Recent content by Axis Kast

The Dutch have West New Guinea, where they have built an equatorial space elevator.

The Space Elevator at Singapore occupied most of what had been Bintan and Lingga Islands, purchased at exorbitant prices from newly-independent Indonesia. Imperialists in Europe insured their colonies against rebellion by mortgaging them to the space race, and, ultimately, the U.N. Mission to...

This is true. I often use Biblical names for characters from imagined nations on Old Earth, but in this case, there was no need to go into that. Wojnak has a Polish given name, and Tamm's name is Finnish-Estonian. "Daedam" is the Korean word for "bold." Joem Hoon is a generic Korean name.

Wojnak's Grove was a protected farm at a minor oasis on the Octanali Salt Pan in the eastern foothills of the Upper Sawtooth Range established by Kellerite renegade Jerzy Wojnak and his household in MY7. Its chief occupation after MY11 was the manual cultivation of samp using seed stock...

A major question, as I see it, is what entities might be able to provide some of the same functions as states. As I mentioned in Post #240, governments must satisfy the demand for value. If we set aside the role that governments play in providing physical security against threats both foreign...

10 October 2049 - Rangoon in the aftermath of Cyclone Charni. Her Majesty's Government found the costs of reconstruction unbearable and earned the intense enmity of its Burmese subjects by taking the decision not to rebuild the colony's capital city. Supercharged by global warming, storms with...

Горячий рассвет, a geothermal powerplant abandoned by its University operators in late MY16 after it was rendered inaccessible by natural disaster. The partially-picked-over remnants of a quadrapidal drilling rig, still fat with leavings. Hive scrappers approach in the foreground, game for...

The sheer inefficiency of the Unity project is delightful, both as an homage to the spirit of the original Peacekeeping Forces faction (and by extension, the original mission itself), but also because it's such a backhanded way to achieve security: "We can't be cut off if we aren't dependent on...

Artist's rendition of a Sounders Whale. The Sounders Whale, also xenoleviathan, or popularly, xeno-lev, is a species of toothed cetacean common in Chiron's southern abyssal depths. Sounders Whales are named after Simbel "Big Sim" Sounders, a Peacekeeper electrician's mate who first captured...

Great post! I think it was the BattleTech universe that first turned me on to the use of real-world corporations in science fiction with Federated-Boeing. I also use some fake corporations not of my own design, like Struan’s, which is from James Clavell’s The Asian Saga. As a historian, I’ve...

Okay, so we need a server migration and somebody capable of dealing with a malicious script. That's a good start! Thank you!

I think there should be two ways to go about finding that. First, if you can specify what kind of work needs doing, we might be able to find some folks with those skills who'd be willing to lend a hand. Second, if there's a paid service that can host and troubleshoot the tech side, we could...

Thanks, BU! Any news about the forums? We're all interested in supporting you, if you've got a plan. And not just with donations. We're happy to run down people you might need to help fix the site.

Sights along the road to Gaia's Breath called to mind of some of Old Earth's most unlikely evolutionary tricks. Outside the tall forests of Chiron's tropics, trees grew sparse and crooked. Competition from fungus kept their root structures from making the most of the nitrate beds. Over the...

What a pleasure it is to log on today, my birthday, and spend some time with MysticWind’s reflections. I’m flattered by, and deeply appreciative of, the engagement. Thank you. Hopefully these words of mine will do your analysis some justice. “Maximal” is a very good description for RtD. The...