the primary human organization featured in the stories i've been working on deems certain types of technology heretical. (the reasons for this are varied, but one primary one is to limit the need to import resources from other polities- autarky.) one of the consequences of this is that while modern fancy near-lightspeed vessels exist and are commonplace elsewhere in the galaxy, this organization insists on the use of what is essentially a very fancy combustion engine. this has several consequences. first, the size of a vessel is limited by the amount of fuel it can carry, as it's not exactly easy to litter the system with what are essentially sci-fi gas stations. (they still try to do this, but the money isn't exactly there for a rogue theocracy in decline.) this means that any ship larger than, like, a monitor needs to move very slowly, with massive amounts of calculations done on 80's-style computers done to preserve fuel. these are all very interesting sociological and military results of a space combustion, but the funniest consequence of this is that you have to keep your engine running on your spaceship so that your meager electric battery doesn't die, leaving your ship unable to start. even tens of thousands of years in the future, people still need to walk over and ask strangers for jumper cables to get themselves home.
i bring all of this up instead of just writing about it because how worldbuilding works is that exactly one sentence makes reference to this in the entire story. (i'm probably going to write a story connected to the other parts of this later, but i felt the urge to chost. so. there you go)
