In Poul Anderson's "The Plague of Masters," Biocontrol has an apparently foolproof monitoring system:
in an antitoxin dispensary anywhere on Unan Besar, Luang must put her hands flat on a plate on a small electronic machine;
the machine scans her hands and radios her fingerprints to the central electronic file in Kompong Timur;
that file identifies her, confirms that she is due her antitoxin and not wanted by the Guards, records the transaction and okays the issue of a single pill;
even someone with a supply of black market pills must attend a dispensary in order not to draw undue attention;
anyone who pays with counterfeit silvers will be in trouble next time.
A fine example of a system that cannot be reformed but must simply be overthrown.
1 comment:
Kaor, Paul!
I can imagine computer software programs being designed and written which would enable computers controlling those televisors keeping tabs on everyone without needing so many human monitors. The computers would compare how everyone behaved to lists of anomalous acts. A human monitor would be summoned to review anyone behaving too oddly. And of course closer attention would be given to people unlucky enough to attract official notice.
I can see two reasons for Luang having black market amtitoxin pills: one would be to have pills to fall back on in case she got into serious trouble with Biocontrol. A second reason would be to use those black market pills to resell for when she needed more money.
Yes, Biocontrol was a loathsome regime undeserving of surviving!
Ad astra! Sean
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