Spoiler what to do with the Gold?

What Should Charis do with the Gold?

I think some of it should be gifted loaned to Siddarmark to help them pay for the war effort.

Alistair wrote:What Should Charis do with the Gold?

I think some of it should be gifted loaned to Siddarmark to help them pay for the war effort.

The gold and silver will be used to pay for the war. Instead of gifting money to Siddarmark, Charis is gifting them plans for foundries and blast furnaces, rifles and grenades, artillery and shells. Gold is pretty useless at this stage of industrialization except for what it can buy. Supply the weapons to Siddarmark, and they will raise their own army.

Alistair wrote:What Should Charis do with the Gold?

I think some of it should be gifted loaned to Siddarmark to help them pay for the war effort.

That goes without saying. I would hazzard a guess that additional loans for infrastructure investments in Siddermark will also be in the cards.

Furthermore, I believe as others have also mentioned that Desnair will be lucky to lose Silkiah as a buffer state. More likely, Desnair will lose all of North Watch and all the land between Silkiah and down to a bit farther South from Iythria. By the end of the year Siddermark will have about 34 divisions available for deployment; 9 currently, 10 about ready and another 15 set to begin training. Most of these troops will be armed with mahdrayns by Summer as the M96s enter service for the ICA. Those mahdrayns will be switched out for trapdoor variants within a year to a year and half and M96s inside three years. There is no way Desnair keeps the Gulf of Jahras and the surrounding area.

Expanding the Salthar Canal once the allies control Silkiah is a strategic necessity until the proscriptions are eliminated. That's take quite a bit of gold and silver.

Delferahk and Dohlar are and will be in various stages of ruin. The CoGA will be broke. Who will help loan Dohlar and Delferahk funds to rebuild? I am certain Cayleb and his Central Bank of Silverlode will be tapped to offer loans. He won't do it unless those kingdoms sign treaties, but what other alternatives do those ruined and soon to be ruined nations have? They'll take the deal if Charis can protect them from CoGA retaliation.

Desnair and South Harchong will back off of Delferahk under threat of a visit from King Haarald VII and her coterie of devestating mistresses of destruction. Each of those nations has important port cities vulnerable to the ICN. There isn't a bigger stick nor a juicier carrot than what Cayleb will have at his disposal. Oooh a thought....will Cayleb do a Brando/Vito Corleone impersonation when he offers this "deal Dohlar can't refuse"?

So, between expanding the Silkiahn canal system perhaps even into the Gulf of Jahras, lending funds to 3 different war torn countries to rebuild their infrastructure, maintaining a powerful army and navy and expanding the industrial base for an empire consisting of a minor continent and 5 large islands (including Silverlode), Cayleb's newly discovered funds might be a tad stretched.

iranuke wrote:

Alistair wrote:What Should Charis do with the Gold?

I think some of it should be gifted loaned to Siddarmark to help them pay for the war effort.

The gold and silver will be used to pay for the war. Instead of gifting money to Siddarmark, Charis is gifting them plans for foundries and blast furnaces, rifles and grenades, artillery and shells. Gold is pretty useless at this stage of industrialization except for what it can buy. Supply the weapons to Siddarmark, and they will raise their own army.

All those foundries and factories need to be built. Building them needs gold to pay the builders. Running them needs gold to purchase supplies and pay employees. Paying for the army needs gold from somewhere. Until the Siddermarkian economy begins to find some stability, the tax revenues will be much less than is needed to pay for all those infrastructure improvements and the maintenance of the army. Siddermark needs the loans/gold to support the army and the weapons to arm the army. As destitute as Cyntahn has made Siddermark with the Sword of Scheuler, their people cannot work for free no matter how much they want to. Charity comes after survival.

So, no, the Gold is not useless.

All the gold in the world cannot suddenly provide for a pool of labor to build, equip, resource, and operate all this industry unless the gold can buy that labor food and other basic necessities. I have seen little at the moment that says that Safehold can suddenly support all these additional single, even double, digit percents of people away from the farms. Is there really that much spare capacity in the food supply? And the suppliers of other basic necessities?

PeterZ wrote:

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The gold and silver will be used to pay for the war. Instead of gifting money to Siddarmark, Charis is gifting them plans for foundries and blast furnaces, rifles and grenades, artillery and shells. Gold is pretty useless at this stage of industrialization except for what it can buy. Supply the weapons to Siddarmark, and they will raise their own army.

All those foundries and factories need to be built. Building them needs gold to pay the builders. Running them needs gold to purchase supplies and pay employees. Paying for the army needs gold from somewhere. Until the Siddermarkian economy begins to find some stability, the tax revenues will be much less than is needed to pay for all those infrastructure improvements and the maintenance of the army. Siddermark needs the loans/gold to support the army and the weapons to arm the army. As destitute as Cyntahn has made Siddermark with the Sword of Scheuler, their people cannot work for free no matter how much they want to. Charity comes after survival.

So, no, the Gold is not useless.

jgnfld wrote:All the gold in the world cannot suddenly provide for a pool of labor to build, equip, resource, and operate all this industry unless the gold can buy that labor food and other basic necessities. I have seen little at the moment that says that Safehold can suddenly support all these additional single, even double, digit percents of people away from the farms. Is there really that much spare capacity in the food supply? And the suppliers of other basic necessities?

Excellent questions. Think about the populations in the cities (outside Harchong) pre-SoS. There was 1 billion people on Safehold pre-SoS. Terra didn't hit that mark until the turn of the 19th century (1804 est.). The advances in the following 123 years double that population to 2 billion and reduced the percentage of people working farms.

The combination of advanced gene modified crops, dragons for transport, canals to facilitate transport and the availability of reapers well before merlin arrived suggests that there already is a good percentage of people not needed for aggriculture. Introduce steam engines to run farm equipment and that will free up more farm labor and allow the population to grow faster yet. Those steam engines will also reduce labor intensive industries', like mining, dependence on labor.

Because it will take fewer people in aggregate to produce the same amount of everything from food and raw materials to finished goods, more new things can be produced with the excess labor. That includes producing even more food to feed the rapidly growing population. I hazzard the guess that the population growth in the 19th century was aided by the massive increase in worldwide wealth of the period. So much wealth was produced in that period that more people could afford large families. That increased affluence is blossoming in Charis at the moment. IIRC, the Writ requires Safeholdians to be fruitful and multiply.

It is not going to be a source of instant riches and I think it still going to be a few years before Charis starts seeing large scale production. From what I remember in the texts, the Silverlode Island deposits are described as larger that the historical Comstock Lode. IIRC, the Comstock Lode took over 20 years to mine out. However, it was on the mainland United States and was fairly easily accessible. There was already an existing railroad network and it was a relatively simple matter to extend spurs into the mining area.

This is not the case with Silverlode. It is a remote, sparsely populated island. Essentially, it sounds like there is little to no existing infrastructure on the island. Therefore if large scale mining is going to rake place, things like roads and/or railroads are going to have to be built from scratch just to get to the deposits. After this is done, miners, mining equipment, smelters for ore, ect... has to be shipped in. Further complicating the task, from what I remember, the terrain has the deposits are in has been described as difficult and the weather on Silverlode Island is harsh.

Henry Brown wrote:It is not going to be a source of instant riches and I think it still going to be a few years before Charis starts seeing large scale production. From what I remember in the texts, the Silverlode Island deposits are described as larger that the historical Comstock Lode. IIRC, the Comstock Lode took over 20 years to mine out. However, it was on the mainland United States and was fairly easily accessible. There was already an existing railroad network and it was a relatively simple matter to extend spurs into the mining area.

This is not the case with Silverlode. It is a remote, sparsely populated island. Essentially, it sounds like there is little to no existing infrastructure on the island. Therefore if large scale mining is going to rake place, things like roads and/or railroads are going to have to be built from scratch just to get to the deposits. After this is done, miners, mining equipment, smelters for ore, ect... has to be shipped in. Further complicating the task, from what I remember, the terrain has the deposits are in has been described as difficult and the weather on Silverlode Island is harsh.

Which brings Corisande into play. If one reflects on that island, one might see that it has a more developed canal system. That requires quite a bit of civil engineering skill and experience. Charis has Howell Bay to facilitate internal transport and hasn't developed a canal system. Emerald is small enough to use coasters are sail around the island. Tarot might has some infrastructure but is farthest away from Silverlode. Chisholm has the largest land mass of the Imperial nations but also the least densely populated. Canals weren't cost effective given those factors.

Having Corisande spearhead the development of Silverlode would incorporate available resources best without stetching the current experience pool too badly. The revenue from developing Silverlode is indeed some years away. That hasn't stopped Cayleb and Charis from borrowing against those future cash flows. That zero coupon debt has value and can be traded as currency until the gold and silver bullion are delivered to Tellesberg. I am sure the amount of debt will be worked out to prevent inflation or any other monetary problems.

I also think the scope of the Silverlode mining project provides an excellent opportunity for Howsmyn to undertake new R&D project on things such as steam shovels, steam powered bulldozers, steam excavators ect... Such machines would be incredibly useful in mining Silverlode island. They would also be useful in other applications such as rebuilding canals and roads in western Siddarmark once it is liberated.

I also think that developing the technology now for steam powered earth moving equipment has potential future military benefits. There has been discussion in other threads about the possibility of steam tanks. Now, I think that steam tanks would be a bit of a stretch to build right now. Furthermore, the military situation doesn't really seem to call for steam tanks right now.

But I think many of the techniques and machinery for building earthmoving equipment could transfer to making tanks if necessary. So if Charis goes ahead and does the R&D needed to make say, a steam bulldozer, then I think they would be in a much better position to make a steam tank in the future if it is needed.

I hadn't thought of the R&D potential, Henry. Excellent point!

I wonder if the Imperial nations will begin to specialize? I can see Chisholm focusing on railroads and ICA weaponry, Charis on shipping and naval weapons development and Corisande on commercial goods and civil engineering.

The more we all speculate the greater my impatience to see how the second story arc starts.

Henry Brown wrote:I also think the scope of the Silverlode mining project provides an excellent opportunity for Howsmyn to undertake new R&D project on things such as steam shovels, steam powered bulldozers, steam excavators ect... Such machines would be incredibly useful in mining Silverlode island. They would also be useful in other applications such as rebuilding canals and roads in western Siddarmark once it is liberated.

I also think that developing the technology now for steam powered earth moving equipment has potential future military benefits. There has been discussion in other threads about the possibility of steam tanks. Now, I think that steam tanks would be a bit of a stretch to build right now. Furthermore, the military situation doesn't really seem to call for steam tanks right now.

But I think many of the techniques and machinery for building earthmoving equipment could transfer to making tanks if necessary. So if Charis goes ahead and does the R&D needed to make say, a steam bulldozer, then I think they would be in a much better position to make a steam tank in the future if it is needed.