Trope-a-Day: Death Is Cheap

[avatar (Alistair Young)]

Death Is Cheap: Because Death Is Not Permanent, obviously.

Unless you’re the one who inflicts it, in which case there are instrumentalities designed to ensure that that death was very, very expensive for you.

(Permadeath, now – that’s not cheap.)

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This is a companion discussion topic for the original entry at https://eldraeverse.com/2016/09/23/trope-a-day-death-is-cheap

[avatar (Alistair Young)]

Comments migrated from WordPress:

@jrdougan <jdougan@acm.org> on 2016-09-23 23:35:37 wrote

Good heavens. A (small) point of agreement between the Eldrae and Eve Online.

@Alistair Young <athanasius.skytower@arkane-systems.net> on 2016-09-24 01:52:50 wrote

Except in EVE, there’s no-one out there making your death more expensive for other people…

(Also, Imperial insurance companies are smart enough not to make repeated self-destruction a profitable pastime… )

@Specialist290 <specialist290@hughes.net> on 2016-09-24 09:09:57 wrote

Though I’d imagine that, the prevailing technologies and attitudes being what they are, someone has found a way to make “repeated self-destruction” profitable (for given values of “profitable,” from certain perspectives) through other channels.

In particular, I’m imagining that there exists something that would appear to us as the product of a foursome between Mythbusters, Jackass, ancient Roman blood sports, and Japanese game shows; and that, while it might not be the Imperials’ cuppa tea, it has to have some popularity in the wider Associated Worlds.

@Alistair Young <athanasius.skytower@arkane-systems.net> on 2016-09-24 11:32:58 wrote

Truly, the universe’s supply of bad taste is limitless.

For now.

@Mark Atwood <me@mark.atwood.name> on 2016-10-17 10:21:04 wrote

You have read “The Metamorphosis of Prime Intellect”, yes?

@Specialist290 <specialist290@hughes.net> on 2016-10-17 18:04:42 wrote

Sadly no, but I have read far too much Harlan Ellison than is healthy for me.

[ahd]

…assuming the local Watch Constabulary did not catch you in the act, or close enough to intervene, what would a murder investigation (or nearest equivalent) look like in the Empire of the Star?

…actually, what would they look like in the various regions of the Worlds? I have some idea what the process would look like in the Rim, but no idea what, for example, the Vonensian Republic uses to catch murderers and felons and People Who Think Incorrectly.

…actually actually, this would be a great series of fiction posts. I’m sure someone here would be happy to add something to the Post-Contact Hilarity II thread of Abigail dealing with an actual cognicide.