in the Shadow of Greatness

Heh. This reminds me -- I'm rewatching Firefly with Jen, who's watching for the first time. When our heroes build a working ambulance from junk yard parts on Ariel, I was thinking it was a bit of a stretch, but showed how good our heroes were with the tech. But Jen interpreted it as showing that a core world planet is so rich it throws away stuff which is still perfectly usable with a bit of work.

I like her version better than mine.

Seems like Amber might be an awful lot like a core world...

"...so rich it throws away stuff which is still perfectly usable with a bit of work."

Absolutely. Look at the curb on trash day. All kinds of stuff in there that somebody could use, if it weren't such a cultural taboo to use stuff somebody else has cast off. (much less, go diving in there to get it)

I go nuts when I see whole baby setups at the curb... somebody out there needs that stuff desperately, and can't afford it...