Lacöon I

KNick wrote:Having just read this entire thread to make sure I didn't miss it, I saw no mention of the reaction of the people most directly involved in any effort to shut down the financial interchange between the League and Manticore: the League News Services and the mail services. After all, it is not freighters that carry the bulk of the data, but dispatch boats operated by the various news agencies and contract mail carriers. I am curious to know what you think the newsies reaction would be beyond screams of censorship.

As for the mail carriers, I could see them doing such things as refusing to carry official League dispatches, mail for any member of the bureaucracy or the Navy. After all, it is the League that would have to shut them down, because Manticore has already granted them passage (for the normal transit fees).

I have it stuck in my head somewhere that dispatch boats and mail carriers are exempt and allowed to pass through Lacoon... Am I off the beam on this?

Don

KNick wrote:Having just read this entire thread to make sure I didn't miss it, I saw no mention of the reaction of the people most directly involved in any effort to shut down the financial interchange between the League and Manticore: the League News Services and the mail services. After all, it is not freighters that carry the bulk of the data, but dispatch boats operated by the various news agencies and contract mail carriers. I am curious to know what you think the newsies reaction would be beyond screams of censorship.

As for the mail carriers, I could see them doing such things as refusing to carry official League dispatches, mail for any member of the bureaucracy or the Navy. After all, it is the League that would have to shut them down, because Manticore has already granted them passage (for the normal transit fees).

Actually, I expect that most of the financial interchange is handled by dispatch boats owned by the banks and other financial institutions, not contract mail carriers.

SWM wrote:Actually, I expect that most of the financial interchange is handled by dispatch boats owned by the banks and other financial institutions, not contract mail carriers.

I doubt it. How often do you have a single transaction worth sending a ship? How will waiting for that one transaction impact all the other transactions you have not sent?

kzt wrote:

SWM wrote:Actually, I expect that most of the financial interchange is handled by dispatch boats owned by the banks and other financial institutions, not contract mail carriers.

I doubt it. How often do you have a single transaction worth sending a ship? How will waiting for that one transaction impact all the other transactions you have not sent?

Probably some carrier has regularly scheduled routes connecting the various financial centers and small-system financial sectors. Like the origins of Wells Fargo and American Express, that/those carrier(s) will carry mail, financial data/instruments and very limited high-priority passenger accommodations.

I doubt that there are any dedicated mail carriers traversing the spaceways that only carry mail. Mail will travel by passenger liner, news corp/financial/diplomatic dispatch boats, or tramp freighter heading in the right direction.

I'd be very surprised if a dedicated delivery service like UPS or FEDEX could survive in an interstellar environment.

Generally that would mean that Financial data/instruments would move on a weekly or monthly schedule with no "rush orders" moving on unscheduled transfers. Interstellar financial transactions would resemble 18th century world commerce far more than modern 21st century international day-trading where an hour's indecision can make millions of dollars difference.

kzt wrote:

SWM wrote:Actually, I expect that most of the financial interchange is handled by dispatch boats owned by the banks and other financial institutions, not contract mail carriers.

I doubt it. How often do you have a single transaction worth sending a ship? How will waiting for that one transaction impact all the other transactions you have not sent?

A single transaction? No, of course you wouldn't send a dispatch boat to carry a single transaction. You send the dispatch boat out with an entire day's or week's interstellar transactions, plus summaries of the local transactions, current balances, current local prices for both local and interstellar stocks and bonds, inquiries on credit balances and identification verifications, purchase and sales authorizations, current speculations on future price changes, briefs and analyses of news and events that may affect prices locally and regionally, votes and proxies on corporate-level decisions, policy announcements, directives, inter-office memos, requests for particular stocks and currencies not available locally, etc. In other words, all the same kind of stuff that gets sent every day between the Paris office of Grand Old Financial Institution and the New York office.

SWM wrote:In other words, all the same kind of stuff that gets sent every day between the Paris office of Grand Old Financial Institution and the New York office.

So the stuff they send via Fedex, rather then a fleet of corporate Gulfstream 5s?

kzt wrote:

SWM wrote:In other words, all the same kind of stuff that gets sent every day between the Paris office of Grand Old Financial Institution and the New York office.

So the stuff they send via Fedex, rather then a fleet of corporate Gulfstream 5s?

No--the stuff they send by internet, phone, and fax. Or the stuff that the East Indies Company sent by their on ships.

SWM wrote:No--the stuff they send by internet, phone, and fax. Or the stuff that the East Indies Company sent by their on ships.

The ships were already going there, they were not being sent out to deliver messages.

So common carrier is fine for the modern equivalent, but you think that it only makes sense that the equivalent of a corporate fleet of G5s will be running messages by every single major financial firm?

kzt wrote:

SWM wrote:No--the stuff they send by internet, phone, and fax. Or the stuff that the East Indies Company sent by their on ships.

The ships were already going there, they were not being sent out to deliver messages.

So common carrier is fine for the modern equivalent, but you think that it only makes sense that the equivalent of a corporate fleet of G5s will be running messages by every single major financial firm?

Something like that might be worth the cost of a starship and a viable use between the major systems and node systems in the outer rings of the Verge and beyond.

kzt wrote:

SWM wrote:No--the stuff they send by internet, phone, and fax. Or the stuff that the East Indies Company sent by their on ships.

The ships were already going there, they were not being sent out to deliver messages.

So common carrier is fine for the modern equivalent, but you think that it only makes sense that the equivalent of a corporate fleet of G5s will be running messages by every single major financial firm?

I'm trying to think in terms of the Honorverse instead of comparing to the modern world. News agencies don't have a fleet of jets flying around carrying their news stories, but in the Honorverse news agencies do have a fleet of dispatch boats. I figure that financial agencies do the same thing.