mortal is as mortal does

[imeanforever]

Promise is looking for dewdrops. She has just learned to candy them herself - it's not hard, if she does it in her own tree instead of in the field. So she's brushing the droplets into a little wooden cup. They blend together but she can separate them out again later.

Comments

[lookingforwardtoit]

"Assholes are a universal constant."

[imeanforever]

"Will I find you here again if I come back?"

[lookingforwardtoit]

"Maybe. If you don't, you can go to this transit address," she pulls a small white card out of her pocket, "and ask to talk to Eights." The card has a number on it: 9246938^0. "Somebody'll find me."

[imeanforever]

"That's not your real name, right? Continue not to tell me your real name, that's the control mechanism I mentioned." Promise accepts the card.

[lookingforwardtoit]

"I mean, define 'real'," she says. "It's what people call me these days. If 'real' means 'live' you won't find many people here who even remember theirs."

[imeanforever]

"Oh good. 'Real' means 'first'."

[lookingforwardtoit]

"Yeah, then almost everybody you meet will be going by something else unless you hang around the base of the tower waiting for newbies."

[imeanforever]

"Okay, good. Thank you very much." Promise goes out of the library and flies to the top of the tower. The bit with the windows.

[ending_of]

Once she gets about halfway from the top of the cliffs to the top of the tower, she is inside the bit with the windows again.

[imeanforever]

"Hello," says Promise. "Some of the details you didn't mention are very objectionable. Basically everything about the judges and the torturers should go."

[ending_of]

"To be replaced with what?"

[imeanforever]

"Well, what purposes do you see them as serving now?"

[ending_of]

"The judges are the current mechanism by which new arrivals are distributed. Someone else would need to take over the job of extracting them from storage, assigning them to a district, and perhaps providing them with a commonly spoken language if necessary."

[imeanforever]

"And the districts do what? You said you separated the - troublemakers from the others but not why you wanted to do that in the first place, or what the threshold of troublemaking involved was."

[ending_of]

"Those were suggestions made by the first judges. The districts are an aspect of the current residential system. I would not like to redesign the residential system."

[imeanforever]

"The person I spoke to did incidentally recommend that you double minimum housing allotments but it seemed less urgent than judges and torturers - what are, in fact, your limitations on how you can arrange things, and why don't you want to redesign the housing system?"

[ending_of]

"Redesigning the housing system to eliminate the districts entirely would involve considerable effort and perhaps significant changes to the physical structure of my domain. It would be possible but annoying. Doubling minimum housing allotments would be perfectly trivial."

[imeanforever]

"All right. She didn't have any complaints that seemed to be about the physical structure of the place. You didn't mention any purpose served by torturers. Would eliminating that job also be trivial?"

[ending_of]

"Yes. It would annoy the judges very much, but if I was also eliminating the judges I would not have to listen to them complain. There is still the matter of who would sort people into the residential system without the judges... the guides, perhaps."

[imeanforever]

"She didn't mention guides. Could they do it via a means other than reading someone's entire life history?"

[ending_of]

"Any such method would necessarily be less accurate, but perhaps accuracy is not required."

[imeanforever]

"Introducing... bad neighbors... to an accurately-sorted collection of good neighbors might not be ideal for those good neighbors, but I'm not even sure how reading someone's life history would be perfectly accurate in the first place. Mortals only live so long, people can change over time."

[ending_of]

"Then the guides can sort new arrivals by whatever nonmagical means they choose."

[imeanforever]

"Good. Are people allowed to visit the other districts?" wonders Promise.

[ending_of]

"There are six districts, divided into two sections with three districts each. Currently, residents of the lower section are not able to leave it, while residents of the upper section are able to travel freely between the two. I do not know if they choose to do so."