Where does MAlign get it's money?

So I'm re reading Shadow of Victory, and one of the MAN officers is reflecting on the "billions" of dollars spent on developing the spider drive. NOT building the ships themselve, just developing the TECH.

But that's only a small bit of spending that they do. There's any and all of the other research projects (genetic, streak drive, nanotech, etc) that are ongoing money holes. There many many secret operations (Monica, Operation Janus, the state security navy, and other secret projects) and then let's not forget Darius, a whole PLANET, hell SOLAR SYSTEM that they've been developing along with the naval building programs, and those are only the ones that come in at the top of my head. And that doesn't count all of the "visible" money that is seen by everyone, like all the operating costs and profits that their various things like Manpower and Jesyk etc need for their operational costs that wouldn't be available for MAlign's needs.

There's NO WAY, that Manpower, and the other "legal" and illegal means of producing money could account for what would have to be TRILLIONS and TRILLIONS of dollars. In Echoes of Honor Admiral Mathews is talking to Hamish's brother and Admiral Caparelli and he's recounting the cost involving their shipbuilding project something like six(?) SD's and how it's over a trillion. Grayson just like Mesa is a single government/planet.

So how do you do all of those many many things, and somehow PAY for it all? As another example Albrect Detweiller is mentioned as being one of the richest men in the galaxy. All I can see is the many, many things that they're SPENDING money on, and the (relatively) few sources of income.

???

The Malign had investments in a large number of interstellar companies, beginning with Manpower. Over the centuries those investments could have accumulated a staggering amount of money. Most of the research (outside of Galton or Darius) was actually paid for those companies; without their knowledge in many cases, because Malign members were acting as undercover employees.

At places like Galton or Darius, what does money even mean? A currency is just something created by a government as a medium of exchange. It is only if it has to be traded for another country's currency because of commerce, that it begins to be more substantial.

Could they be farming some of it out? Like having manpower to get techondyne to do some research on a widget so they only have to pay "corruption costs"?

At places like Galton or Darius, what does money even mean? A currency is just something created by a government as a medium of exchange. It is only if it has to be traded for another country's currency because of commerce, that it begins to be more substantial.[/quote]


It's not that currency matters or doesn't in Darius or Galton, it that all of that system infrastructure doesn't just appear out of thin air. It HAS to "cost" something. Consider all the tech that goes into any component in the various systems in the infrastructure, presumably they couldn't manufacture it in an empty or newly evolving system, so it's coming from out system, and it wouldn't be free.

I suppose that once they got enough system infrastructure up and running they could produce insystem, but that's not going to happen overnight. And there would have to be SOME cost involved,even if is was internal accounting cost, as Robert Heinlen has said "There ain't no such thing as a free lunch" or tanstaafl

With virtually free energy, AI manufacturing systems, Von Neuman type reproduction technology, your own cloned work force, and access to many solar systems' asteroid belts I imagine that our theories of financial systems will be somewhat dated.
Even using a today analogy, compound interest in investments is powerful. Long retired I had a well paying job, but my investments now pay me more. If I had centuries for it to accumulate and provide interest on interest it would be sufficient for anything.

They were definitely grafting from the Mesa and League governments, plus probably a lot of Verge worlds too through sweetheart deals with the corrupt transtellars and their puppet governments. That is to say, the latter were not paying the "list price" for the slaves they were being sent from Manpower, but instead through a portion of the grafted revenue and that could be orders of magnitude more expensive.

Even a trickle here and there would add up to quite a lot. Especially if they are taking money from the League and from Technodyne. During my reading, I wondered just how much money the Mandarins, their next levels, Rajampet, and others could want... I mean, at that point, they must have had several billion League credits stashed away, so why divert even more money?

In any case, as the other posters have said, the economy need not work outside of Mesa itself and Mesa wasn't building ships. The hidden budget for Manpower and the Alignment-on-Mesa was probably quite large, but nowhere near sufficient to build warships. Enough to buy or lease freighters, especially given that one of the companies they controlled was in the freight business, even when the cargo was people.

The warships and other war matériel that was funnelled to the People's Navy in Exile and the SLN were likely not paid for by corruption. Those were built on Galton and Darius, which are closed economies and thus their currency need not have any basis of comparison to the League credit or Manticoran dollar.

That's not to say the economy of those systems makes sense. That's not David's forte and they can be a house of cards.

ThinksMarkedly wrote:The warships and other war matériel that was funnelled to the People's Navy in Exile and the SLN were likely not paid for by corruption. Those were built on Galton and Darius, which are closed economies and thus their currency need not have any basis of comparison to the League credit or Manticoran dollar.

That's not to say the economy of those systems makes sense. That's not David's forte and they can be a house of cards.

I'm not sure that is fair in this case. Both Galton and Darius would need large amounts of money in the initial stage, to move in the people and equipment needed to make them self sustaining colonies of the Malign. That is the same as any colony and like any colony, once they are self sustaining, they no longer need money from the outside. In fact Galton will become a money producer, if it sells war equipment that it produces.

I do not believe that Galton built warships that were funneled to the "People's Navy in Exile", since they were equipped with the ships that they used to leave Haven. Now those ships would need replacement parts and missiles and Galton could supply those. Those same types of missiles were also sold to the SLN.

ThinksMarkedly wrote:The warships and other war matériel that was funnelled to the People's Navy in Exile and the SLN were likely not paid for by corruption. Those were built on Galton and Darius, which are closed economies and thus their currency need not have any basis of comparison to the League credit or Manticoran dollar.

That's not to say the economy of those systems makes sense. That's not David's forte and they can be a house of cards.

Those systems would have required economic input from the outside - but it would have been for their initial industrial base; back years, and years, and years ago when the colonies were founded. That's less money, and spread over more time, than it takes to fund the navy today.

Today that navy is getting build from the GSP (gross system product) of the economies that have grown and grown thanks to whatever ongoing external infusion they got plus a heavy focus on reinvesting internal gains into further economic growth.

So on the money used to acquire supplies from the greater galactic economy for the close colonies is "real money"; directing their internal economies is all, in some sense, fake money as it can't be spent outside each system. The actually important thing is how much of each's net production is spent on internal investment in industrial/economic growth. (How much factor production is devoted to building machine tools for installing in new factories; as an example)

tlb wrote:I'm not sure that is fair in this case. Both Galton and Darius would need large amounts of money in the initial stage, to move in the people and equipment needed to make them self sustaining colonies of the Malign. That is the same as any colony and like any colony, once they are self sustaining, they no longer need money from the outside. In fact Galton will become a money producer, if it sells war equipment that it produces.

True, but see Jonathan's reply. The investment is 2 centuries old and can snowball, with proper economic management. This is also fiction from our point of view: we currently have no example of a successful, state-planned economy lasting 2 centuries to say it is possible or not. The closest we have is China, but its success is one tenth of that time and it is looking like a house of cards. And it does not exist in isolation, so it must compete with the rest of the world, whereas Galton and Darius effectively would be isolated.

I do not believe that Galton built warships that were funneled to the "People's Navy in Exile", since they were equipped with the ships that they used to leave Haven. Now those ships would need replacement parts and missiles and Galton could supply those. Those same types of missiles were also sold to the SLN.

No, not the ships themselves. And they attacked Torch using SLN ships, not their original PN stock (none of which was bigger than a Mars-class CA). One assumes those were provided by Technodyne somehow, not acquired by the MAlign. For the PNiE, only the "war matériel" portion of my comment would apply.

Warships themselves, only those used by the Galton Navy and the MAN.

tlb wrote:I'm not sure that is fair in this case. Both Galton and Darius would need large amounts of money in the initial stage, to move in the people and equipment needed to make them self sustaining colonies of the Malign. That is the same as any colony and like any colony, once they are self sustaining, they no longer need money from the outside. In fact Galton will become a money producer, if it sells war equipment that it produces.

ThinksMarkedly wrote:True, but see Jonathan's reply. The investment is 2 centuries old and can snowball, with proper economic management. This is also fiction from our point of view: we currently have no example of a successful, state-planned economy lasting 2 centuries to say it is possible or not. The closest we have is China, but its success is one tenth of that time and it is looking like a house of cards. And it does not exist in isolation, so it must compete with the rest of the world, whereas Galton and Darius effectively would be isolated.

I prefer to think that Jonathan_S and I were saying much the same thing; although he may have said it better.

Egypt was continually governed by Pharaohs for approximately 2500 years. China was governed by Emperors for about 2000 years, the only difference is that the leader is called a Chairman now. Even the Spartans, which could serve as a partial model for Galton, lasted 1000 years. Why should an isolated oligarchy last less?

For all we know the economy at Darius could be modeled on one of the Scandinavian coutries