Lacöon I

SWM wrote:I don't have any other economic periods, but I notice that you don't mention all the other independent governments who aren't in the Grand Alliance or under the power of the Solarian League. What will happen to them?

I would imagine that most other economies fall into 1 of several types.

1) Independant - while they may trade, most trade is internal. What happens in outside markets will have little impact on them as long as war doesn't come knocking - think Grayson or Haven circa 1900.

2) Dependant - Their internal economies are connected to a transstellar or a major export industry. If the external markets or shipping dries up, they are very vulnerable. Those connected to a transstellar may not have enough varied internal industry left to support themselves in the mid term and may have severe social upheval. - Think Montana for exporters or Mobius for transstellar hobbled.

3) Interconnected - Usually players in the economic game. They usually have a decently strong economy internally, with a good balance of imports and exports. The war will hurt them, but their economy will adapt when it needs to, as long as they can stay neutral. - Think Rembrant Association pre-anexation or Erewhon.

SAy the alliance makes sure no Solly flaged ships get to use the wormholes, wanna bet all the other nations will attempt to build their ecomies, by attempting to replace the league ships with their own. If the league cant meet demand, the other nations will try to meet it themselves. I can see the other nations seeming say they are neutral, while thye earn alot of money by being those able to trade via the network. Some might trade with the league, others might trade with each other, or through out the verge.

SYED wrote:SAy the alliance makes sure no Solly flaged ships get to use the wormholes, wanna bet all the other nations will attempt to build their ecomies, by attempting to replace the league ships with their own. If the league cant meet demand, the other nations will try to meet it themselves. I can see the other nations seeming say they are neutral, while thye earn alot of money by being those able to trade via the network. Some might trade with the league, others might trade with each other, or through out the verge.

Hutch had a comment up-thread which strongly suggested that the average core world does not have shipyards that can build interstellar freighters - there simply is not enough demand for new freighters for most worlds to have that capability.

I don't take that to mean they don't have shipyards - an advanced world probably does build most of its own non-hyper capable ships locally. However, if they don't build hyper-capable ships, they don't have the capability to build hyperdrives or alpha nodes, and might not have the capability of building the big mag-bottle fusion reactors.

To start building hyper-capable ships like freighters would require adding all of that capability, which in turn would require a lot of investment during an economic recession caused by the trade embargo.

JohnRoth wrote:To start building hyper-capable ships like freighters would require adding all of that capability, which in turn would require a lot of investment during an economic recession caused by the trade embargo.

Luckily we have very good evidence that you can in fact build the entire industrial infrastructure from scratch that is needed to build the most modern SDs in about 2 years with your entire economy stamped flat. Freighters should be easier.

kzt wrote:Luckily we have very good evidence that you can in fact build the entire industrial infrastructure from scratch that is needed to build the most modern SDs in about 2 years with your entire economy stamped flat. Freighters should be easier.

Assuming you have a highly-educated workforce, a long tradition of shipbuilding, an advanced industrial base in your asteroid belts and a groundside, a reputation as one of the strongest economies in the galaxy and some high-tech friends who want to help you out.

Dafmeister wrote:

kzt wrote:Luckily we have very good evidence that you can in fact build the entire industrial infrastructure from scratch that is needed to build the most modern SDs in about 2 years with your entire economy stamped flat. Freighters should be easier.

Assuming you have a highly-educated workforce, a long tradition of shipbuilding, an advanced industrial base in your asteroid belts and a groundside, a reputation as one of the strongest economies in the galaxy and some high-tech friends who want to help you out.

Given that there is no industrial base in Manticore's asteroid belt, this is relevant how?

And oddly enough, most core worlds that decide to build new shipyards actually have a fully functioning complete industrial base inside their system manned by highly experienced personnel, I can't see how this could possibly take longer than 2 years.

A couple of points.

• It seems people are assuming that the Solarian League is a homogeneous entity, it isn't. This means any decision affecting all League worlds has to get a majority vote from the members (caveat: I assume the mandarins just can't override the members willy nilly). If I remember correctly, there is a quote in one of the books regarding getting a consensus from the League worlds is like herding cats.
• Some League worlds surely has ship-building capacity, and they will build and sell freighters as fast as possible. For other League worlds to bootstrap their own shipbuilding and lay down slips and start building freighters may not be the most efficient way to go about it, they would probably just invest in already established ship-building centers.
• The economy of the League and it's financial centers are to some degree dependent on economies outside the League. How big a degree is hard to say but we know that the majority of the settled worlds are outside the League which means in my book that quite a big chunk of the League's economy derives from those worlds in one way or another.
• When the mandarins finally makes the decision to start building warships, how long do you think it will take for them to ramp up production with all the graft, bureaucracy and inefficiencies that exists within the League? And will they have up to date and valid designs that's relevant once they are deployed?

kzt wrote:Luckily we have very good evidence that you can in fact build the entire industrial infrastructure from scratch that is needed to build the most modern SDs in about 2 years with your entire economy stamped flat. Freighters should be easier.

Dafmeister wrote:

kzt wrote:Assuming you have a highly-educated workforce, a long tradition of shipbuilding, an advanced industrial base in your asteroid belts and a groundside, a reputation as one of the strongest economies in the galaxy and some high-tech friends who want to help you out.

Given that there is no industrial base in Manticore's asteroid belt, this is relevant how?

And oddly enough, most core worlds that decide to build new shipyards actually have a fully functioning complete industrial base inside their system manned by highly experienced personnel, I can't see how this could possibly take longer than 2 years.

Kzt, I mentioned it in passing my last post, but I'd like to develop it more here. Are you figuring that the Governments of these Core Worlds are going to build the infrastructure and commission the building of these ships? For warships, possibly; but most commercial ships are built by commercial interests, which in the Honorverse means the Transtellars, IMHO.

And are they going to want to spend billions of their SLN credits on crash-building a new shipyard? Especially since its' their income streams that are drying up and the Verge worlds many of them have been bleeding are no longer producing like good vassals.

Soulless corporations such as the Transtellars have been cast as are more likely to try and get the governments to do it....but that would mean raising taxes in the middle of an economic down-turn, and we all know how popular that can be....

I'm sorry, but I just can't see it. I do concur, Manticore's recovery is perhaps quicker than it should be IRL, and the debt incurred to rebuild it will affect their economy post-war (see Great Britain post WWII), but under the demands of survival (and with Beowulf now fully committed to help), the Manties are more likely to pull it off than the Sollies.

IMHO as always. YMMV.

Hutch wrote:Soulless corporations such as the Transtellars have been cast as are more likely to try and get the governments to do it....but that would mean raising taxes in the middle of an economic down-turn, and we all know how popular that can be....

It's probably worth mentioning that most League-based transtellars have nothing to do with looting the Verge nor with advancing the Mesan Alignment's agenda. They're just normal big businesses, who like money, but won't do anything dangerous (which is risky, and risk is bad if you're a big established company) to get it.

drothgery wrote:

Hutch wrote:Soulless corporations such as the Transtellars have been cast as are more likely to try and get the governments to do it....but that would mean raising taxes in the middle of an economic down-turn, and we all know how popular that can be....

It's probably worth mentioning that most League-based transtellars have nothing to do with looting the Verge nor with advancing the Mesan Alignment's agenda. They're just normal big businesses, who like money, but won't doing anything dangerous (which is risky, and risk is bad if you're a big established company) to get it.

You may be right, drothgery (derail:I'm going to lay of that 'friend' preface I have been using, it sounds a bit pretentious to me and as far as I am concerned everyone here is a friend /end derail). The economies of the Core Worlds Interstellars are something we don't know well.

We do know that they have enough influence to get a President elected (albeit to keep a less-impressive family member from meddling in the business), so they are tied closely with the ruling Bureaucracy (and by infernece, with the Governments of individual Core Worlds). We also know from textev (ART or was it MoH?) that Koloskhov (sp) is scared to death that the Transtellars may make their own deals with the GA/SEM to save their profits, rather than biting the bullet and pitching in to help save the SL.

Interesting times....