I was reading a mystery novel involving the thefts of several Faberge eggs, and I began speculating about a Far future cognate of those eggs. Not eggs, but something similar: extremely portable wealth with room for more wealth inside.
Checking Wikipedia I noticed that the author of my novel had taken some liberties with the truth. I like her version better, and fortunately I can suit myself when it comes to the Far future.
Basically, the Emperor (which Emperor? do I make this a Classic Era thing or do I make it "historical"?), other members of the Imperial Family, and the archdukes are the sole customers for the objects. Those the Emperor gives away are bigger and more lavish that those the others give away, of course -- anything else would be a faux pas.
The jeweller might be allowed to manufacture and sell smaller -- half-sized, quater-sized -- objects to lesser customers.
In the end I hit on globes -- three-dimensional scale models of various worlds -- with surface details rendered with thousands and thousand of tiny faceted gems of varied colors.
But now we come to details of which I'm completely ignorant. What sort of resolution can one achieve? I.e. how many dpi (diamonds per inch
) or rather jpi (jewels per inch)? Does it even make sense to talk of faceted gems of that size? Would it make any difference (i.e. would they sparkle in bright light the way bigger jewels sparkle)? I'm thinking about making the Imperial globes about 15 cm in diameter and the other globes 10cm. Can you get a reasonable resolution at that size?
And how much would something like that be worth? I mean, an Imperial gift should be expensive, but are jewels that small actually worth anything at all? Ond could put something really expensive inside, of course, but what about the globe itself?
Faberge made one Imperial egg per year. How many globes would the Emperor give out? Also one per year? The first one would be of Sylea and be given to his wife. Subsequent eggs would presumably be of different globes. or would there be more than one globe of the same world? Each globe will have to be unique, that goes without saying, but one could make various variations of the same world. Subtly different jewels, one with a day- and a night-side... I'm sure there are other possibilities.
Opinions, suggestions, and facts all solicited.
Hans
Checking Wikipedia I noticed that the author of my novel had taken some liberties with the truth. I like her version better, and fortunately I can suit myself when it comes to the Far future.
Basically, the Emperor (which Emperor? do I make this a Classic Era thing or do I make it "historical"?), other members of the Imperial Family, and the archdukes are the sole customers for the objects. Those the Emperor gives away are bigger and more lavish that those the others give away, of course -- anything else would be a faux pas.
The jeweller might be allowed to manufacture and sell smaller -- half-sized, quater-sized -- objects to lesser customers.
In the end I hit on globes -- three-dimensional scale models of various worlds -- with surface details rendered with thousands and thousand of tiny faceted gems of varied colors.
But now we come to details of which I'm completely ignorant. What sort of resolution can one achieve? I.e. how many dpi (diamonds per inch

And how much would something like that be worth? I mean, an Imperial gift should be expensive, but are jewels that small actually worth anything at all? Ond could put something really expensive inside, of course, but what about the globe itself?
Faberge made one Imperial egg per year. How many globes would the Emperor give out? Also one per year? The first one would be of Sylea and be given to his wife. Subsequent eggs would presumably be of different globes. or would there be more than one globe of the same world? Each globe will have to be unique, that goes without saying, but one could make various variations of the same world. Subtly different jewels, one with a day- and a night-side... I'm sure there are other possibilities.
Opinions, suggestions, and facts all solicited.
Hans