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Vaisyas (or vaishyas) are the caste associated with merchants (and some other roles) in the traditional Hindu caste system. Which doesn’t give you the full picture of what Zaynab’s on about here, but you’ll have to wait for that.
The holographic displays these kids are using can be set to different opacities depending on what you’re doing with them or your personal preference. So sometimes you can see right through them and sometimes you can only read them on one side. See-through screens make sense from a story-telling point of view, but let’s be honest, in real life you would want to be able to turn your screen to opaque most of the time for a variety of reasons.
The displays aren’t cordless not because bluetooth technology has failed to advance, but because I figure holography doesn’t work very well without a medium to project it on. So the cords deliver a cloud of vapour that can be controlled via static charge and lit up to use for displays and interfaces.
Panel 2: Zaynab (looking at her screen nervously): "Oh my days! What if I don't get into the right clubs?"
Panel 3: Jewana passes her holographic display over to Maida. Maida: "Oh, this. I saw this. It's like... sport clubs and things. I don't even know what I would join." Jewana: "You have to join some clubs!"
Panel 4: Zaynab: "Clubs are sooo important! They check, when they do your placement, you know."
Panel 5: Zaynab: "It's one of the main fings in your case 'istory."
Panel 6: Zaynab: "Like, I want to be a vaisya when I graduate, but I wasn't good enough to get into maffs club last semester, so I have to get into a good gaming team this time 'round."
Panel 7: Maria: "Or you could join student politics. That's good for everyfing."
Discussion ¬