From: Billy Brown (bbrown@conemsco.com)
Date: Thu Mar 04 1999 - 11:01:59 MST
A possible antagonist:
I assume that mass will be at a premium on the colony ships, but robotics
are good enough to make it feasible for a few thousand people to set up some
kind of civilization. I also assume that the colonists are in cold sleep
(so they live long enough to benifit from their plans).
So, we start with a rich guy on Earth who sees this as a chance to set
himself up in style. He hires a small security team and pays for their
passage, with the announced intention of forming a PPL provider on Atlantis.
He also takes along medical equipment (including cloning gear), a small
medical team (including a geneticists or two), a couple of teachers, and a
large library of genetic material.
On Atlantis they operate a clinic and a PPL service to stay afloat in the
short term. The PPL's rules take the concept of self-ownership to its
logical extreme: signatories have the legal right to sell themselves, either
permanently or into indentured servitude. It also provides that children
are covered by their parent's PPL service until age 16.
In the nice version of the scheme, he grows lots of clones, educates them,
and puts them to work building the colony. They are all employees of his
company, and get paid just like anyone else. In theory they have the right
to quit, and to sign up with another PPL, but ordinary social factors will
ensure there is a strong bias in favor of staying put.
In the unpleasant version, he grows lots of clones, educates them, and bills
them for services rendered. A 'company town' scheme ensures that they are
stuck in indentured servitude their whole lives. This gives his company a
cheap, fast-growing labor force, which is a significant competitive
advantage. The clones can't escape unless some other PPL service decides to
make a concerted effort to give them the opportunity - which may not happen
for quite some time in a frontier setting.
Billy Brown, MCSE+I
bbrown@conemsco.com
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