Distinctions

[avatar (Alistair Young)]

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@Eric Manwill <ericmanwill@gmail.com> on 2017-02-05 23:56:07 wrote

“… automatic flow valve controlled by sector utility server #2…”

I know it’s tangential at best to the above post, but your off-hand comments here and there about how the myriad systems, mechanisms, and infrastructure elements in their ships and stations are controlled by what appear to be plug-and-play, adaptive, mesh-networked modules makes my inner software developer and chemical engineer both sit up and take notice.

I don’t have the coding chops for it yet, but I want to one day design a system that can do just that. The industrial controls systems I’ve encountered are… clunky. Brittle. Inelegant.

@Alistair Young <athanasius.skytower@arkane-systems.net> on 2017-02-06 23:16:23 wrote

It is entirely possible that my own background in software may have influenced my depiction of what their mature software environment looks like…

cough

‘May’.

(Something only being intensified now I’m busy building bunches of Arduino-based home automation foo.)

@SCC <matthewsleeman@gmail.com> on 2017-02-06 01:42:26 wrote

I see this lasting only until some other special interest group finds out about this arrangement and demand their own special consideration. And this ignores legitimate brewers, taxmen, and teetotalers.

Also the real world factors that have resulted in the Craft Beer movement are unlikely to apply in your empire.

@Robert Houghton <sudragon2k3@gmail.com> on 2017-02-06 01:49:13 wrote

And everyone gets upset if the booze supply is cut off.

@SCC <matthewsleeman@gmail.com> on 2017-02-06 01:56:51 wrote

Not all beer, just beer from the illegal/unlicensed stills

@Jade Nekotenshi <nekotenshi0@gmail.com> on 2017-02-06 17:59:05 wrote

Or, as it’s more likely to be in the Empire, private rather than unlicensed. The Empire’s not really the type to require permits for such things. (Indeed, they don’t require permits for much, if anything, and precious little is banned.)

@SCC <matthewsleeman@gmail.com> on 2017-02-06 20:38:17 wrote

Two things:

1. The text itself makes clear that the still is officially ‘off the books’, meaning there’s some sort of process your supposed to go through before building one.

2. Not only will it produce waste (Bad smells and water, which would technically be classified as industrial) this thing is dangerous, it could explode, you want something like in the room next to you?

@Jade Nekotenshi <nekotenshi0@gmail.com> on 2017-02-08 10:47:56 wrote

That’s generally a matter for insurance, contracts and tort law, rather than criminal law in the Empire. The principle is similar, of course - you are responsible for the consequences of your actions - but it’s implemented differently, and they take a very dim view of prior restraint.

In this case “officially off the books” means something more along the lines of “the station owners aren’t responsible for it, only its owner is”, rather than “the existence of this thing is a punishable offense, but the powers that be are choosing to refrain from punishing anyone for it, because they benefit from it too”.

More a difference in perspective. Of course, if the owner frakked up, the still exploded and did something bad to things that did not belong to the still’s owner, and he were so dumb as to try to skip out on that, Imperial law has some rather harsh things to say about that, if I understand the situation correctly.

Though, this is just my read on things based on previous pieces about how the Empire tends to handle licensing, liability, official permission, prior restraint and meddlement. I may have more than a few things wrong.