Dry, No Lube - Appendices & Glossary

Government: 23% democratic, 18% monarchic, 25% despotic, 5% AI, 2% anarchist/primitive, 23% confederacy, 1% Direct Federated Control (DFC)

Slavery: 12% full, 19% indent, 68% abolished/none

AI: 4% full AI citizenship available, 88% AI citizenship banned, 7% no policy

Capital punishment: 18% full death, 52% temporary death, 15% mixed, 14% outlawed

Spaceflight: 8% fully interstellar, 77% fully interplanetary, 2% orbital, 11% none

Cloning: 17% fully legalized, 12% partially legalized, 55% organs only, 15% no policy

Militsia: 80% land-based, 16% space-based, 3% interstellar

Selected GDP (Federated mean was 32k shekels/capita; poverty line variable:

• Grand vizier, Pupke IV: 67,005
• Mining engineer, Tango Calistis (B): 51,330
• Physician, Sol III: 61,440
• Fleet lieutenant: 45,050
• Militsia field-marshal, Wadlwengulwa: 42,000
• Laborer, Sol III-1 (Luna): 13,340
• Volcano rancher, Sol VIII-8 (Triton): 43,000
• Clone farmer, Urgulania III (eighth moon): 15,225 (plus benefits)
• Prostitute, Kallamishte-4: 41,700

* * *

Master Pixy glossary

Weapons, Tactics, and Targeting

• Arc-mortar: a hullside weapons system.
• Chequer maneuver: a tactical measure used during simple doglegs.
• Far-beam, a distant-detection monitor for friendly vessels.
• Fishnet: a loose mutually-supporting formation.
• Flash-rifle, a small arm.
• Hectate, an explosive used in STG systems.
• Laser projector: a hullside weapons system.
• Sensor shadow, the blind areas behind massy objects.
• Type 11, a narrow-spread torpedo with an 88 km effective range.
• V-spread, a way of launching torpedoes.

Commo and Trans

• Circuit ship: a robot-controlled vessel that tansports individual personnel from bases to their ships.
• Coding gun: a commo device that projects encrypted plaintext.
• Coding table: a place where encrypted correspondence can be read.
• Cone: a speaker
• Intertubes: sound carriers within a ship.
• Jam hammer, a switch that permits manual jamming.
• Low-beam, a form of communication commonly used for distant broadcasts. Can penetrate lightspace.
• Mass Intertube: a 1MC.
• Mid-beam, a form of communication common when ships are near each other.
• Phonic unit, the equivalent of headphones. You sit "under" it. They make wearers look a little like penises.
• Sniffer: a mid-beam function that allows frequency scanning.
• Strength meter: a beam readout reflecting signal strength.
• Vox box: a more private comms system that eats power.

Propulsion

• Betakerosene (beta): a stable and efficient rocket fuel.
• Fling-motor: a critically important component of the propulsion system.
• Furtz Generator: something connected with lightspace or something.
• Lightspace: same as hyperspace, warpspace, etc.
• Kickers, kicker pucks: small booster pellets burned in a small ship's exhaust for extra thrust.
• Lerbal Effect, Lerbal Wave: a turbulence that affects nearby objects when a big ship goes into lightspace.
• Nedrick Effect, which makes stars invisible at extreme speeds.
• Petrolatum hyperventate, a newly-developed fuel. Smells like mint.
• Subspace, anything that's not lightspace. "Normal" space.

Geography, Navigation, and Measures

• Caster Signature/Index, a measure of certain aspects of a star's attributes.
• Core, the: the oldest wolds with human habitation. A colloquial term for the Hearth.
• Cygnus VII: site of a major drydock and repair basin.
• Eight-point bearing: the gold standard of optical navigational fixes.
• Hearth, the: the oldest worlds with human habitation. A literary name for the Core.
• Kyksos III, an important governmental center. Home to the Imperial Fountain with its twin streams.
• IV-Kovolev-D, an inhabited asteroid known for its whorehouses.
• Kylekin B, an inhabited asteroid. Presumably A is, as well.
• Macro-comet, a type of planetoid in interstellar space.
• Marsant Line, something to do with gravity anomalies within systems.
• Masaakama (Swahili, "ore place"): the near moon of Phaeton IV, a notoriously difficult navigational zone. A major source of flerium.
• Nosferates, a small-range star with 14 satellites. An important Cathos listening post.
• Perimeter: a catchall term for the areas far away from the Core.
• Phaeton IV, an earthlike planet, with the moons Masaakama and Siomahali (no ore).
• Plaster Nebula, located somewhere on OP4
• Plot repeater: a digest version of the ship's vital information mounted in wardrooms, quarters, and other such places.
• Poronkusema: six kilometers.
• Q-angle: a measure of the internal slope of a cone of destruction. Seven is nominal.
• Star plot: an automatic navigator.
• Torms, a measure of temperature used on many worlds. Equal to approximately 2x Kelvin, or a bit over 10x Celsius. Named for Anders Torms.

Medical and Cloning

• Bumtabs: an obsolete stimulant, now legalized.
• Dietary recursion: a way of staying fit.
• Disinfection suite: a type of waterless shower used in temporary quarters.
• Drywipe: a bodily cleaning aid.
• Fiver: a mutant with a fifth lobe.
• Gene czar. A professional matchmaker, with an eye toward sustainability.
• Haemodrive: a portable circulatory system.
• Injection meter, an improved form of syringe, faster-acting.
• Jolt, the. Short for turbojoltosis, a plague on many worlds since cured.
• Metering implants: devices that eliminate menstruation.
• Morliosis, a cellular disease reputed to be caused by exposure to Lerbal waves.
• Morph: an illegal depressant. Varieties include Anchor and Drag.
• Portable Surgeon, a brand name for an automatic suturing device. Commonly seen in homes and hotel rooms.
• Stasis cupboard: a deep freezer for clonable brains.
• Stim: an illegal stimulant. Varieties include Crystal, Bump (pills), and Rush (geltabs).
• Stim-stick: analogous to a vape pen.
• Stackpipe: a piece of drug paraphernalia used when freebasing bump.
• Suture iron, a thing for closing wounds.
• Three-bagger, a mutant with three testes.

Scientific Principles and Effects

• Blue Point: the point at which a shuttle is far enough from a capital ship to turn its gravity on.
• Gravitational creep: the tendency for a degravitized part of a ship to degravitize nearby compartments.
• Lerbal Effect, Lerbal Wave: a turbulence that affects nearby objects when a big ship goes into lightspace.
• Nedrick Effect, which makes stars invisible at extreme speeds.
• Neo-translight: a state referring to a ship either just within (pretrans) or just after leaving (posttrans) lightspace.
• Sparsen Effect: something impossible to nullify.
• Spectro: a fast, cheap materials analysis.
• Ullmer Principle: a concept of shuttle piloting, relating to the solar wind.
• Weather bladder: a weather balloon

Shipboard construction and systems

• Autopallet, an air-cushioned loading system for transferring material among cargo areas.
• Auto-prod: a hullside system that can be preset to keep organic armor in place.
• "Buttfuckers:" a slang term for Type 4B4 robots, so called because their arms are generally bent as if to grasp a pair of hips and their sensor proboscis resembles a penis.
• Buzz-lift lighting modules: some sort of newly-required piece of shit, frequently burning out.
• Clobbet: a vane on the side of a big ship.
• Conductor fluid: a liquid used as a primary system for wired backups.
• Differential lock: a small passage meant to go between areas of different gravity.
• Drive banks, the stern openings through which thrust emerges.
• Duffel-slot, fixture in a deck meant to hold duffel cases.
• Electrocoat: a zero-G paint. Highly toxic.
• Electrotape, a contact tape used for temporary adhesion. Deactivates, sans residue, with an electric pulse.
• Collapser bar: some sort of helm maneuver, useful when compensating for loose stabilizers.
• Fleromorphic basalt (flerium): a fuel additive, immensely unstable when unrefined, at which it's highly explosive above 150F/700Torms.
• Gravisensor: a gravity sensor, highly delicate, containing Pritz Compensators.
• Interphaser: something to do with the nuclear maintenance subsystem.
• Negative Energy Shields (NES), the ubiquitous "shields."
• Organic Armor System (OAS), a living armor shell with good thrust-to-weight.
• Paddlecatch, a large shipboard button. You press 'em.
• Particle alarm: a harsh klaxon warning of imminent nearby lightspace activity.
• Pelding: an ablative hull insulation, the middle layer of most hulls. Comes in bales.
• Plus-ups: a shuttle system that needs to be faithfully serviced.
• Plymar: a type of interphaser.
• Pritz compensator, a delicate part of a gravisensor.
• Proximity port: a visual detection system that kicks in at near velocities.
• Puffer gun: a handheld device that generates low-energy thrust while on short EVA.
• Reactive skirting: an ablative armor used as a backup for shields.
• Type IV drive: a lightspace engine found throughout the universe.
• Vane, a control surface aboard big ships. Some looseness is acceptable; aboard a frigate, the acceptable tolerance is 4.8 million Hertz. GP ship tolerance is 10k Hz.

Daily life

• Autosoap: mixes automatically with shower water at the right temperature.
• Autowave: a piece of workout equipment.
• Autowax: a self-depilating process.
• Big Step, the: a slang term for a fatal airlock failure, often a euphemism for suicide.
• Bitchtube. See Jefferman Container.
• Carryall: a basket for hauling around things like tools or toiletries.
• Chip-veneer, a cheap and durable table surface
• Clamptape, a substance used like Velcro.
• Credit, or Intergalactic Credit, or IC: the monetary unit involved in banking and finance. See "Shekel."
• Crinkle Paper, real paper. Used for personal or classified matter.
• Deconstructant, a smelly chemical indicative of good maintenance.
• Depilator, a device that obliterates the need for men to shave.
• Duffel case: a Fleet member's means of conveying their property.
• Hologame: a video game.
• Hoverjag stepper: a workout device where you stand in a box.
• Jefferman Tube, or Container, a pressurized puke-bag.
• Locksack: a small container for personal gear.
• Locktag: a low-quality device for securing hatchways.
• Marbleck: something common or basic.
• Minislate, a smaller tabslate.
• Phaceboox Intergalactic: a social media platform. Distinctive green and purple homepage.
• Photomirror: a device for looking at oneself.
• Robau-pair: a robot childcare provider.
• Shekel: the everyday unit of currency on most human worlds, as differentiated from the intergalactic credit. At the time of these stories, a laborer earns about 25,000 shekels and a loaf of bread costs two shekels and forty pence.
• Slipstream bag: a bag streamed out of the ship to disinfect the contents.
• Stasis gun: a device used for disrupting electronic systems, like locks.
• Stir: flush. It's what hydroponic toilets do aboard starships.
• Tabslate: a personal computer, sort of like an iPad or a clipboard. Comes in a mini version, too. Classified ones are red.
• Vidcam: a small camera, sort of like a GoPro.
• Entertainment Viewer, or EViewer: analogous to a TV.

Clothing

• Atmosphere suit, worn during transit and to planets with unknown atmosphere. Contains supplemental elements to normalize blood chemistry.
• Bra-field, a supportive booster field built into the bodice of many garments.
• Cleaning pod, a portable clothing cleaner/disinfector.
• Gravity boots, for doing limited levitation.
• Staytab, an automated clothing fastener. Also the way sentient clothes are controlled.

Animals

• Kobel: a horned animal.
• Light-lizard: a sentient lamp.
• Snapdog: a simple pet.
• Snarf: a ruminant renowned for its wool, native to Andromeda.

Food

• Foam-wok, a type of cooking implement.
• Jarga, a fruit. Has a pit.
• Marl, some sort of protein, generally braised with fresh greens and legumes.
• Mineral milk, a beverage.
• Nodium, a salt substitute.
• Puffcake, a pastry that bulges as it cooks. Sort of a handheld soufflé?
• Zhwang, a food item, served by the slice with steamed fish.

Holidays and Festivals

• Naadam, a popular human (orig. Mongolian) holiday celebrating sports.
• Yule, a winter festival celebrated on many planets.