The 27th episode of the Grim Dark Podcast has now been posted on iTunes and on our website at www.grimdarkpodcast.com

We go three sheets to the Warp as we discuss the methods and perils of Navigation, including an overview of the Navigator career. We also review Stars of Iniquity, and chat about creating memorable adversaries.

We recorded this episode early as I'm traveling this week, so there isn't any news or listener comments, but I promise you there will be stuff to chat about in Episode 28.

Happy listening!

Listening now

A comment on the 2d nature of space-maps: The galaxy is pretty flat, actually. Shaped something like a CD (albeit a little thicker in the centre). So while there will be some shift along a z-axis, it will be very little compared to the x/y spread. Of course, on a sector-level, it will be pretty cube-like, so I guess it's a fair cop.

The main galactic disk is pretty well assumed to be 1000 ly thick. That's 5 sectors, give or take (sectors are assumed to have lots of frontier space between them, so probably less). The Halo stretches considerably further.

It's hard to conceptualize the Imperium. There must be somewhere between 5k-20k Imperial sectors, each containing between 20-200 inhabited systems. And that's probably 0.025% (0.00025) of the galaxy, or 0.0083% (0.000083) if we include stellar remnants (which would probably contain the better part of "past civilizations"), and yet cover most of the breadth and depth of the galaxy.