Green Flame Rising (Exalted vs Dresden Files)
- Thread starter DragonParadox
- Start date
- Crossover Fantasy
fictionfan
Please sir, may I have some Meows?
- Location
- Tempe, AZ
In America it is unlikely to be government agencies that get snoopy. More reporters running the story and spys of various types wanting to steal or buy our secret. In other words we will get used to people constantly following us who have a fairly clear idea what they can legally get away with the open artificial diamonds option.
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I think you're reaching. I appreciate that you try to pack as much as you can into your plans, but we don't want additional complications in our first attempt to set up some basic legal fictions to cover our operations.
Eyes on the prize; once we have RVD we can do the stuff you're talking about as a separate effort later.
There's also probably not a list exactly. One hole in the ground is as good as another, so Thomas was probably planning on flying out there and doing a few day trips while spending the rest of the time on vacation. He can't exactly look appropriate places up on Zillow or something. So we'd be delaying dealing with this until he's actually able to get out there, look around, and report back.
Yeah, but the thing is no one believes that unless they can see it. If we set up a company claiming to do something in a new non-dangerous way they're going to want to inspect the premises.
NDAs would be involved, but you can't just say you've invented something new and refuse entry when regulators ask if your enormous industrial presses or 3000 degree carbon plasma are a fire hazard.
Such a loophole makes it way too easy to tell regulators to screw off.
If we don't want to mess with a fake mine then I think we should just go with importing mixed gems from a wholesaler that we create abroad.
I was addressing flat votes to put Molly in charge of such a company in her own name.
Uh, no. You cannot bar regulators from the premises of a manufacturing concern.
However, if you do not claim that your manufacturing process involves industrial processes, high temperature plasmas or hazardous chemicals? Regulators can walk into a clean room and look all they want, certify you as compliant and walk away.
It is not their job or duty to ensure the integrity of your manufacturing process for other entities.
Just that it doesnt pollute, isnt a danger, and doesnt harm workers.
EDIT
And that assumes you give a public address for a manufacturing site.
Instead of just buying land somewhere cheap like Texas that gives no fucks about state inspections of activity on private land, and making it seem thats where the work goes on.
Oh, my bad.
Yeah that would be just silly. Cant imagine why you'd want to do that.
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There's also employee related issues (taxes and benefits) that could get the hairy eye of the government turned towards us.
Which I honestly find much more problematic than the issue of private investigators trying to figure out how to report that "hell magic" is our process.
Also, write-in idea: use the Library contact information to ask if the government has a preferred corporate structure for profit from "I used magic to skip several steps"
WeylandSmith
Loose Cultivator
- Location
- [Global State]
[X] An innovative diamond creating start up, make high quality but obviously artificial diamonds
You can't just say you don't if all prior industrial standards say you probably are. The EPA isn't going to take your word for it.
State and federal regulators will rapidly lose patience with a company claiming to manufacture things that provides no address for their facilities. Especially if they clearly have products manufactured somewhere and refuse to give a plausible explanation for how they're doing it in defiance of how everyone else understands the process.
You can't just lie on a couple of registration forms and expect everyone to shrug it off once you've caught their attention.
That's basically the regulatory version of telling a cop "you can't do this to me". They can, and now that you're being annoying they're going to make a point about it.
Edit:
On the last bit; I'm not sure either, but a significant number of people are voting for it.
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- Location
- Brazil
[X] A small mining operation, try to make diamonds that could pass for natural
-[X] Have Thomas gather the list of properties for sale, then use the Crown on the list to arrange them starting from the one that has the most unclaimed and undiscovered supernatural power within its borders, including buried underneath it. Use the sales announcements of the properties to check what kind of magical power each one has.
-[X] Ask Thomas if he'd be willing to be the public owner of the company to reduce the odds of investigation from interest parties
-[X] Have Thomas gather the list of properties for sale, then use the Crown on the list to arrange them starting from the one that has the most unclaimed and undiscovered supernatural power within its borders, including buried underneath it. Use the sales announcements of the properties to check what kind of magical power each one has.
-[X] Ask Thomas if he'd be willing to be the public owner of the company to reduce the odds of investigation from interest parties
Probably has nothing to do with this.
State or federal regulators cannot demand that your operation resemble those of other entities. They can demand inspection of your alleged place of manufacture, or take sensings from outside it. If they find nothing, they cant do nothing.
You have not imported any heavy industrial equipment.
You are not consuming industrial amounts of energy or water. There are no industrial emissions of chemicals, heat or noise. There is nothing to infract, and regulators have much bigger fish to fry.
The only reason they would go over and beyond would be if someone with influence was pushing them to, and we have (a) bureaucracy charm for that.
Seriously, I wish industrial regulators were anywhere as rigorous or well-resourced as you think IRL.
I mean, look at this from 2013
West Fertilizer Company explosion - Wikipedia
This place was last inspected in 1985.
12 people died when it blew up.
It STILL took 2 years after that for the Texas legislature to mandate that fire marshalls could demand to inspect such sites.
There's a reason why I said we could always rent or buy a property in Texas as a dodge.
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You're not wrong on aspects of this, where disagree is on the level of interest. If you're a decades old compost heap then no one cares, a brand new interesting thing won't get passed over the same way. Especially if someone decides to play games with us.Probably has nothing to do with this.
State or federal regulators cannot demand that your operation resemble those of other entities. They can demand inspection of your alleged place of manufacture, or take sensings from outside it. If they find nothing, they cant do nothing.
You have not imported any heavy industrial equipment.
You are not consuming industrial amounts of energy or water. There are no industrial emissions of chemicals, heat or noise. There is nothing to infract, and regulators have much bigger fish to fry.
The only reason they would go over and beyond would be if someone with influence was pushing them to, and we have (a) bureaucracy charm for that.
Seriously, I wish regulators were anywhere as rigorous or well-resourced as you think IRL.
I mean, look at this from 2013
Company put a freaking fertilizer storage facility with several hundred tons of ammonium nitrate in a town.West Fertilizer Company explosion - Wikipedia
en.m.wikipedia.org
This place was last inspected in 1985.
12 people died when it blew up.
It STILL took 2 years after that for the Texas legislature to mandate that fire marshalls could demand to inspect such sites.
There's a reason why I said we could always rent or buy a property in Texas as a dodge.
On the regulators specifically you're also right that they can't demand we do everything the way everyone else does, but real world physics is the lens they're going to operate through.
We can't demand that they do their inspections from the property line; they'll be able to demand entry to certain areas even if they can't mess with equipment.
If someone pops in and thinks our facility looks fake then the response will be based on the assumption that we're lying and evading oversight. Which they hate and tend to try making examples off when it gets really blatant.
I dont really agree.
See all the cryptocurrency mining farms that got set up in the US and other Western countries, before the economics drove some of them abroad in pursuit of cheaper electricity. Fuckit, look at Theranos, which went on for ten years before anyone even twigged.
Someone coming after us is Plot. We have tools for dealing with Plot.
And thats just as likely to happen with gemstone importation as with domestic manufacture. More likely frankly, because African nations are not just free real estate, and most nations can and do exercise control over mine sites.
I mean, have you seen how mining regulations and export regulations in Third World countries can change when either corrupt officials get greedy, or well-meaning politicians try for a bigger cut of the pie?
Case in point: Tanzania and tanzanite mining,
Tanzanite - Wikipedia
Quite apart from the ethics, our operation is going to be too small time to be worth investing time in meddling with foreign politics.
Conversely, we have a largely predictable regulatory scheme in the US. Even legal ratfuckery has to follow predictable rules.
At least, thats my current opinion.
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Goldfish
Friendly Spider-Fish Abomination
- Location
- Formerly of the Far Realm
LOL, wow, that wall paid for itself very quickly.
And frankly, on consideration, Im a little surprised at the idea that owning a foreign diamond mine is supposed to draw less attention than selling low numbers of artificial diamonds quietly wholesale and paying your taxes.
Is the person who sold the land to you going to have seller's remorse and take you to court when he hears you're getting diamonds? Or get together some local toughs to apply extrajudicial pressure? Will international diamond companies perk up and take notice to buy up land in the area and launch prospecting expeditions, under the reasoning that similar geology will also yield gemstones?
Seriously. This is less lowprofile than a US-based company, because we will come to the attention of the State Department and CIA, because resource geopolitics is very much in their wheelhouse. Not to mention every other major intelligence service and foreign ministry that tracks that sort of thing, in addition to international press and press in the country of operation.
Yeah, that makes up my mind.
I think I'd much rather deal with local regulators.
VOTE
[X] An innovative diamond creating start up, make high quality but obviously artificial diamonds
Is the person who sold the land to you going to have seller's remorse and take you to court when he hears you're getting diamonds? Or get together some local toughs to apply extrajudicial pressure? Will international diamond companies perk up and take notice to buy up land in the area and launch prospecting expeditions, under the reasoning that similar geology will also yield gemstones?
Seriously. This is less lowprofile than a US-based company, because we will come to the attention of the State Department and CIA, because resource geopolitics is very much in their wheelhouse. Not to mention every other major intelligence service and foreign ministry that tracks that sort of thing, in addition to international press and press in the country of operation.
Yeah, that makes up my mind.
I think I'd much rather deal with local regulators.
VOTE
[X] An innovative diamond creating start up, make high quality but obviously artificial diamonds
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Goldfish
Friendly Spider-Fish Abomination
- Location
- Formerly of the Far Realm
Another selling point to this route is that it should be easy to dismantle when it's usefulness has run its course. The mine route puts us on so many different radars, we could be dealing with consequences from it for years to come.
This doesn't need to be a long-term endeavor, just something to provide funding for the next few months.
Imagine if we were making high-grade steel instead of diamonds. You could not just put scrap iron and steel plates into an empty warehouse and declare the smelting process to be proprietary.
That said post 2000 diamond trade regulation in real world are non-trivial as well.
Personally eventually I want to find a fire aspected node. And build a waste processing facility that turn trash into oil. It can be done just not in anyway at all economically.
[X] A small mining operation, try to make diamonds that could pass for natural
-[X] Have Thomas gather the list of properties for sale, then use the Crown on the list to arrange them starting from the one that has the most unclaimed and undiscovered supernatural power within its borders, including buried underneath it. Use the sales announcements of the properties to check what kind of magical power each one has.
-[X] Have Thomas gather the list of properties for sale, then use the Crown on the list to arrange them starting from the one that has the most unclaimed and undiscovered supernatural power within its borders, including buried underneath it. Use the sales announcements of the properties to check what kind of magical power each one has.
We're talking about an incredibly small throughput that only needs to last until we get another source of income to use in our own name.
Molly would attract way too much attention doing either of these things, but Thomas Raith is the sort of person who it makes sense to have tried this sort of stuff from an outside perspective.
If he thinks he can work the legal aspects of it for at least a few months then that's all we need. In a way all that meddling is a good thing for us, since none of our diamonds are actually in the ground and we need an excuse to shut things down at some point.
Once we've laundered enough gems to get to our next proper income stream we can just shut down because the mine played out/the political situation grew too volatile.
The problem with the artificial stuff is the highly significant claim we'll be setting up and backing that leads right back to us.
People in and out of government would give a shit about a process that can grow diamonds in a suburban garage without 3000 degree carbon plasma or vats of variably unhealthy materials.
Edit:
Seriously though, whatever we pick it should be in Thomas' name and not Molly's. That's half the value of having a financial minion for us right now.
It's pretty out there for a salon owner to break into the gem trade, but a lot less so than a teenager with no relevant history to do so. More importantly, what interest is there is pointed away from us.
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[X] An innovative diamond creating start up, make high quality but obviously artificial diamonds
They're not comparable. Forget the regulators.
If you are getting into supplying steel, people looking to award you contracts to supply steel will inspect your facilities to ensure you are capable of fulfilling the contract and can meet quality. There are large, obvious installations for receiving ore,scrap metal and coke, as well as for shipping finished product.
Hundreds or thousands of people involved.
Anywhere from thousands to millions of tons of throughput yearly.
That is very much not the case with our (proposed) gemstone operation.
And while, yes, the post-2000 diamond regulation is supposed to be significant, and a major hurdle for a new mine starting up in the Third World, everything I've read suggests that the certification regime is pretty routinely subverted.
So it in itself wouldnt be an insurmountable hurdle for the proposed Africa mine.
Not possible in this cosmology.
And the geopolitics of oil is shit we dont want to deal with.
I am reasonably comfortable with our ability to avoid the overburdened regulatory apparatus of the US and domestic journalistic scrutiny. I am not at all comfortable with our current ability to elude the diplomatic corps and natsec apparatus of every G20 nationstate out there if we draw their attention by getting involved in alleged diamond mines in the Third World.
The juice isnt worth the squeeze IMO.
There's at least four known methods that has already been demonstrated for diamond synthesis: high pressure high temperature, chemical vapor deposition, detonation of explosives and ultrasound cavitation.
Three of those are in industrial use.
Furthermore, the economic incentives of the cosmetic gemstone industry do not favor their wanting a new, cheap process entering the market. Self-interest plays in our favor there, as long as we maintain a discreet profile and small supply. And people in government arent really interested in a boutique production modality for gemstones whose scale suggests some sort of bottleneck.
Plus, Google Earth has been a thing at this point since 2001.
Dont even need to buy dedicated satellite imagery to check out a sight on the ground, though you can if you want.
fictionfan
Please sir, may I have some Meows?
- Location
- Tempe, AZ
So Google earth sees a hole. Holes are not hard to make or find.