Alright, here are my personal notes from my last reading of
Splinter of the Mind's Eye. I'm sure there is the odd spoiler in here, so don't read if you don't want that!
Equipment & VehiclesArmoured Troop Carrier Crawler: These large Imperial crawlers can carry 10 fully armoured troops, and are fitted with a large (turreted, I assume) gun on top. When inside one, Luke indicates to his dismay that the controls of the ATC are more complex than an X-Wing.
Directional Landing Beacon: These are automated devices that sit on the ground, detectable to ship sensors from near-orbit only, to guide ships into a landing site.
Energy weapons: Handheld energy weapons, including blasters and lightsabers, have 'charge' and 'draw' energy settings, which allow them to deplete energy from one weapon to power the other.
Imperial Blaster Rifle: These are called the E-11 trooper rifle. They have a quarter-centimetre aperture, and it is implied that they have multiple power settings: continuous fire is available on low power only.
Kaiburr Crystal: In the book, the Kaiburr crystal is a single unique artefact. It amplifies the Force, and even uses the Force of its own accord. Its properties seem to focus on healing powers. Its resting place, lost to memory, is in the temple of Pomojema on Mimban (aka Circapous V).
Lightsabers: Lightsabers have multiple settings. ‘Luke activated his saber. Instead of the meter-plus shaft of white energy, the pommel put forth a short, needle-thin spoke.’
Medical Surgery: 'After replacing the marrow, the doctor had heat-sealed the bone, then folded muscle, flesh and skin around it to reform. An epidermal flush concluded the operation and assured that the new skin would take and not fall off in fragments and flakes in the near future. "There is no permanent nerve damage," the doctor informed him as Grammel slid out of the infirmary surgery booth. Grammel continued to study his arm. "The nerves were easy to lay back in and the bone sealed smooth. Your arm is good as new. It will feel and act like it in about five days. Only one thing." The Captain-Supervisor looked at her. "You'll never sweat from that arm again." As the doctor continued putting away her instruments, she continued conversationally, "If more than your forearm had been equally destroyed—let's suppose the entire upper half of your right side—then we'd have had to equip you with at least one series of artificial perspirators. But with radical reconstruction restricted to your right forearm, your body will compensate for the lost area easily enough."'Terrain Tracers: Imperial Terrain Tracers, also called 'top trackers', are instruments that can track a vehicle by reading traces it left behind and plotting a predicted route. At one point, Hatha believed that the wheeled vehicle the characters were driving, which was 'almost floating' through the swamp at points, was not producing quite enough of a trace for any of the imperial tracers to pick up.
Thermal suit: A light jumpsuit that is kept in the emergency storage of rebel fighters, used to stay warm.
Tracomp: A handheld compass device that can store preset coordinates, and track the device's current location in relation to those coordinates. However, the book is unclear whether these store map information as well, like a GPS, or if they really do work more like a compass, showing direction and distance only.
Wheeled Crawlers: Large wheeled crawlers are standard at Imperial manual operations sites, like mines. They are open-topped, and it seems that they can fit at least six or even comfortably, and still have room left over for equipment. Their energy stores allow them to run for several weeks. They are all-terrain vehicles, and can move 'almost floating' through swamps.
X-wing: In the book, an X-wing's sensor instruments are able to track an object, calculate its position and trajectory, and predict its future coordinates, of an object within a few seconds (probably 2 rounds in WEG game terms). This is much like the Imperial
Terrain Tracers, but the object itself must be targeted. Luke uses this function to guess where a damaged ship will crash land on a planet.
Culture, Concepts, Aliens
The Force: Halla is an minor/failed Jedi archetype. She has had no teacher, and so her powers are doomed to be very weak.
At the climactic moment of the duel between Vader and Luke, Vader begins using the Force to throw stones at Luke, and is surprised that someone who isn’t a master can do the same (he uses a stone to block it). Vader also leaps into the air, ‘more than a jump, less than levitation’ and gently falls to the ground; afterwards, as the full demonstration of his mastery, he makes a hadōken ball/glove of white light, called ‘kinetite’, and causes it to fly at Luke—it flies quickly, but gently. Luke, possessed by Obi-wan's spirit, throws his hands up in a blur which deflects the globe back at Vader. There is a soft crack as that of an explosion and Vader is knocked to the ground.
Imperial Governors: Governors are in charge of sectors of space within the Empire, but apparently they also have at least some military jurisdiction throughout the Empire. For example, the governor of Gyndine is capable of promoting the supervisor of Circapous V's mining operations from Captain-Supervisor to Colonel-Supervisor, despite Circapous outside of his territory (and therefore, presumably, in another Governor's territory).
Imperial Treatment of Aliens: Leia was surprised that the Empire was hiring non-humans, but Luke explains that the yuzzem Hin and Kee, being young and naive, were not very experienced in Imperial affairs. They were duped into signing themselves into near-slavery working on Mimban.
Yuzzem: A sentient race not native to Circapous, and common enough that some characters not only recognize the species, but know the language. They are muscular, apelike creatures with snouts, about the height of a man but thrice the weight. They are very strong, aggressive and temperamental in the extreme. Their hangovers last for days, if not weeks. Physical attributes are about 3x that of humans.
PlacesCircapous SystemCircapous is an Imperial system whose government & people have alliance sympathies. Major features include:
[/b] the system’s star
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Circarpous IV: main inhabited world
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Circarpous X: ‘a pretty good colony’ of Circarpous IV.
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Circarpous XIV: outermost planet, holds hidden rebel station/base.
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Circarpous V (Mimban to the locals): a swampy, tropical jungle planet. Its damp atmosphere is surprisingly cool (but not dangerously cold), and so covered in clouds and mist that it is often difficult to distinguish night from day.[/ul]
Circapous V (Mimban)Creatures: Here is a list of encountered creatures and monsters on Mimban:
- Amoeba Monster: Translucent, shapeless monsters of some glowing whitish substance, with no discernible organs or body parts besides a mass of short, thick pseudopods, capable of reabsorbing its severed limbs. They are found lurking in underground lakes.
- Swamp fauns: Mimban is home to a veritable host of exotic swamp and jungle creatures, all described in only the vaguest terms.
- Wandrella: Omnivorous, colossal giant worms, with anaemic-looking flesh the colour of pale cream, streaked with brown. Their bodies are able to fit down a Thrella ruins well (so less than 3m wide). The head end has a random mass of black spots like the eyes of a spider, with a ragged mouth down the middle, filled with concentric circles of jet-black teeth going deep into the body. It’s bottom is covered in thick body plates. Blaster rifles do little real damage, and blaster pistols are harmless to them. Ponderous and deliberate, they will chase down prey and flatten all in their path, but can be easily outwitted and are slow to change course. Once the prey is out of sight, there is a fairly good chance they will forget about hunting it. Slow to react to any stimulation. They are capable of chewing vehicles to pieces.
Mines: The Empire is secretly maintaining energy mines on the planet, operated by gruff contract-miners from out of system. The mining uses huge generators, and creates tremendous electrical storms in the atmosphere when excess energy charges are shunted away skyward—a ship has to be specially insulated to drop down through an area where an energy drill is working, otherwise it will lose power and control. The operation also produces fallout materials that are illegal on planets that support a native race. The mines, landing beacons, and regular transports in and out have to be shut down whenever a Circarpousian ship travel between Circapous IV and Circapous X.
There are five mining towns on the planet, each made up primarily of prefabricated structures. The planetary headquarters, placed in one of the towns, is inside a massive ziggurat (a
Thrella ruin). Fighting in public is strictly forbidden. The mines are run by Captain-Supervisor Grammel, a pale, grim and sadistic man, very tidy, with a modest paunch and a drooping mustache. He is not above grovelling for promotion.
Races: Mimban is home to several sentient races, including:
- Coway: The corway are related to greenies, but have lived underground in the Thrella ruins after being driven away by the Imperials. They are territorial and hate humans. They live in ruins high up on the cave walls, burn large fires with local flora for light and whatever else, and have a triumvirate tribal structure with 3 chiefs—their male chiefs are large and wear distinctive headdresses of stone and other materials. 'Each was slim and covered with a fine gray down. Their eyes were shrunken, dark orbs. Yet they appeared to see Luke and the Princess clearly enough. Each wore a kind of abbreviated set of trousers from which dangled assorted primitive instruments and many charms. These were matched by others hanging from upper arms and neck. All were armed with a long, thin stone spear made of flowstone. A couple also carried double-bladed axes. They displayed no fear of Luke's lightsaber, despite its recently demonstrated lethal qualities. This indicated either a fair knowledge of human technology from surface visits, or else a bravery born of ignorance.'
- Greenies: These are related to the coway. They are human-sized, skinny, and covered completely in light green fur. They have wide nocturnal eyes and a crest of darker fur running from the crown to the middle of the back. They wear simple skin loincloths and primitive jewellery. They are addicted to alcoholic beverages, and those in the mining towns allow themselves to become practically enslaved so that they can beg for drinks at the bars.
- 'Mimbanites' (name unknown): These are stocky, round quadrupeds covered all over in bristly fur, a metre wide and tall, and sporting a modest naked tail like a rat. They have four arms protruding from the upper part of the body. Patches and stripes of green colour their otherwise dark brown fur. Their limbs have two thick digits each. They have two wide eyes. They can propel themselves with the use of all eight limbs. It is unknown whether or not they are sentient or even semi-sentient.
- Thrella: A long-extinct ancient race, who apparently worshipped gods including Pomojema (a minor healer god resembling Cthulhu).
Temple of Pomojema: This temple is where the Kaiburr crystal has rested for thousands of years or more. Pomojema was a minor healing god of the Kaiburr, basically like Cthulhu in appearance. A giant, sharp-toothed, frog-like monster lurks near the temple, impervious to weapons less powerful than blaster rifles.
Thrella Ruins: The planet features ancient ruins of an extinct race called the Thrella. Their ruined structures are seemlessly fitted together, of a uniform steel-grey colour, with soaring towers inlaid with black stone or metal, misshapen domes, and expansive walls winding through the jungle. They also made deep wells, sometimes appearing isolated in the wilderness that descend to frightening depths so deep they have not been explored. From the descriptions of these wells and the action taking place around them, it is ambiguous whether they are 10 metres in circumference (ie, 3m across), or 10 metres in diameter.
Tunnels and Underground Cities: A web of tunnels and caves lie beneath the surface of the planet. Surface caves will lead into the tunnels, but the wells of the
Thrella ruins will also have tunnel entrances as they go down. Some areas of the tunnels are lit by phosphorescent flora, including moss, seaweed and leafy plants. Large lake basins exist, as well as underground Thrella cities made of stone and metal. These cities have an aesthetically pleasing lack of right angles, with sweeping curves and arches, but are otherwise utilitarian in design. They use oval doors and have no windows.
Gyndine SystemA ‘territorial administrative world’ of the Empire, by Imperial distance not very far away from the Circarpous system—allowing deep-space video communications to happen with gratifyingly negligible latency. Despite the proximity, it appears that Circapous is not within its administrative territory. The planet Gyndine is governed by Bin Essada, one of the regional governors ‘overwhelmed with work’ since the Emperor dissolved the Senate. He is an overweight, swarthy man with multiple chins; and his curly black hair, fading at the edges, is dyed on top with an orange spiral. He apparently has dark eyes with pink pupils, and a contralto voice. There is certainly enough bizarre description to infer that he is a near-human. He is curt, dislikes flattery, and is famed as an expert on unusual radiations.