After Lacoon II - how big is the Solarian League really?

Relax wrote:PS> Grav waves are even faster and cheaper, so lets not forget about them

Cheaper, but not that much faster. Most places in hyper, even cutting "cross-country" through rifts you can travel at full speed. Rifts near rouge waves - where you have to stay slow - are uncommon.

Being in the grav wave grants you a roughly 10x improvement in acceleration. But even without that a freighter can hit its top speed in less than two days. Which just isn't that big a portion of a weeks to months long trip... (and since slow down more than you want to just from downward hyper transitions a grav wave on the arriving end saves you very little time. Though I guess one in the Alpha band might be used to carry the most speed possible into n-space)

Sure you take the grav waves when they're going your way - in the hyper band you want to be in - but they don't save you all that much time in the grand scheme of things.

Loren Pechtel wrote:Now that the GA is in a shooting war with the SLN how long will they have those internal wormholes even?

The four internal wormholes are already effectively blocked:

Sasebo > Erewhon: closed to SL traffic at the Erewhon end.

Visigoth > Mesa: Closed by GA occupation of Mesa.

Beowulf > Manticore: Closed by Beowulf's secession and Manticore's forts around the MWHJ.

Asgerd > Durandel: Durandel is Anderman Empire territory. In
theory the link is still usable, as there is no textev that Asgerd has been occupied and The AE is a friendly neutral. However, the only links back toward the SL both go through Manticore.

Terre Haute and Hennesy are termini out on the Verge, but they lead to Erewhon and Manticore, so they'd be useless to the League. Likewise, the Lynx Terminus is Manticoran territory and leads to the MWHJ.

According to the latest map, there is no route from one side of the League to the other that doesn't go through Manticore. Perhaps some of the un-mapped bridges lead around the league the other way, but Manticore effectively controls the "Northern" half of the League; and did so before Lacoon II closed the un-mapped bridges.

From what I understand a big problem is that the federal level league income is, for a large part, coming from the verge and shell economies.

Relax wrote:

Brigade XO wrote:Within the Core, the problem is primarily the loss of markets and sources of goods/materials lost because a) lack of ships, b) loss of developed and one would suppose most cost effective routes out to the markets/sources of desired goods beyond the Core........
At that point, it becomes a question of can the Transtellar survive in the local market without 1) exports and 2) inability to import enough goods and force the locals to buy them vs what can be produced localy.

Without Europe and the USA buying Chinese made goods, would China immediately collapse economically? Yes it would. This is essentially what the transtellars are doing in the Honorverse. Cheaply making the goods elsewhere, labor cost is low, to ship to where labor cost is high and prices are high

There are a lot of things about the Honorverse that don't make sense, and the economic system is one. When David decided to do a scenario based on the Age of Sail, he bought into a number of assumptions, one of which was that there were goods that it made economic sense to transport from one place to another.

In the modern world, one of the major drivers is labor costs. In the world of the Age of Sail, labor costs were much less of an issue; the issue was that there were simply things that couldn't be grown in England, like tea, coffee, cane sugar, many textiles, etc. Some of this was based on plantation agriculture, which used slave labor. Mostly, though, that was because the labor wasn't available locally. Today agricultural plantations still exist, but they don't use slave labor, at least officially.

The Age of Sail was based on empire economics, where a central country used other countries as resources and actively kept them from being self-sufficient. Essentially, it sucked the life-blood out of its colonies, turning them eventually into husks that were a drag on the empire's finances.

Given the way manufacturing robotics is headed today, I have a hard time imagining a core world 2000 years in the future that couldn't manufacture anything its citizens wanted locally.

The same goes for biologicals, the way genetics is headed. CRISPR/Cas9 is a game changer. I wonder how many people know that there's a major international project to reengineer the genetics of bakers yeast to make it an ideal organism for engineered biologicals. The last project status I heard was that their current happily growing organisms have had over half of their chromosomes replaced with completely lab-synthesized chromosomes. They're growing quite happily. And they're actually more stable against mutations than the wild type because of a few fundamental improvements made along the way.

Honorverse economics makes no sense, so whatever way the war develops is fantasy.

JohnRoth wrote:Given the way manufacturing robotics is headed today, I have a hard time imagining a core world 2000 years in the future that couldn't manufacture anything its citizens wanted locally.

Sure... eventually. Establishing the supply chains for major scale production takes time.

emphy wrote:From what I understand a big problem is that the federal level league income is, for a large part, coming from the verge and shell economies.

From early A Rising Thunder Chapter 6

seventy percent of Federal income derives directly or indirectly from shipping duties and tariffs. The other thirty percent derives primarily from protectorate service fees."

The Solarian Federal government pretty much 100% relies on the income that derives from wormholes. 70% directly by charging duties on ships hauling freight, but without the wormholes the transstellars aren't going to be able to regularly (and reliably) bring that money back to Old Terra either.

Sure, some of the protectorate service fees will trickle back to Old Terra, but most of it won't, either because Manticoran commerce raiders will snap up loose Solarian freighter or because the transstellars are keeping that money because they're no longer making as much profits and are trying to recoup being nationalized out of dozens of star systems.

Other than transportation industries (like merchant shipping and ship builders and localized support services) we have been shown a couple of things that are being traded through the Honorverse.
One is manufactured goods. That is everything from farm and construction equipment, machines and manufacturing lines to make consumer products, all sorts of consumer and commercial products and so forth.
Another is "specialty" biological materials. I don't mean the Manpower slaves, I mean things like Montana Beef, luxury/decorative wood products (the planet where the Transtellar was clear-cutting the forests), Seafood/marine food products from some primarily water worlds, pharmaceuticals (now also from Torch) from the actual biological sources rather than synthesized from other things.
Its a combination of not quite exotic products (like the beef, seafood, wood etc) plus cheaper manufactured goods. The combinations of costs (wages, manufacturing) plus quality (or lack of it but durability) of relativly low cost goods and relatively low shipping costs are presented as one of the driving forces that had made Manticore a major exporter of consumer and commercial goods and equipment.
That they had also that vast and efficent merchant marine lowered the costs and was alowing them to keep expanding trade. You don't have to sell the equivelent of a Jaguar or Ferrari analogy aircar to make a lot of money. You can do it by selling farm and construction (and military) equipment that may be very plain but very durable so it can last for 50-100 years without major orverhaul.

At this point, it is the wormhole fees that were supporting the SL Government and military as is the Junction related fees feeding the Manticore government. Sure, Manticore also has a local tax base (and fees and licenses) but they are primarily an ecomomy built on export of manufactured goods and shipping related fees (what the freighters charge for goods carried and what it costs to use the Junction wormholes.

Lacoon I and II has certainly hurt Manticore BUT it is causing massive losses to the SL Government. Manticore does have a lot more alternatives at this point for the use of it's merchant marine and- eventually when/as it is rebuilt- its manufacturing capasity. The SL and all the places that depend on the flow of merchant traffic and goods into and out of the Core/Shell/Verge for things they need (and the fees to keep operating the governments at so many levels) are going to be scrambling to do much more than try to take the fight to Manticore and the GA.
What is going to happen is that all of those places who can no longer cheaply get X products (or get them at all) are going to have to develop their OWN manufacturing for all that stuff or do without. Even if they start launching new commercial shipping (and crewing it---HI THERE BF/FF, you know that theoretical reserve you have on paper to crew your ships that has been civilians for YEARS- they are "busy" just now and out someplace in hyper delivering widgets----the cost of bringing in the same brands/makes of "stuff" they used to (IF they can get to the manufacture/distribtiion centers at all) is going to be MUCH higher than it was and it will probably be more cost effictive to build it it at home. IF they have the specs for it or, more likely, reverse engineer stuff and say "screw the patent holders" at that point.

Brigade XO wrote:At this point, it is the wormhole fees that were supporting the SL Government and military as is the Junction related fees feeding the Manticore government. Sure, Manticore also has a local tax base (and fees and licenses) but they are primarily an ecomomy built on export of manufactured goods and shipping related fees (what the freighters charge for goods carried and what it costs to use the Junction wormholes.

Don't forget those shipping related fees aren't just the transit fees but include all the warehouse and servicing associated with the largest known wormhole junction. The amount of traffic passing through the Junction to and from all corners of known space make it a natural spot to warehouse and cross-ship goods to ships headed closer to the goods' final destinations - because a ship leaving a planet and traveling by way of the wormhole would carry exports consigned to possible dozens of planets scattered all over space, to be spread across several ships leaving the Junction. Manticoran firms have a natural monopoly on that centralized warehousing and cargo handling. (Then there are emergency repairs that Manticore's repair yards are elementally qualified to handle)

Not to mention making a bit of profit being a big chandlery where ships passing through can stock up on pretty much any supply they need; from fuel to coffee.

Being the major trade hub has all kinds of financial benefits.

Brigade XO wrote:Other than transportation industries (like merchant shipping and ship builders and localized support services) we have been shown a couple of things that are being traded through the Honorverse.
One is manufactured goods. That is everything from farm and construction equipment, machines and manufacturing lines to make consumer products, all sorts of consumer and commercial products and so forth.
Another is "specialty" biological materials. I don't mean the Manpower slaves, I mean things like Montana Beef, luxury/decorative wood products (the planet where the Transtellar was clear-cutting the forests), Seafood/marine food products from some primarily water worlds, pharmaceuticals (now also from Torch) from the actual biological sources rather than synthesized from other things.
Its a combination of not quite exotic products (like the beef, seafood, wood etc) plus cheaper manufactured goods. The combinations of costs (wages, manufacturing) plus quality (or lack of it but durability) of relativly low cost goods and relatively low shipping costs are presented as one of the driving forces that had made Manticore a major exporter of consumer and commercial goods and equipment.
That they had also that vast and efficent merchant marine lowered the costs and was alowing them to keep expanding trade. You don't have to sell the equivelent of a Jaguar or Ferrari analogy aircar to make a lot of money. You can do it by selling farm and construction (and military) equipment that may be very plain but very durable so it can last for 50-100 years without major orverhaul.

At this point, it is the wormhole fees that were supporting the SL Government and military as is the Junction related fees feeding the Manticore government. Sure, Manticore also has a local tax base (and fees and licenses) but they are primarily an ecomomy built on export of manufactured goods and shipping related fees (what the freighters charge for goods carried and what it costs to use the Junction wormholes.

Lacoon I and II has certainly hurt Manticore BUT it is causing massive losses to the SL Government. Manticore does have a lot more alternatives at this point for the use of it's merchant marine and- eventually when/as it is rebuilt- its manufacturing capasity. The SL and all the places that depend on the flow of merchant traffic and goods into and out of the Core/Shell/Verge for things they need (and the fees to keep operating the governments at so many levels) are going to be scrambling to do much more than try to take the fight to Manticore and the GA.
What is going to happen is that all of those places who can no longer cheaply get X products (or get them at all) are going to have to develop their OWN manufacturing for all that stuff or do without. Even if they start launching new commercial shipping (and crewing it---HI THERE BF/FF, you know that theoretical reserve you have on paper to crew your ships that has been civilians for YEARS- they are "busy" just now and out someplace in hyper delivering widgets----the cost of bringing in the same brands/makes of "stuff" they used to (IF they can get to the manufacture/distribtiion centers at all) is going to be MUCH higher than it was and it will probably be more cost effictive to build it it at home. IF they have the specs for it or, more likely, reverse engineer stuff and say "screw the patent holders" at that point.

You forgot basic foodstuffs also. Planets like Grayson or New Berlin might be importing foodstuffs that are basic in one place but a luxury on Grayson or New Berlin. IIRC Chuin-Li Anderman did make potable coffee. Remember Mobius was looking to import Montana's beef which would sell for MD$ 90 per kg on Mobius versus MD$ 3 per kg on Montana. I also wouldn't be surprised that Manticore is selling Beowulf Buffalo from Gryphon on Grayson at a nice profit.

The SL is something like 90% of the total human population and closer to 99% of the wealthy planets. It's hard to replace that market.

It's like an airliner deciding to embargo NATO and the G20 and deciding instead to schedule 50 widebody flights a day to Yemen, North Korea and Somalia to make up for not flying to Paris, Rome, NYC, Moscow, Shanghai, Tokyo and London. Good luck with that.