I *would* like to reiterate Kestrel's point, though - which is that it's not so much "What is the most efficient possible technique?" as it is "what would the Senshi really *do*?" In particular, they're not a dictatorship, and some of them are probably pretty silly, and easily led - especially in those second few days (after the euphoria of the First Few Days has worn off) when everyone's unhappy. I'd bet that there's *one* city actually on the surface. There's probably only one, and there may well be a fair amoung of rivalry and argument and general unpleasantness between the folks on the ground and the folks in the sky, but they likely work together pretty much okay - helped by the fact that the ground is the only place where the diamond farms actually *work* right, which makes them vital to the ongoing economic wellbeing of the project, and the sky is the only place where anything other than those hyperspecialized shuttles can land (as far as we know) and the only place where food comes from, which makes them pretty important to the physical wellbeing of the people on the ground.
The point about diamond-as-salable-good wasn't that it was free, or that it wouldn't take some effort - just that the resources they have available mean that it will take significantly *less* effort than it would on earth. Economically, you *always* want to have an advantage or two that's not easily reproduceable by the opposition. Free heat (even if it's not enough by itself) and free pressure (even if *it* is not enough by itself) along with the readily available CO2 provide a nice justification (and a reason for the other Fen to not try to compete too hard). Past that, you have a willingness to use handwavium, and a bunch of enthusiastic handwavium users who are predisposed to like the idea of being surrounded by (and associated with) diamonds. With *that* added on, it starts being economically quite viable.
Actually, the general fenspace-wide approval of the senshi would be *another* contributing factor to people deciding to go into Things Other Than Diamonds with their 'wavetech. You don't want to compete with the *Venus* project, do you?
It also means that the sky-cities start seeing some work in diamondcrafting, from SCA-bred crafter-types who *love* what you can do with the medium, and used specialized handwaved crafting tools and techniques.
Incidentally, when we get 'round to it, one of the Venusian sky-cities (or, even worse, the one Venusian ground-city) would make *perfect* targets from a (somewhat horrific) drama perspective for the Robot Attack On A Colony that ClassicDrogn referred to in his flash-forward. Viable reasons could center around Thionite or a hit paid for by the diamond industry. Breaking the Surface Crystal Tokyo (assuming they *had* a robot capable of surviving down there without cooking the operators) would serve pretty nicely both in removing a beachhead from which they might be assaulted and in seriously putting some hurt on Senshi diamond production - and you can carry away a fair number of diamonds as loot when you go, too.
The point about diamond-as-salable-good wasn't that it was free, or that it wouldn't take some effort - just that the resources they have available mean that it will take significantly *less* effort than it would on earth. Economically, you *always* want to have an advantage or two that's not easily reproduceable by the opposition. Free heat (even if it's not enough by itself) and free pressure (even if *it* is not enough by itself) along with the readily available CO2 provide a nice justification (and a reason for the other Fen to not try to compete too hard). Past that, you have a willingness to use handwavium, and a bunch of enthusiastic handwavium users who are predisposed to like the idea of being surrounded by (and associated with) diamonds. With *that* added on, it starts being economically quite viable.
Actually, the general fenspace-wide approval of the senshi would be *another* contributing factor to people deciding to go into Things Other Than Diamonds with their 'wavetech. You don't want to compete with the *Venus* project, do you?
It also means that the sky-cities start seeing some work in diamondcrafting, from SCA-bred crafter-types who *love* what you can do with the medium, and used specialized handwaved crafting tools and techniques.
Incidentally, when we get 'round to it, one of the Venusian sky-cities (or, even worse, the one Venusian ground-city) would make *perfect* targets from a (somewhat horrific) drama perspective for the Robot Attack On A Colony that ClassicDrogn referred to in his flash-forward. Viable reasons could center around Thionite or a hit paid for by the diamond industry. Breaking the Surface Crystal Tokyo (assuming they *had* a robot capable of surviving down there without cooking the operators) would serve pretty nicely both in removing a beachhead from which they might be assaulted and in seriously putting some hurt on Senshi diamond production - and you can carry away a fair number of diamonds as loot when you go, too.