by Dan Knight
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“What are chips for?
“In the late fourth century, when our story unfolds, chips were used solely for tracking. The chips don't work outside the city unless the dwarf is in a vehicle connected to the com-grid.
“This may seem odd, but the 'control' offered by the chips led to a number of abuses and unintentional tragedies caused by the software - reality interface. Certainly an abusive person can take advantage of someone with a remote control device in his forehead. What really led to undoing the control chips was the inability to make basic human decisions. A dwarf child might not escape from a fire or an adult dwarf may be unable to run into a fire to save his child or his owner's child.
“Although fire is almost unknown in Nodlon, it only took a few instances of such horrific errors to force Bio-Soft to delete the control software from their chips. Nonetheless, the chip alone is a sufficient sign of the dwarf's servile status to remind the bearer of his place in Nodlon society.”
