New Manty ship ideas.

Even liberating the slaves wouldn't be enough.

http://infodump.thefifthimperium.com/en ... ngton/56/1

Like much of the slavery in the Honorverse, it doesn't make sense to me either, because, in reality, you can find a worker to do just about every dispicable job EXCEPT those guaranteed to kill you swiftly. Yes, the more dispicable, the harder to find the worker, and the more that may need to be paid, but it has got to be cheaper than raising a clone for 12-15 years, training him, and smuggling him 400 light years (with custom ships with 50% loss rates and over priced crews to compensate them in case they get caught and killed.). Not to mention, you still need to provide the basic necessities to the slave (food, shelter, deodorant, etc) while you own him, and need to have an overseer monitor him so he doesn't escape, slack off, sabotage something, or kill you. And a clone, bred for intelligence and given engineering training, can be exceptionally devious and dangerous.

That's the point Victor was making near the start of ToF. His analysis was that slavery didn't make sense from the labor perspective, yet it continued to flourish and expand.

Making the living quaters sections or modules of stations able to "break off" in the event of catastrophe is going to present a significant set of challanges.
One would be the need for an independent/backup power and enviornmental system to keep the people alive till help came or the could evaculate themselves
Another would be how to buffer and still attach the module to the station such that it could both draw on the power/plumbing/enviornmental systems of the station and yet not be torn apart by explosions on the station and resulting shocks transmitted through the station structure.
This is overlooking the impact of one or more of the fusion reactor powerplants on the station loseing containment and vaporizing everything withing a couple of (at minimum) kilometers of said plant along with the shockwave transmitted through any surviving sections of the station from the nuclear blast.
There was the description with the the destruction of the Sphinx station of a Crusier or Battle Crusier that had been torn loose from it's moored position and spinning into other debris. The crew was going to so much smashed flesh on the walls and floors etc.
You would have to make the living quaters as compleatly seperate stations and have the workforce commute from them. Then you also have to provide seperate protection for the living quaters since they become additional high value targets.

Duckk wrote:Even liberating the slaves wouldn't be enough.

http://infodump.thefifthimperium.com/en ... ngton/56/1

Like much of the slavery in the Honorverse, it doesn't make sense to me either, because, in reality, you can find a worker to do just about every dispicable job EXCEPT those guaranteed to kill you swiftly. Yes, the more dispicable, the harder to find the worker, and the more that may need to be paid, but it has got to be cheaper than raising a clone for 12-15 years, training him, and smuggling him 400 light years (with custom ships with 50% loss rates and over priced crews to compensate them in case they get caught and killed.). Not to mention, you still need to provide the basic necessities to the slave (food, shelter, deodorant, etc) while you own him, and need to have an overseer monitor him so he doesn't escape, slack off, sabotage something, or kill you. And a clone, bred for intelligence and given engineering training, can be exceptionally devious and dangerous.

That's the point Victor was making near the start of ToF. His analysis was that slavery didn't make sense from the labor perspective, yet it continued to flourish and expand.

Eh, all of the slave trade was simply a cover for the Eugenics programs. Wasn't that even explicitly stated by Dettweiler or one of his sons?

The Mesan pleasure slaves are used, abused and consumed by sexual depravities that no sane, free person would submit to regardless of pay.

Many of the worker lines seem to be customized to work in hostile environments that would kill unmodified humans. It appears that these slaves are used in environments that are very lethal to them in spite of the modifications but it is not a problem because they are slaves.

Interestingly; I have had similar thoughts about OFS protectorates. One would think that the SL Core and Shell systems would not find anything produced by the neobarb Verge to be sufficiently valuable to be worth conquest.

Ditto for the PRH conquistador era.

Duckk wrote:Even liberating the slaves wouldn't be enough.

http://infodump.thefifthimperium.com/en ... ngton/56/1

Like much of the slavery in the Honorverse, it doesn't make sense to me either, because, in reality, you can find a worker to do just about every dispicable job EXCEPT those guaranteed to kill you swiftly. Yes, the more dispicable, the harder to find the worker, and the more that may need to be paid, but it has got to be cheaper than raising a clone for 12-15 years, training him, and smuggling him 400 light years (with custom ships with 50% loss rates and over priced crews to compensate them in case they get caught and killed.). Not to mention, you still need to provide the basic necessities to the slave (food, shelter, deodorant, etc) while you own him, and need to have an overseer monitor him so he doesn't escape, slack off, sabotage something, or kill you. And a clone, bred for intelligence and given engineering training, can be exceptionally devious and dangerous.

That's the point Victor was making near the start of ToF. His analysis was that slavery didn't make sense from the labor perspective, yet it continued to flourish and expand.

The OFS and various transstellars took control of Verge systems and were looting them. Even when the various dictators and other rulers took control and used them as private kingdoms, they were still treating most of the populations as peons or serfs.
The whole thread of OFS and its "friends" has been one of manipulation and control for the benefit of the people in charge at various levels. They get power, riches, and control, whatever it is that motivates them. While OFS was probably not set up this way at the start, it has evolved this way over time. That is probably also because there was no real oversight of what people were doing and the flow of graft and power had been such that too many people saw OFS as a way to get rich and powerful. And they could do it legally within the bounds of the OFS mandates and with the laws they pass both regarding OFS and on the planets that they are “protecting”.
The structure has been subverted. Now OFS and the various entities that work with and for it are the kinds of criminals that it was partially created to deal with.
The people at the upper levels DON’T CARE what the lower people do as long as the money & power flow UP and all the problems both get dealt with at lower levels and never cause either upset with the average citizen of the League or interfere with the flow of money. It is fairly bad when the only part of the SLN that seems to have a clue of how to be a real navy with actual experience doing commerce protection and other naval duties (FF) is often little better than a privateer fleet backing up the rule of the largest crooks in the neighborhood.

So the reason it is profitable to loot Verge, OFS protectorate or the usual DuQuesne plan Haven targets is that even if you are being completely destructive long term, nearly anything productive can be harvested in the short term.

The corporate raider strategy in our world shifted from selling of physical assets in the 80s for a quick buck to actually leaving the company intact, but running up huge loans and using proceeds to pay huge dividends to investors, bonuses to executives and fees to the management consultants. Some of the companies limped along after it was over, others went bankrupt, causing the liquidation of assets to occur at fire sale prices...but by then the raider has already made their bundle and are long gone.

Why the banks are willing to loan money to companies managed that way is beyond me, but they are. Perhaps because they're too big to fail. *shrug*

If you are OFS, what you do is loot a planet that way. You may not have fat bank loans to work with, but you can tax and fee everything just to the breaking point and it won't kill the economy for a while. You can also move in transtellars and have them kill off local competition and buy up assets cheap, then resell them on the galactic economy for large profits, while pocketing gifts of stock or dividends from that company. (dividends, as in our world, are safer, as the stock can tank later without harm to the greedy, either from a looted company or from a transteller getting bad press/pushback.)

When the economy eventually collapses, grant "freedom" or "shell membership" to the planet and move on to the next one. The planet is left to dig itself out of the hole. OFS clearly waits until a planet is "ripe", at a certain level of economic activity before it pounces.

solbergb wrote:So the reason it is profitable to loot Verge, OFS protectorate or the usual DuQuesne plan Haven targets is that even if you are being completely destructive long term, nearly anything productive can be harvested in the short term.

The corporate raider strategy in our world shifted from selling of physical assets in the 80s for a quick buck to actually leaving the company intact, but running up huge loans and using proceeds to pay huge dividends to investors, bonuses to executives and fees to the management consultants. Some of the companies limped along after it was over, others went bankrupt, causing the liquidation of assets to occur at fire sale prices...but by then the raider has already made their bundle and are long gone.

Why the banks are willing to loan money to companies managed that way is beyond me, but they are. Perhaps because they're too big to fail. *shrug*

If you are OFS, what you do is loot a planet that way. You may not have fat bank loans to work with, but you can tax and fee everything just to the breaking point and it won't kill the economy for a while. You can also move in transtellars and have them kill off local competition and buy up assets cheap, then resell them on the galactic economy for large profits, while pocketing gifts of stock or dividends from that company. (dividends, as in our world, are safer, as the stock can tank later without harm to the greedy, either from a looted company or from a transteller getting bad press/pushback.)

When the economy eventually collapses, grant "freedom" or "shell membership" to the planet and move on to the next one. The planet is left to dig itself out of the hole. OFS clearly waits until a planet is "ripe", at a certain level of economic activity before it pounces.

You forgot the other revenue stream.

The British Empire limited the types of imports in it's colonies to keep them reliant on products from England. English finished goods were the only products available in markets around the world, goods of the industrial revolution, they could undercut the price of local goods. Industrial machine goods were usually forbidden in order to avoid local industrialization and competition with English factories.

When 3 billion people can only purchase goods at Sprallmart, that is a huge revenue stream.

One of the biggest revenue streams was cloth. Have to remember that before the invention of the loom, everyone made cloth by ... hand. The Brits had the whole world to sell to. Sold cloth, brought back tea, spices, etc. Transportation of goods to be economical must be 2 ways. Empty ships are not profitable. This part of the equation so far has not been fleshed out in the Honorverse.

Theemile wrote:

solbergb wrote:So the reason it is profitable to loot Verge, OFS protectorate or the usual DuQuesne plan Haven targets is that even if you are being completely destructive long term, nearly anything productive can be harvested in the short term.

The corporate raider strategy in our world shifted from selling of physical assets in the 80s for a quick buck to actually leaving the company intact, but running up huge loans and using proceeds to pay huge dividends to investors, bonuses to executives and fees to the management consultants. Some of the companies limped along after it was over, others went bankrupt, causing the liquidation of assets to occur at fire sale prices...but by then the raider has already made their bundle and are long gone.

Why the banks are willing to loan money to companies managed that way is beyond me, but they are. Perhaps because they're too big to fail. *shrug*

If you are OFS, what you do is loot a planet that way. You may not have fat bank loans to work with, but you can tax and fee everything just to the breaking point and it won't kill the economy for a while. You can also move in transtellars and have them kill off local competition and buy up assets cheap, then resell them on the galactic economy for large profits, while pocketing gifts of stock or dividends from that company. (dividends, as in our world, are safer, as the stock can tank later without harm to the greedy, either from a looted company or from a transteller getting bad press/pushback.)

When the economy eventually collapses, grant "freedom" or "shell membership" to the planet and move on to the next one. The planet is left to dig itself out of the hole. OFS clearly waits until a planet is "ripe", at a certain level of economic activity before it pounces.

You forgot the other revenue stream.

The British Empire limited the types of imports in it's colonies to keep them reliant on products from England. English finished goods were the only products available in markets around the world, goods of the industrial revolution, they could undercut the price of local goods. Industrial machine goods were usually forbidden in order to avoid local industrialization and competition with English factories.

When 3 billion people can only purchase goods at Sprallmart, that is a huge revenue stream.

I believe there have been a few mentions of ships taking cargo out to the Verge or Shell and coming back with cargos of local products/raw materials that constitute luxuries on the more populous/crowded/industrialised inner worlds. Timber, for example. Furs. Montana beef.

Relax wrote:One of the biggest revenue streams was cloth. Have to remember that before the invention of the loom, everyone made cloth by ... hand. The Brits had the whole world to sell to. Sold cloth, brought back tea, spices, etc. Transportation of goods to be economical must be 2 ways. Empty ships are not profitable. This part of the equation so far has not been fleshed out in the Honorverse.

Relax wrote:One of the biggest revenue streams was cloth. Have to remember that before the invention of the loom, everyone made cloth by ... hand. The Brits had the whole world to sell to. Sold cloth, brought back tea, spices, etc. Transportation of goods to be economical must be 2 ways. Empty ships are not profitable. This part of the equation so far has not been fleshed out in the Honorverse.

Theemile wrote:You forgot the other revenue stream.

The British Empire limited the types of imports in it's colonies to keep them reliant on products from England. English finished goods were the only products available in markets around the world, goods of the industrial revolution, they could undercut the price of local goods. Industrial machine goods were usually forbidden in order to avoid local industrialization and competition with English factories.

When 3 billion people can only purchase goods at Sprallmart, that is a huge revenue stream.

My impression was that most verge worlds didn't attract free traders. Either they had their own, home grown merchant fleets from their planet or nearby neighbors that handled their own goods in the best case scenario (free planet), or they were serviced only by trans-stellars that were raping their economy and resources so badly that even going to the planet mostly empty was still profitable the a trans-stellar with a lock on the planet's exports.(OFS protectorate)