Re: Moving Towards a Larger Universe: Trade (Intro)

> > Except that life will also have grown up on worlds that lack these
> > resources and there's always someone moving to the frontier, even
> > though they can't get the resources they need there.  Trade expands
> > with these people (selling at extremely high prices).  How are you
> > going to get 4 billion people to move off that world?  Even if you
> > could transport them you've got another problem, namely that most
> won't
> > want to go.  That's their home and they're not interested in
> moving.
> >
> 	Um, if there's 4 billion people on a given world, then obviously
> they
> have (somehow) met their basic necessities.  Supporting that large of
> a
> population with SJ would require an extremely heavy amount of
> traffic,
> on the order of several million spelljammers and thousands of ports
> on
> dozens of worlds.  I personally wouldn't run a game with that heavy
> of
> SJ activity.

This is true.  But much of the point of SJ trade is to meet the other
"necessities".  For instance metal, wood, and so on.  You could have a
world (like in Heart of the Enemy) where the only plants are grasses
and grains.  Maybe some tubers (potatoes and wheat can feed a lot of
people).  Tools would be limited to bone and stone.  Thus what we see
as "necessities" and what wuould be highly traded for would not be
required to support a large indiginous population as far as merely
"living" goes.

> > Don't forget what happens when life spreads over an asteroid field
> or
> > sphere (Paul Westermeyer's Bralspace or the canon Astromundi
> cluster).
> > Here you'll need extensive trade to maintain any more than the most
> > barbaric/primitive lifestyle.
> >
> 	True, but such asteroid fields (if part of the greater SJ society)
> have
> speciallized purposes.  Case in point: Grainfields, Bralspace.  It's
> primary purpose is to produce food.  Without market sales to Bral,
> the
> colonies would quickly dry and everyone would abandon it very
> quickly.

Economically they exist for that reason.  In Clusterspace they also
exist because that's where you have to live, there aren't planets.  And
when that farming colony loses all its business some people are going
to stay, just because they want to (and now they don't have to worry
about pirates and the like).

=====

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The crazier the people are around me the saner I am.  That's why I work
in an asylum.  No, not the rubber room again!  No, but, but, my email...



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