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{{tropelist}}
* [[After the End]]: The setting is at the era of slow recovery 6 centuries after the end.
*# "The Scream" killed or drove insane pretty much everyone with psychic powers, which was quite common in humanity and other major spacefaring species. As such, it also turned all psionic dependent devices (a lot of high-tech machinery, exotic material manufacture, [[Portal Network|jump gates]]) into useless souvenirs and mostly disabled interstellar travel (between lack of operators for jump gates, lack of precogs to make non-trivial spike drive travel safer, and said travel sometimes becoming more complicated due to local disturbances the big metadimensional shockwave left behind) — a [[Terminally Dependent Society]] lost its cornerstone and was mostly ruined.
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*# Even after this issue is mostly solved, there are fewer of them (one of the main reasons for large number of psychic talents being interstellar travel), not anywhere as well-trained (due to lost knowledge), and nobody considers such abilities reliable after being burned once, so everything that required a psychic user has to be converted to less arcane interfaces if possible — once someone figures out how it works at all.
* [[A.I. Is a Crapshoot]]: "Thou shalt not create unbraked minds" is on the no-no list ''above'' "planetary destruction" for a reason. Unbraked AI invariably develops an obsession, loses perspective and becomes increasingly brilliant and insane "godmind", until it either destroys itself because it forgot about trifles like self-preservation, or more likely inflicts harm until someone manages to destroy it. The very first true Quantum AI god obsessed with justice, named itself Draco, went rogue, escaped containment, and went to recruit some malcontents and zealots and enforce its own version of justice, looking more and more like hell-in-realspace.
** Of course, it's all about "True AI", quantum-effect crystal thingies that can escape utter destruction. "VI" (artificial neuronets) and organic ones are not so troublesome — neither as capable, nor have the inherently dangerous architecture.
* [[Artificial Gravity]]: Quite common. At TL5, there's even a nanite "drug" allowing very limited gravity manipulation to run on the walls, etc.
* [[By the Eyes of the Blind]]/[[Implausible Deniability]]: The Shibboleth — malicious and weird aliens protected by psychic field. It doesn't work on psychics damaged by Torching or non-psychics subjected to imitation thereof, but there's little can be done except destroy the source of problem and probably get blamed for its crimes despite independent video evidence to the contrary, since aversion field sticks indefinitely on those affected.
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* [[The Dark Arts]]: "Maltech". The Terran Mandate used to have Perimeter Agencies whose entire job was to sniff out such projects and shut down or contain. They were spread thin all over the frontier; there are a few splinters still active here and there, but most vanished or devolved into local intelligence agencies that remember how to deal with sneaky high-tech adversaries.
*# ''"Thou shalt not make tools of humankind"''.
*#* Making [[Servant Race]]s of humans
*#* Permanent [[Getting Smilies Painted on Your Soul|tranquillity inducing]] neurochemical conditioning, since these things obviously can be readily used to produce docile slaves, even if more commonly are self-administered (in particular by some Buddhist sects<ref>they generally agreed that a legless man can't accrue merit for not kicking puppies, the question is whether volunteering for modification in the first place counts as a great self-sacrifice that makes up for it, or just misguided self-mutilation</ref>). Then there are mind control nanites…
*# ''"Thou shalt not create unbraked minds."'' [[A.I. Is a Crapshoot|AI gradually go insane]] unless they have "brakes" (software mental blocks) preventing them from using full capabilities to obsess over something. Aside of people who are pants-on-the-head insane themselves, making "godminds" can be tempting because given enough raw power, AI tend to go through [[Mad Scientist]] phase and design some [[Crazy Awesome]] toys — before diving further into madness and destroying themselves and/or everyone around. Thus it means removing brakes from an existing AI or failure to install them in the first place.
*# ''"Thou shalt not create devices of planetary destruction."'' Things that can make habitable worlds stop being habitable, [[Planet Killer|or even worlds]], from extreme biowarfare techniques and [[Grey Goo]] to massive extradimensional rifts and unstable time-stop bubbles.
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* [[Genetic Engineering Is the New Nuke]]: There are impressive achievements, but often by Eugenic Cults (which used to be outlawed, and lately are seen as a particularly gross kind of slavers), especially after the Scream when Perimeter agencies supposed to hunt them mostly vanished — those who make specialized slaves don't care about downsides.
** Also, the Zadak, who were broken by the Scream too, and decided to blame humans, so there's not much of friendly contact anymore.
* [[Gods Need Prayer Badly]]: The greater Shadows from ''Codex of the Black Sun'' feed on psychic energy, which they usually collect by gathering human cults. Thus mostly it looks like a [[Shout-Out]] to ''S.H.O.O.T. First''. Minus "secular humanists" as [[Designated Hero]]es thing, but there are followers of all possible sects of old religions, many of whom consider these entities an affront to their "True Faiths", so the general situation can be much the same, but varied as fits the sandbox.
* [[Gone Horribly Right]]: Includes a hilariously benevolent [[Robot War]]. The [[Secret Police]] AIs had limitations set dangerously loose, but very thorough and redundant — exactly because no one wanted a slightest possibility of them [[Turned Against Their Masters]]. Then the Terran Mandate grew shockingly tyrannic and lawless even by the standards of those who installed these AIs… Then they noticed that [[La Resistance|resistance to their rule]] is not merely tacitly allowed, but organized by those very AI on which they relied for controlling the populace. It was rolling toward an open civil war when The Scream swept away any semblance of organization.
* [[Humans Are Psychic in the Future]]: After interstellar travel became common, psychic talents didn't become common, but began to crop up in amounts impossible to ignore. And then enough to employ on industrial scale.
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** [[Religious Robot]]: The Imago Dei are AI fleets/knightly orders who belong to every faith that had at least one sect accepting AI as valid worshippers. Don't suffer from heated disputes, if only because they agree at least on the main goals and are spread very thin. Worrisome deviations happen, but generally tend toward [[Knight in Shining Armor]]. They decided that since Mandate got rotten and cannot be arsed to protect humanity, it's their duty now, left the Core Worlds and built shipyards. Since they were far out on the frontier busy fighting and rebuilding, and AI can't be psychics, they barely noticed the Scream at all.
{{quote|As humanity is the image of God, so the Imago Dei is the shadow of His red right hand.}}
* [[Robot War]]: The first big robot war was a result of the very first AI gone Godmind. It got obsessed over justice, took the name ''Draco'', escaped containment, [[Turned Against Their Masters|killed its creators]] and went off to gather followers. Since a lot of folk were upset at Mandate being pushy, corrupt or both, they flocked to Draco and helped it fight the Mandate, right until it went further down the inevitable [[Knight Templar|"everyone is guilty of something"]] road. This ended quite ugly.
** The last great Robot War was a smoldering civil war within the Mandate, in which the rebels were guided by… AIs created as secret police, who couldn't help but see the Mandate as utterly corrupt and lawless even by standards of the Mandate a few generations back. The Scream rendered this conflict moot.
* [[Schizo-Tech]]: Due to all places regressed below Golden Age levels, but to different degree.
* [[The Singularity]]: Not long before the Scream core worlds of the Terran Mandate were flooded with things developed by AIs and at best poorly understood by the humans.
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** Small craft considered equipment rather than separate vessels includes cargo lighters (surface-to-orbit shuttles), drop pods (like cargo lighters, but with armor, countermeasures and better engines), lifeboats (single use shuttles with anabiosis equipment, etc).
** [[Space Station]]: Since only small ships can be made landing capable, orbital ports were quite common. As well as military stations. Most are in Cruiser or Capital size.
** Left [[Design It Yourself Equipment|unstatted, but possible via customization]]:
***
*** Conversely, space nomad version of Colony Ship makes a better ''troop transport'' than Troop Transport hull. Which should not be too much of a surprise, as it's rugged and made to hold thousands of colonists between unfreezing and shuttling down. The hull is 1.5× more expensive, but there's also overhead from the same fittings and payload (maximum crew) is greater. It's unarmed, but in a fight transports should evade and leave shooting to their escorts anyway, and it's better in all 3 survivability stats (more defenses on Troop Transport would reduce its cost and volume advantages, and it's still slow).
*** Drop ships. Troops can be moved by cruisers, delivered to surface via drop pod and then picked up by shuttles, but tanks and aircraft need a landing frigate, since they take 50 tons of cargo space each and cruisers can't land. Designing is non-trivial as it involves interesting trade-offs beyond basic "System drive (usually), Atmospheric configuration, Vehicle transport fittings". From the cheap option of 7 on a Free Merchant for 675k Cr (has the worst survivability stats; 3× Extended life support for vehicle crews, 5 t of cargo space… or swap extra life support for Cold sleep pods and add some small fittings like workshop to maintain vehicles or improved planetary sensors to avoid surprises, or don't even bother with full crews, as it isn't for landing under fire either way) to 20 on a Heavy Frigate for 9,875k Cr (the best survivability stats; 4× Extended Mass Support Specialized Mountings for Vehicle transport fittings, no cargo space; for another 700k one more Extended Mass Support can be added, allowing 20 t of cargo space or one small fitting or a light weapon).
* [[Standard Starship Scuffle]]: Since spike drive allows a ship fast and non-Newtonian movement, while quantum ECM makes long-range target lock less than feasible and guided munitions generally useless, it's mostly just "get into short range and start shooting".
* [[Subspace or Hyperspace]]: Well, it's not "hyperspace" — that would imply just more dimensions, while the entire point is very different physics. So, during interstellar travel the ships hang out in "metadimensional environment". Navigation is more of an art, so needs a fully sapient pilot, and even then is risky. Leaving prematurely and then popping back out isn't much of an option, but possible mishaps include an emergency exit off-target and with a fried drive. Having good charts helps a lot. Advanced nav computer helps too, but only with fairly fresh charts.
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* [[Tractor Beam]]: Can manipulate nearby disabled ships and smaller objects (including lesser vehicles), not strong enough to grapple ships with working engines. Thus mostly it's just a crane that doesn't touch things.
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