More Words, Deeper Hole

Operation Chaos also is what I think of as a good example of what I call the "Cop's Gun/Classic Trek" principle of world building: if you refer to something, don't explain it unless it's absolutely crucial to the plot. I.e: cops in mysteries don't stop to explain to the audience how their guns work.

I have to wonder, if that one transhumanist writer was writing a mystery, if he would feel compelled to take fifty pages to describe how a gun works from first priciples: "Gunpowder is a mixture of..."