“ In the Middle Ages, and even up to the early twentieth century, most of Europe's executioners were related: the Sansons and Deiblers in France, the Pierrepoints in England, etc. The reason for this was that, it generally not being socially acceptable to, well, kill people, executioners and their children could, generally, only marry other executioners or <i>their</i> children.
The parallels with massively inbred, Hapsburg-style dynasties are obvious- imagine a rather clever but politically inept satirist noting this, and being sentenced by the latter to a meeting with the former; even worse, imagine a dynasty of deranged and deformed executioners- think Texas Chaisaw Massacre with government funding.”
“ In a certain nation, no-one except the Emperor is allowed to have a name. Therefore, the people give themselves pseudo-names called 'callings'. Examples of callings: A family is known as the Red Sparrow family. The father is called Swooping Red Sparrow. The wife is Bright Red Sparrow Blue Lizard because she was called Bright Blue Lizard before marriage. Their daughter, until she becomes an adult, is Daughter of Red Sparrow. Their sons are Eldest Son of Red Sparrow and Younger Son of Red Sparrow.”
“ Daedalus Station is a 550-meter long space hulk drifting in trans-Uranian space, reduced to a derelict by the catastrophic failure of its dimensional reactor. The failure of the short-lived Paradigm VI reactor created a stable dimensional bore, a three-meter wide disc in the engineering section.
What is on the other side of the rift?
Why is the rift anchored to the ship instead of a point in space?”
