In message 0DF9211A.448FDDFC.4BF51BCE@netscape.net, jacquispeel@netscape.net writes

avona@jps.net wrote:

...

When a government would spend money on a surgical implant on a killer, and pay the high cost of transportation to send convicted criminals to planets like Cygnus Alpha, one assumes there is a high need for labor that makes it worthwhile for the government to pay for these things. I would be surprised if brainwashing is very much more expensive than convict transport. However, it could be considered more reliable, as dead men do not throw off their shackles.

Are we perhaps missing the point of limiters - were they meant for something else entirely (question)?

A reliable source of plotdevicium...

However, that's not playing the game. Random wibble coming up, which may or may not generate a story:

I think that it's likely the limiters were still relatively experimental devices, and that Gan was one of the beta-test guinea pigs. If so, the behaviour modification being tested may not be the only one the developers had in mind as a long-term goal. It's possible that the limiters were an early step in a form of modification for dealing with people like Avon - people whose intellectual abilities are too useful a resource to lose if there's a way to salvage them, but who aren't going to co-operate of their own free will.

Unco-operative people can be conditioned, but that conditioning can be broken. It's also probably difficult and expensive, if they're still keeping a staff of Shrinkers. Perhaps the project group developing the limiters were not overly pleased about the development of Pylene-50 - their funding was cut after that...

In message 20010516105943.66841.qmail@web12201.mail.yahoo.com, Stephen Date stephend999@yahoo.co.uk writes

--- Julia wrote: >

...

Unco-operative people can be conditioned, but that conditioning can be broken. It's also probably difficult and expensive, if they're still keeping a staff of Shrinkers. Perhaps the project group developing the limiters were not overly pleased about the development of Pylene-50 - their funding was cut after that... --

The problems are all problems of social control - coercion, brainwashing and drugging all being available to the Federation and fairly widespread in their use.

My thought was that these techniques may not be very useful where you want more than a drugged drone, and a limiter might be useful in such cases. It's never stated outright, but what we see in The Way Back suggests that the suppressant drugs in use at that point had the irritating side-effect of leaving people unable to think about *anything*, not just whether their government was all it could be. They're not an effective tool for controlling people who are in jobs where they need to be able to think. You need other ways, such as coercion and brainwashing, and the ways available at the time of TWB have other drawbacks, mainly that they're unreliable and expensive.

The specific advantage of Pylene-50 is that it removes aggression without affecting the mind in other ways. The practical effect has similarities to a limiter fitted to control aggression, although as the general notes, you do need *some* aggression to be able to perform certain jobs. Another major improvement in suppressant technology with Pylene-50 is that it is permanent. You can't avoid it by keeping off the drugged food and water. The science quoted here is absolute bullshit, but it may just be a soldier's attempt to interpret what some scientist has tried to use as an analogy.

QUUTE They seem like all Helots after adaptation: suggestible, obedient, glad to follow orders. They should make excellent troops. GENERAL I don't know. Something missing, I think. Fire in the belly, Quute. You can't fight without it.

GENERAL A new wonder drug isn't it Leitz? LEITZ Yes sir, The Commissioner controls its manufacture. It's injected by medical laser. Acts immediately and has no side effects. PRACTOR It changes the personality I believe? LEITZ Not to any great extent Excellency. It simply blocks the production of adrenalin. The result is that adapted natives no longer resist us. PRACTOR They continue to work normally? LEITZ Completely. In fact, the work ethic is often reinforced. PRACTOR Really? LEITZ Industrial production on Tarsius has risen nineteen percent since the natives were adapted.

Pylene-50 was introduced as a method of military conquest despite shortages of troops, chemical warfare in effect. The technology used in Limiter implants would be to knock out (in Gan's case) or concievably to enhance certain brain functions. In which case there might be a good case for maintaining research into the subject despite it's limited application.

I can think of interesting uses and abuses of such limiters, and it might well be possible to make a case for continued funding even in the light of Pylene-50 as a tool for making nice tractable bofhs who can be trusted not to run off with the money.