--- wrote:
> To paraphrae:
>
>
> > ...I don't know if this has been beaten to death or not...
> >
>
> Yes, and more than once. Not quite as often as "what is TL", "define
> Imperial commerce", "what is a Feudal Technocracy", "what the heck is Jump
> masking?", or "how DO pirates operate?", but it has come up numerous times in the
> history of the TML. The closest thing to concensus on this matter is that the
> game maps are of Jumpspace relationships which *can* resemble realspace
> positions, but which don't have to.
>
> (Note that several of the above "dead horse" questions are actually deeply
> intertwined, so an argum... discussion about one will almost always drag in at
> least one other.)
>
> GC
> > _______________________________________________
Dead Horse answers....
What is TL? That depends upon which part of the "T" and "L" sections of the dictionary you prefer.
For me it refers to "toaster luge", the arcane art of going down a near vertical drop with
toasters attached as airbrakes. This arcane sport last for a few years during the 1950s, but seems
to have died out rather quickly (and literally).
Imperial Commerce is the legally and culturally acceptable means by which a powerful nation
"transfers" other people's items into its own possession in exchange for "improving" or civilizing
the lot of said peoples. Unfortunately most people resist such humanitarian assistance, and the
government must use coercive means to bring about this voluntary exchange, leaving lasting
gratitude among the overjoyed survivors.
Feudal technocracy is a governmendt where the spred of tecknologee is feudal or is an act of
feudility. Eventually this policy ingenders nihilism and violint revoloozhon. This ranks with
other feudal polizees include the keepin' of steam power after they makedt the gasolin injun,
Henry Ford's "Ship of Fool's" peace mission, the marketin of "New Coke", and my tryin' to pass
Mrs. Wickies reeding cumprehenzan an' speling class back in the second grade.
Jump Masking is the deliberate attempt to pretend that destructive horseplay is something
unattentional. In other words your deliberate crashing into a display case chock full of rare 16th
century Ming China wasn't your fault, it was ADHD. Your jumping into the path of a bus full of
senior citizens, causing the driver to swerve into the path of a van full of nuns was due to
malicious or sociopathic behavior, it was low blood sugar. That ax in your girlfriend's forehead
wasn't premeditated murder, it was convulsive hiccups in midswing....while chopping wood.....in
the living room near the credenza.
How DO pirates operate? Hopefully with anaesthesia.
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