Talk:Religion/@comment-26018514-20190513193528/@comment-4010415-20190515022206

@Jonathan

1. The ban on artistic expression was over 80 years ago, before the Great War. You speak as if it's still currently going on. It's in the past, which is why Weiss can be a singer (and pianist, btw).

2. Technically, it was Mantle that banned artistic expression, not Atlas, as it happened before they actually settled and built Atlas. Again, the ban was in the past and no longer exists.

3. As for the reason the Dust embargo actually affects anything, the Schnee Dust Company, which is Atlas-based, is one of the largest Dust companies on the planet. Furthermore, they don't just rip Dust out of the ground and go "Give me money for this", they have to process and purify the Dust first. They haven't explained why Dust gets processed in the show, but in one of the novels, they've mentioned processed Dust being easier to use than unprocessed.

On top of that, most people just use Dust bullets, and most of the people who actually use raw Dust do so in some kind of processed form, whether it's been ground into powder, cut into a more refined state, or forged into a blade.

There's also the fact that some of the Dust types are created by mixing two types through some kind of process that is deemed "artificial".

Then, there's also the fact that Dust is not just used for combat, but also for technology, and the Dust used for technology likely has to be packaged in certain ways, such as in batteries or something. The stove that Ruby turned on when she and Ren were cooking in Volume 5 used Dust, and the lamp that Maria turned on in the Brunswick farmhouse likely used Dust, considering there was no power cable for it.

So, while there are Dust mines elsewhere in the world, especially in Vacuo, a lot of those mines are occupied by Schnee Dust Company facilities, and a lot of people rely on companies like the Schnee Dust Company to put that Dust through factories to purify, process, and package Dust into various easier-to-use products.