My thought process was that somebody in the Air Force made one of those classic “own goal” mistakes and the Navy and the Army used it to fold most of the Air Force missions into their own organizations. Along with the Coast Guard (almost forgot about them!) who negotiated space into low-orbit SAR and inspection missions. CAS and atmospheric operations were moved back to the Army, low-orbit to the Coast/Space Guard, and other missions were moved to the Navy.
There was a show. Limited run BBC/HBO Max one with an Imperial Subscription backer service that got made four years after First Contact, called The Widening Gyerie. Drama/mystery/adventure series of an Imperial investigator getting a human Alpha combat-augmented sleeve after downloading and having to be a fish out of water while he hunted for what started out as a young scion of a powerful family getting in too deep somewhere and the family wanted him brought home.
Played up the “stranger in a strange land” aspect to the story, our MC learned fast but still got blindsided (the whole “how do you care for a baby” episode was comedy gold, with the “AAAAGH! It’s coming out green, from both ends!” scene being so perfectly memeable).
British Brevity was in play-five seasons of eight hour-long episodes each and they kept the story tight as hell. Still shows up on PBS reruns.
If we’re allowed to get recursively meta, what happens when a random Imperial discovers this website?
I’m expecting a causally consistent answer from one any minute now
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Here’s a hell scenario for you:
Expatriate with a kid.
Locale that doesn’t allow homeschooling.
Enough naïveté on the part of parent and child to go along with it “for the experience”.
…light blue touch paper and retire. No, seriously, retire. You don’t want to be working there when this shit lands.
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Are you kidding? I’d want to start working there just to watch the fireworks alone. I’d be junior enough that with a deep enough bunker, I could probably survive the oncoming disaster!
Screw retirement, I’m starting a drywall repair business right next to the complex
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I just thought of another factor in how post-contact Humanity would be.
A massive reduction of excuses for why people are the way they are.
Physical limitations-legitimate or otherwise? Fixable. And completely so.
Neurological issues such as dyslexia or ADD? Curable, with the added bonus that you could dial in settings that would allow you to have the advantages of certain mental states on cue.
Psychological issues like poor impulse control or PTSD? Regardless of the reasons why, it’s treatable, and often can be easily diagnosed and fixed in a few sessions.
Now, if someone is a terrible person…it’s because they chose to be one, one way or another. No more falling back on malfunctioning genes or brainmeat as an excuse, this is how they want to be. And most people find it terrifying to confront their own issues.
Also fixable and treatable now! If the people want to be treated, that is. Frankly I see this as only a good thing - the number of people wanting to self-improve is more than interactions on the internet make it out to be
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Not exactly. Like, you can get better, but not everyone can be cured. Some of us poor sods have been trying everything under the sun for multiple decades and don’t take kindly to insinuations that we just “don’t want to be treated”.
Edited to add: I’m sorry. That was excessively snippy. I’ve just been pulled off yet another drug that wasn’t working for me, and I am extremely cranky about it.
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There is also the lovely “if this is the cure, give me the disease” with some of these issues.
As someone with issues, I want them gone. Right now the best I can do is managed.
In random things I have seen this morning is a picture showing just how visible human skin damage from UV looks when you look at it in UV, even though it’s invisible in the visible-light spectrum.
Now introduce the people who can see in UV, and…
“What did you DO to your FACE?”
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I mean, Imperial treatments aren’t from under the sun. Besides, I’m lumping you, and most people I talk to, in the wanting to be self-improved category.
I’ll clarify that when I imply that people don’t want to be treated, I’m specifically talking about people have been in the gutter but still think that the vices and ailments of humanity are somehow worth preserving.
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“No human, the answer isn’t to put more mud on your face … what do you mean it’s white?”
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…okay, who let the Imperials plan the fireworks celebration for the 4th of July?
I can still see spots in my spots on my spots in my eyes. And I was wearing welding goggles!
If we take a moment to look at it from OUR side, the Flat Earth Society is going to explode overnight once news of Eliera’s shape comes filtering in
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How, with Imperial technology and fabricators, there will suddenly be a lot of released wealth because of how the Vimes’ Boots problem has been (mostly) solved because the Imperials don’t make crappy products just because it’s cheaper.
(If I can find a few minutes and let it out of my head, I have a whole story fragment based on this idea.)
At least once things move past the You Wouldn’t Download A Car War.
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Actually I think you would.
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Up until the point where somebody figures out how to properly monetize downloading a car (i.e. Napster never figured that out, iTunes did).
The cults of scarcity are strong with these ones.
But also these: Valuematic Vending | The Associated Worlds (eldraeverse.com)
(I mean, there’s a reason there still are emerging markets.)
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