Multiblood

As the human race expanded across the galaxy, they came into contact with a wide variety of other intelligences, many of whom integrated into human society. As a result, the work of medics became more and more difficult, as the range of possible patients increased. To make things a bit easier, scientists gradually developed synthetic replacements for various body parts that could work with a wide range of possible biologies.

Multiblood is multi-colored because it isn’t a single substance, but is made of several nanotechnical metamaterials that each perform a different function. The various elements of multiblood perform all the main functions of blood, they deliver oxygen and nutrients, remove carbon dioxide and waste products, patch up wounds and defend against pathogens. The iv bag that contains and delivers multiblood contains a probe that can detect the patient’s genetic makeup and communicates to the nanobots in the multiblood to optimize its activity. While it isn’t as effective as a replacement for natural blood as the genuine article, multiblod has saved countless lives by doing a good-enough job for the widest array of possible patients.

The Strider Battleoid

History

Designed as a mobile watchtower, the Strider battleoid was manufactured by Danforth Galactic under contract to the PLIN starting in GSC 925. The design was widely used by Planetary League garrison forces across the galaxy. Striders were fielded by both sides in the Great Reckoning. Production continued through the end of that war and continued well into the Imperial era after Danforth had been subsumed by the Holy Empire of Man.

Striders remained in service throughout Era-2 due to their low production cost. Several variants became popular and helped the longevity of the design.

The Strider was so cheap to produce and so prolifically distributed, that most militaries in the galaxy ended up with at least a few.

Capabilities and Specifications

The Strider was designed to be fast and light, sporting a minimum of armor, its defenses were centered on an advanced sensor suite and exceptional ground speed. The Strider was often deployed to areas with soft terrain, such as swamps, sandy deserts, and snowy polar areas. Because of this, it was designed to be relatively lightweight, with especially wide feet that helped prevent it from sinking in.

The Strider’s load-out was designed for base defense. Its main armament was a pair of anti-aircraft lasers mounted in the torso. It dealt with ground-based threats with an under-slung light railgun turret. In place of arms, the Strider possessed a pair of point-defense laser turrets to deal with drones, guided munitions, and the like.

The Strider was designed to serve the role of a mobile watchtower, and was 16 meters tall with the main sensor array mounted at its apex to serve that purpose.

Options and Variants

Danforth Galactic offered a number of options and variations of the basic Strider design.

The most popular options that most Striders possessed were a Spotlight attachment and a pair of light drone-racks that were highly valuable in increasing the unit’s sensor range and making it more suitable to patrolling deserted areas alone.

The most common variants were a set of specialization options for working in particular environments. Most of these were represented by the Snow-Strider, the Sand-Strider, and the Swamp-Strider.

Ghosts

View fullsize

Grandpa: Timmy, you’d better do your homework.

Timmy: I don’t have any homework grandpa, not since mom bought the neural inductance educator.

Grandpa: I don’t like you gallivanting about with those Bravaxians. Mark my words, they’re a bad influence.

Timmy: I don’t have to listen to you. You’ve been dead for almost a whole year now, and the service contract on your ghost is going to be up soon. You won’t be so bossy when your projector drone is packed up in the closet.

---

The Eternal You Life Extension Group started offering services in the last decades of Era-0. Their most popular service was the Ghost System that would upload a complex simulation of the subject’s personality into an artificial intelligence system coupled to a holographic projection system. The Ghost System was installed in a drone or (less expensively) in a particular location, often a residence. The subject would buy an initial service contract (often for a year), with the option for extension going to the inheritors of the deceased’s estate.

A word about beads

Bead-making is possibly the widest-spread technology in the galaxy. It requires only the barest minimum of knowledge, and since most intelligent life-forms tend not to develop very sophisticated civilizations on their own, it is one technology that is accessible to nearly every intelligent species. They are made by species as diverse as the Vangalri, who lack the sense of sight, but use beads as part of their writing system, and Thanians, who make them underwater out of shells.

Bead-making was declared a “Galactic Heritage Technology” by the Planetary League in G.S.C. 435. All the major factions and nations have their own currencies, but the bead trade is the closest thing that exists to a universal currency. Even though the trade value of beads declines rapidly as technology improves, they remain at least somewhat relevant as a decorative item even on the most technically sophisticated worlds.

Negative Energy Technology

Negative Energy is a natural phenomenon linked to gravity and the curvature of space.  It has a number of practical uses, from creating artificial gravity fields, to hyper-efficient refrigeration and noise-cancellation systems, to some of the most powerful weaponry in the galaxy.  It is also the key to spatial compression, the primary FTL (faster than light) technology in human-controlled space.  It even impacts the world of communications with spatial compression radio technology.

The generation of negative energy is generally accomplished through the use of Casimir Stacks (a device that operates on the Casimir effect ), or through the squeezed light technique. 

Manipulation of negative energy often requires the use of time crystals, exotic objects that never reach thermal equilibrium, as well as nega-conductors, special materials that can transmit negative energy.

Negative energy can also be stored in an anticapacitor.  When charging, anticapacitors are said to "charge down", rather than charging up, as one might think of a normal energy storage device.

Negative Energy Hazards

A negative energy field counteracts positive energy that it comes into contact with, so a common injury from exposure to excessive negative energy is frostbite, as it absorbs the heat in the environment.  An environment rich in negative energy is one with dim light or darkness, little or no sound, and cold temperatures.  All movement slows down in its presence.  Electronics often fail in such environments as well.

This feature also makes negative energy based weapons the preferred armament of assassins and spies.  Where a conventional weapon would give away its presence with emitted light and sound, a negative energy blaster or blade blocks out light and sound, making its use harder to detect.  

Negative energy systems have to be carefully shielded and insulated. If they aren't, the area around the equipment can quickly become hazardously cold.

Grabber Trucks

Developed from a combination of heavy-duty mining equipment and battleoid components, grabber trucks were a versatile piece of earth-moving equipment.  Based on the body of a large dumptruck, grabber-trucks were capable of relatively independent operation, as the grabber arm could load large objects into the hopper, even in the absence of other earth-moving equipment.  Grabber trucks were used extensively in mining, construction, and terraforming operations.

After the crash

"A few days after the crash, I was out in the desert, looking for other survivors. Food was scarce, and things were looking bad, when I crossed a ridge, and there, dead ahead was the best thing that I have ever seen.  One of the large cargo pods, mostly intact had popped open when it had crashed into the valley.  Inside was an Ares Systems series 80,000 grabber truck.  The AI assistant had already used the arm to set the truck upright, and was apparently just waiting for signs of life to come along.  As I came down the ridge, it flashed its lights at me and lowered the access ladder to the cab.  The best part was that the crew cabin was fully stocked and ready.  I had food and water, a place to sleep, and, of course, a big grabber truck that could do a lot of big jobs.  The cargo pod mostly held surveying equipment, so I took a couple survey drones, and loaded them into the auxiliary equipment bay opposite the arm (it was a one-armed model).  These were perfect lookouts to scout the way ahead.  After I had settled into the crew cabin and tested out the truck, I sent up one of the drones, and it spotted a bunch of wreckage not far down the valley.  Time to get to work."  --

From the vlog of Dennis Glich, survivor of Garcia's Hope

Numguinitiso paste

Numguinitiso paste  is a spicy condiment, light orange in color, that also acts as a mild numbing agent.  Slightly gritty in texture, it is a rare delicacy from the Empire of 1,000,000 Suns.  Humans generally enjoy numguinitiso paste on chicken or vegetables, mostly as a way to make relatively bland foods more interesting.  The numbing properties of numguinitiso paste make it a somewhat risky condiment, as many people have choked when their throats became too numb to swallow properly. 

Numguinitiso paste was invented around GC 1230 by the Vangalri chef Nalgax Blom.  The main ingredient in  numguinitiso paste is the same flying jellyfish-like creature that is also the base for the popular desert blovonde, but it is treated in a chemical bath that radically changes its properties. 

Tectonic Stabilizers

Tectonic stabilizers are huge robotic platforms used in terraforming operations to reduce geological activity on a planet.  A tectonic stabilization platform is typically built on top of a large drill head and burrows deep into the ground, typically at some critical location on a fault line.  Tectonic stabilizers are often deployed in networked groups to reduce geological activity in a particular region. 

Once in place, the tectonic stabilizer deploys a number of different tools to absorb and mitigate geological forces.  Most such platforms include enormous shock absorbers and thermocouples that convert geological activity into electricity.  This energy is then used to power the platform, with any excess power transferred to the surface via long power cables that extend from the top of the platform.

While in place, most tectonic stabilizers also deploy a number of other tools, such as drills, jackhammers, earth-moving equipment, etc. to shift the earth around it into more stable configurations to reduce seismic activity.  This activity is coordinated by the platform's artificial intelligence, as these platforms are deployed without any biological crew.