Addendum

In general, nautical terms suffer from the fact that sailors customarily refuse to line up spelling and pronunciation. "Gunwale" should mean one thing, "gunnel" another, and both should be cool. Well, cool-adjacent; "gunnel" sounds like a low-ranking criminal thug.

The World of Prophecy Is Limitless

The oracle declared, "A whale and a lion will fight in the middle of the city!"
The wisest debated the hidden significance, whether it referred to a debate over strengthening the army or the navy for example, until one day a whale and a lion fought in the middle of the city.
"But now we need a reverse oracle to explain why that happened," one of the prominent citizens said, but in the meantime the people consulted the oracle again.
"A whale and a lion will fight in the middle of the city!"
"The same ones?"
To that the oracle had no answer. The citizens therefore waited, and they learned when next the event occurred that it was a different lion, though about the whale they were unsure. The original lion returned for the third match however.
The citizens became so used to tthat state of affairs that they were unprepared when new mines were discovered and a debate began over strengthening the army or the navy, but that struck them as trivial compared to the other matter. In the end, they relied on the lions and whales to dissuade invaders and spent the money on a new racecourse.
Finis

Train Facts

1) Perry Mason once says he wants to run a model train through his office and law library. But he doesn't. What's stopping him? The truth may be too much for the human mind to comprehend.
2) Trains are fast!
3) Not all trains turn into robots, but more than you would think do.
4) It's not as if he doesn't have enough money for it. Clients are always paying him big money to stay out of the gas chamber.
5) That thing you sometimes see on the front of a train is called a "slow car."
6) If your train is late, it was probably doing something more important.
7) Perhaps he fears that buying a model train set would be a betrayal of his Navy service.

Origin Story

You have to win election at least ten times to become a decagogue, of course. Unfortunately, you're usually old by then, which restrains your power. Semagogues require elevation to a naval position, which is pretty specific, but the abilities are generally useful. Nothing's free in a well crafted system, after all.

Euphony

Argo is a boring name for a ship, too. They should have named it Essex or Iowa.

State of Scifi

We're all going to have to rethink some thinks now that it turns out aliens are real.