"What if" after HH09

Theemile wrote:Even if Grayson isn't starving, it is dangerously reliant on a fragile, artificial, overly expensive agricultural system and food imports. If cut off from interplanetary trade, their growing population suffers. If even a single station or dome is struck, parts of the population starve.

Why does it have to be fragile? Why can't a closed system, with no chance of external contamination because it's isolated by vacuum, have a less fragile experience? Temperature is regulated exactly right and does not depend on weather. Irrigation (if not already using hydroponics) is assured at a steady and predictable rate.

And why does it have to be overly expensive to do that? If you want to have assured food production, you have to do artificial irrigation anyway and not be left to the whims of the weather. Manticore is blessed with a very warm and mild climate, and we're told that Masada is also pretty good, but that is not true of the other planets in the MBS and we have little clue whether the rest of the planets in the HV are good for open-air agriculture or not. I suspect the author intended that they mostly are, but that's statistically improbable.

From the Stephanie Harrington stories, we do know that Sphinx required bio-forming to ensure that human-edible food would grow on the planet, with the nutrients found there (that's Marjorie Harrington's job and she's probably the biggest reason why the family immigrated into the Star Kingdom then, more than Richard's job). We also know that the Manticore System bio-compatibility with humanity is uncommonly high, which is what caused the Plague Years in the first place. So I argue that on almost every world in the HV, you have a non-negligible cost of setting up and keeping up agriculture on the planet. This cost may be lower than the initial cost of doing so in space, but I'd argue that unless you cover practically the entire planet, which a young colony can't and won't do, you have an on-going cost to keep it up. That may be comparable or even higher than running a space station. This could mean space farming could pay itself off sooner than on-ground agriculture.

Plus, farming in space means you can keep large tracts of your new colony intact, for studies and preservation.

I'm not disputing that growing food in the Yeltsin System, wherever that is, isn't on the expensive side of the galactic average. I'm questioning whether it's THAT expensive.

I'm also questioning whether they're one dome or station away from starvation. They had a backwards technology base in some areas, but they weren't stupid. They should know that they needed to have spare production to account for potential problems. And even if they were so close to the brink in the late 1800s, they shouldn't be now. If this problem had been dire, the first thing that they'd have done when joining the Alliance is to reduce it, before building cruisers and battlecruisers, let alone designing the Benjy class SD. As much as I'm disagreeing with Relax's arguments, I am agreeing that a polity that neglects feeding their population in favour of military investment can't remain in power for long (except authoritarian regimes with external forces propping it up, like North Korea).

Yes, Skydomes is building large domes where massive regions are protected from the elements and can be decommed and farmed - also artificially. It will take years to pay off the domes, and All water will need to be decontaminated before use, and every inch of land will need to be fully fertilized for every crop, (making it more expensive to farm than any space on Earth, even Bolivia). Continued expansion of Skydomes will eventually make Grayson less reliant on the space farms and foreign food sources, but expanded land just makes Grayson more reliant on sources of fertilizer.

BTW, what is the cost of farming in Bolivia in the 1910s PD? How is the Earth government feeding a population of 40 billion in-system? Mind you they had a nuclear war only one thousand years before, so there may be regions on the planet that are still radioactive, or need decontamination like Grayson does. And yet they have a population 13x times that of the Yeltsin System.

I'd argue they're doing that with space farms too.

I'd even argue that that's what Beowulf is likely doing. They had those huge habitats in orbit, with a population measured in the tens of millions. However, I grant you my argument falls a little apart here because Honor should have been aware of this facet of the Sigma Draconis system economy. She'd not be as familiar with it as she was with the MBS one, but she had visited her relatives there a few times, and Sigma Draconis & League economy were probably a regular part of the Manticore education system.

So any distortion in trade - any damage to a dome or space farm - will jeopardize the Grayson economy. And I doubt Grayson is willing to risk economic ties to the Manticorian Alliance, or endanger themselves militarily, in pd 1914.

I'm not disputing the conclusion. It's clearly better for Grayson to remain in the Alliance than to exit it (quod vide Brexit).

Relax wrote:Norway is your example? Dirt Poor Norway until they started exports; vast quantities of oil/ng, hydropower, fish?

China who was directly starving itself in massive famine after famine until they started massive exports...

And the fact that they've turned their situation around tells you nothing?

Grayson is a closed system... Backwards industry. They weren't and aren't exporters. Suggest Bolivia, Afghanistan, as an example or Chad.

How about Earth in the 21st century right now? We aren't exporters. Is food production on Earth expensive? Or is it cheap?

Yes, Grayson had backwards industry in many, if not most areas. But if the 'Necessity is the mother of invention' proverb is true (uttered as early as Plato), needing to feed their population would have spurred the innovation necessary to improve the technology in that area.

Supporting an insanely expensive infrastructure where ALL habitats have to essentially be air tight even on "planet"... Do you have ANY idea how expensive this is? All residential and commercial buildings have to be airtight and decontaminated regularly. Everyone when working outside essentially has to wear at minimum full head/body PPE, respirators, face mask = piss poor productivity per capita. The dependency ratio is insane where 75% women + another 10% children =~ 85% of the population isn't doing any of that hard dangerous labor either regarding infrastructure... I was being kind and assuming all old men work the hard labor outside until they die...

No, I do not have an idea how expensive that is and neither do you.

This is a situation that Grayson had lived with for over 1000 years. They hadn't collapsed before the Alliance, so whatever the cost was, it was paid.

That's also why they had domes, so people could work outside of buildings without such protective equipment. And even outside of domes, it doesn't look like it was that bad either: the contaminants appeared to be in the soil and heavy metals are heavy: they don't aerosolise and float in the air, they tend to sink to the ground. We have seen scenes of kids playing outside, though that was with masks and I suspect it was still inside a dome.

The fact that 85% of the population isn't doing any dangerous labour or even construction work is absolutely not an argument for anything. We don't have that right now on Earth and never have at any time in our history. I work in an office (home or otherwise) and the biggest dangers I face are Repetitive Strain Injury or a car crash while commuting. The fact that a large proportion of your workforce works on things other than construction can mean that you have little construction need or employ them in other sectors of the economy with higher aggregate value (or both).

Here on earth: The retirement system we see a cliff for the pension/retirement system as we have only ~2-->3 workers per retiree... On Grayson, this is in effect 1 worker per 3 non workers(assuming women at least partially work)... + children... Unless we are going to assume that all women/children essentially work the greenhouses, clothing production on Grayson but are not counted as part of the workforce. Women/children used to do so here on earth in the gardens/home where humanity used to obtain majority of our food/clothing from but due to industrialized Ag do not anymore.

Common man! Economics 101 Grayson is desperately poor and the books say so as well. Why do you say otherwise? Inquiring minds want to know!

I will grant you that the workforce participation rate (at least the formal workforce) in Grayson is extremely lopsided, at something like less than 20% of their population.

Which is exactly why Economics 101 can't apply. It would say this system can't work, and yet it has for over 1000 years. We do know that RFC isn't the best in describing the economy of the HV systems (see all the discussions about how the Yawata Strike affected the Manticore economy), so we have to suspend disbelief. The fact that this system has managed to survive for over 1000 years without the need to expand to other systems (except for the Endicott system, which in turn proves that they had the technology to do so), managed to keep itself fed enough to grow to a population of 3 billion, and had enough technical acumen to figure out how compensators work and design their local equivalent knock-offs, was the destination of major Manticore investments above that of other more established systems like Casca or Alizon, should tell us something.

This boils down simply to this: if food production in the Yeltsin System were that expensive, they wouldn't have grown their population to the same size as the entire MBS. They did, ergo they had the tools, know-how, and spare capital to expand their food-production capacity.

ThinksMarkedly wrote:

Theemile wrote:Even if Grayson isn't starving, it is dangerously reliant on a fragile, artificial, overly expensive agricultural system and food imports. If cut off from interplanetary trade, their growing population suffers. If even a single station or dome is struck, parts of the population starve.

Why does it have to be fragile? Why can't a closed system, with no chance of external contamination because it's isolated by vacuum, have a less fragile experience? Temperature is regulated exactly right and does not depend on weather. Irrigation (if not already using hydroponics) is assured at a steady and predictable rate.

And why does it have to be overly expensive to do that? If you want to have assured food production, you have to do artificial irrigation anyway and not be left to the whims of the weather. Manticore is blessed with a very warm and mild climate, and we're told that Masada is also pretty good, but that is not true of the other planets in the MBS and we have little clue whether the rest of the planets in the HV are good for open-air agriculture or not. I suspect the author intended that they mostly are, but that's statistically improbable.

From the Stephanie Harrington stories, we do know that Sphinx required bio-forming to ensure that human-edible food would grow on the planet, with the nutrients found there (that's Marjorie Harrington's job and she's probably the biggest reason why the family immigrated into the Star Kingdom then, more than Richard's job). We also know that the Manticore System bio-compatibility with humanity is uncommonly high, which is what caused the Plague Years in the first place. So I argue that on almost every world in the HV, you have a non-negligible cost of setting up and keeping up agriculture on the planet. This cost may be lower than the initial cost of doing so in space, but I'd argue that unless you cover practically the entire planet, which a young colony can't and won't do, you have an on-going cost to keep it up. That may be comparable or even higher than running a space station. This could mean space farming could pay itself off sooner than on-ground agriculture.

Plus, farming in space means you can keep large tracts of your new colony intact, for studies and preservation.

I'm not disputing that growing food in the Yeltsin System, wherever that is, isn't on the expensive side of the galactic average. I'm questioning whether it's THAT expensive.

I'm also questioning whether they're one dome or station away from starvation. They had a backwards technology base in some areas, but they weren't stupid. They should know that they needed to have spare production to account for potential problems. And even if they were so close to the brink in the late 1800s, they shouldn't be now. If this problem had been dire, the first thing that they'd have done when joining the Alliance is to reduce it, before building cruisers and battlecruisers, let alone designing the Benjy class SD. As much as I'm disagreeing with Relax's arguments, I am agreeing that a polity that neglects feeding their population in favour of military investment can't remain in power for long (except authoritarian regimes with external forces propping it up, like North Korea).

Yes, Skydomes is building large domes where massive regions are protected from the elements and can be decommed and farmed - also artificially. It will take years to pay off the domes, and All water will need to be decontaminated before use, and every inch of land will need to be fully fertilized for every crop, (making it more expensive to farm than any space on Earth, even Bolivia). Continued expansion of Skydomes will eventually make Grayson less reliant on the space farms and foreign food sources, but expanded land just makes Grayson more reliant on sources of fertilizer.

BTW, what is the cost of farming in Bolivia in the 1910s PD? How is the Earth government feeding a population of 40 billion in-system? Mind you they had a nuclear war only one thousand years before, so there may be regions on the planet that are still radioactive, or need decontamination like Grayson does. And yet they have a population 13x times that of the Yeltsin System.

I'd argue they're doing that with space farms too.

I'd even argue that that's what Beowulf is likely doing. They had those huge habitats in orbit, with a population measured in the tens of millions. However, I grant you my argument falls a little apart here because Honor should have been aware of this facet of the Sigma Draconis system economy. She'd not be as familiar with it as she was with the MBS one, but she had visited her relatives there a few times, and Sigma Draconis & League economy were probably a regular part of the Manticore education system.

So any distortion in trade - any damage to a dome or space farm - will jeopardize the Grayson economy. And I doubt Grayson is willing to risk economic ties to the Manticorian Alliance, or endanger themselves militarily, in pd 1914.

I'm not disputing the conclusion. It's clearly better for Grayson to remain in the Alliance than to exit it (quod vide Brexit).

By fragile, I don't mean that the production is fragile, but the container is. It can be hit by an asteroid, or a missile. A dome may fall victim to an earthquake. The point being is if damaged, production will fail. On earth, most places you can haphazardly drop seeds on the ground and in 3 months you have a couple plants with no human interaction - Yes, farming is harder than that and there are places where you need to add as much feed stocks as in a dome or a station. Corporations actually prefer this as it gives a standard product and output (See the California central valley farming region). However, it relies on a greater level of fertilizers and purified water to constantly replace those nutrients taken the soil than in "natural" growing regions.

If I'm remembering correctly, most of the arable lowland in Bolivia is home to a tree that leaves the land insanely acidic and mineral poor. It takes 10-15 years of careful land management after removal of the native foliage to make the land capable of agriculture, making the area one of the most expensive to farm in the world - you not only need to bring in fertilizer and decontaminated water, but you need to decom the land for a lengthy time while fighting off the native foliage - I can't think of a better analogue on Earth to Grayson farming.

People, do you think that the discussion about Norway and Grayson food prices (etc.) has any relevance to our discussion about Grayson strategy after HH09? May I ask you to make a separate topic, so it will be easier to watch the flow of each of these two, imho unrelated, discussions?

I want to honestly answer Theemile's arguments and it would be easier to look them up and not overlook any. But if my request is inappropriate, please tell me; I want to learn about rules and conventions.

Thanks.
Reflame

Reflame wrote:People, do you think that the discussion about Norway and Grayson food prices (etc.) has any relevance to our discussion about Grayson strategy after HH09? May I ask you to make a separate topic, so it will be easier to watch the flow of each of these two, imho unrelated, discussions?

I want to honestly answer Theemile's arguments and it would be easier to look them up and not overlook any. But if my request is inappropriate, please tell me; I want to learn about rules and conventions.

Thanks.
Reflame

Welcome to thread drift - it happens often here.

Supply chain vulnerability is a important item to consider, especially when you are considering war. The upheaval caused by every major modern war has killed millions as breadbaskets are lost, blocked or redirected, and as Napoleon famously said, "An Army travels on it's stomach."

It's all theoretical, but logistics, economics and supply chains do end up frequent topics here - they are really the long term drivers of how a war is waged.

Theemile wrote:However, ship and formation workup in the Honorverse is still following the 18th century needs. It's just a quirk of the story, like it or not.

If I understand you, is this the reason why an efficient cooperation required far more training together than what I [post=314588]suggested[/post]?

(Btw. what is the proper way of linking to a concrete post, please? Url's like viewtopic.php?p=314588#p314588 do NOT jump to the correct article, i.e. the browser stays on the top of page. I google and google - and nothing works. But this format worked in another BBC forum.)

I am surprised that 40th century computers could not handle most of these things (for example by preprogramming maneuvers for the whole multi-squadron task force etc.). And that rehearsal in simulators (during the travel to the target planet) is so inadequate.

If I understand you, Theemile, [post=p314594]do you say[post] something like: "It can be a matter of debate whether this is fully realisic, but it was important for David that the battles have a similar feel as 18th century wet navy battles, including many details such as the need of several weeks of training/rehearsal - and that's why it is part of the story and of the fictional world. And that's why arguments questioning the realism of such fact (such as a need for weeks of rehearsal in 40th century) are irelevant. Irelevant even if someone comes with a very convincing argument."

Is this what you say? This would make a good sense to me; in that case, thanks for an illuminating explanation.

Theemile wrote:It's all theoretical, but logistics, economics and supply chains do end up frequent topics here - they are really the long term drivers of how a war is waged.

Sorry, my English is not perfect, so I must ask: "do end up here" means "it is food what frequently decides the war" or does it mean "whenever a thread on this forum touches the topic of logistics, economics and supply chains, it frequently happens that the discussion ends up around food prices in Norway"?

The last example about "Norway" is certainly exaggerated, but I don't know how to write it better. Do you mean something like "Whenever a thread on this forum touches the topic of logistics, economics and supply chains, it frequently drifts toward general discussions about economics. Discussions so general that they are irelevant to the actual topic. So Reflame, live with it and don't complain too much."

I honestly don't know how close I am, but I suppose that I don't understand correctly. That there's a significant misunderstanding here.

Reflame wrote:

Theemile wrote:However, ship and formation workup in the Honorverse is still following the 18th century needs. It's just a quirk of the story, like it or not.

If I understand you, is this the reason why an efficient cooperation required far more training together than what I [post=314588]suggested[/post]?

(Btw. what is the proper way of linking to a concrete post, please? Url's like viewtopic.php?p=314588#p314588 do NOT jump to the correct article, i.e. the browser stays on the top of page. I google and google - and nothing works. But this format worked in another BBC forum.)

I am surprised that 40th century computers could not handle most of these things (for example by preprogramming maneuvers for the whole multi-squadron task force etc.). And that rehearsal in simulators (during the travel to the target planet) is so inadequate.

If I understand you, Theemile, [post=p314594]do you say[post] something like: "It can be a matter of debate whether this is fully realisic, but it was important for David that the battles have a similar feel as 18th century wet navy battles, including many details such as the need of several weeks of training/rehearsal - and that's why it is part of the story and of the fictional world. And that's why arguments questioning the realism of such fact (such as a need for weeks of rehearsal in 40th century) are irelevant. Irelevant even if someone comes with a very convincing argument."

Is this what you say? This would make a good sense to me; in that case, thanks for an illuminating explanation.

Yes, that is correct - also bare in mind that David first wrote this series in the late 80s early 90s, and kept the story and technology base quite consistent. Computer technology and scientific thought have changed much in the last 35 years; we can look at concepts now and say "of course a Computer in 2000 years will be able to do that", but that thinking might not have been so 35 years ago.

David wrote a pretty good story, we just need to remember the original conceits and premise he made to shape that story - we need to embrace them as much as we embrace the fact that the protagonist is living on a planet ~640 light years away and has a 6 legged alien that reads emotions as a pet.

Reflame wrote:

Theemile wrote:It's all theoretical, but logistics, economics and supply chains do end up frequent topics here - they are really the long term drivers of how a war is waged.

Sorry, my English is not perfect, so I must ask: "do end up here" means "it is food what frequently decides the war" or does it mean "whenever a thread on this forum touches the topic of logistics, economics and supply chains, it frequently happens that the discussion ends up around food prices in Norway"?

The last example about "Norway" is certainly exaggerated, but I don't know how to write it better. Do you mean something like "Whenever a thread on this forum touches the topic of logistics, economics and supply chains, it frequently drifts toward general discussions about economics. Discussions so general that they are irelevant to the actual topic. So Reflame, live with it and don't complain too much."

I honestly don't know how close I am, but I suppose that I don't understand correctly. That there's a significant misunderstanding here.

By "do end up here", I meant on the Forum. Logistics and Economics are often discussed topics, as they drive strategy. Yes, someone might want to try a tactic or stratagem, but can they actually accomplish it with the tools at hand? What are the greater implications on a specific decision?

These are the questions you are bringing forward - what would happen if Grayson decided to continue to attack after the 1914 ceasefire. What are the ramifications? How easy would it be to do? Would they be able to persecute the war with the tools at hand? And could they defend Grayson when Haven come calling?

So before Grayson goes hunting on it's own, it needs to think about the ramification's of it's actions. Could it survive in a universe where Manticore and allies cut it off from international trade and Haven successfully is able to destroy a fair amount of the orbital farms? Because that will be a highly possible outcome.

I'm not using the Norway example myself, so I can't speak completely to it's validity. However, many wars were started over food, water rights and energy. WWII started with a Germany unable to feed itself, and paying riotous costs to import grain and other foods, and was one of the original reasons for the annexations of the Sudetenland, as well as the later annexation of the former former German regions of the Polish plain, and the recurring fights over Alsace-Loraine. In addition, France had invaded the Ruhr valley in the 30s cutting off Germany from the energy resources there and Germany's heavy industry in the region, and we all know how well that went. The reasons to invade the Netherlands and Romania were to grab the oil and gas regions there. (unfortunately, the more land Germany grabbed, the more food and energy was needed to feed and power the regions it controlled, so this was ultimately a losing strategy).

War ultimately destroys what infrastructure exists, far before it can replace with new, so any time food, energy, or industry was seized, what is left is less than what was there to start with.

Theemile wrote:By fragile, I don't mean that the production is fragile, but the container is. It can be hit by an asteroid, or a missile. A dome may fall victim to an earthquake. The point being is if damaged, production will fail. On earth, most places you can haphazardly drop seeds on the ground and in 3 months you have a couple plants with no human interaction - Yes, farming is harder than that and there are places where you need to add as much feed stocks as in a dome or a station. Corporations actually prefer this as it gives a standard product and output (See the California central valley farming region). However, it relies on a greater level of fertilizers and purified water to constantly replace those nutrients taken the soil than in "natural" growing regions.

Sure, stations are subject to leaks, meteor strikes, they're more vulnerable to solar radiation and coronal mass ejections in particular. But those don't seem to be huge deals in the HV, not with particle shielding that everything from pinnaces and up have. Energy budget does not appear to be a problem either.

Meanwhile, farming on the ground means you are subject to pests & predation by local wildlife, disease, weather and other natural calamities. There are no tsunamis, earthquakes, or tornadoes in space.

RFC has rightfully complained that some authors, especially of TV and movies, don't think through the consequences of the technology they introduce, giving the Star Trek transporter as an example (why don't they beam torpedoes? The "How It Should Have Ended" YouTube channel also made fun of the Star Trek: Into Darkness interstellar transporter effectively making travel by starship obsolete). I believe this is one area where he was slightly blind to the consequences: it should be easy to farm in space with HV technology. The technology for it should have been available before the Sigma Draconis expedition left Earth. Yes, it might be one of the technologies Austin Grayson brought no books for or destroyed after landfall, but in the 1000 years since then, they'd have redeveloped.