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

[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."

[imeanforever]

"Can they talk to each other somehow?"

[ending_of]

"What do you mean?"

[imeanforever]

"I don't know how to do it yet, but it's possible to ensorcel things so that you can speak from a long way away. Can they do that? If they want to arrange a visit or something."

[ending_of]

"No. The available means of communication are separate between the two levels."

[imeanforever]

"Why?"

[ending_of]

"I think the original logic was that residents of the upper level did not want to be open to harassment by residents of the lower."

[imeanforever]

"I could maybe think of another fix for that if I knew how the communication methods worked?"

[ending_of]

"Rearranging the communication networks sounds mildly tedious. What would be the purpose?"

[imeanforever]

"Making it possible for the residents to interact with more people if they want to and schedule visits without having to go all the way down - apparently wings are a new sight here, they must have to climb or something."

[ending_of]

"There is an elevator in the tower."

[imeanforever]

"...I take it that makes travel less tedious? All right, maybe this one isn't actually a big deal then."

[ending_of]

"It does make travel less tedious, yes."

[imeanforever]

"Getting rid of the judges and the torturers - and their powers, if they could use them off the job - was the big one, but now that I'm thinking about it I'm wondering if you could copy partial traits from fairies. Most of being someone's master or vassal is just - a problem, but the definition of harm is really comprehensive, and if you could copy it, and everyone could decide to be unharmable in that way without the other parts of mastery, if they wanted, maybe per person - there are sometimes reasons to not want to be quite that unharmable - then that might cut down on your troublemakers problem."