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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.

Well if I'm "obsessed" with trade your obsessed with cold fusion. There is no evidence of the CS having cold fusion.
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.

Wise_Owl wrote:Incidentally, before I continue, is there any evidence the Coalition does possess reliable Fusion technology?

I won’t look specifically. But SB1 (p14) notes that some rural *homes* are powered by fusion generators. Given that, it is a certainty that the CS has fusion power.

Okay, lets allow that the Coalition has Fusion Power, at least in the form of macro-power generation facilities. You are correct, that would solve much of there problems with energy, but not all of them. Fusion power doesn't remove the need for energy, it just changes it. Any processes to produce hydro-carbons is highly energy intensive and it thus going to be very, very costly (if anybody knows a cheap and efficient method for producing oil, let me know, I know a few Billion people who would love to know

Fusion power seems cheap to run…expensive to build, but cheap to run. Powered by water effectively. As it is there are several processes by which oil can be created. Some of these are even profitable, transforming animal waste into oil. Other processes use wood, or recycle plastics. And, as I said, oil is a hydrocarbon, the elements of which are extractable from air.

While energy efficiency is a problem, in that it is little user to spend 2 or 3 times the energy you get out, these processes do exist. And if energy is cheap and plentiful…via fusion for example…oil can be made cheaply and efficiently. The problem then is only in scaling up the process. The energy cost is also totally irrelevant if you are not going to be using the oil as fuel.

As you say, we aren’t at an industrial level of production yet. But the Rifts follow a Golden Century and it is reasonable to presume such processes are refined, if necessary.

Of course this still doesn't answer the Material limitations question. Where is the Gold Coming from? The Superconductors? The Metal? The Coalition isn't making everything out of Carbon, Oxygen, Hydrogen and Nitrogen.

No, probably not. That was brought up to show the possibilities available to the CS to feed the nation. Given the likely population size, it probably wouldn’t even need that tech …at least for that purpose.

n fact it's probably not making the majority of it's products out of such products. Plastics are non-conductors, and guesse what modern technology requires a hell of a lot of?

Ceramics. We still use a lot of metal, wood, stone, water etc…but a lot of modern tech requires ceramics. And the CS can make MD armour out of plastics. For example, the Wilks series….nice weapons. Made out of plastic and ceramics.

And the Dead Boy armour….a ceramic construct.

Lastly, basic economics becomes a problem no matter what. Allow me to put it in perspective>>You have ten guys, all producing a widget and consuming a widget apiece. Suddenly you build an automated factory, now one guy can produce 20 widgets. What do the other 9 guys do? You can put a certain ammount of them in the military(in the case of the CS, 1) you can put them in other industries, but your production problem is not solved. In the real world, this problem is principally solved either by scaling back automation(go into an automotive facotry and see how many jobs are in fact make-work jobs that could be removed with slightly more automation), or you trade externally.

Or , in the CS, you use them to colonise new regions. There is a lot of room out there that needs to be reclaimed, and not everything is automated. All those colonists the CS keep sending out have to come from somewhere. And, as you say, there is the military.

You could automate every factory in the CS and the need for colonisation and growth and repopulation will ensure there is still plenty to do.

In the end Material Considerations make the CS Unlikely, and make there Millions of Bots produced in a couple of years insane(I won't even get into the sillyness that is them being produce in secret).

Secret? Everyone knows about skelebots.

EJL