The bomb made calm. The beam’s bad dream. The be-all-end-all of krystal-generated, charged particle protection. The pinnacle shield-wise. Acme-Ashmuns cost some real McCoy. They are, by all accounts, worth it.

Acme-Ashmun Shield Generator

A Pre-Amercadian cultural movement brought about during the Pre-Expansionist Era, after The Great Wasting, in an attempt to halt the psychotic melancholia and end-line decadence pervading Transitional Terra during the lead-in to those first formative cycles of the Amercadian Unification. In the ages of The Healing, the tenets of this movement, based strongly on pre-atomic puritan ideals and a misinterpretation of the ancient West Terran concept of Manifest Destiny, had global significance and found nearly universal acceptance. In great part, the Aesthetique husbanded the climate of thought that led to The Collective, after which time its domination declined. That the Aesthetique once arbitrated many of the moral and artistic decisions of the early Expansion is reflected in the still popular affinity for Shaker furniture on many of the Amercadian influenced planets surviving the downfall of the Incorporated Elysian Republic.

Aguatunesian Empath

Though not the only living inhabitants of the water-world, Aguatunesia, Aguatunesians do seem to be the only residents of said world with even the slightest interest in knowing the other sentient species populating the wider galaxy. These fishlike, aquatic humanoids, known to most as Aguatunesian Empaths, and to some as Mystic Nyts of the Sea (see Mystic Nyts of the Sea), are feminine in appearance and behavior, though it’s hard to pinpoint what their actual gender might be, as we only have the one to go on, and the Aguatunesians aren’t saying. Most individuals of the species are happy to be referred to as either she or they, though that may be because “they” share mind with all members of their community, and so any individual may be referred to in the plural. We just don’t know and are not sure they do, as they tend to look puzzled whenever the subject of gender comes up. It’s possible they don’t have gender, or understand the concept, and it’s also possible it’s just not something they think about much. Based on vague hints dropped in casual conversation with multiple human spacers, it is believed there exists at least one other biological Aguatunesian sex, though what he/she/it/they are like, we can only hazard a wild guess. Are they sentient? Intelligent? Or are they just organic drifting seed buckets? The jury remains out. Moving on, Aguatunesians are both empathic and telepathic within their own communities. When off-world, they’re able to feel the feelings of most of the living beings they run across, and can read the thoughts of other sensitives, though the quality of the “read” depends on the person being read. These psychic abilities seem to be enhanced by the ingestion of kelp-based edibles from the waters of their home world, so most of those who travel do so with a ready supply. The Aguatunesian language is a “sharing” of mental images and bodily feelings, aided by audible chirps, whistles, bubblings, and elongated and very diphthongal vowel sounds. Aguatunesians easily pick up Standard Spacer and other vocalized languages, when away from others of their kind, and in the company of those who speak those languages. Little is known about Aguatunesian culture, except that its members are loosely organized into schools and that they share the hearts and minds of their kindred. Therefore, their society is largely peaceful and, at least according to its more adventurous members, exceedingly dull. A whole lotta floating going on!

Note: Since the original writing of this entry, information regarding Auguatunesian empaths has come to light. It is believed, based on piece of stark verse composed by android Warrior-Poet Veep 7—arguably the best-known and most feared of the Vercadian Protector Droids—that individual Aguatunesian Empaths share a sort of race memory, each embodying a living history of their species. Of course, not every member of their species who travels out into the wider galaxy returns to their home world to reconnect with their school, so there would necessarily be some chapters missing. And if this is true, it is unclear whether any individual would have access to every bit of her-or-their carried memory at any given time. Veep 7’s stark verse follows:

past
lives
in
all
who cares?
they
swim

According to the latest data from the Galactic Registry of Planets, there are at least 927 inhabited planets named Alias, though use of the descriptor “inhabited” may be stretching a point. Most of these Alian Worlds could be described as marshy, muddy or swamp-like, though “grassy” and “greenish” are almost as frequently heard. There is wide agreement, however, that the most accurate word one might use, when referring to the physical features of the average Alias, is “nondescript.” But how, we may ask, did this pan-galactic gaggle of nondescript Aliases come to be so named? During the time of the Incorporated Elysian Republic and into the early cycles of Anarchera, there were never more than a handful of planets named Alias registered under that name with the GRP. Then, in cycle 141 AE, the Registry experienced an unprecedented deluge of requests from previously registered planets, asking, for various undisclosed reasons, that their accepted planetary names be replaced with the name Alias. According to a juicy bit of investigative reporting by Rootersnoos ferret Jimmy the Snout, this multi-planet “bang de nom” was the work of Chuck and the Banana-Fanas, a division of the Guernican Art Squad calling themselves Post-Verbal Evictionalists. It was revealed that the name-change requests had been artistically forged, for the purpose of confusing the various governments and law-enforcement agencies, military and fringe groups, bounty hunters and celebrity stalkers who were, at the time, searching the Multiverse for the two lady brigands who had so recently laid waste to several levels of Rec Station 97; one Galatia 9 and disgraced former Lieutenant of the Amercadian Space Brigade, Brucilla the Muscle. After somehow stumbling upon the fact that the Mizzes 9 and Muscle had gone into hiding on a nondescript planet named Alias, Chuck and the Banana-Fanas decided there could be no such thing as too many Aliases, whereas, until that point in time, even one had been one too many. Still, thanks to the propensity of humanoids for mimicking the behavior of their fellow humanoids, the ninety-odd Aliases spawned by the efforts of Chuck and his BFs were merely the snowball that started the avalanche. Like a virus, the Alian meme spread throughout the settled Multiverse. Flags were raised, wars fought, colonies on new worlds launched and, when the cosmic dust settled, Alias was by far the most popular planetary name known to humanoidkind.

Alias

Planet: Mirage. The division of the sixty marbec rotation of the planet Mirage into a thirty marbec period of light, or Alpha Time (A), and a thirty marbec period of darkness, or Omega Time. In the popular vernacular, Omega Time is referred to as “moovunit” and Alpha Time as “dontmoovunit”, relating (obviously) to travel on the planetary surface, which nobody does anyway, so the reference is moot. The term “malton unit” is not used for either the Alpha or the Omega unit, because of the time disparity.

Known to cadets simply as Fight Fight Fight, but originally titled A Warning to Our Esteemed Adversaries, this most recent of many Space Academy Fight Songs was written in AE 12 by Cadet Amiable Goodwrench, of the planet Noo Mizoorah in the New Frontier. Critics have pointed to the line wherein Goodwrench suggests serving up Academy rivals in a “cheese fondu” as being proof of his sympathies with the goals of the Acadian Non-Brigade, though nothing in his history would support such a conclusion. The lyrics to Goodwrench’s song are as follows:

Fight, fight, fight,
Turn the darkness into light!
Smash the night
With our terrible might!
Oh whatta oh whatta oh whatta sight!
Fight, fight, fight!

Give me a wall and I’ll smash it down!
Stamp my foot and it shakes the ground!
Mash me a mountain into a mound!
Chew ‘em up, spit ‘em out!
If they want another bout,
We’ll show ‘em just who got the clout!
Grind ‘em up and sell ‘em by the quarter of a pound!

Fight, fight, fight,
Take a wrong and make it right!
Foes we’ll smite
And our rivals afright!
Oh whatta oh whatta oh whatta sight!
Fight, fight, fight!

Show me a hoop and I’ll jump right through!
Daze and amaze with my derring-do!
Nary a warrior that I can’t unglue!
Knock ‘em down, stomp ‘em flat,
Give ‘em several tits for tat!
Send ‘em where the pain is at!
Slice ‘em up and serve ‘em in a cheese fondu!

Fight, fight, fight,
Turn the darkness into light!
Smash the night
With our terrible might!
Oh whatta oh whatta oh whatta sight!
Fight, fight, fight!

An educational institution whose mission is threefold: 1) to supply the Amercadian Space Brigade with well-trained recruits (see: fodder, cannon), 2) to relieve the planet Amercadia of its surplus population, thus freeing up arable land, and 3) to provide exhausted parents from all corners of the known galaxy with a safe(ish) place to send their more “active” offspring.

Amercadian Space Academy

“Dame Destiny has beckoned us
Into the starry blue
And all true hearts will reckon thus
To thine own class be true!
Academy! Academy!
Your spinning, G-less halls!
Good Amercadian girls and lads
Will ever heed your call!”
– from the Amercadian Space Academy School Song

The military arm of Amercadia, whose motto is: “Good ‘Til the Last Drops.” Shortly after the Unification of Sovereign Townships ended the only longish period of peace in Old Terran History, the Associated Governments of the United States and Canada (now Amercadia) began to wonder what THEY were up to. All the little home guards were made into one big HOME GUARD. Its chief function was to protect Amercadia from THOSE PEOPLE OVER THERE. When nobody came, Amercadia began to have bigger worries. If THEY weren’t coming from the other side of the globe, there was a good chance THEY were planning an attack from the inside. Thus began a rather dark period of Amercadian history (see: National Delusion, the) that only ended when Amercadians believed they had located an even more powerful enemy. After all, if THEY weren’t coming from the other side of the globe, and THEY weren’t planning an attack from the inside, THEY must be coming from OUT THERE. Amercadia mobilized a great space fleet. Brave lads and lasses were “recruited” into the new Amercadian Space Brigade and prepared to go OUT THERE. The Brigade’s chief function was to protect Amercadia from THOSE BEINGS OUT THERE. Once they got OUT THERE, they discovered that no one in the wider multiverse had even the slightest interest in Amercadia. Having been robbed of their raison d’etre, they pondered the alternatives. They adapted. Their chief functions became PRESERVE AND SUSTAIN THE BRIGADE. The brigade prospered and grew, trading its military might to an ally HERE for… oh let’s say Borinyum Krystals… becoming involved in a small conflict THERE and being repaid by an oh-so-grateful government with a tiny shipment of monopoles. Amercadia itself became less and less a real place and more and more an ideal of the Brigade. Amercadia’s chief function became FEED THE BRIGADE.

Brigade First Lieutenants Flanking ASB Logo

The accepted designation for the current time period, which began shortly after the fall of IER-CO, or the Incorporated Elysian Republic (which was neither heavenly, nor a republic), on the heels of the historic proclamation of the First Galactic Council for Deciding What to Do Next. The name is descriptive of a certain, shall we say, dismissive attitude toward the rule of law. Those who suffered under IER-CO rule might say appropriately dismissive.

A self-propagating race of androids, capable of independent thought. Each Andromedicone serves a tour of duty in order to repay her or his builders for the expense of building him or her. S/he may be leased out for the 20-cycle term, or spend the time on Medi-18 building more Andromedicones. In Cycle 3 (SET), a peevish Mediconian faction with beady little eyes set on dreams of empire, emigrated to Vercadia and began the manufacture of the incredibly dangerous and incredibly expensive Vercadian Protector Androids, thus giving the Mediconian race a name less than MUDD ®. (See: MUDD ®)

AL Series Andromedicones

According to some sources, the participation of Andromedicones in the Droid Wars, though they served only as medics and support to human allies, was a deciding factor in its positive outcome. To this malton unit, each and every Andromedicone devotes one of its seven communication frequencies to the repetitive chanting of a verse honoring the humans who fought for Cyberforms in the wars.

1) The disparaging name given to the Pro-Labor Party on the planet Onolo Dos, part of the Seven Planets system, which is, in turn, part of United Free Trade Planets, Inc. During the religious wars that raged from Cycle 92 to Cycle 111 AE (but which some say began as a secular rebellion against the rule of UFTP several cycles earlier), the label Anti-Baptist came to apply to anyone, human or cyberform, who sympathized with the Labor cause on that, or on any, world. 2) Any sentient being whose innate sense of fashion precludes the wearing of brown shoes.

By all accounts the worst play ever produced, ArcheOrganaApocolypsia traces the humanoid race from its humble beginnings to its predicted destruction (see: Brand New Testament). Each performance lasted a full nargon and was presented in three acts: The Creation, The Duration, and The Devastation. The play was written by playboy theologian Brother Anthony Quantis, ex-member of the Brothers of the Dangling Zed, a heretical Christo Zedian sect. It was rewritten and staged by well-known director Sambo Thrace-Smythe. In the words of Onus Wren, renowned theatre critic “A futile exercise in intellectual autoeroticism. Better by far had he (Thrace-Smythe) inserted a trisone injectable into his left ear.” ArcheOrganaApocolypsia resulted in the financial devastation of anyone even slightly involved with the production and, less directly, the deaths of the Troikani actors, Personus/Ex/Mahkina, and the well-known director Sambo Thrace-Smythe.

Playful slang name given to members of the Ootoud race of the Lotus Root System and based on the Amercadian word assessor, defined as one who values property, or the damage to property, this due to the Ootouds’ outstanding ability in this line of work. Once thought to have reproduced sexually, the two sexes of the two-headed Ootouds are now believed to have somehow merged, at some point in their evolution, into single beings that reproduce asexually. Both heads are equally officious, each sporting a generous mouth, perched atop its brow and ringed with razor-sharp teeth.

Assessaur

When the Mark 7 Dreadnaught Planet-Splitter is overkill and the dependable old Hyon Beam lacks the pinpoint precision to accomplish the job at hand, the Atomo-Torch Particle Blaster is just what the doctor ordered (assuming the doctor is a sadistic old bastard). It can cut an adversary’s titanium- alloy hull into a string of tinfoil dollies, while blasting through thruspace at near light speed. Mucho dineros, but worth every qua-credit!

The Atomo-Touch “Mind Fingers” Thought-Scanning Probe is a device fitted to a helmet worn by a sensitive, either empath or telepath, in order to enhance the sensitive’s ability to perceive the thoughts (in the case of an empath, feelings) of any thinking or feeling lifeform in the vicinity. Routed through a ship’s sensors, its power boosted by connection to a Presser Beam’s energy well, this personal scanning gadget becomes the space-faring, sensitive coms officer’s best friend, it’s popularity second only to the Info-Scan Trance-Inducing Helmet by Akashic Light Coms. A note on the company: Many believe that the company name Atomo-Touch was obviously meant to confuse the gadget-buying public, thereby leeching customers from the already established and much better known Atomo-Torch.