(no subject)

[beccaelizabeth]

Crystal Singer continues to be rather stupid.
These crystals are mined by individual singers who have individual mines claimed. And central to this section of the plot is the idea that they won't register the claims with the Guild, not the location of them, on account of being paranoid the Guild will nick them. Which leads you to wonder what a Guild is good for, but moving on. Apparently they instead paint a mark on the claim and then everyone knows not to work it.

But the only way that could possibly work as a legal I-own-it mechanism is if there was a specific 'I' in that mark. Otherwise someone else could come along and claim they painted the mark and there'd be no gainsaying them. So the mark would have to have a unique identifier.

Which, since they're visible in the orbital scans (which the guildmaster has, so, not exactly Google Earth but close), would mean that all you'd have to do to find a dead dude's claims would be to look on the scans for his unique marks.

Otherwise there's absolutely no logic in it. Especially since crystal messes with memory and they actually could honestly forget which claim was theirs.


This dumbth is really pervasive.



Like, there's this one planet with this one guild that mines the crystals that are absolutely essential to the whole rest of the galaxy. Crystals make interstellar communication possible, among other things. Crystals are a Very Big Deal.

Yet whenever someone wants to join the Guild, the galaxy government tries to put them off.

This would only work if the state cared more about the safety/freedom/sanity of the individual than it did about the good of the state, and utopian as that sounds, that just isn't the state's *job*.

And okay, they only have bad things to say about individual guild members. Think they've gone all crazy with the crystal. Plus they act all arrogant and everyone else has to depend on them and you know that's such a drag.

But the only logical solution to that would be for governments to send in their own people. The Guild has a monopoly, all the skill and suchlike, plus biological adaptations. But they recruit from everywhere. So a sensible government would make sure to send some recruits who would, while being loyal to the Guild of course, have the best interests of the galactic government at heart. Nice patriotic people, who would work crystal so the galaxy could get the benefit of it.

The system in the book is all about individuals trying to make money, and the government trying to stop them. Which plain doesn't *work*. The conflict of interests would be between the Guild and the governments, because the Guild can charge whatever it wants for a unique and essential product, and the governments would probably not like that. The conflict involving individual safety, while central to the individual miner's experience of the place, would be damn near irrelevant compared to an interstellar society. Especially since there's supposed to be about 25,000 Guild members total, so its like a small town. Would a decent galactic government get oppressive at a small town to make sure the rest of the galaxy could talk? I think so.

/rant.

I'm cranky and now coughing. I dislike being ill. It irritates me.

Comments

[spacedoutlooney.livejournal.com]

Dude. I think I read that book in Jr. High. I remember it being OK. I wonder if I read it again whether I'll feel differently.