Real effects of Lacoon II

Earth and a few other planets aside, how great of a threat is Lacoon to the Solarian people? My understanding is that most of these worlds are very self-sufficient and that interstellar commerce is mostly in luxury goods. So while the Solarian economy will be hurt, and some very wealthy people are going to see a huge downturn in their investment portfolios, but how would life change for your average Sollie on the street 12 t-months after the Manticoran recall and the shutting down of wormhole traffic?

GabrialSagan wrote:Earth and a few other planets aside, how great of a threat is Lacoon to the Solarian people? My understanding is that most of these worlds are very self-sufficient and that interstellar commerce is mostly in luxury goods. So while the Solarian economy will be hurt, and some very wealthy people are going to see a huge downturn in their investment portfolios, but how would life change for your average Sollie on the street 12 t-months after the Manticoran recall and the shutting down of wormhole traffic?

You can have marginal worlds like New Potsdam, Grayson and Nuncio that probably have to import lots of food. Also you planets with an excess of food stuffs. Remember in SoF about Mobius and it's inability to raise beef and wanting to import Montana's. Do you think Montana is only going to ship exclusively its 5 star beef to the rich of Mobius, they could ship lower quality and still come out ahead.

Entire businesses could fold - with it, employment. Private individual's bank accounts could be wiped out if they can no longer travel in a timely fashion to manage their monies. Some may not be able to afford the few travel opportunities that may be available because supply and demand for the few seats that are available has caused prices to skyrocket far above their pay grade. Many jobs will be gone, no longer able to travel to and fro and for employers. And a hidden ton more, I'm sure. And simply the snowballing domino effect from just the above. And a separation of loved ones caught on other sides of junctions who can now ill afford to pay for a ticket home - even if there was transport available.

Imagine being stuck overseas if something similar could happen here and procrastination has prevented you from purchasing those cheap seats in coach that were $300 but now are $30,000 and you're a teenager relying on daddy's money - who has lost everything and killed himself. You could wash $30,000 worth of dishes if someone could afford to hire you. But then, flights are booked for 10 years.

cthia wrote:Entire businesses could fold - with it, employment. Private individual's bank accounts could be wiped out if they can no longer travel in a timely fashion to manage their monies. Some may not be able to afford the few travel opportunities that may be available because supply and demand for the few seats that are available has caused prices to skyrocket far above their pay grade. Many jobs will be gone, no longer able to travel to and fro and for employers. And a hidden ton more, I'm sure. And simply the snowballing domino effect from just the above. And a separation of loved ones caught on other sides of junctions who can now ill afford to pay for a ticket home - even if there was transport available.

Imagine being stuck overseas if something similar could happen here and procrastination has prevented you from purchasing those cheap seats in coach that were $300 but now are $30,000 and you're a teenager relying on daddy's money - who has lost everything and killed himself. You could wash $30,000 worth of dishes if someone could afford to hire you. But then, flights are booked for 10 years.

There will nearly inevitably be some of that. But not as much as if today's international commerce and travel got restricted to the same degree. Star systems are more self reliant than countries, and the lengthy transit times (weeks-months instead of hours) will also tend to discourage the levels of causal travel and tourism that cheap and safe jet travel have brought.

Well ok, on an absolute basis this probably screws more people and companies; but I'd imagine it would be a far smaller percentages of the population and economy...

Realistically it will be somewhere between the great depression and the UBoat campaigns of the world wars.

How bad it is depends will vary from the recent US recession in 2007/8 and Greece going bankrupt over the last few years with massive unemployment and reduction in government spending. Without more details on a planets specific economic situation there is no way to give any more meaningful answer.

Lacoon II called home (under legal order) the entire Manticoian Merchant Marine. If memory serves, the MMM provided someething like 50% of the total tonnage in carrying capasity for trade with in the SL and (a bit more iffy here) the trade between the SL and "outside" the SL which could include the OFS Protectorates and places like Silesia.

Not perhaps 50% of the interstellar ships, but 50% of the total goods moved. The distinction being that there might be a LOT of relativly short hall distances being done many times in a T-year (on tight regular schedual ship runs between two or three or four systems).

If 50% of your interstellar shipping (and we are talking ships that are carrying between .75 to 4.0 Megatons (4,000,000) of "stuff") that is a LOT of stuff that isn't going to get delivered, that remains sitting in a warehouse somewhre (we saw that in one of the short bits where the Manticorian Merchant Captain was taking to the Shipping Agent) or aren't going to be manufactured because there is no way to deliver them or the supply of X (and A though ZABCD.12) is going to STOP in so many places. Jobs lost, loans defaulted, companies bankrupt. banks getting badly hurt, entire distribution chains collapsing.

How many planets might actualy have famine due to this, probably not many but things could be real tight and for those who lose there jobs and have nothing to provide income it is going to possibley be fatal. You have to consider that the possible ripple effect of destroying individual sections (and many of them) of the ecomomies on thousands of planets is going to have ripple effects.
Also consider that you might never have to face a 6 meter (or 60 meter) tsunami in you life but if you are now face down in 2 inches of water because you got knocked down by a 6 inch wave, you certainly can drown in that. Enough people (or businesses ) drown and things get bad.

Brigade XO wrote:Lacoon II called home (under legal order) the entire Manticoian Merchant Marine. If memory serves, the MMM provided someething like 50% of the total tonnage in carrying capasity for trade with in the SL and (a bit more iffy here) the trade between the SL and "outside" the SL which could include the OFS Protectorates and places like Silesia.

Not perhaps 50% of the interstellar ships, but 50% of the total goods moved. The distinction being that there might be a LOT of relativly short hall distances being done many times in a T-year (on tight regular schedual ship runs between two or three or four systems).

If 50% of your interstellar shipping (and we are talking ships that are carrying between .75 to 4.0 Megatons (4,000,000) of "stuff") that is a LOT of stuff that isn't going to get delivered, that remains sitting in a warehouse somewhre (we saw that in one of the short bits where the Manticorian Merchant Captain was taking to the Shipping Agent) or aren't going to be manufactured because there is no way to deliver them or the supply of X (and A though ZABCD.12) is going to STOP in so many places. Jobs lost, loans defaulted, companies bankrupt. banks getting badly hurt, entire distribution chains collapsing.

How many planets might actualy have famine due to this, probably not many but things could be real tight and for those who lose there jobs and have nothing to provide income it is going to possibley be fatal. You have to consider that the possible ripple effect of destroying individual sections (and many of them) of the ecomomies on thousands of planets is going to have ripple effects.
Also consider that you might never have to face a 6 meter (or 60 meter) tsunami in you life but if you are now face down in 2 inches of water because you got knocked down by a 6 inch wave, you certainly can drown in that. Enough people (or businesses ) drown and things get bad.

IIRC that percentage got walked back or explain as 50% (or whatever) of the tonnage was carried for at least some part of its journey by Manticoran hulls.

Given that a Manticoran flagged ship probably has reduced tolls on the Manticoran controlled wormhole network - and that from many parts of the League the quickest way to ship is to bounce the cargos through Manticore, they probably get a very disproportionately large fraction of the through-wormhole shuttle legs (Sollie freighters might handle the "local" deliveries and the Mantie freighter just hits the transfer station to grab the express cargo to take through the wormholes to the next transfer station to be parceled back out for "local" deliveries). That would tend to inflate the percentage of cargo touched by their hands; even if they weren't such a huge part of the raw carrying capacity in terms of tons/day carried.


FYI it was Lacoon I that was the withdrawal of hulls - military force was (mostly?) used just to secure freedom of navigation for the returning freighters. Lacoon II was where the RMN seized control of the wormholes and denied League flagged ships their use.

ART:

"Better than two thirds of our total interstellar commerce — the percentage is higher for freight; lower for passengers and information — travels in Manticore-registered bottoms at some point in the transport cycle, Innokentiy. Almost thirty percent of it travels in Manty ships all the way from point of origin to final destination; another twenty-seven percent travels in Manty bottoms for between thirty and fifty percent of the total voyage. And another ten or fifteen percent of it travels in Manty bottoms for up to a quarter of the total transit." Her expression was that of someone smelling something which had been dead for several days. "As you can see, simply pulling their own shipping out of the loop will reduce our available interstellar lift by better than half."

Duckk wrote:ART:

"Better than two thirds of our total interstellar commerce — the percentage is higher for freight; lower for passengers and information — travels in Manticore-registered bottoms at some point in the transport cycle, Innokentiy. Almost thirty percent of it travels in Manty ships all the way from point of origin to final destination; another twenty-seven percent travels in Manty bottoms for between thirty and fifty percent of the total voyage. And another ten or fifteen percent of it travels in Manty bottoms for up to a quarter of the total transit." Her expression was that of someone smelling something which had been dead for several days. "As you can see, simply pulling their own shipping out of the loop will reduce our available interstellar lift by better than half."

Ah, thanks for the full quote. I'd clearly forgotten important bits of it.

GabrialSagan wrote:Earth and a few other planets aside, how great of a threat is Lacoon to the Solarian people? My understanding is that most of these worlds are very self-sufficient and that interstellar commerce is mostly in luxury goods. So while the Solarian economy will be hurt, and some very wealthy people are going to see a huge downturn in their investment portfolios, but how would life change for your average Sollie on the street 12 t-months after the Manticoran recall and the shutting down of wormhole traffic?

One of the issues here, in addition to the ones described below, are supply chains. Suppose there is a company on one planet that relies on imports of something, raw materials or manufactured goods, that is now no longer available. This could lead to the company no longer being able to produce something using that import. That would result in the product no longer being available for further down the supply chain, as well as possible unemployment as people working for that company are laid off, and damage to the company and it's financials as it's bottom line is affected - and so on.

What was inexpensive because of interstellar trade now becomes unavailable, or requires systems to set up manufacturing for replacements when possible - at additional cost.

If nothing else, the necessary changes to re-configure business to compensate for the loss of trade, where possible, will totally disrupt businesses for years.

-- Bob G