Linyabel Miriat ⍟ "Linya"

"Right, but imagine you've never seen a computer before," says Miles. "Never used information technology more complicated than pen and ink. And you're from a very small, very traditional rural community, and somebody breezes in from the big cities you vaguely distrust, showing you this machine that makes sparkling lights and words appear in the air, and they can't explain what it is or how it works or why you should care, and they want you to take time out of your busy day to figure out where to put this apparently totally useless decorative artifact whose only obvious function is showing you pretty pictures and words from places you've never been to and don't give a damn about, and then someone's going to have to learn how it works and someone's going to have to learn how to make basic repairs to it, but if it really breaks it'll cost money you definitely don't have to get it hauled a long way to the nearest place where someone knows how to fix it properly."

The stream of words runs down at last. Miles shrugs.

"I'm not saying it's impossible to get a Dendarii hill village to accept some technology - Silvy Vale's done it - I'm just saying the approach required is a hell of a lot more delicate than most people on our side of the cultural divide would guess, and it takes time and effort and money we don't always have, just to get one individual village to see the point of all this modern foolishness and then set them up with enough modern foolishness to keep them going once they've got the idea."