The unbranded .38 caliber revolver is Thad‘s weapon of choice. The weapon is vastly more accurate than depicted – Thad’s about as handy with a gun as he is with his stick.
Thad’s .38 has a five-round cylinder, is shown to be fully loaded, and is discharged four times over the course of The Dualist. The weapon may or may not have been brought aboard the Sabrosa.
The unbranded four-chamber .50 caliber revolver is a handgun favored by Ornix. It fits his minimum requirements of being ridiculously high powered and man-portable. Ammunition capacity is not a consideration.
Unlike Thad, Ornix is shown to handle the weapon with a degree of skill.
The .50 caliber revolver is completely discharged over the course of The Dualist, and may or may not have been brought aboard the Sabrosa.
Known to modern humans as Morgan Bay Observatory Unknown Object 1 (MBO-1), the Aeon is an autonomous starship, tens of thousands of years old and apparently of human origin. The ship was briefly boarded by Heirotus founder Brandon James, security consultants Robert Carrington and Michael Yang and psychic consultant Aleph Rydzyk approximately 40 years before the events of Dead City Radio. James received a critical head wound and lost an eye. An object known as “MBO-2” was removed by Aleph and Yang as the ship initiated what was later determined to be a Biomagnetic Transfer (aka a “Space Fold”).
The Airbase, located deep in the Australian outback of Earth 2.0, is home to the crew of the Daedalus and the resting place of the Heirotus FTL test platform Epiphany. Defenses include automated turrets, a mine field, and unspecified sensors monitored by the crippled freighter’s eponymous artificial intelligence system.
A commercial and residential development on the north side of Pittsburgh, Allegheny Center contains an apartment building leased by the Art School and rented as student apartments to Jason, Thad, and other cast members of Dead City Radio. The complex contains a radio station, major multinational corporate offices, a mall, a bank, a library, a museum, and the National Aviary.
Am is the colloquial (and technically incorrect) term for a “condensed” quad-axial space, accessible by certain life forms and organic technologies. Am is a form of “hyperspace,” in which travel and communication circumvent general relativity. Prior to the development of the Heirotus BTS, Am was only accessible via the will of humans possessing certain genetic mutations unique to navigators.
Motion in Am is possible through five dimensions – the XYZ axis, time, and “depth.” Space condenses along the depth axis while time does not, effectively enabling “realtime” FTL travel on a logarithmic scale.
A dimensional “variance” in the firmament, between Am and Prime and between the Veil and pocket universes, best defined as the relative ease with which Will can be exercised as a Force in a given area. In practical terms, the AEI determines the relative effort required for a Navigator to transition themselves and additional matter into Am, the mental fatigue incurred by a learned individual crossing between realities, and the relative “ease” with which psionic disciplines such as telepathy and remote viewing can be verifiably conducted.
A measurable divergence (positive or negative) from the local AEI is known as a Holt-Rischmann Variance.
A unit on the “inside of the L” of Allegheny Center Building Seven, Apartment 608 is home to Jason Whitehouse and his roommate Curtis. While most one-bedroom apartments have three art students apiece, Apartment 608 has only two. The reason for this is never explained, and the dining room space normally used as a bedroom by a third student is instead occupied by the eponymous ultra low-powered pirate radio station, Dead City Radio.
The Arvak class transport is the fleet backbone of the Interstellar Transit Authority. A relatively short range transport designed for hauling humans and cargo from station to station, the Arvak type is solid, reliable, and a common sight in docking rings and bays all over known space.
Heirotus founder Brandon James contracted a range-extended Arvak (ITA 27945A “Clyde”) from the ITA in order to rendezvous with MBO-1 near Helios. At the time, Heirotus space assets were limited – it was, simply, the first available spacecraft.
A cognitively-informed plane of perception, Astral Space is a blanket term applied to Astral Projection, Remote Viewing, and other forms of cognitive or psychic non-corporeal translocation in which the physical location of the characters has little or no bearing on events or actions. It is, in short, “Head Space.” While Am and the Veil share certain visual similarities, the key difference is that astral space is perceived only by directed mental observation, and perception depends entirely on the worldview of the participants – accounts of Astral events vary wildly from person to person, and those not directly involved often don’t see anything at all.
Dyluck appears to be capable of physical relocation through Astral Space, though this may be how she perceives the act. As physical travel through a cognitive plane is presumed impossible, a more likely explanation is that while Dyluck perceives it as an Astral act, she is in fact generating a biomagnetic transfer through Am.
The Atlas is a modern Titan-class picket ship, ferried to Earth by the Pollux. Assigned to Thule Garrison, the vehicle is intended to replace the outdated Cheops.
The Barghosa F/A-38 Banshee is the first GNOMES-powered optionally-manned attack aircraft on the market, so named for the enormous amounts of RF interference kicked out by the high-powered GNOMES laser – a weapon capable of slicing through steel at a thousand meters and FM radios at a hundred kilometers. The laser and reactor both feature retractable RF shielding, enabling the Banshee to function as a basic-but-highly-effective EWAR platform if operating with a crew – otherwise the aircraft requires a direct line-of-sight with a control satellite, Majestic or mothership to function, as the interference obliterates the spectrum traditionally used for unmanned vehicles.
Descended from detailed scans of an American sedan and custom built aboard Kolg Saerai Orbital, the Beefmobile has more in common with an MRAP than the stock police cruiser it’s camouflaged as. The beefmobile has been refit with bulletproof glass, a mine-resistant undercarriage, an armored firewall and doors, after-market suspension, a Templar-issue communications device, and an offworld nuclear/hydrocarbon hybrid engine.
These modifications, along with Beef Knuckleback himself, were procured in order to fulfill the Waking God Protocols.
Bethlehem Medical Centre (BMC) is a hospital and detention facility located in the first parallel universe attached to Earth (aka “Earth 2.0”). Were it in this universe, the building would be a short drive from Elmira, New York.
During the events of Dead City Radio and The Dualist, BMC is the headquarters of Thule Garrison. The facility is equipped with silicon and carbon mainframes, biomagnetic concentrators, a BMRI, advanced Cycom psionic visualization hardware, an internal video telephone system, and a satellite uplink. The main building sits on top of a “fallout block,” with at least three large sub-levels underneath.
The Biomagnetics lab is located somewhere in the bowels of Bethlehem Medical Centre. It contains a pair of biomagnetic concentrators designed to attract and retain negative biomagnetic energy, the source of the Negative Biomagnetic Entities unique to annexed realities.
A lightly and cheaply built interceptor similar to an F-16, Colonial Viper, or a Starfury, the Bodkin is an aggressively shaped configuration of RCS ports, cameras, rockets, beam weapons and projectile cannons built around a standing cockpit design and a GNOMES reactor. As part of the Astra air group, the Bodkin is used for patrol and escort duties, roles the Sabrosa fills with the more maintenance-intensive Banshee.
A Foundation class heavy cruiser, the Castores is a long endurance survey ship leased by Expert Technologies with a Templar command crew officially following up on first-pass charts plotted by smaller Discovery class ships. The Castores is a typical sample of the Foundation type: equipped with high resolution sensors, an optionally pressurized flight deck, low gravity hydroponics bays, a rocket assisted rotating section, cruise missiles and a number of small support craft, she can comfortably support a modest crew for as long as they can stand each other.
Ceremony is a Pittsburgh Gothic/Industrial/New Wave club night hosted by the DJs of The Night Shift. In the summer of 1997, Ceremony takes place Wednesday nights at Club Laga in the Pittsburgh neighborhood of Oakland.
The Charger is a rusted, barely-working 1960s muscle car driven by Ornix Khan. While the vehicle is a fairly effective bludgeon, Ornix isn’t above trading up for a vehicle that gets better mileage when the need arises.