Retirement Age in the Honorverse

kzt wrote:So you want to put out of business your low cost local providers, who, btw, VOTE and pay taxes, and instead go to higher cost remote providers who are supposed to be sending a freighter full of raw material every day on a 60 day trip.

As a mental exercise, what happens if they stop sending freighters? How long does it take for you to realize something very bad has happened to organization you are counting on to supply ALL the resources for your entire economy?

Now what do you do? BTW, keep in mind that if you send a warship to investigate it gets treated as a pirate.

Sure, the Core Worlds will invest in resource extraction expansion. They'll do that after the expand their expansion of finished goods production. Those Verge systems will need investment in resource extraction system regardless. The protectorates already have resource extraction geared for export. It will take time for the new economic relationships to stabilize and the spike in demand from the wars to be satisfied.

PeterZ wrote:Sure, the Core Worlds will invest in resource extraction expansion. They'll do that after the expand their expansion of finished goods production. Those Verge systems will need investment in resource extraction system regardless. The protectorates already have resource extraction geared for export. It will take time for the new economic relationships to stabilize and the spike in demand from the wars to be satisfied.

They don't need to expand. Any more than Manticore did. It's like satisfying the demand for sea water in Hartford. I think there is probably a better answer than paying someone in India to ship you ISO containers of sea water, even if they do work cheap.

kzt wrote:

PeterZ wrote:Sure, the Core Worlds will invest in resource extraction expansion. They'll do that after the expand their expansion of finished goods production. Those Verge systems will need investment in resource extraction system regardless. The protectorates already have resource extraction geared for export. It will take time for the new economic relationships to stabilize and the spike in demand from the wars to be satisfied.

They don't need to expand. Any more than Manticore did. It's like satisfying the demand for sea water in Hartford. I think there is probably a better answer than paying someone in India to ship you ISO containers of sea water, even if they do work cheap.

Your seawater analogy doesn't work. Think about shipping in freshwater because you have to much demand for your Hartford desalination plant to satisfy. The raw material is there, but needs processing. That takes industrial capacity. And if everyone but India is suffering from excess demand, why we ship the freshwater from India.

The Core has enough output capacity for their normal needs. Buccaneer created significant demand beyond their capacity. The protectorates being freed means yet more demand for industrial output as they expand their industrial base. Add verge worlds while we're at it. The protectorates won't be paying OFS anymore so can invest in industrial expansion. The verge and fringe will seek SEM, Andermani and Havenite financing of their infrastructure expansion.

So, just as the SEM hit a limit on how quickly they can recover their industrial infrastructure, the rest of the Honorverse faces similar limits.

PeterZ wrote:

kzt wrote:So you want to put out of business your low cost local providers, who, btw, VOTE and pay taxes, and instead go to higher cost remote providers who are supposed to be sending a freighter full of raw material every day on a 60 day trip.

As a mental exercise, what happens if they stop sending freighters? How long does it take for you to realize something very bad has happened to organization you are counting on to supply ALL the resources for your entire economy?

Now what do you do? BTW, keep in mind that if you send a warship to investigate it gets treated as a pirate.

Sure, the Core Worlds will invest in resource extraction expansion. They'll do that after the expand their expansion of finished goods production. Those Verge systems will need investment in resource extraction system regardless. The protectorates already have resource extraction geared for export. It will take time for the new economic relationships to stabilize and the spike in demand from the wars to be satisfied.

I doubt there are many worlds that need to import EVERYTHING. People make choices...and, yes, sometimes they are made for them.

But note that Grayson was toddling along BEFORE Manticore allied itself. Not nearly as well but it was surviving in a very hostile environment.

As for investments, I see the transtellars going out to the Verge and Shell and investing. Of course, they probably would have problems with the protectorates they exploited but there are always other ones.

So instead of using troops to rule, they will use bribes. Cash always seems to work.

kzt wrote:They can claim whatever they want. But a honorverse largely automated asteroid processing system is going to produce a vast amount of material every day with a small crew. And it's going to produce it several hours from the destination, not several months and multiple transshipments.

Were talking cubic KM per day level. It's really hard to have a horde of guys in space suits (and the space suits are in themselves not at all cheap) with picks being more cost effective than someone using tractor beams to continuously feed an asteroid into a wedge at tons per second.

Particularly when one of them then needs to pay for a multi-month trip and the other doesn't.

Given that this is far from cutting edge in the Honorverse there is an assumption that the primative planets are using a more primitive version at lower wages, but I still have my doubts.

The only reason I can see for getting minerals from another system is

1) Your current extraction infrastructure cannot keep up with local demand - this is usually short term, but infrastructure is expensive and you may find yourself in a position where #2 occurs.

2) For some reason, it is more economical (or equally economical) to source minerals from another source.

3) Some required mineral in not plentiful in your system, but is in some other system. Which usually reflects back on points #1 or #2

kzt wrote:They can claim whatever they want. But a honorverse largely automated asteroid processing system is going to produce a vast amount of material every day with a small crew. And it's going to produce it several hours from the destination, not several months and multiple transshipments.

Were talking cubic KM per day level. It's really hard to have a horde of guys in space suits (and the space suits are in themselves not at all cheap) with picks being more cost effective than someone using tractor beams to continuously feed an asteroid into a wedge at tons per second.

Particularly when one of them then needs to pay for a multi-month trip and the other doesn't.

Given that this is far from cutting edge in the Honorverse there is an assumption that the primative planets are using a more primitive version at lower wages, but I still have my doubts.

Theemile wrote:The only reason I can see for getting minerals from another system is

1) Your current extraction infrastructure cannot keep up with local demand - this is usually short term, but infrastructure is expensive and you may find yourself in a position where #2 occurs.

2) For some reason, it is more economical (or equally economical) to source minerals from another source.

3) Some required mineral in not plentiful in your system, but is in some other system. Which usually reflects back on points #1 or #2

That all may be true for minerals reduced to the consistency of sand, but what about people who want granite countertops or marble walls? Exotic stone in large sizes will still need to be quarried and perhaps the core worlds would rather dig up someone else's planet to obtain it.

kzt wrote:So you want to put out of business your low cost local providers, who, btw, VOTE and pay taxes, and instead go to higher cost remote providers who are supposed to be sending a freighter full of raw material every day on a 60 day trip.

As a mental exercise, what happens if they stop sending freighters? How long does it take for you to realize something very bad has happened to organization you are counting on to supply ALL the resources for your entire economy?

Now what do you do? BTW, keep in mind that if you send a warship to investigate it gets treated as a pirate.

PeterZ wrote:Sure, the Core Worlds will invest in resource extraction expansion. They'll do that after the expand their expansion of finished goods production. Those Verge systems will need investment in resource extraction system regardless. The protectorates already have resource extraction geared for export. It will take time for the new economic relationships to stabilize and the spike in demand from the wars to be satisfied.

ldwechsler wrote:
I doubt there are many worlds that need to import EVERYTHING. People make choices...and, yes, sometimes they are made for them.

But note that Grayson was toddling along BEFORE Manticore allied itself. Not nearly as well but it was surviving in a very hostile environment.

As for investments, I see the transtellars going out to the Verge and Shell and investing. Of course, they probably would have problems with the protectorates they exploited but there are always other ones.

So instead of using troops to rule, they will use bribes. Cash always seems to work.

Bribes are only necessary if there is a credible threat of enforcible sanctions made against the transtellar. Quite French there won't be, so private armies/mercenaries will arise once more in the Verge.

Theemile wrote:

kzt wrote:They can claim whatever they want. But a honorverse largely automated asteroid processing system is going to produce a vast amount of material every day with a small crew. And it's going to produce it several hours from the destination, not several months and multiple transshipments.

Were talking cubic KM per day level. It's really hard to have a horde of guys in space suits (and the space suits are in themselves not at all cheap) with picks being more cost effective than someone using tractor beams to continuously feed an asteroid into a wedge at tons per second.

Particularly when one of them then needs to pay for a multi-month trip and the other doesn't.

Given that this is far from cutting edge in the Honorverse there is an assumption that the primative planets are using a more primitive version at lower wages, but I still have my doubts.

The only reason I can see for getting minerals from another system is

1) Your current extraction infrastructure cannot keep up with local demand - this is usually short term, but infrastructure is expensive and you may find yourself in a position where #2 occurs.

2) For some reason, it is more economical (or equally economical) to source minerals from another source.

3) Some required mineral in not plentiful in your system, but is in some other system. Which usually reflects back on points #1 or #2

Your logic makes what I believe is an accurate assumption. That Honorverse nanotechnology cannot make just anything from just any pulverized asteroid. Each output material require specific input minerals that may or may not be abundantly available in a given system.

tlb wrote:That all may be true for minerals reduced to the consistency of sand, but what about people who want granite countertops or marble walls? Exotic stone in large sizes will still need to be quarried and perhaps the core worlds would rather dig up someone else's planet to obtain it.

Dust actually. Very, very fine dust.

And you can manufacture it. When you can nanoform a seamless SD hull meters thick making fake granite just isn't that hard.

Luxuries are certainly a feasible export. If someone wants to figure out how spend more money on something that is visually and tactilely identical to a manufactured product I'm sure there are people who will find it for them. But it's hard to run an economy on that.

tlb wrote:

Theemile wrote:The only reason I can see for getting minerals from another system is

1) Your current extraction infrastructure cannot keep up with local demand - this is usually short term, but infrastructure is expensive and you may find yourself in a position where #2 occurs.

2) For some reason, it is more economical (or equally economical) to source minerals from another source.

3) Some required mineral in not plentiful in your system, but is in some other system. Which usually reflects back on points #1 or #2

That all may be true for minerals reduced to the consistency of sand, but what about people who want granite countertops or marble walls? Exotic stone in large sizes will still need to be quarried and perhaps the core worlds would rather dig up someone else's planet to obtain it.

I was really just referring to raw materials, but your item, would fall into the definition of the rare luxury good, that is only available from a single (or limited) locale, is the one item type (which was mentioned up thread) that would be traded due to it's rarity and inability to locally manufacture.