I mean, sure, they may look like a chonky plastic model of a star-nosed mole shoved into a low-temperature, high-pressure suit, but while they are all that, the little guys have great gifts in the areas of mathematics, memory, and sensing patterns within randomness.
(Also, an awareness that that little chonky sophs in low-temperature high-pressure suits should hire big, mean bodyguards just in case.)
I have this evil, evil idea for an engineering AI and a fabber.
Bring your car in to be repaired. And, we repair everything. From the “classic” issues of British GTO cars having their wiring assembled by blind and drunk howler monkeys on meth to rebuilding rust-damaged cars that need their whole underbodies fixed…and doing it so quickly that you can drop your car off in the morning and pick it up in the evening.
I already covered this in an ancient piece where the TSA are concerned, but given some of the legal troubles Sikhs have had with the kirpan in recent years, imagine all the fun all manner of police and security services are going to have with people who are very insistent on carrying a blade that’s basically a space-wakizashi at all times.
Because if you have to ban those for security, it means that (a) your security sucks, or (b) your population is full of assholes, or (c) both, and both of those are excellent reasons why they aren’t going to be travelling around without their hanrian any time soon, m’kay?
This is assuming the Imperial in question doesn’t just straight up bribe the TSA agent with some fancy tech doodads or whatever that would allow them to hand in their notice immediately and retire peacefully. Can’t break an already broken system.
That latter reminds me of some thoughts I was having elsewhere on the evergreen-and-refreshed debates about tone policing and civility, which would also be the cause of much, um, “hilarity”.
When those deeply opposed to such things being required run into a culture that will state straight out that if you can’t conduct yourself in a courteous and civilized manner, then not only do you get nothing, but it is ethically correct that you should get nothing. Courtesy is a virtue, after all.
And if you reward unvirtuousness, you get more of it. Defense of civilization, don’ch’know?
This is where people are sat firmly down, it’s pointed out that the technology that makes things possible for Earth to be a better place comes from people who tend to do their assassinations by covert railgun snipers from orbit and arranging medical issues that cause the offending subject to find a less stressful career. And if they don’t understand this…well, the Secret Service office at McMurdo Bay needs some new staff members and wow that transfer paperwork has gotten processed very quickly…
(“Wait a minute, there isn’t a Secret Service office in McMurdo Bay!”
“…well, you’re going to have to stay there a few years to make sure it’s up and running properly. Exactly long enough to reach your retirement age without issues. Pack warm socks!”)
Spintronic Games and Valve Software To Release Translated Imperial Games On Steam
Seattle-Valve Software has entered into a ten-year adaptation, translation, and distribution contract with Imperial game company Spintronic Games to release and support a selection of twenty games. This includes the Shadowed Planet MMORPG, Sword Of The Galaxy 4X strategy game, House Of Stone And Light social management sim, and the first two games of the Shard Runner action-adventure game series.
“We’re honored to be working with Spintronic Games,” Daniel Boone, head of Platform Integration said in an interview. “This marks the first cooperation with an Imperial game development company and an American company, and the first round of games to be released will impress all the gamers out there.”
As a part of the contract, a full adaptation of Valve’s Half Life series will be developed with Spintronic Games for the Imperial market, along with Paradox Games Stellaris and about ten other games.
The Valve/Spintronics deal marks the first official English-language game release after First Contact. This is not the first video game contract between an Imperial and Earth game company, however. At PC+3, Type-Moon and Delightworks set up a four-game contract with Imperial fighting and eroge-game developer and distributor Two-Shadow Games to release Melty Blood:Type Lumina, Tsukihime, Fate/Stay Night, and an original VN/RPG set in the Fate universe using Imperial historical and mythological characters.
So, on this one, you may have heard of the recent Oberlin v. Gibson’s Bakery case which they lost spectacularly, with such fun quotes from the NYT article as:
“Oberlin had stopped ordering from the bakery but had offered to restore its business if charges were dropped against the three students or if the bakery gave students accused of shoplifting special treatment, which it refused to do.”
and
‘Carmen Twillie Ambar, Oberlin president, said that the case was far from over and that “none of this will sway us from our core values.” The college said then that the bakery’s “archaic chase-and-detain policy regarding suspected shoplifters was the catalyst for the protests.”’
So, um, I had a little inspiration:
Reporters asked the All Good Things, ICC director of loss prevention if this would in any way impact the opening of their new local outlet, or on the loss prevention policies they planned to enforce. Director Orliss Tambaran responded that they believed they were very well served at present with their “archaic electrolaser facial policy”.
Upon being pressed further with regard to rumors of other changes, Director Tambaran admitted that the legal department had been asked to look into potential problems with “clapping thieves in irons and leaving them chained to the bollards in front of the store, wearing pet-shaming signs, while they await constabular pick-up”.
(Later discussions with legal suggested (a) using the word “alleged” a lot, and being very clear that they were to be chained up to the bollards, not by the bollards.)
“Anybody stupid enough to try and rob from an All Good Things shop should be culled from the gene pool, if only because the other methods will cause innocent parties to be harmed in the process.”
The Eldrae discover that elephants are fully sophont and have a translatable language, and swiftly put them under protective guardianship. The Eldrae have harsh words and even harsher deeds for humans who are slow to get with the program. Cetaceans however turn out to be the equivalent of severely idiotic humans and their language consists mainly of dick jokes.