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Date: Wed Jul 17 21:00:18 PDT 1991
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Subject: TML Bundle #214: Table of Contents

-AMN- --Date--- --Sender--------- --Subject-----------------------------------
2614  16-Jul-91 jimv@ucrmath      Traveller Tales - 2 of 5 << Traveller Tales b
2615  16-Jul-91 Dan Corrin        Re: Random Alien Generation << On the subject
2616  16-Jul-91 "Robert S. Dean"  Re: (2606) Random Alien Generation << I resis
2617  16-Jul-91 Cynthia Higginbot starship prices & economics << Scott Kellog w
2618  17-Jul-91 "D. Jay Newman 86 Starship economics. << >A long time ago, you 
2619  17-Jul-91 Brian G. Vaughan  re: Stable Tech vs. Stale Tech << There are s

------------------------------

Archive-Message-Number: 2614
Date: Tue, 16 Jul 91 08:45:05 PDT
From: jimv@ucrmath (jim vassilakos)
Subject: Traveller Tales - 2 of 5


                       Traveller Tales

        being an encapsulated history of future time

               Copyright 1991 Jim Vassilakos
                 (for whatever it's worth)

               A.D. 2004-2568  *  The Infancy

                         Part Two


   2247-2299  Quest for the Stars
   2273-2334  Problems in Space
   2295-2367  Problems on Earth
   2336-2419  Medical Renaissance
   2374-2470  Resurgence of Religion
   2470-2471  Harbinger from Nessus
   2443-2568  Genetic Evolutions



2247-2299  Quest for the Stars

As the United Nations' second fifty year plan for space
exploration and colonization came to its completion, science
teams around the solar system raced to find some answer to the
mass-deficiency syndrome which held back interstellar travel.
Finally, in 2247, the Bourns Corporation announced its successful
development of the hydrofunnel, a device by which hydrogen could
be captured in the deep of space. Several companies including
Aster and MDC began licensing production rights in lieu of the
2262 summit. There, a whole host of interstellar vessels were
commissioned for service. The quest for the stars had begun.
   To cap off the century in 2299, radio transmissions were
received from researchers on Alpha Centauri. A primitive
ecosystem had been discovered on the small world orbiting within
the primary's habitable zone, reinvigorating ancient hopes and
fears that human beings might find intelligent life in space, or
vice-versa.


2273-2334  Problems in Space

To the exasperation of scientists, not all of humankind's efforts
in space were fruitful. A combination of inexplicable failures
and oversights gave pause to the U.N. space program while
corporations continued to rush ahead. The first signs that Man
had reached his limit was in 2273 when Femm Biolabs announced its
latest breakthrough in the engineering of artificial organisms by
unveiling a whole host of Martian settlers. Although the line
proved extremely beneficial in the early terraformation efforts,
the organisms proved unreasonably hardy and became a bane to the
settlers during the late 23rd century when predatory organisms
were called in to check the population of the pests. The
situation fell entirely out of hand during the early 24th century
as predatory Martian beetles would burrow through the foundation
of domed settlements, exposing the colonists to the hazards of
vacuum.
   In 2306, reports from Alpha Centauri confirmed that Man had
overstepped his bounds when Terran bacteria began running amok in
the fragile, alien ecosystem. By the late 20's, the Terran
bacteria had completely usurped their indigenous rivals.
   The final boot fell in 2334, when the UNS Halifax suffered a
catastrophic failure of its hydrofunnel during a routine survey
mission of the interstellar hydrogen clouds around the solar
system. The crew decided by lots who would undergo cryogenic
freezing, hopefully to be later rescued, while the losers
sustained themselves for several years, finally resorting to
cannibalism as their nutrition supplies became exhausted.


2295-2367  Problems on Earth

Despite the colonization and population control efforts of the
23rd century, the population stress on planet was insidious with
a purported demographic summary of sixty billion people by the
turn of the century. In order to combat this problem, the U.N.
began a large scale sterilization movement in 2295 combined with
the marketing of propagation rights three years later. Any
children who were found to have been born without proper
processing after the turn of the century were "confiscated" by
the newly created World Peace Agency. Isolated rebellions against
the policy were quickly put down, and political leaders, many of
them in their 2nd rejuvenation with families of eight or twelve
children, argued that enforcement of these extreme measures were
the only way to quell population growth from bursting the seams
of the world order.
   To compound the crisis already forming, the U.N. initiated a
policy in 2318 of forced deportation and/or cryogenic sleep for
repeated law offenders as a means of humanly screening the
undesirables from society's ranks. In 2329, a group of protesters
broke into a cold berth confinement area in order to try and free
the captives. The government responded by shutting down power to
the sector, thereby killing the occupants in the low berths
before they could be freed. This incident led to the London
uprising of the following year in which an additional 1.3 million
people were arrested and cryogenically frozen.
   In 2315, corporations began responding to the crisis by
building colossal "Arks" in which humans could travel
cryogenically frozen for hundreds of years before reaching any of
the various settlements promised to be robotically constructed
before their arrival. Over the next five decades, some four
hundred and eighty million people signed on for interstellar
colonization. However, when compared to the size of the overall
problem, the colonization effort seemed more like the proverbial
drop in the bucket. The vast majority of population relief came
due to the U.N. propagation restrictions, unpopular though they
were, and by 2367 the legislation achieved its benchmark goal of
a fifty billion population level with sustained negative growth.


2336-2419  Medical Renaissance

Part of the reason behind earth's population pressures was the
increasing pace of advance in the medical sciences. In the middle
of the 23rd century, geneticists already knew how to modify a
species' DNA over successive generations to create, in effect, a
new species. The more simple the organism, more available the
model, and shorter the lifespan of the organism, the quicker the
pace this engineered evolution could be carried out. By monkeying
around with hominid DNA in the late 2200's, scientists at the
University of Kampala were, in fact, learning a great deal about
human genetics. The subsequent accident in 2292 was said to have
set back the field of research perhaps as much as thirty years,
and the extension of the 2243 ban significantly slowed down the
rate at which science could catch up. Despite these hindrances,
however, corporations carried out secret research off planet,
finally culminating in the early 2330's with the development of
broad-spectrum antiviral vaccinations. With the Terran
inoculation of 2336, humankind had virtually licked the common
cold, something that medical experts had only dreamed about for
hundreds of years.
   This event revitalized the medical research profession,
lending new impetus to the fight against human suffering which
had been for so long cheapened and abused by the morally
questionable and occasionally dangerous products of medical
science. Nerve refusion techniques were developed through the
2370's and 80's, and the first broad-spectrum antitoxin was
introduced in 2419, a virtual cure-all against entire classes of
disease. By this time, however, corporations campaigned openly
for the right to re-initiate genetic research on human DNA
without having to conduct their operations in secrecy. However,
fears over the creation of "superhumans" still lingered in the
public subconscious, and corporate sentiments failed to turn over
this legislation.


2374-2470  Resurgence of Religion

With the interstellar exploration and colonization well underway,
the popular media began anticipating the contact of intelligent
alien life forms while prominent scientists began staking their
reputations on the prospect of first contact being just around
the corner. However, "just around the corner" never came, and as
radio transmitted reports of lifeless planets and primitive
bacterial ecosystems came back to earth, the scientific opinion
began to waver. It seemed as though humankind was very much alone
in the universe. The initial evolutionary steps were simply too
difficult and improbable to support a "teeming universe"
hypothesis.
   The outlook seemed so bleak that scientists reversed their
stands, now questioning whether there was any intelligent life
other than humankind, and if not, then what fortune led to the
rise of sentience on Earth? This philosophical climate led to a
resurgence of religion, Pope Joseph IX declaring from his lofty
pulpit in 2374 that after hundreds of years of struggling, men of
science had finally arrived to the true knowledge which was
always offered them by God. Each new "negative" discovery seemed
to confirm this statement, and Catholicism found billions of new
converts who hoped to cash in on the gift of immortality just as
the human race had cashed in on its "gift" of the Universe.
   However, with the resurgence of religion, so came a new
division among people. While the majority of the world's people
moved toward monotheism, and Catholicism in particular, several
of the eastern nations diverged, holding true to the more ancient
eastern faiths. These deep rooted differences combined with a
yearning for independence from U.N. dictates led to open
animosities between the eastern and western nations during the
early 25th century. Unrest continued to ferment until 2443 when
Xao Ti Xang defied United Nations authority by funding human
geneticists from the Humanix Corporation and allowing the
development of super-intelligent humans in China.
   This open schism over the nature and course of human
development generated terrorist actions in China during the
following two decades which were countered by bacteriological
offensives against supporting nations. An estimated twenty
million people died in these reprisals, leading to further
escalation of the crisis when the Catholic Pope declared a holy
war against those who would play God. This militant Catholicism
led to the outbreak of the Yama bug in China in 2467, however
advances in medical science managed to exterminate the dreaded
virus, through only after a death toll of 570 million. Rather
then respond in kind, the Chinese government unveiled the Lu Yueh
virus in 2470, an engineered suborganism capable of mutating
itself beyond even the reach of the broadest antitoxins. The Pope
called for courage, continuing to demand that the heathens leave
the devices of life and death to God alone as the United Nations
Secretary General demanded a reunion of the global alliance at
any and all costs.


2470-2471  Harbinger from Nessus

So engaging was the new world-conflict, that when news of the UNS
Erik's discovery of a somewhat more advanced ecosystem on New
Amsterdam reached Earth in 2447, the Terran media scarcely took
notice. It thus came as a fortuitous coincidence that in 2470,
just as world war seemed imminent, radio transmissions reporting
startling discoveries on Nessus reached Earth. Nessus, a world
emersed in what appeared to be an artificially produced
greenhouse atmosphere was literally strewn with ancient ruins. It
appeared, for the first time in human history, that humankind
might not be alone in the universe after all.
   As the United Nations poised on the edge of an invasion,
reports continued to come in about explorations to the planet's
surface. From initial data, it appeared that the Nessusan
civilization had simply faded away, as if each and every
individual had suddenly died without cause. Some alien specimens
were found in cryogenic suspension, but died during the thawing
process. By a careful analysis of the raw data, it was finally
determined by Terran geneticists a year later that the society
had fallen victim to some form of biological germ, something too
advanced for the explorers on Nessus to detect since they were
still using outdated technology. Ironically, where the explorers
lacked knowledge they seemed to lend wisdom, the immortal words
of the Alien Archeologist, Dvitro Xerxes, streaming as particles
of radio light through the vastness of space, piecing together
the final whispers of an alien people who died some forty million
years before humans learned to build fires. This harbinger to
Earth's own imminent destiny proved so power that support for the
U.N. invasion of China immediately collapsed.


2443-2568  Genetic Evolutions

When corporations were finally given free reign to develop a
super-intelligent human with the full backing of the Chinese
government, genetic engineers flocked to Beijing from all over
the solar system. The resources put into the project were
enormous from the very beginning, however, unlike Dr. Eski, these
researchers had no naturally evolved genetic model upon which to
base their work. Therefore, the quest was likened to a grope in
the darkness, when after numerous attempts, science had as its
best example of experimental success produced only a colony of
sterile, psychotic deviants.
   Humanix was finally bought out by Femm Biolabs in 2470, during
the uncertainty of the mounting U.N. invasion. Femm immediately
diverted corporate resources toward the physical manipulation of
the human species, something which was considered far more
attainable by science, and the decision proved successful in 2502
with the unveiling of water-breathing sapiens who, though
genetically fragile, were nonetheless capable of reproduction.
   Japanese and Australian opposition to the creationists finally
caved-in to business pressures as new corporations raced to
catch-up in what soon became known as the Race of Evolutions.
However, just as anxiety had grown three centuries earlier when
the prospect of a race of superpeople loomed in the mind of
ordinary man, so was there a resurgence of activity from various
fronts attempting to regulate the flow of government sponsored
research dollars as U.N. Articles were instated effectively
enslaving the newborn species even as they arrived.
   Between 2510 and 2568, a plethora of human variants reached
the market, one adapted for cold weather, another for extremes of
heat, another with the ability to soar by the use of wings, and
still others, often created as midgets, with little more than a
dog's mentality and often purchased as household pets. Progress
on the intellectual side of the genetic coin was finally achieved
in the 50's and 60's with the development of super-intelligent
children whose increased learning ability and pre-implanted
knowledge threatened standard humans on a more psychological
level. However, the majority of these creations were non-viable,
unable to reproduce as does a true species, though, with time
geneticists promised that they would learn the secrets of life
itself, not merely of its modification.
   However, whether unfortunate or inevitable, the proverbial
excrement finally hit the spinning rotor-blade in 2565 when a
scientist defecting from the More Perfect Human Corporation
stated to the media that a psionic child had been born. Suddenly
faced with the prospect of mind-invasion and a whole host of
alien mental powers, anti-creationist groups gained increased
political power, finally forcing the passage of a U.N. Resolution
in 2568 declaring Earth a standard-human zone. Individuals could
either apply for special wavers to harbor non-standards or move
off-planet. This resolution put a virtual stop to the
creationists who relied on government sponsorship for a majority
of their research and development and on the Terran consumer for
a substantial market. In an attempt to continue the rally, the
Chinese agreed to sponsor psionic research off-planet, however,
in 2576 the U.N. extended its 2568 resolution to the entire solar
system.


           _   /|
           \`o_O'
             ( )     <---  jimv@ucrmath.ucr.edu
              U            ucsd!ucrmath!jimv (uucp)
          Aachk!
        Phft! Ftp!


------------------------------

Archive-Message-Number: 2615
Date: Tue, 16 Jul 91 12:05:26 EDT
From: Dan Corrin <dan@engrg.uwo.ca>
Subject: Re:  Random Alien Generation


On the subject of random Alien Generation. The GURPS uplift supplement
does a wonderful job. It has many pages devoted to the generation of
client species suitable for uplift (ie. Intelligence, and society).

			-Dan

Dan Corrin, Network Manager, Mechanical Engineering, UWO, London, Ontario
TML/CZ FTP site coordinator:     dan@engrg.uwo.ca.        (519) 661-3834

------------------------------

Archive-Message-Number: 2616
Date:     Tue, 16 Jul 91 14:04:48 EDT
From: "Robert S. Dean" <rsdean@crdec8.apgea.army.mil>
Subject:  Re:  (2606) Random Alien Generation

I resist the notion of random alaien generation in general, since this is
supoosed to be a game that makes sense (-8, which random things don't always
do.  I might be inclined to look into the Alien Generation methods in
GURPS (_Aliens_ for Space, and _Uplift_) which are not random.  Translating
the results back into Traveller may or may not be a problem--I haven't
tried so I don't know.

Rob Dean


------------------------------

Archive-Message-Number: 2617
Date: Tue, 16 Jul 91 15:41:57 CDT
From: Cynthia Higginbotham <cynthia@CS.MsState.Edu>
Subject: starship prices & economics

Scott Kellog writes:

>Actually, Cynthia, have you checked out the archives of vehicles?  I'm not
>certain, but I'm pretty sure that Rob Dean posted a MegaTrav Leviathan
>from the GDW adventure.  Before you spend a lot of effort I think you might
>take a look at what designs are already available.
 
*chuckle*  Too late!  I re-designed the Leviathan months ago, long before I
went ftp-spelunking in the archives and found the other version.  Leviathan
always one of Steve and mine's favorite ships, so re-creating it under
MegaT was one of my high priority design jobs.

    I am, however, happily lifting any and all designs I find in the archives
or floating by in new and old TML bundles.  I never would have the time to
design so many ships, and I never would have thought of half of them.  (In
particular, I never would have invented the Sword Worlds Overlord Heli-carrier.
Is it just my imagination, or does that thing bear more than a passing
resemblance to the S.H.I.E.L.D. Helicarrier?)

Scott Kellogg: 

>2) About, Price of components dropping.  Well, I see your point, but
>I don't quite agree.  At TL6 hard steel is first used, maybe a TL15 corp
>can produce it cheaper, but that money would probably go into a higher
>profit margin for the manufacturer.  After all, The consumer is willing to
>pay the extra at TL6, so we fix the price and rake in more cash!
>   The thing that will really make prices drop is if the company can
>make a lot of a certain unit,  Increased volume, decreased cost.
>ie.  The one millionth grav unit produced is going to cost less than the
>second the company produced.  On the other hand, that cash is again
>probably not going to be passed on to the consumer.

    Hmmm, well, I tend to feel that is dependent on the economic situation,
and is not something that should be hardcoded into the design sequence.  Let
me put it this way: what you say holds true if the supplier has monopoly; in
a competitive situation, prices will lower as production costs lower.  Compare
the prices of a PC today with the price of an IBM PC at date of introduction
in 1981, or worse yet, with that of CP/M machines (Gawd, I'm dating myself!)
a couple years before that.  Not only that, compare the capabilities of 
a "standard" PC (386SX, 1 meg memory, 40 meg HD, VGA) with that of a "standard"
PC then (8088, 64-128K memory, 1 360K floppy (actually introduced with 1 
128K floppy), and monochrome text-only).  Capability has gone up and prices 
have gone down!  In a purely market-driven, competitive situation, this is
what will happen.  Personally, I think either prices are fixed due to collusion

between the megacorps and the Imperium, in which case small yards will offer
better deals just to get a slice of the action, or free market conditions
rule, in which case prices should probably be figured as they are for Vargr
worlds -- different each place.  You could calculate them randomly, or 
somebody could modify them for trade classes, etc.  However, given that we
want some baseline "book value" for our starships, said "book value" should
at least represent the actual change in value of things due to technological
improvement in the item itself, and in the production process.

Scott Kellogg:
>Personally My feeling is that ships are too cheap.  Look at the cost of a
>single TL8-9 radar evading bomber:  approx 500 million$, if rate of
>exchange is approx 1Cr=1$, then the B-2 cost much more than a lot of
starships!

    There are various bizarre reasons why the price of American military
equipment is artificially high.  These have to do with the high R&D costs to
secure a government contract, and the need to recover those costs even if
Congress or the Pentagon decides to cut off the production run after 1
plane/ship/tank has rolled out of the factory; the often very short production
runs (how many Kennedy class aircraft carriers are we building?) that 
disallow any of the advantages of mass production; and so on.  Perhaps
you could represent these factors by disallowing the 80% discount from any
military craft that aren't produced by the thousands.  Or, you could rule
that my modifications do not apply to military production.
    I tend to look at ship design from the point of view of building civilian
and Scout service vehicles, rather than Navy/Army/Marine stuff.  From the 
non-military point of view, the pricing is completely cock-eyed.  You compared
the cost of a B-2 to a starship; compare the cost of a small Great Lakes
freighter to a starship.  A long time ago, you all discussed the fact that
a Free Trader can barely make bank payments, let alone enough to let the
owner retire in comfort.  No real conclusion was reached.  Let me point out
that in the real world, people don't start businesses that they don't expect
to make money at; and if they fail, 100 other people don't immediately follow
in their footsteps in the same business.  For the MT universe to function as
depicted, starships must be profitable to own and operate, or there will be
no interstellar trade.  The problem is, as written, the profitability of a
merchant ship DROPS as size increases.  I now turn this post over to Steve,
who has been sitting in a corner quietly running numbers through a 
calculator.

Steve Higginbotham:

Cynthia mis-states the basic problem - profitability decreases as PERFORMANCE
increases.  A free trader (jump-1, 1-G) will be MARGINALLY profitable even if
your free trader is 5000 displacement tons.
HOWEVER, let's look at the basic unit of passenger transport in the Imperium -
the Tukera long-liner (why is it the basic unit?? because the various published
information about Tukera over the years all say so.  In the Core, there are no
other passenger ships.)

A Tukera long liner (Type RT) costs 247.08MCr.  Therefore it requires an
initial investment of 49.4 MCr.  Note that if this money were deposited into a
bank at 4.5% per annum, it would earn the owner MCr 2.223 per year.
The starship owner must make the following payments (per year) : 

               ship payments : MCr 12.354
               maintenance   : MCr  0.247
               crew salaries : MCr  0.144 (approximately - this is the most
                                   variable part - salaries are a function of
                                   skill levels, among other things)
               life support  : MCr  2.500 (this cost requirement is silly, but
                                   the rules use them, so I will, too)
               insurance     : MCr ??? (let's ignore this, or subsume it into
                                   the ship's payments - too many variables)

               total         : MCr 15.245

The ship's revenues are as follows (with various loading assumptions listed)

               passengers : (100%) : MCr  8.400
                            ( 90%) : MCr  7.650
                            ( 75%) : MCr  6.250
                            ( 60%) : MCr  5.100

               freight    : (100%) : MCr  3.247
                            ( 90%) : MCr  2.922
                            ( 75%) : MCr  2.435
                            ( 60%) : MCr  1.948

               Totals     : (100%) : MCr 11.647
                            ( 90%) : MCr 10.572
                            ( 75%) : MCr  8.685
                            ( 60%) : MCr  7.048


Notice that the best case assumption produces losses of MCr 3.598 per annum.
I personally disbelieve in the 100% assumption.  I prefer the 90% assumption,
since I believe that there would be more ships running the route if there was a
higher demand, and I disbelieve that the ship was created with the EXACT size
to move the people that want to be moved all the time.  However, I digress.

Using the 100% assumption, at the end of the mortgage period, the ship-owner is
in debt to the tune of MCr 193.32.  With the ship payments removed, that debt
will be cleared in 22 more years.

So, at the end of 62 years, your starship will BEGIN to make money for you. 
Note that this discounts the need to amortize the debt induced over the years. 
If that assumption is made, the ship will break even after 75+ years.

After that, the ship will make the owner MCr 8.755 per year.  Since the
effective life span of a ship is about 100 years (source : old Traveller),
the ship will make the owner MCr 332.7 over it's lifetime (IF he has a full
load EVERY SINGLE ONE OF THOSE 2500 FLIGHTS.

Over the same period, the owner would have made MCr 3981.073 by putting the
initial investment in the bank at 4.5%.

I have never heard of an investor getting rich by putting his money in a
savings account.  I have also never heard of an investor getting rich on an
investment with a LOWER return than a bank (by a factor of SEVEN).  I can't
even recall ever hearing of an investor who MADE an investment like that
twice.  I suspect that they are all collecting Welfare now.

In fact, that analysis can be applied to EVERY merchant ship ever designed for
MT.  Virtually all J-3 ships will tend to suck up money for generations.  MOST
J-2 ships will also.  Given that the J-2 ships are primarily passenger ships,
with adequate stewards, they can come out slightly ahead.  They don't come out
ahead of the savings account, but that is someone else's problem.  J-1 ships
will mostly make a little money.  They even make more money than a savings
account.  Not quite so much as most Money Market accounts, but, again someone
else's problem.

Note that fuel costs were ignored in this discussion.  It can be demonstrated
that it is more cost-effective to buy fuel at a starport than to use wilderness
refueling.  Therefore the profits indicated will never actually be achieved by
a ship.  ALAS!

Cynthia has just suggested that passenger/freight fees could be raised. 
Possibly.  In a normal economy, doing so would encourage local development of
resources, rather than interstellar trade.  More people would stay home, and
ships would be in worse shape than ever.  Besides, there are indications that
the Imperium regulates passenger/freight fees to the existing levels.

As to the suggestion that the starships operate by spec trade rather than
freight consignment, this IS possible.  It is also possible (probable, in fact)
that the smart investor will buy the stuff up WITHOUT pouring money into a
starship, and ship it as freight.  Let some other fool lose money by buying a
ship.  There will always be idiots who go broke doing this, who can be milked
by an alert investor.  Note that in the case of a subsidized route, the
government is the idiot in question, and the populace is the entity being
milked by the alert investor.

Therefore, most investors will NOT invest in a starship, which will lose them
gobs of money, but rather make use of someone else's starship (so someone else
can lose gobs of money, while you MAKE gobs of money).  There is every
indication (from the tables) that only a small ship (400 tons or less) can make
any significant amount of money by spec trade.  Significant in terms of
starship payments.  If there was that much money to be made, Tukera would get
an exclusive contract, and the profit to a starship owner would vanish.  

The upshot is that no ship will ever make enough money to convince the buyer to
buy it.  So either there are NO ships, or the government buys and runs them
all, to the detriment of the private sector (read: PCs).  Or we lower ship
costs.  Which we did.

Notice that in the Vargr Extants, ship prices can be as much as 30% lower than
normal.  This might lead one to suspect that virtually all ships are made in
the Extants, or that there is a major black-market in Vargr ships (if the
Imperium tries to control ship prices at that arbitrarily high level).


					--- Steve & Cynthia Higginbotham


P.S. Does anybody remember the cheap "standard" hulls from Old Traveller Book
2?  And the cheap A & B jump drives?  Where did those go?  And why?

------------------------------

Archive-Message-Number: 2618
Date:    Wed, 17 Jul 91 08:39 EDT
From: "D. Jay Newman 863-1555" <DN5@PSUVM.PSU.EDU>
Subject: Starship economics.

>A long time ago, you all discussed the fact that
>a Free Trader can barely make bank payments, let alone enough to let the
>owner retire in comfort.  No real conclusion was reached.  Let me point out
>that in the real world, people don't start businesses that they don't expect
>to make money at; and if they fail, 100 other people don't immediately follow
>in their footsteps in the same business.

Actually, in the real world, roughly 2/3 of all small businesses fold
within three years, because they weren't profitable.  I've been told
that the single biggest reason for this is that they expected to make
a profit too quickly, and hence didn't have enough starting capital.

>The problem is, as written, the profitability of a
>merchant ship DROPS as size [Jay: actually performance] increases.

Actually, this was a problem that I saw back in the original Traveller,
and have corrected every time I was GM (and in most games I wasn't).
Basically, it would be more consistant to charger freight and
passengers for distance, rather than jumps!  In the real world airlines,
the cost of a ticket is related to the fuel used by the planes.
Real world freight charges are for distance.  In special cases, fast
delivery costs MUCH extra.

In the traveller case, a ship that goes Jump-6 distance should get
the same base rate if the ship is Jump-1 capable or Jump-6 capable.
Actually, the Jump-6 ship should get a premium for certain types of
cargo (anything which is time-specific); even without the premium,
it has fewer expenses and can make more distance during a year than
a Jump-1 capable ship.

I haven't run the numbers, but even with this system (but without
a premium for faster delivery), I'm not sure that a J-6 ship would
be the most profitable.  It would have much less cargo space, due
to increased fuel and engine sizes.  I have the feeling that the
most profitable merchant ship would be around J-3 or 4, but that
is mostly guesswork.

[Please forgive me if I am wrong about how freight charges work; the
GM who ran the only MegaTraveller game I was in told me this was
the way things worked, and he had never seen the original Traveller.
I figure if he thought it worked this way, he read it in the rules.
I do know that it worked this way in the original rules, and I thought
it was stupid then.  Please email any flames.]

()()()()()()()()()()()()()()()()()()()()()()()()()()()()()()()()()()
D. Jay Newman          ! Fate: it protects fools, little children,
dn5@psuvm.psu.edu      ! and ships named Enterprise... (Cmdr. Riker)
CBEL--Teaching and Learning Technologies Group

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Archive-Message-Number: 2619
Date: Wed, 17 Jul 91 08:59:25 -0700
From: Brian G. Vaughan <bvaughan@ocf.Berkeley.EDU>
Subject: re:  Stable Tech vs. Stale Tech


There are several things that have been missed in the discussions of the
levels of technology in the Imperium.

First, and most important, is that you must always bear in mind that the
Imperium has an extremely diverse range of cultures.  I have been considering
writing an article about it, but I'll summarize my ideas here.  We know that
there are forty-two branches of the human race, each of which possesses several
cultural strains within it, which have their roots in their pre-stellar
histories.  These cultural elements, in most cases, have not completely died
out, and many human cultures continue to develop and thrive.  Most such
cultures are dominant on only a handful of worlds each.  Some minor human races,
the Darrians, for example, have a wider influence.  The two most widespread
human cultural traditions are, of course, those of the Solomani and the Vilani.

Now, each of these cultural traditions carries with it a complex of attitudes
toward the nature and purposes of technology.  The Imperium has developed
a super-culture, which is what we generally think of when we talk about the
Imperium, but this super-culture is participated in by a relatively small
number of Imperial citizens:  the nobility, officials of the Imperial
government, members of Imperial services (the Scouts, especially), and
merchants.  Most others do not have the need or resources to participate in
this super-culture.  But I'm digressing.

The Imperial super-culture is made up of many disparate cultural elements, but
especially of Solomani and Vilani elements.  And we know how radically different
the Solomani and Vilani attitudes towards technology are.  The Solomani tend
to believe that technological advancement is inherently good.  The Vilani tend
to be much more suspicious of technology.

You can see the effects of these disparate attitudes manifested in many ways
in the Imperium.  There are High Stellar worlds distributed throughout the
Imperium.  But most TL 16 worlds are in Massilia sector--the rimward side of
the Imperial core.  Old Expanses sector has, if I remember correctly, more
TL 15 worlds than any other Imperial sector.  Vland sector, on the other hand,
has a wider distribution of technology levels, and several subsector capitals
aren't even in the High Stellar range, though Vland sector is the longest-
settled sector in the Imperium.

The difference between Solomani and Vilani attitudes is even more striking if
you look at worlds in the Solomani Confederation.  MOST WORLDS IN THE SOLOMANI
CONFEDERATION ARE HIGH STELLAR!

According to the World Builder's Handbook, by Tech Level 10, it is possible to
create cities in ANY environment.  Thus, in a sense, there is no need for
technology more advanced than TL 10.  Thus, I think, the Imperial attitude,
growing out of the Vilani attitude, is that it is a waste of effort to raise
the level of technology on a world above that required to meet the conditions
of that world.  That technology does continue to advance is due to the
neccesity of possessing the latest military technology, and the universal
desire for better medical care, as well as the Solomani tendency to love tech
for its own sake.

BTW, I suspect that an additional consideration is that worlds in the Imperium
tend to desire considerable autonomy and self-sufficiency.  The Solomani 
Confederation is willing to sacrifice self-sufficiency for nearly universal
high levels of technology.  This, I believe, made it relatively easy for the
Imperium to reconquer the Solomani Rim in the Solomani Rim war, and relatively
difficult for the Solomani to seize Imperial worlds in the Rebellion.

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