Space Industry

SWM wrote:

JeffEngel wrote: "SWM"
That's not correct. Silesia is quite densely populated with inhabited systems, while Talbott Cluster is very sparsely populated with inhabited systems. In volume, the Talbott Cluster is twice as wide as all of Silesia. The center of Silesia is closer to Basilisk than the center of the Talbott Cluster is to the Lynx Terminus. quote
Thanks. It hadn't looked like that from the maps in the books, but it's clear on the whole-known-space one on the Honorverse wiki:
http://honorverse.wikia.com/wiki/File:H ... 36b6y3.png

From there, it looks like the least-time route to Celebrant (to take the northernmost bit of the Talbott Quadrant) may actually be shorter going through Matapan than Lynx.

The density of the Silesia really sticks out on that map. Granted, I'm sure the map isn't showing a lot of places - a huge number of places - just for lack of interest or mention of them, and because it'd be an illegible cloud if it tried. But (I'm pretty sure - correct me if I'm wrong) all the Silesian dots represent inhabited systems and all the Talbott dots represent all or just about all the inhabited systems out that way.

So - where am I far, far off here, or if I'm not, what made Silesia such a hotbed of colonization?

No, you aren't way off there. The density of populated planets in Silesia is really high. It's not clear why that is so. But it is an example of how clumpy colonization got once the hyperdrive, and later the wormhole, came along.

Maybe the draw was a large number of habitable planets in a relatively small cluster and they were claimed/settled by a conglomerate group of settlers. The area is known as a whole as Silesia after all. Maybe they were mainly German/Prussian/Polish/Dutch settlers that pooled their money together to found the settlements and they maintained a loose confederation that remained until the AE and SEM devoured it.

I am still at a loss as to how those two nations got the planets/systems of Silesia to go along with being absorbed by the AE and SEM.

Edit: bloody quote limit...

My guess is the average citizen was sick of e corruption, piracy, and constant rebellions and saw being absorbed as the easiest way to deal with the issues.

SWM wrote:

JeffEngel wrote:Thanks. It hadn't looked like that from the maps in the books, but it's clear on the whole-known-space one on the Honorverse wiki:
http://honorverse.wikia.com/wiki/File:H ... 36b6y3.png

From there, it looks like the least-time route to Celebrant (to take the northernmost bit of the Talbott Quadrant) may actually be shorter going through Matapan than Lynx.

The density of the Silesia really sticks out on that map. Granted, I'm sure the map isn't showing a lot of places - a huge number of places - just for lack of interest or mention of them, and because it'd be an illegible cloud if it tried. But (I'm pretty sure - correct me if I'm wrong) all the Silesian dots represent inhabited systems and all the Talbott dots represent all or just about all the inhabited systems out that way.

So - where am I far, far off here, or if I'm not, what made Silesia such a hotbed of colonization?

No, you aren't way off there. The density of populated planets in Silesia is really high. It's not clear why that is so. But it is an example of how clumpy colonization got once the hyperdrive, and later the wormhole, came along.

I don't know if the map is detailed enough to say that Silesia is denser than average. For one, the RoH bubble doesn't contain between 150-300 dots and the League's core and shell isn't dotted with ~1800 systems. If they were, however, that density would make Silesia look pretty vacuous!

As for the colonisation issue - we know Manticore was surveyed and the rights to that system sold to the colonists. It's implied that this was(and may still be) common practice for colonies.

An ambitious survey company might have sent out a long-range mission to survey the stars in, say, a 100 LY bubble approximately 1500 LY out from Sol. If this occurred at a time when most surveyors weren't going beyond 1000 LY, this could explain how some regions further out seem to have been settled longer and with greater density than other regions closer to Sol.

Zakharra wrote:Maybe the draw was a large number of habitable planets in a relatively small cluster and they were claimed/settled by a conglomerate group of settlers. The area is known as a whole as Silesia after all. Maybe they were mainly German/Prussian/Polish/Dutch settlers that pooled their money together to found the settlements and they maintained a loose confederation that remained until the AE and SEM devoured it.

Yeah, that could be. If people were worried about the growing SL and how it's not really a happy lifestyle being under OFS for a few generations, heading out what ought to be a safe distance from it and working out what amounts to a beefy mutual defense pact (would be consistent with the name "Confederacy" too) may have looked like a good idea.

I am still at a loss as to how those two nations got the planets/systems of Silesia to go along with being absorbed by the AE and SEM.

Edit: bloody quote limit...

It is indeed evil and must be destroyed!

So was the Confederacy, really, for the people in it. People like peace, order, and good government. It means we can settle down with our jobs, our families, and cat videos and not have to worry much about being killed, maimed, or enslaved. The Confederacy wasn't remotely providing that, and the AE and SEM _could_. Heck, they were already the de facto sources of pirate suppression in the Confederacy, and that overlapped into suppressing secession movements. Providing outright interstellar government instead wasn't as large a step as it may seem, and it was a very helpful one for most people there.

For the people making money off the continuing meltdown of Silesia, well, they got bought off, put on probation, or busted as circumstances demanded. I'm sure the ones on probation have often since been busted and there will probably be more of that for some time.

munroburton wrote:

SWM wrote:No, you aren't way off there. The density of populated planets in Silesia is really high. It's not clear why that is so. But it is an example of how clumpy colonization got once the hyperdrive, and later the wormhole, came along.

I don't know if the map is detailed enough to say that Silesia is denser than average. For one, the RoH bubble doesn't contain between 150-300 dots and the League's core and shell isn't dotted with ~1800 systems. If they were, however, that density would make Silesia look pretty vacuous!

Yes, Haven and the League are also dense. But compare that to the Talbott Cluster and the Maya Sector. Both of those sectors do show all the inhabited systems, and they are really sparse compared to Silesia.

You put your industry where you 1) close to sources of materials, energy, people, transpiration- or wherever you can bring those three together though said transportation. 2) where you can defend it.

That is what is happening in the Honoreverse. When they develope or acquire the capacity for it, most planets put a lot of industry in space. They still have to defend it but then it is in the same place as the thing you have to defend- you home system.

Yildun, Technodyne's manufacturing major manufacturing site is a separate case. This is a corporation and the primary reason for being at Yildun is to control the system and every thing in it. Given their size, they probably have the equivelent of a SDF as part of their security. They are manufacturing for a lot of the SLN equipment and outside of an expected regular procession of SLN ships comming through and being repaired there, there may be a picket force of the SLN to keep up security since this is a naval manufacturing and building site.

The lesson reinforced by Grendelsbain was you need to keep your manufacturing (at least military related) in your home system where you are going to have a significant amount of your defensive capasilty also located.
The manufacturing set up at Grendelsbain appears to have been set up to get closer to a materials source. There was no habitable planet so all the workforce had to be shipped in and would be there (in space habitats/station) during their tours. If there was a concern about availability of materials in the Manticore system, it would have been better to set up some relatively low- level extraction facilities and send the ore home by freighter sized cargo lots. You still need to protect it but as a (hopefully) secondary stratigic materials source you don't keep as much there in way of ships as when it was a full major yard.

Brigade XO wrote:The lesson reinforced by Grendelsbain was you need to keep your manufacturing (at least military related) in your home system where you are going to have a significant amount of your defensive capasilty also located.
The manufacturing set up at Grendelsbain appears to have been set up to get closer to a materials source. There was no habitable planet so all the workforce had to be shipped in and would be there (in space habitats/station) during their tours. If there was a concern about availability of materials in the Manticore system, it would have been better to set up some relatively low- level extraction facilities and send the ore home by freighter sized cargo lots. You still need to protect it but as a (hopefully) secondary stratigic materials source you don't keep as much there in way of ships as when it was a full major yard.

Grendelsbane was set up for position in the upcoming war - a support base for the extreme flank down there - rather than for resources there. Check out the infodump at
http://infodump.thefifthimperium.com/en ... gton/104/1

Similar concerns could support a similar base off in Silesia or maybe the far-from-Lynx portions of Talbott, but I think the RMN is shy of anything growing any larger than, say, Marsh, outside the home system or Spindle now.

[quote="Brigade XO"]You put your industry where you 1) close to sources of materials, energy, people, transpiration- or wherever you can bring those three together though said transportation. 2) where you can defend it.

--------------

XO --
To a point, I agree.
Your premise is right on.
A shipyard or industrial center needs
(1) local raw materials -- an appropriate asteroid belt will do
(2) a local technically competant workforce (Bolthole is not really a good example since the PRH initially imported the workers)
(3) a defensible location. Grendelsbane was initially thought safe due to distance.
(4) an ability to get the manufactured products to the area of need / employment.

Example in our universe being the UK's development if shipyards and industry in India prior to WWII.

In the Honorverse, Silesia MAY be an option for some construction or refit other than that nagging Micro-Fusion plant issue.
Eventually, both Talbot and Silesia WILL be prime locations for forward industry, but the high end infrastructure is not there yet.
Like Rembrandt, there are local shipyards and local capacity, but not (yet) the SEM technology; and no time (at present) to upgrade either the local technology or the local educational systems.

-- Stewart

Draken wrote:SNIP
Why their are building them inside systems? Shouldn't it be easier to just build them in the interstellar space? There is very low chance that somebody will find them and we could transport there raw materials.

Snip

Mostly, this was answered by others; one point they didn't address was that you put the things you want protected inside a hyper limit so an attacker can't surprise you, dropping in out of hyper. A hyper limit of 20 light minutes approaches 360M km as a radius. That is a lot of space. In the case of the Blackbird Yard, they were outside the star's hyperlimit, but Uriel (the planet Blackbird orbited) was so big it had its own hyperlimit.

The logistics effort for supplying a major shipyard in the absence of extraction nodes, parts factories, nano-farms, etc., would not only be staggering, but it would not be possible to find crews for the freighters who never get too much to drink. It would be a security nightmare.

Rob

stewart wrote:

Brigade XO wrote:You put your industry where you 1) close to sources of materials, energy, people, transpiration- or wherever you can bring those three together though said transportation. 2) where you can defend it.

--------------

XO --
To a point, I agree.
Your premise is right on.
A shipyard or industrial center needs
(1) local raw materials -- an appropriate asteroid belt will do
(2) a local technically competant workforce (Bolthole is not really a good example since the PRH initially imported the workers)
(3) a defensible location. Grendelsbane was initially thought safe due to distance.
(4) an ability to get the manufactured products to the area of need / employment.

Example in our universe being the UK's development if shipyards and industry in India prior to WWII.

In the Honorverse, Silesia MAY be an option for some construction or refit other than that nagging Micro-Fusion plant issue.
Eventually, both Talbot and Silesia WILL be prime locations for forward industry, but the high end infrastructure is not there yet.
Like Rembrandt, there are local shipyards and local capacity, but not (yet) the SEM technology; and no time (at present) to upgrade either the local technology or the local educational systems.

-- Stewart

Per David Pearl comment, there was also a native population in the Bolthole system, who were greatly happy for the bootstrap and the jobs and the long term economic boost, and were 'willing' (for values of willing) to put up with the restrictions, even for multiple decades.