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...