Well if I'm "obsessed" with trade your obsessed with cold fusion. There is no evidence of the CS having cold fusion.Ballad wrote:grandmaster z0b wrote:Ballad I'm not "obsessed with trade" and I don't think it's fair to accuse WiseOwl of "fixate on forcing the coalition to work inside of today’s technology and socioeconomic frameworks". We have opinions and we don't agree with you but that doesn't mean we're "fixating" or "obsessed", we just don't agree.
One big problem with your idea is that the CS use cheap fusion technology. It's clear from the books that nuclear power is expensive, it's much cheaper to build an electric or gas engine by the price of units.
Also no matter how much trade the CS has in the time of Rifts it will never compare to what we have now or what we had 300 years ago. It's limited and expensive due to the many dangers of travelling through the world of Rifts, the NGR is the exception but it won't compensate. I'm not saying it's impossible for the CS to be self sufficient - but it wouldn't be as cheap or as economical as it is now in a global market where a nation can import cheap parts from China or India to decrease the cost of manufacturing and coutries with lots of resources can export commodities cheaply to manufacturing countries.
Although you are correct about automated factories, they are also listed in Lone Star as well as GM crops.
By the books the CS is self sufficient, and yet you go back to the lack of trading partners as your "they can't have that large of an army" argument. I would say that is an obsession with trade. You also ignore a number of high-tech trade partners in north America that border the CS. Two in Michigan, at least two in the Arkansas / Missouri area, at least one in Canada (not counting Free Quebec). The trade is there if they need it….they don’t need it.
As for the power, it is stated in free Quebec that miniaturization of the fusion reactors is the difficult part. Large city generating power plants are a lot easier to make. once the plant is built the energy it produces is cheap enough to be virtually free. While my last statement is not in the books, it is true of our modern world, which is why we are trying to get cold fusion working.
I'm not ignoring other high tech trade partners of the CS, I'm trying to to point out that it's nothing compared to a global trade economy. I'm not gong to try and point out the basics of economics to you anymore, you clearly feel that what they have is enough, that's fine.