many thanks to Graham Spearing
Armsman
An armsman is the future soldier, thoroughly trained and disciplined, a person physically and tempermentally suited to meeting the challenges of warfare and close combat in a manner rarely witnessed in the present day.

Battle Screens
Battle Screens can be found round Starships, Grav Tanks, and even down to belt size for individual people. Screens protect and soak up energy from projectile and energy attacks. A personal screen is of no use against melee weapons (swords and the like). Personal battlescreens exist, but are expensive and rare...

Blasters
Blasters are a common energy weapon used by the military and the desperate. They fire antimatter rounds of Nova related energy. Don't get hit by one, they hurt...

Collapsium
Collapsium is an allotropic form of iron. This silvery, crystalline substance is created under great pressures and temperatures at the core of high density planets. It is extremely valuable to miners and is the substance starship BattleArmour is made from.

Cryogenic Berths
Carried on most starships, these booths (99% of the time) cryogenically freeze the occupant suspending all life functions. It is the cheapest form of passage (50 credits per Light Year), and is also used to freeze ill personnel until adequate medical facilities are available.

ForeRunners
Evidence of the ForeRunners is scattered across the stars that mankind has discovered. They are believed to be some incredibly powerful galactic race that destroyed itself in a galaxy wide war hundreds of thousands of years ago. There is a massive premium for discovering ForeRunner artifacts and ruins.

Hyperspace
Hyperspace is another dimension entered by starships that wish to travel between the stars. To enter hyperspace the ship must be travelling at the speed of light. Once this is achieved the ship engages it's Warp Drives, propelling the ship into hyperspace, allowing it to travel many Light Years in only a day.

Light Second
1 Light Second (LS) is the distance light travels in one second. This is equal to 300 000km! almost the distance from the Earth to the Moon. Units of distance and speed are measured in LS in the Space Opera game. 500LS is equal to the distance between the Earth and the Sun. Small starship weapons have a range of 300LS(!!). It would take high- tech starfighters about 8 minutes to travel 500LS, as some of the advanced models can travel at the speed of light.

Light Year
1 Light Year (LY) is the distance light travels in one year. This is the unit of measurement between stars. An average star trading vessel can travel 12 LY per day. It's about 30 000LY to the centre of our galaxy...

Mech
Mechs are the robots of Space Opera. They are programmed to perform specific functions. They are not designed to resemble their makers, and have limited interaction capabilities

Nova Gun
The Nova Gun is the ultimate in destructive energy weapons. They are found on starships and come in many sizes. They were discovered from ForeRunner artifacts, it fires antimatter rounds at FTL speeds producing molecular and atomic disintegration in any matter struck. You can purchase hand sized ones called Blasters...

PK Crystal
A Psycho-Kenetic crystal or StarStone is another ForeRunner artifact. It enables the psionic adept to tap into vast amounts of power held in a parallel dimension (possibly Hyperspace).

Psionics
Psionics is a highly specialised field of advanced science which deals with the abilities of the mind enabling the Adept to affect the physical universe without physical manipulation of any kind, creating effects which appear to have no material cause. Psionics is thus referred to as a 'non-causative' science.

Quicktime
Quicktime is a drug which dramatically speeds up healing. The drug effects the DNA complex of the patient's cells and speeds up natural healing rates and body defenses against infection.

S.A.D.A.R.
SADAR (Sub-Space Anomaly Detection & Ranging) are the sensors used by starships. They have a range between 1000 to 5000 LS. SADAR is the optic nerve of a ship, vital in combat and in predicting the emergence of vessels from Hyperspace.

Sector
A standard Sector encompasses a 200LY x 200LY x 200LY cube of space. A portion of space of 8 000 000 cubic light years would, with an average galactic density, have some 32 000 stars within, while an open cluster would have around 60 000 stars. Although all these stars are plotted and logged in astrogation programmes, not all the stars will have been explored by the Survey teams. As a result all sectors, bar the Core, will house unknowns and dangers. Standard Star Atlases traditionaly detail only the signifcantly colonised systems which take a part in the sector's economic development. Some sectors are heavily colonised, others barely at all. Most bureaucracy is based around the Sector, and as a result different sectors will have their own character and identity.

Tech
A Tech is a highly skilled technician who operates, maintains and repairs sophisticated equipment. Not able to design new systems with quite the skill of an Engineer, the Tech is indespensible in any future business, industry, or government service.

T.I.S.A.
Trans Gravitic Interphased Sub-Light Anomaly Maneuver Drive (Torch Drive as it is more colloqualy known). These are the slower than light (STL) drives on ships, allowing them to travel at incredible speeds rated in Light Seconds travelled per 5 minutes.

TKM - Thanokalamine
TKM will arrest decay of all body tissue, including brain and nervous tissue, for a period of 10 + character's STR score in hours. Repeated injections can maintain the stasis effect. The effect of this is to preserve a 'dead' character until he/she can be brought to a medical centre.

Warp Drives
Warp Drives are the FTL drives on ships, allowing them to travel many Light Years per day. Warp drives do not function within the gravity fields of stars and planets. A Warp Drive must be a certain distance from a star before it can operate. Don't switch them on too close to a star. If it was our sun, Sol, you would have to be at a distance of 10 000 LS, close to Uranus' orbital distance, before warp engines could be activated.