tlb wrote:Anyway, please give the source for your price tag. I realize that there are some plant products which are extremely pricy; but I would expect the brains at Beowulf to have created a more productive source.
Edited, because I wondered at the population figure of a trillion; but if even Gryhon has a population of 600 million according to The Honorverse Companion, then that might be a good approximation.
kzt wrote:It cost about as much as a restaurant per one of the Flint/Weber books. David later said, well, a small restaurant. I suspect a NYC type hot dog cart costs 10k, and you can’t get much smaller than that.
Okay, I remember that reference; here it is from Torch of Freedom:
Chapter 38
Besides, the BSC would be footing most of the bill anyway. They'd agreed to pay the Butry clan an annual stipend for the use of the station. The stipend was more than enough to pay for the expense of providing every one of its members still young enough with prolong treatments—and with plenty left over to send them away for a regular education. The contribution of the Ballroom—technically, the Torch military and if you accepted that at face value you were a moron—was mostly going to be muscle. They'd be the ones who staffed the station, maintained the pretense it was still a slaver entrepot while actually using it as a combination stellar safe house and way station for covert operations—and treat themselves to shooting down the stray slaver ship that showed up from time to time.
Chapter 63
"How about us? How soon will we be going to Beowulf?" Nancy asked.
"I'm not sure about that either. I know Ganny wants us to go as soon as possible. Well, given the space available and where we are in the rotation."
That had been part of the deal. Every member of the clan still young enough was being transported to Beowulf in order to begin prolong treatments. The order in which they'd go was determined by their age. Those like Sarah Armstrong and Michael Alsobrook who were getting close to the limit would be sent first, of course. Brice and Ed and James were not at the top of the list, but he figured they'd be going pretty soon.
Best of all, Nancy would be going with them. It was too late for her mother Steph to undergo prolong, but not for Nancy herself.
Zilwicki had been as good as his word. Better, actually. The expense of paying for a complete suite of prolong treatments for her daughter was going to be at least as high as the expense of setting up Steph Turner in a new restaurant. But Anton hadn't blinked. "I'll cover the cost if Beowulf gets sticky about it."
From something Cachat had said, though, Brice thought Beowulf would probably just handle Nancy's treatments as part of the general arrangement they'd made with Ganny. When Brice had once expressed his concern over the issue to Victor, the Havenite had gotten a very cold smile on his face.
"I wouldn't lose any sleep over it, Brice. It's going to be a while yet—there are some other people we have to talk to first, for several reasons—but unless I miss my guess, you're going to see the rage of Beowulf unleashed in the universe sometime pretty damned soon now. They're not going to quibble over the cost of an extra prolong treatment while they're sinking a fortune into forging the weapons to finally take down Grendel.
So I am wrong.
Since I have not yet read UH, I do not know about the financial strength of the new League. Wouldn't this cost be beyond their means also?
At that rate, if prolong treatments are a government benefit of Manticore; does this mean that the average family is barred from voting during the year that a child receives the treatment?
Note that I am not asking if the core worlds could afford it taken together, but could the new League do so based on whatever funding it receives. For any core world with prolong as a benefit, a significant part of their annual GDP is committed to prolong treatments (approximately the cost per treatment times the birth rate, assuming a low childhood mortality rate).
If the new League really eliminates corruption and reflects the will of the core planets, then why would they want to go to war with the SEM or GA? I am asking on the principle that democracies almost never go to war against other democracies.