Suspension of Disbelief.

Aegis, one of the most vital tasks of any fledgling colony would be to increase the size of its population as much as possible, for purposes of viability and labour needs. As such, the first several generations following a colony's founding will tend to consist of huge families, which will rapidly expand the base population and will mean that within a handful of centuries a population in the tens of thousands will multiply to millions - even after the need for large families become less pressing.

What I find interesting is that, over two millennia, Earth's estimated population of 10 billion in 2100CE would have increased only by 10 to 15 billion for the entire Sol-system.

Jonathan_S wrote:Certainly it appears the out-of-pocket costs were lower since she chose against tubing for non-economic reasons; but we're told that grav plates weren't affordable for them at that time.
(Though some of that might be that grav plates presumably have a non-trivial ongoing operational cost (power consumption); over an above their purchase and installation costs)

However wasn't Alfred still working for BuMed at the time? Naval health coverage might well subsidize, or just provide, tubing service for military families. That might be distorting our view of the relative costs.

Power costs are insignificant in the HV, with all those nice orbital relays. The grav-plate installing team would only be hired for what, a week or two?

Compare that with nine months of constant medical supervision and monitoring. One night in a NICU costs $3000 currently, according to Google. Unless the tubing process is almost completely automated(or subsidised).

kzt wrote:Economics are not the strong point of Honorverse stories.

So I posted in the right thread, yes?

I suspect thats due to both individual and governmental desires. Portions of the population of good breeding age and of good health leaving to form colonies, population also spreading throughout the system, those remaining either not wanting children or being disincentivised by the govt due to cost, probably a whole range of factors reducing the population. Plus, access for all to cheap and reliable long lasting contraceptives probably plays a part as well.

hanuman wrote:Aegis, one of the most vital tasks of any fledgling colony would be to increase the size of its population as much as possible, for purposes of viability and labour needs. As such, the first several generations following a colony's founding will tend to consist of huge families, which will rapidly expand the base population and will mean that within a handful of centuries a population in the tens of thousands will multiply to millions - even after the need for large families become less pressing.

What I find interesting is that, over two millennia, Earth's estimated population of 10 billion in 2100CE would have increased only by 10 to 15 billion for the entire Sol-system.

munroburton wrote:Compare that with nine months of constant medical supervision and monitoring. One night in a NICU costs $3000 currently, according to Google. Unless the tubing process is almost completely automated(or subsidised).

I'm not sure how NICUs are staffed, but in PICUs there 1 nurse on duty per 2 patients, plus a med techs (1 per 2 nurses IIRC), a pharmacist on the floor, plus the physicians. Essentially each patient is paying the salary and overhead for 2 nurses, a med tech and splitting the costs of the multiple pharmacists, residents, attendings and hospitalists. Then you have the equipment, medicine (4-8 IV pumps per patient isn't unusual) and back end support. It's very expensive to operate. When my mother started as a nurse around 1960 it was cheaper to care for the very seriously sick or injured patients who are today on ICUs - they pretty much just died.

I's assume it would be a lot cheaper than spending time in an ICU, as an ICU is for patients who are medically unstable, have vital signs outside of normal limits and are not obviously on the road to recovery. Babies were being born long before their were hospitals, so it should be relatively straightforward in most cases as long as nothing goes wrong.

But it probably won't be "cheap".

saber964 wrote:IIRC Beowulf has a planet wide cultural prohibition against tubing.

That may be overstating it. It's read more like it's not used when you don't have to use it. It may be something of a piece with Beowulf's medical conservatism, part of the implicit bargain they have with the rest of humanity following the Final War: you're going to stay cool with us pushing medical frontiers, and we're going to stay firmly in touch with the classic human experience that way.

And it does also mean that Beowulf's got immediate reasons to keep "classic" obstetrics something subject to attention and improvement, which can be very handy for all those worlds where tubing isn't yet casually available.

It does seem a bit rough on Beowulf's mothers - the whole planet makes a commitment that falls squarely on their uteri, bladders, hips, etc., and maybe it's not something that every Beowulf mother accepts as her responsibility. But Doctor Allison Ramirez y Chou (Harrington) has a lot more stake in that commitment than most Beowulf mothers do.

hanuman wrote:Aegis, one of the most vital tasks of any fledgling colony would be to increase the size of its population as much as possible, for purposes of viability and labour needs. As such, the first several generations following a colony's founding will tend to consist of huge families, which will rapidly expand the base population and will mean that within a handful of centuries a population in the tens of thousands will multiply to millions - even after the need for large families become less pressing.

What I find interesting is that, over two millennia, Earth's estimated population of 10 billion in 2100CE would have increased only by 10 to 15 billion for the entire Sol-system.

Don't forget what a planet-wide society shattering war and 2000 years of mass Emigration can do to your base population - though when you think about it, the emigration rates during the sublight colony era were probably never much over 1-2 million a year. If you figure the average colony expedition size is 50,000 colonists, that's ~40 expeditions a year, or ~50,000 sublight colony expeditions. Given the # of known populated planets in the Honorverse (5-10,000), # of sub-light colony ships still in flight( ~400 years worth) and % of "lost" colonies (>>50%), that number may be spot on, if not low.

IIRC, population in Japan and France was roughly stable from the late medieval to 19th century. And now it's dropping in Germany and Japan.

So you can make a lot of arguments for various population dynamics in the Honorverse.

kzt wrote:

munroburton wrote:Indeed, one such example is Alison Harrington, who carried our eponymous heroine to term on a higher-G planet than she was accustomed to. What I find interesting from that section of textev is, tubing a baby appears to be significantly cheaper than fitting a house(or the Harrington home) with grav-plates.

Economics are not the strong point of Honorverse stories.

Surely tubing isn't as cheap as prefabs. lol

akso would you want tubing etc to be so cheap that life was treated as it was cheaper then a block of wood?

I mean if you start in to the life is cheap, metals are expensive mindset and you start on the path to warhammer 40K.

also given Alison's conversation with Honour in War Of Honor I get the impression that most mothers to be would prefer to have their child grow in them if pos. one of the forum's female members might be able to better talk about this but Alison hinted very strong about the bond of feeling your child move and grow etc. Honour really didn't want Roul Tubed but accepted the need. Emily's body was in no condition to do au nateruel

saber964 wrote:

IIRC Beowulf has a planet wide cultural prohibition against tubing.

I rather doubt they have a prohibition, disinclination more likely.

Prohibition would mean they´re not allowed to do it, end of story.