| Subject: Re: So I've got one question about this installment... |
Author:
JIM
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Date Posted: 14:06:11 01/23/02 Wed
In reply to:
Hetta
's message, "Re: So I've got one question about this installment..." on 12:14:49 01/23/02 Wed
>>>Does duct-tape increase or decrease value?
>
>I'm sorry, did you say something?
I think some kudos should be awarded for the fact that there was not one 'gerbilling' joke in that episode.
>>And if they devalue, are they edible?
Actually during the Krelp bubble of the 1680's and '90's, it was briefly fashionable for young venture capitalists to hold Gobliak barbecues. The head and other extremities, as well as the skin and fur, were left on, and the Gobliak was basted with a sauce made of honey and P'kac (a spice completely unlike oregano). The gibs were removed and used to prepare a gravy, along with creamed krelp, and then the whole thing was smothered with cheese. In addition to being very expensive, it was also extremely fatty and very intoxicating.
Krelp were a kind of mobile sea sponge, that for centuries was the Empire's only source of trans-warp lubricant. Not only were they impossible to raise in captivity, the lubricant was impossible to synthesize for a reasonable cost. As a result, by the early 1680's, the krelp had been hunted nearly to extinction.
Then a series of developments originally meant for improved Kfarn enviro-suits made it possible to raise krelp in captivity. Krelp farms boomed, and for a few years made a lot of people very rich. There was a time when virtually any project even remotely related to krelp had people throwing money at it, and IPO's of krelp farms made billions over night.
The sudden availability of both trans-warp lubricant, and new millionaires willing to back exploratory ventures, sparked a sudden expansion of the Empire, and was partially responsible for the IJSE finally over-running its long-time rival across the Kfarn corridor, the Millicent Republican Empire. Which brings us back to Dundas Dorn and the counterfeiting plot, masterminded by a cell Millicentaurian rebels.
Getting back to the krelp, a new engine design was developed in the 1690's that didn't need krelp lubricant. It was considerably more expensive, and nobody - particularly the krelp farm syndicates - was really that enthusiastic about it at first. But it was beginning to eat into the market when people started making links between large-scale krelp farms and outbreaks of the Jelvan equivalent of Dutch elm disease. The bottom suddenly fell out of the krelp market, and all those krelp millionaires suddenly found themselves unable to afford those decadent Gobliak barbecues.
So, yes, they're edible.
>I'd think the symbiont they live with should be far
>more valuable than the critters themselves.
>
>So gimme that! No more food bills, wheee!
Alas, the symbiont is reluctant to associate with other life forms. It's actually distantly related to Jelvan facial moss, which is quite nourishing and high in protein.
Especially if he forgets to comb it out, once in a while.
JIM
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