More Precious Than Silver
Jun. 14th, 2004 07:06 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
mishalakIt was just a throwaway line at the end of chapter 14 in Circus of the Damned.
"Please tell me I'm not the only one in this car with silver bullets."
Zerbrowski grinned. Dolph said, "Silver's more expensive than gold. City doesn't have that kind of money."
It got me to thinking about what it would do to history if silver were much more valuable. It should cause all sorts of changes, but then if vampires, magic, and all the rest were real that should have changed history a lot too. But the world of Laurell K. Hamilton is almost exactly like ours other than the supernatural. I, of course, can't just leave it alone so I spent a bit of time recently trying to come up with rationalizations for the apparent contradictions.
My first rationalization is that though the supernatural boogies are real that doesn't change history much as long as they are for the most part hidden from public view (which they are). Second when something happens in history the reason the other side didn't win was because the winning side usually had more magic as well as more arms. I think I might be able to get the enlightenment to work since magic isn't exactly an everyday thing by saying that most scholars ignore it and the few who don't follow Newton in throwing aside many of the old assumptions and studying rationally. That sort of works. But still I think it would produce a somewhat different world than our own.
But none of that is as bad as silver being more valuable than gold. I mean that would throw all sorts of default assumptions into a cocked hat. What about silver dollars? Were they minted? Did Colorado have a longer silver boom? Was there a silver purchase act? Without the cause of free silver what was the rallying cry of William Jennings Bryan and the populists? How far back was silver more costly? The reason is obvious enough; it has more cachet with actually working against the supernatural. And the majority of Gold and Silver's price is their popular image. There are more than enough of both for jewelry, but having this aura about them makes people hoard them. In our world gold has much more of a reputation so it has the high price and silver is regarded as second best and so has a more natural price. If the hording of gold in bullion form and the purchase of it as an investment stopped the price would likely drop to about $50 an ounce or less based upon the amount out there and the demand for jewelry alone.
So how in the world could silver rise to that price level? Well assume some hording by government and it isn't too hard. Though probably very annoying to would be vampire hunters. Still at the higher price there is a lot more silver available. Unless there was some serious hording and more gold available I don't think it would be possible for it to go down in price. And what in the world would that do to the film industry alone? Would it have even started without cheap silver? And what do Navajos sell beside the road in the southwest if silver is that expensive?
Bad world building is probably the ultimate answer. But still it nags at me.
"Please tell me I'm not the only one in this car with silver bullets."
Zerbrowski grinned. Dolph said, "Silver's more expensive than gold. City doesn't have that kind of money."
It got me to thinking about what it would do to history if silver were much more valuable. It should cause all sorts of changes, but then if vampires, magic, and all the rest were real that should have changed history a lot too. But the world of Laurell K. Hamilton is almost exactly like ours other than the supernatural. I, of course, can't just leave it alone so I spent a bit of time recently trying to come up with rationalizations for the apparent contradictions.
My first rationalization is that though the supernatural boogies are real that doesn't change history much as long as they are for the most part hidden from public view (which they are). Second when something happens in history the reason the other side didn't win was because the winning side usually had more magic as well as more arms. I think I might be able to get the enlightenment to work since magic isn't exactly an everyday thing by saying that most scholars ignore it and the few who don't follow Newton in throwing aside many of the old assumptions and studying rationally. That sort of works. But still I think it would produce a somewhat different world than our own.
But none of that is as bad as silver being more valuable than gold. I mean that would throw all sorts of default assumptions into a cocked hat. What about silver dollars? Were they minted? Did Colorado have a longer silver boom? Was there a silver purchase act? Without the cause of free silver what was the rallying cry of William Jennings Bryan and the populists? How far back was silver more costly? The reason is obvious enough; it has more cachet with actually working against the supernatural. And the majority of Gold and Silver's price is their popular image. There are more than enough of both for jewelry, but having this aura about them makes people hoard them. In our world gold has much more of a reputation so it has the high price and silver is regarded as second best and so has a more natural price. If the hording of gold in bullion form and the purchase of it as an investment stopped the price would likely drop to about $50 an ounce or less based upon the amount out there and the demand for jewelry alone.
So how in the world could silver rise to that price level? Well assume some hording by government and it isn't too hard. Though probably very annoying to would be vampire hunters. Still at the higher price there is a lot more silver available. Unless there was some serious hording and more gold available I don't think it would be possible for it to go down in price. And what in the world would that do to the film industry alone? Would it have even started without cheap silver? And what do Navajos sell beside the road in the southwest if silver is that expensive?
Bad world building is probably the ultimate answer. But still it nags at me.