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

The question would be more in line with "How big will the Solarian League be AFTER an effective peace agreement is reached between the remains of the SL and the then major players?"

What we have in the series is massively multi-stellar trading economy built on a series of discoveries that connect the systems (inhabited or not) and varioius politics entities (typically "Star Nations", Transtellars Corporations, etc).
1st is hyperdrive which vastly reduces the amount of time to bet between stars. 2nd is the discovery of and then the creation of the systems to be able to navigate wormholes which provides for essentilay instantaneous travel from various points.

The ENTIRE system sets of politics, trade, are based on these two things. Yeah, there is a lot of different things moving including genetic slaves, politics, business and it's competition and all of the actual physical goods and materials plus ideas and the travel or movement of individuals.

Lacoon II has stuck a rather large stick in the wheels of commerce and things are not going as per what used to be the developing (expanding) system over the last two hundred years. Even if you don't count the problems caused by the Alignment and the expansion or trade ambitions of hundreds of planitary governments and millions of individuals who want to make at least a better living through commerce, the former trade model has been slammed to a halt. OFS is going to lose it's grip. Transtellars are going to fail (along with millions of other businesse and for one reason or other millions of individuals are going to be broken in economic ruin even without the fighting that will be continuing.
Everybody is going to adapt and find new ways of providing what is nessisary to keep their economies functioning. Not funtioning at the Pre-Lacoon II level in any kind of near-term time frame, but funtioning at the same time as having to do more with less and being able to produce what they need (not what they want, what the need) either at home or in conjunction with such systems that remain withing feasable (time and costs effective) trading distance as both a market for any exports and a source of "things" they need.

The Harrington Doctrine envisions many much smaller star-nations forming eventualy out of the fragments of the SL and the systems in the Shell and Verge which have been, in a very large way, supressed as Protectorates of OFS or as clients/partners of OFS/Transtellars/local totalitarian governments as the situations have evolved over centures.

I think I would answer this by saying "how big is the Western trade bloc in terms of the Old Earth circa 2017" global economy. The answer is... really really big. 90% of the consumption of goods, no? even though they've foolishly traded away a lot of the carrying capacity.
As long as everybody gets along and the USN & British Navy, etc. are the big boys on the block [and the Russian Navy in check], likely the "trading bloc" continues for the foreseeable future.
Now then, back in the Honorverse, the trading block is the same, but all the best routes are held by the pigmy (Manticore) who has also rendered the gorilla navy irrelevant.
I'd guess that the Core Worlds are the future League; the shell and Verge become strongly tied mutual-defense treaty organizations like OSEAN, NATO, etc. Heck, the RF is such an organization... with the caveat that they want to take over the whole dang Honorverse, and presumably that is what is known as a Bad Thing.

kzt wrote: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.

If you step back, it's a little hard to understand why the Manticore Junction is such a big, big deal in the League's economy. Yes, it provides a shortcut from Beowulf to Joshua, and that's valuable to a lot of Core Worlds near one or the other. It also provides cheap access to a lot of worlds out in the boonies, and that's valuable to a lot of transstellar corps.

But still. Before the crisis, was there really a lot of shipping to and from worlds out beyond Basilisk or Matapan, or in the Andermani Empire?

Bill Woods wrote:If you step back, it's a little hard to understand why the Manticore Junction is such a big, big deal in the League's economy. Yes, it provides a shortcut from Beowulf to Joshua, and that's valuable to a lot of Core Worlds near one or the other. It also provides cheap access to a lot of worlds out in the boonies, and that's valuable to a lot of transstellar corps.

But still. Before the crisis, was there really a lot of shipping to and from worlds out beyond Basilisk or Matapan, or in the Andermani Empire?

Might be a little easier to understand if you consider that the central worlds of the Andermani Empire are at least as well off as shell worlds in the Solarian league (not as rich as the big core worlds, but not impoverished worlds out in the boonies either), and despite the disorder there, the Silesian Confed worlds may be richer than some of the SL systems.

While much of the verge are little more than hardscrabble bare subsistence places, and a large percentage of the protectorates are being exploited to make life little better than the poorer places on the verge for the average citizen, there are also places on the verge where the average citizen both wants and can afford to import items from the core. One of the complaints of people who travel to Earth and other core worlds is the way they are treated as hayseeds with no manners despite being from places like Manticore, Haven, Erewhon or Anderman. All of these are very different places, but treating them as if they were Nuncio or Grayson grates.

Bill Woods wrote:If you step back, it's a little hard to understand why the Manticore Junction is such a big, big deal in the League's economy. Yes, it provides a shortcut from Beowulf to Joshua, and that's valuable to a lot of Core Worlds near one or the other.

If you look at the map included in the Bu-nine analysis, it is easy to see that the MWHJ is the crossroads for nearly every shortcut via wormhole across two-thirds of the league. The MHWJ, by itself, doesn't provide direct access to anywhere except Beowulf inside the SL. Combined with Erewhon's WHJ and the Durandel-Asgerd WH Bridge, it cuts the travel time from the "western" third of the League to the "eastern" third of the League from months to days. With the many un-mapped junctions and bridges mentioned in passing, the "Wormhole Network" reduces travel times over direct routing by at least an order of magnitude, and the MHWJ is involved in two legs of any routing to the "northern" two-thirds of the League

Bill Woods wrote:But still. Before the crisis, was there really a lot of shipping to and from worlds out beyond Basilisk or Matapan, or in the Andermani Empire?

I doubt that there is a lot of direct trade beyond the WH Network's outer limits, but there is probably a thriving "warehouse and transfer" trade between League routes and "local" routes at every Terminus.

Howdy Weird Harold,

Hi guys!

Let me first say kudos to all for a great thread.

Then let me correct the mistaken impression about the size and wealth of the SL.

The early textev, confirmed in "The universe of HH" in MTH almost 20 years ago stated that the SL had almost 2/3 of human race as citizens [page 358 in the PB], not 90% and it has since been dialed back a bit further by the further details we now know that had never been mentioned in the stories up to that point.

Depending on your definition of wealthy system I suspect the solarian wealthy systems membership is closer to 90-95%, with only 100 to two hundred truly wealthy, though there may be 200-400 systems that are 'well-to-do' as in upper middle class by now.

The shells may be considered middle class by outsiders, wealthy by comparison to the verge and beyond, but hardly rich from their viewpoint.

We don't know exactly what RFC then envisioned before "From the Highlands" changed everything, but I assume he'd already worked out a lot regarding the classes of citizenship, the OFS, the transtellar control of the shells and impoverishing the verge, besides the deliberate policies of the mandarins and the SL bureaucracy, all of which we didn't know because they hadn't impacted the story line yet.

UoHH also mentioned there were at least 5 wormhole termini in the SL [now we think they're 50-60 or more total] was then only 98 LY in radius from Sol, not the current 300-400 LY, the longest hyper bridge being 913 LY, of which we still remain ignorant, and that two, Manticore and Erewhon refused membership in the SL.

Later RFC intimated that Erewhon had been a member, or at least associated with the SL, before breaking the relationship due to Manticoran connivance.

If Erewhon was then a member, Beowulf would not then be the first ever in seven centuries to secede or opt out of the SL.

Back in WoH, High Ridge's thinking while New Kiev blathers in a cabinet meeting provides a financial/wealth measuring stick that put the SK's wealth into better perspective, made the SL look only middle class compared with the SK.

If you're curious, using the average density for ~1781 members within a near sphere split 50/50 between 300 and 400 LY diameter, or about 13,380 cubic LY each; would imply almost 295 member systems within 98 LY of Sol, but there's absolutely no textev to support that supposition.

From the maps we do have of the verge around the TQ, there seem to be quite a few WH termini that ought to be making the systems they're in quite wealthy, but that hasn't happened yet, but making that happen them would seem obvious to the SEM.

Extrapolating from that should mean the verge and shells have more hyper bridges than we yet know about, of course RFC's keeping that very closely held.

Given that non-MAlighn DB's max speed is about 3000C or ~8.21 LY/day, while freighters are generally less than half that, even wormhole assisted commerce can average 3-4 monthes or more just one way.

All that was just the preface for my intended post.

Since the RMN already controls around if not more than 80% of all the known wormholes, restoring trade through them ought to be returning to a normal condition soon.

The combat power of the GA is exponentially greater than the SL; FTL guided missiles with 14-15 times the range of most SL missiles, 4+ times their Cataphract 2's powered range and more than 9 times their effective range, all of which the SLN is still ignorant of, besides the other things like GA LAC's on offense, Mistletoe, and the Lorelei platforms, etc.

So the GA can send lots of small joint TG's to the verge and the shells, to destroy whatever SLN ships they find while letting the locals know things will be very different from now on, all in 5-6 monthes.

This could include pairs of old SD's with 580 old pods tractored aboard, combined with RHN old SD's and CLAC's etc to visit outlying SLN bases, or where known BF squadrons are concentrated to demonstrate to the core world populations watching [some will get the vid's a few days later] just how obsolete they are, while other TG's might be built around only a pair of Agamemnon's, etc.

Forex, one Invictus, one Agamemnon and an old SD all with tractored pods for ~2400 pods that could ruin 200 BF SD's day, one whole eighth of the BF after the reserve fleet is eliminated.

The long and hard part for HA-H, why its taking so long to seek out the SLN after the Beowulf failure, may be choosing the CO's for all these TG's; how many RMN ,RHN, and GSN captains and admirals can't put the past behind them like Terekhov?

So the war could be effectively over within a few monthes, then comes the hard part of cleaning up after the SL.

Given the SEM has some 53 systems so far, breaking the SL into 100 to 200 new groups might be the SEM's ideal.

Interesting times indeed.

L


[quote="Weird Harold"][quote="Bill Woods"]If you step back, it's a little hard to understand [i]why[/i] the Manticore Junction is such a big, big deal in the League's economy. Yes, it provides a shortcut from Beowulf to Joshua, and that's valuable to a lot of Core Worlds near one or the other.[/quote]

If you look at the map included in the Bu-nine analysis, it is easy to see that the MWHJ is the crossroads for nearly every shortcut via wormhole across two-thirds of the league. The MHWJ, by itself, doesn't provide direct access to anywhere except Beowulf inside the SL. Combined with Erewhon's WHJ and the Durandel-Asgerd WH Bridge, it cuts the travel time from the "western" third of the League to the "eastern" third of the League from months to days. With the many un-mapped junctions and bridges mentioned in passing, the "Wormhole Network" reduces travel times over direct routing by at least an order of magnitude, and the MHWJ is involved in two legs of any routing to the "northern" two-thirds of the League

[quote="Bill Woods"]But still. Before the crisis, was there really a lot of shipping to and from worlds out beyond Basilisk or Matapan, or in the Andermani Empire?[/quote]

I doubt that there is a lot of direct trade beyond the WH Network's outer limits, but there is probably a thriving "warehouse and transfer" trade between League routes and "local" routes at every Terminus.[/quote]

Excellent analysis and summary as usual, Lyonheart.

I would add that the SL star nations would cluster around their economic hubs. Don't recall where but I do recall that there are around 6 such hubs in the galaxy. The hub Manticore participates in is the largest. One suspects that this hub includes Beowulf and Sol. If Beowulf and Manticore leave that hub, the hub would still be a substantial economic entity with its ability to draw in cash from outside intact.

All the other economic hubs have to adjust to accommodate the dislocation of cash flows. There will be significant contraction, but not fatally so. All of the Core and Shell worlds are self sufficient. They don't need imports to maintain their economy. What they may need is capital. So, the breakup of the League will force star nations to aggregate around systems with capital. The RF will be one of those hubs. The GA will be another. The remaining 4-6 hubs will draw in such systems as each can support with its capital base.

I doubt there will be more than 8 hubs total. Those hubs would already exist and forming new hubs means creating new financial networks around a large pool of capital. Hard to imagine new capital formation during a period of chaos like the one being discussed. So the 7 hubs around the League would average ~260 systems with the RF hub being largest. This assumes that Beowulf does not snipe a significant number of Core and Shell systems into the GA hub. If that sniping is successful, the GA hub would be by far the largest economic group in the galaxy.

If that economic group maintains those systems with the WH termini as part of their economic hub, they would not only control a significant plurality of the galaxies wealth but also 80% of the WH termini connecting the galaxy together. I doubt all of those nations would want to belong to the SEM or even a significant portion of them. They would however, agree to belong to a confederation of nations.

So, I would agree with your assessment, Lyonheart, but perhaps quibble that the average size of the SL rump states would be ~200 systems or bigger.

lyonheart wrote:Howdy Weird Harold,

Hi guys!
snip

Given the SEM has some 53 systems so far, breaking the SL into 100 to 200 new groups might be the SEM's ideal.

Interesting times indeed.

L

Hi PeterZ,

Kudos for your usual excellence, NTM friendly comments;

Given the estimated 50-60 wormhole bridges, there are probably more than 7-8 likely future hubs, plus the considerable anti-federal, pro-independence feeling on the part of the verge and shells that may delay formation of such large star nations for some decades after the SL is fractured, if not longer.

The 90% population cited for the SL obviously included the protectorate systems [if averaging around 2 B each, that's 1.2 T, perhaps 9-10% of that 90% figure?], and the shells, who probably made up most of the almost one quarter of the Assembly's delegates who supported Beowulf, so the core world rump might be rather closer to 60%, before adding all those core systems who feel Beowulf has the moral high ground, NTM the obvious military power of the GA and prefer to be on the winning side, just like the business and financial interests.

Kolokoltsov acknowledged the RMN already controlled 80% of the WH termini according to his best information some time in early August, so restoring trade back to normal for those systems nearby [100-200 LY] ought to be well under way to overcome the disruption of only 5-6 monthes, while by late October [CoG, SoV], the GA may have already taken the rest, chopping the SL into helpless isolated bits that may be much more eager to disavow the mandarins and the SL, while seeking better economic and military security by recognizing the GA was right.

I think the RF is going to be rather smaller than the MAlign intended, and under considerable suspicion by the GA, from what Eloise and Elizabeth recognized back in MoH. We'll see.

The RoH still has around 150 systems, the AE around 72, so the preferred size of the new star nations of the former SL are different for the different members, which may lead to future disagreements in the GA.

Certainly interesting times, which is why we're desperate for UH, etc.

All the very best wishes,

L

PeterZ wrote:Excellent analysis and summary as usual, Lyonheart.

I would add that the SL star nations would cluster around their economic hubs. Don't recall where but I do recall that there are around 6 such hubs in the galaxy. The hub Manticore participates in is the largest. One suspects that this hub includes Beowulf and Sol. If Beowulf and Manticore leave that hub, the hub would still be a substantial economic entity with its ability to draw in cash from outside intact.

All the other economic hubs have to adjust to accommodate the dislocation of cash flows. There will be significant contraction, but not fatally so. All of the Core and Shell worlds are self sufficient. They don't need imports to maintain their economy. What they may need is capital. So, the breakup of the League will force star nations to aggregate around systems with capital. The RF will be one of those hubs. The GA will be another. The remaining 4-6 hubs will draw in such systems as each can support with its capital base.

I doubt there will be more than 8 hubs total. Those hubs would already exist and forming new hubs means creating new financial networks around a large pool of capital. Hard to imagine new capital formation during a period of chaos like the one being discussed. So the 7 hubs around the League would average ~260 systems with the RF hub being largest. This assumes that Beowulf does not snipe a significant number of Core and Shell systems into the GA hub. If that sniping is successful, the GA hub would be by far the largest economic group in the galaxy.

If that economic group maintains those systems with the WH termini as part of their economic hub, they would not only control a significant plurality of the galaxies wealth but also 80% of the WH termini connecting the galaxy together. I doubt all of those nations would want to belong to the SEM or even a significant portion of them. They would however, agree to belong to a confederation of nations.

So, I would agree with your assessment, Lyonheart, but perhaps quibble that the average size of the SL rump states would be ~200 systems or bigger.

lyonheart wrote:Howdy Weird Harold,

Hi guys!
snip

Given the SEM has some 53 systems so far, breaking the SL into 100 to 200 new groups might be the SEM's ideal.

Interesting times indeed.

L

I wouldn't be surprised if certain hubs ceased, having become hubs in the first place just as much as a measure to economically combat the gouging and misdirected commerce meddling of the League's unfortunate intervention. And can now form the more proper alliances which are the more economically and efficiently feasible.

The misdirected attempt of Young to rearrange the traffic patterns in the Basilisk System is a good analogy. Corruption in business has a tendency of causing unforeseen side effects.

Conversely, correction of those corruptions has a tendency to cause unforeseen advantages.

Hola all, returning to hopefully more regular posts soon as I finish my degree this month...

Anyway, had a realization today of the other thing that makes Laccoon II so deadly to the Solarian League, given that space is big AKA no instantaneous flow of information -- which is that we're told that a HUGE part of Manticore's advantage due to the wormholes is "financial transaction" related, that is -- a heavy concentration of banks/bank data passed through the MWHJ -- and likely the wormholes on the list.

Picture the effect if NYC, London, Bonn, Hong Kong, Tokyo, and probably the Swiss banks and any other major exchanges were suddenly able to communicate with each other except by supertankers. While whatever "good guy controlled" network still included airline jets...