Non-solarian, non-manticoran aligned shipping.

You know PeterZ you just put a thought in my head. With Manticore no longer doing business with the Solarian League that's a lot of raw materials that they no longer have access to. And just when they need to rebuild. I don't know how much in the way of raw materials they imported but they had to bring some in.

So that differential needs to be made up somehow and through Talbott they have access to a lot of neutral star systems, recently freed, and soon to be freed systems. Theirs gotta be a lot of raw materials in those systems and with the Manticoran shipping companies desperate to make up what they lost that's a lot of profit for the poorer systems.

Especially for those systems with industries seized from transtellers. They'd have functioning mining/refining/processing but no longer have an established market.

As I understand Honorverse economies, most systems can produce almost anything from internal resources. Manticore's Unicorn Belt can supply all the raw materials they need to rebuild.

PeterZ wrote:As I understand Honorverse economies, most systems can produce almost anything from internal resources. Manticore's Unicorn Belt can supply all the raw materials they need to rebuild.

Pretty much. No shortage of materials. This isn't trek where you have the magical dilithium crystals that are plot determined difficulty. They can rip apart huge amounts of asteroids every day to process for useful raw materials. No matter how rare a naturally occurring element might be, if you rip apart and mass spectrograph a cubic mile of asteroid you'll get a decent amount.

Glad I recalled correctly. So, the RMMM has the capacity to service every non-aligned nation in their neck of the woods. The ships registered to those non-aligned nations can use the WHJ network. They can carry goods from League shippers. If the RMN doesn't provide waivers for cargo, creative contracts will likely work to allow Sollie goods through.

That means where the unalienable ships go first to pick up cargo gets a huge advantage over other star nations. In addition, those ships can charge a premium for their cargo and the shippers will recoupe that cost easily enough. Those ships would be subject to confiscation by the SLN but likely not from the transstellars. Anyone confiscating the ship still couldn't take the ship through the WH network. The ships would be more valuable jumping wormholes with a shippers cargo. Better to outbid other shippers that steal the ship.

Non-allied ship owners will be printing money in the League!

PeterZ wrote:As I understand Honorverse economies, most systems can produce almost anything from internal resources. Manticore's Unicorn Belt can supply all the raw materials they need to rebuild.

Dang it, I thought I had something there.

I'm sorry for the red herring, but this has always puzzled me. With such power, technology and virtually unlimited energy, I wonder why there is conflict in the Honorverse?
Any reasonably well off group could club together, outfit a 7M ton freighter with the right gear, take a thousand of their group, go very much elsewhere, and start their own civilisation?

kzt wrote:

PeterZ wrote:As I understand Honorverse economies, most systems can produce almost anything from internal resources. Manticore's Unicorn Belt can supply all the raw materials they need to rebuild.

Pretty much. No shortage of materials. This isn't trek where you have the magical dilithium crystals that are plot determined difficulty. They can rip apart huge amounts of asteroids every day to process for useful raw materials. No matter how rare a naturally occurring element might be, if you rip apart and mass spectrograph a cubic mile of asteroid you'll get a decent amount.

So far, Manticore (and the rest of the GA and treaty partners such as the Aldermani) are not doing anything to Solly registered shipping except Manticore who is only denying them access to the Manticore Junction Network and anything they hold as a result of Lacoon II.

The SLN appears to be poised on the brink of as much outright commerce raiding as they can muster ships and deploy them as long as they can mostly avoid GA warships. The intent of that commerce raiding is to force redeployment of GA warships in addition to hurting the GA's commerce, supply lines and give the appearence of DOING SOMETHING against primarily Manticore.
Haven't yet seen any statement or part of the plan where the SLN is going to be activly taking prizes. You will recall that they have to go out into the Verge and, one has to beleive, into GA controlled space to do this. No talk about having enough people for multiple prize crews aboard. Really nothing other than go kill GA merchant shipping to deny it to the GA, punish Manticore and avoid getting killed in the process.

Even if they do take prizes, where are they going to sell them and the cargos? Possibly the cargos to people in varioius Verge systems but that comes with a price for those systems when the GA finds out about it. Sending the ships back to SL space the long way without the use of wormholes is going to take a lot longer than getting the raiders out to where they are hunting primarily because they are going to be using civilian ships and traveling much slower. And what are you going to do with the crews? Not take them on-board the warships. Dropping them at the nearest or most confident inhabited system is guaranteed to leak the information back to the GA. Perhaps not from Monica but even there you have a seriously chastised government who- while angry with Manticore- probably would't be happy to be "gifted" with a bunch of kidnaped merchant crew that they have to take care of and also probably would want to deliver to RMN hand as soon as possible to show lack of complicity in the raiding....and that would bring modern GA warships to picket the place and near inhabited systems looking to catch the raiders.

At this point, while the cargos would have value in SL space, the real value would be the ships and represent both money to the SLN as prizes and the buracracy who is going to keep much of it. They can sell the ships, if they don't need to keep them to augment lost civiilan carrier capasity for military related supplies, to private companies. The ships had better stay withing the SL controlled space out at least well away from GA (and friends) space because Manticore is not going to be happy with people who are using a raided ship in commerce.

ThisName1 wrote:

PeterZ wrote:As I understand Honorverse economies, most systems can produce almost anything from internal resources. Manticore's Unicorn Belt can supply all the raw materials they need to rebuild.

Dang it, I thought I had something there.

In a way you are not incorrect. There is interstellar ore trade in the Honorverse, but it is more based on economics than local availability.

Manticorian merchant ships, returning from Silesian on the Great Triangle route (for anyone counting, another historical age of sail reference) to Balisisk, many times filled their hulls with ore for sale in Manticore. Why? They were able to buy it and transport it for a few pennies lower than it could be extracted locally.

We also have been told of some remote mining ventures which did or didn't work in some remote, uninhabited system. Why were they thought up and why did they fail? Again, some "rarish" resource was available in such a concentration that mining it over there and shipping it was a little easier and cheaper than producing it locally. Once the economics changed slightly, or demand fell, it no longer made sense and the site was abandoned.

I believe DW said that the Manticore system has asteroid resources for 10,000 years at 1921 production levels, and they have plenty of unused moons and minor planets they can move onto when the asteroids give out. I would assume most other systems are in similar places, plus or minus a zero.

Daryl wrote:I'm sorry for the red herring, but this has always puzzled me. With such power, technology and virtually unlimited energy, I wonder why there is conflict in the Honorverse?
Any reasonably well off group could club together, outfit a 7M ton freighter with the right gear, take a thousand of their group, go very much elsewhere, and start their own civilisation?

Why has any war started, ever? Pretty much every war falls under the thinking of either "They have IT, we want IT, let's get IT", "We want to do this, they won't let us, Let's rebel", or "They scare us, let's hurt them before they hurt us."

Theemile wrote:

Daryl wrote:I'm sorry for the red herring, but this has always puzzled me. With such power, technology and virtually unlimited energy, I wonder why there is conflict in the Honorverse?
Any reasonably well off group could club together, outfit a 7M ton freighter with the right gear, take a thousand of their group, go very much elsewhere, and start their own civilisation?

Why has any war started, ever? Pretty much every war falls under the thinking of either "They have IT, we want IT, let's get IT", "We want to do this, they won't let us, Let's rebel", or "They scare us, let's hurt them before they hurt us."

We have trouble at home, so start a foreign adventur6 to distract our population.