jumped without a jump drive

[rockeye_stonetoe]

Nick, in a full environment suit like any sensible person would wear in untamed wilderness, is overseeing a small swarm of robots harvesting various useful plantlife from the uninhabited parts of a sparsely settled planet, when something suddenly comes tearing through the undergrowth towards him and it's not showing up on scanners-

He raises his hand-phaser, notices it has a mirror for a face and hesitates a little too long. And then he is in a clearing, cut off from his ship and 'bots, with all available sources of data telling him he just went through a jump.

What.

Comments

[rockeye_stonetoe]

"You're welcome."

So Nick goes back to being a utility company. He builds a crude printing press while continuing to work on the big generator and investigates which books would profit best from being printed in this way. And he starts advertising that he'll take apprenticies who want to learn the ways of chained lightning.

[alicornucopia]

The most popular books around here seem to be Precepts of the Winter Light, an almanac, an epic poem called The Morning Sword, and the collected plays of a playwright from the capital city of this country.

There are a few enterprising young underemployed persons who'd like to check out his offer.

[rockeye_stonetoe]

The enterprising young unemployed people get interviewed. He looks for two people who are literate and decent at arithmetic, or who at least seem clever if they aren't.

And he asks around, tries to find out if anyone owns the almanac or the Morning Sword. He knows where to ask about the Precepts of the Winter Light. He makes his way back to the paladins' compound once again and seeks out Kaja.

[segreant]

Only one of his applicants (besides the moneylender's grandson) is both literate and capable of arithmetic, and seems to have been fired from her previous job due to being an obnoxious person. She does, however, own The Morning Sword and is willing to lend it conditional on being employed. Another applicant knows where to get an almanac and makes no such condition of its loan.

Kaja can be found in the cafeteria at this time. "What is it?"

[rockeye_stonetoe]

"I made a machine that can produce many copies of a book much more quickly than writing it out by hand. I would like permission from the Bright Sister to make many copies of the Precepts of the Winter Light in this way. I would sell them for two or three copper each, barely more than the cost of paper and ink."

[segreant]

"...I think you're confused about how our religious hierarchy works. You don't need anyone's permission to do that as long as you don't change anything in the Precepts."

[rockeye_stonetoe]

"Then I will stop bothering you. In my world copying books is incredibly easy, easier than a printing press, even. So intellectual property- er, ownership of ideas, is taken very seriously. I thought it best to ask."

[segreant]

"We don't own the Winter Light's ideas. We just follow them."

[rockeye_stonetoe]

"I'll be sure not to change the precepts, then. How are the radios treating you?"

[segreant]

"We've given them out to the mayors of towns too far to easily send runners. So far all we've gotten is two false alarms and a lone zombie, but it's still better to know about those sooner than later."

[rockeye_stonetoe]

"Indeed. Fare well."

Back to town. He can put up with obnoxiousness. He'll pay the obnoxious person the same as the moneylender's grandson and teach her things alongside actual work, with the warning that if she is careless or steals anything she is out.

[alicornucopia]

She is not careless and doesn't steal anything, she just keeps winding up in interpersonal conflicts with the other employees.

[rockeye_stonetoe]

...After a while of this, Nick starts giving her jobs that don't involve much cooperation.

The printing press is completed, and hardback copies of the Precepts of the Winter Light, that almanac, and the Morning Sword are sold at three copper each.

[alicornucopia]

And some of them are purchased, although mediocre literacy rates and low levels of liquid capital mean it's not all that many that fast.

[rockeye_stonetoe]

Modernizing a country is harder than he thought. But that's alright, the printing press can go in a corner for now.

He hires more people. The best of his old hires get raises and assigned to teach the new ones things, including literacy. The big generator comes online and he starts selling candleless lights more cheaply, with access to the generator being a mere two copper per month. Radios and music-recording and music-playing machines are sold. Vats of polyester are brewed and spun with cotton into a comfy blended fabric that he tries to sell to tailors. He has a team of five scout and map the surrounding wilderness with a crude-by-his-standards scanner, looking for metal deposits.

[alicornucopia]

The theater person who took the first batch of electric lights takes a music-recorder and starts selling recordings. Someone else buys a recorder and some recordings and sells recordings of the recordings, which annoys the theater owner so grievously that they have to take it to arbitration. Arbitration rules that no punishment will be leveled against the music pirate. The theater owner responds by declining to sell further recordings and simply holds "listens" of recorded shows at a discounted rate relative to live performance.

[rockeye_stonetoe]

Nick does not get involved in this dispute.

And his six month loan term is coming due soon, so he'd better stop spending capital on things. When the metal scouts fail to find any particularly good deposits for two weeks he recalls them and stops expanding his staff and just sells the things he already has.

[alicornucopia]

Polyester is pretty cheap and becomes popular among the poor, and among those so rich that they can accentuate it with obviously expensive things and not risk being mistaken for poor people. People of reasonable means and uncertain status mostly steer clear. Lights become increasingly popular, although a lot of people conservatively just put one light in one room of their house. Radios are distributed (less rapidly than paladins on flying creatures could ferry them around) and used to communicate between towns; this winds up serving partly as a replacement for their ineffectual postal system and partly as early storm warning. The theater person starts playing the first halves of recorded plays and songs over the radio; people who want to hear the rest have to attend a listen.

[rockeye_stonetoe]

Two days before the official repayment date of his loan, he goes to talk to the moneylender. Of the 32 gold and a bit he owes after interest, he has 29 ready. He reports that his businesses are steadily profiting, and asks for a few days' extension on the repayment of the other 3 gold.

[alicornucopia]

She'll give him a few days, although not without squinting at him.

[rockeye_stonetoe]

"I will have your gold." He hands over 29 gold now, at any rate.

He runs his stocks of materials low and gives some of his staff a few days off over their objections to make up the last three gold, and adds a silver to the moneylender's payment for her trouble.

When he's back in money he sends the metal-scouts out again, hoping to find a nice vein of titanium, iron, or at least coal.

[alicornucopia]

Out they go. One of them finds some coal in the mountains after enough tromping around in the cold.

[rockeye_stonetoe]

The cold-trompers get a break and are replaced with two other teams travelling further and further away. Coal is good, but he needs iron as well to really get going on the kind of industry that will eventually lead to spaceships.

[alicornucopia]

He could just buy some iron the next time traders come through - there's a lull between the times when it might snow and when it already has, when it's impractical to use sledges and when it risks getting you caught in a snowdrift if you use carts, but it'll snow soon. He could even radio someone far away about his demand for iron. (This is pointed out by his obnoxious staffperson.)

[rockeye_stonetoe]

He explains that the amount he can buy from traders is not enough for what he has in mind. He needs a proper mine, or at least a long-term deal with someone who has one.

But it's still a good suggestion, so he starts asking around via radio for someone with lots of iron to sell.