Technically, the exchange rate is currently fluctuating between roughly $2.00-2.10 USD to the Imperial Crown (which in early 21st century terms would have been less than $0.25). Behind the scenes, the foreign exchange market between the Empire and Earth is convoluted and regulated. Neither world per...
The Empire's diplomatic relations with Earth are with the United Nations only. Taking official sides in intra-planetary politics would be in breach of treaty. That said, ideologically the Empire is (despite its own history as a planet-spanning autocracy) at least sympathetic to the sovereignty of na...
The only kinds of unlawful speech are threats to a person's safety, and knowingly untruthful public statements intended to harm a person who is not a public figure.
There are no banned languages in Ermarian. However, the use of Soruharva (ie, magical incantations) in public settings is restricted and may constitute a breach of the peace if it threatens people's well-being or property.
Now for the subjective part. Eileen's announcement of his passing used his death as a soapbox to defend Zoe from "harassment", with a vague implication that her brother was abusive to Zoe, without any evidence besides her own word ( which given that Eileen's twitter bio has "feminist...
A vague mix of fiat and no-money-at-all. Precious metals were phased out and gradually replaced by backed credit notes in the early eleventh century, which were in turn replaced by a fiat currency in the late thirteenth; the imperial standard. This currency has been entirely digital for over two cen...
That sounds incredibly dangerous and irresponsible to use. And I work from home anyway. But if I had one of those literally every single one of Trump's Nuremberg rallies would be cancelled due to inclement weather.
The Empire controls its planet's landmass, which is approximately equal to that of Earth's continents. (The planet is slightly bigger, having 1.3 times Earth's radius; it's just got a lot more ocean.) The Empire does not strictly speaking control the planet's oceans (beyond the continental shelves)....
The executive branch is led by the Empress, whose second in command and personal advisor is the Chancellor. If she is temporarily unable to lead, the Chancellor is implicitly vested with most of her authority barring a few exceptions: The Chancellor cannot make permanent appointments to the Imperial...
A visitor from Earth would be surprised by the large number of sapient species that live here. The last census recognized sixty-seven of them, with humans making up approximately half of the population. If they were from the early 21st century, they would also be stunned by the tech level and the si...
The most devastating conflict in the history of our world was the Shard War, fought some seven hundred odd years ago between the Empire and the Deep Alliance. It lasted close to eight years and resulted in the deaths of close to eight million sophonts. (At the time, the population of the world was j...
The Empress (or Emperor) generally designates their own successor. In the past this was frequently a close relative (and in the more distant past, it was always the eldest child if one existed); this has fallen out of fashion, but is still permitted. The successor is subject to approval by the Assem...
Eternity. The Empire has survived long enough to solve (for the time being) some of the seemingly fundamental problems of life and civilization (eg conflict, disease, ecological stability, mortality) and face some of the more interesting ones, like: Can a civilization sustain itself and yet make rep...
So, in Fake It Til You Make It Fluttershy tries to overcome her lack of confidence by playing a character, but she overdoes it and the character turns out to be kind of mean. Hm.
In below median rankings (but especially those that are 99% or 100%), would it be possible to display the percentage rank from the bottom instead? Currently the top 1% is shown to within 0.1 percentage points, but this precision doesn't exist at the other end. It's possible to calculate it from the ...
I don't think it is controversial to say that it is morally wrong to say (or even hint) that someone should be raped. No exceptions. I've seen several people (whom I thought better of) do a take on this along the lines of "waaah the judge was not nice to the rapist", which is one of the mo...
Hey guys, sorry to spam this in Technical, but I know many you rely on this archive for stuff. :) I've migrated the archive over to a new host (from an aging RackSpace instance to a DigitalOcean droplet, specifically), and I'm about to switch the DNS. There should be no downtime during propagation a...
See Cyclis Mundi for a detailed explanation of Ermarianese time-keeping. To summarize: The year is divided in eight months of thirty-five days, each of which is about 12.5% longer than Earth's. The year begins on the first of Evermoon, roughly half a month after winter solstice. All four points of t...
Originally, we just have a solstice celebration that coincides with the new year on Ermarian. However, off-world traditions and rituals (mostly in secularized form) have sort of percolated into the Empire via cultural osmosis over the past century. Our winter celebrations now share some elements of ...
The Empress, though married to a man, identifies as bisexual. Her chief vizier is lesbian (and also married). Her daughter is pansexual, and also married. To a magical flying pony. I don't think I need to go on.
