporaneously by the Houston Chronicle, was addressed the next morning by the White House Press Secretary and is archetypal of...

The Worldshaper Battery fires atomic salvos in the direction of the Blue Line. A palpable sense of desperation now set in amongst the Human Pact. Reports from Lab Three, Shcherbinaville, Lobachevsky Park, and Razvitia-Progress Base indicated the allies were down to just four months worth of...

Given the tools and knowledge predominant among the survivors, direct-fire energy weapons were easier to produce than conventional artillery tubes. Unity crawlers were excellent gun tractors: rated for extremely heavy loads, designed around redundant systems, fitted to operate in NBC...

Ten years passed before the population replacement rate turned positive. Most losses were delayed fatalities caused by injuries sustained during the Unity Crisis. Population replacement was an urgent problem for the Unity survivors, and would have been even had the settlement process unfolded...

By volume, more than one half of all Unity's cargo and equipment was affixed to the exterior of the hull for independent deployment by retrograde rocket. This made it impossible to access from the ship's interior. Here, a Multi-Directional Salvage Unit of the Conclave Flight Pillar makes...

"Raid by two-stage Hopper" appears as the final entry for 391 individual colony sites in the Great Register of Planet, a crowdsourced history that began at Mission Launch and remained active in the Planetary Datalinks until the First Destruction. Survival suits were never completely stowed...

Information Socialists posited that, once disclosed through shared or recorded, an idea was the shared property of all people. Hackers, like Holnists, made a window-dressing of this philosophy, though most data piracy in the Hopkirk Era was for personal entertainment or partisan political...

Notwithstanding the near-catastrophe of 1973, Israel and Iran more or less ran the Middle East table from the late twentieth century forward, acting in concert themselves, or with the United States, to blunt the ambitions of neighboring states. In early 1979, the Shah was dying of aggressive...

A Hive labor unit distributes the standard ration. Civic Dieticians worked day and night to enhance the gruel's nutritional value but the Chairman insisted that it be rendered flavorless. Longing for joy in food was an "anchor sign," he said. In Talents, deviation from the Chairman's Tenets...

Specialization of labor is both the first sign of a wealthy society and the very means by which it can become that much wealthier. Tests of faction leadership on Chiron were often about creating opportunities for some of Earth's best-educated people to do what they were good at. Mission...

Writing in the 1920s, German architect Herman Sörgel proposed that his country's expansionist ambitions could be fulfilled by draining the Mediterranean Sea. For as long as humans have lived with the Earth, we have attempted to change it, usually for commercial reasons. The dam and the ditch...

"The Stacks" are an area of volcanic badlands in far northwestern Agammen bounded by the Odyssean Sea to the north, the Iapetian Piers to the south and west, and lava flows to the east. The nearest permanent settlement is Watch Station LR-4, maintained by the Memory of Earth. Ambient winter...

At Folger's Tear, the waters of the broad River Lethe completed an important milestone on their their long journey to the sea. Flat, fertile plains beckoned irresistibly to human settlers. Pilgrims made the place their home in MY4 using materials found at nearby crash sites. Hungry for familiar...