Some Interesting Demographics

[Carlobrand]

I am indeed. Completely intentionally. For one thing, I believe that acknowledging the practicality of automated factories on the larger scale would play havoc with Charted Space as we know it. For another, I don't think automated defenses capable of defeating intelligent attempts to circumvent them is a Traveller trope, so even if automated factories were practical, they would still be constructed in systems with populations large enough to have adequate system defenses "built in" so to speak, rather than in near-empty systems where any defenses would have to be furnished (and paid for) on top of the cost of the factories.


Hans

Agreed. Imperials don't tend to like robotics in the first place. A robotic factory is a possibility but rather atypical given Imperial attitudes. I also can't see the logic in a TL12 or so automated shipbuilding facility that was constrained to building TL9 ships. I assume we're still talking about Paya.

It's also open to theft and sabotage without defenses. Your Imperial security bot might stop the adventuring opportunist. Robotic defenses able to stand up to the kind of human ingenuity a well-funded organized crime syndicate, or a Sword World espionage team on the hunt for high tech, or a Vargr syndicate, those run to TL16-17. The Imperium's experiment with an TL15 AI Kinunir ended poorly; I don't see them relying on unmanned AI to defend a lightly populated system with a naval base and starship construction facilities.

As with Pixie, home to an Imperial naval base and a Class-A port supported by a population of 90 mostly Vargr souls, there is something going on that is not getting into the UPP code.

 

[atpollard]

The example cited was a world of BILLIONS with a nation of a couple hundred MILLION people with all the infrastructure close by to the "town" of a 1000 people. So, you are already shifting the goal posts. A sure sign that you lost the argument.

The original 'example' that I was responding to was:

PAYA/Aramis 2509 A 655241 9, N, Ni
A naval base with a A shipyard, yet only few hundreds of citizens on a such a nice world is indicative of Naval reservation with some private entertainer in Startown. The families of the base are an important market as well as the Navy for some low tech goods. The only return cargo is water.

There's no way a few hundred or thousand people can be an important market.

That is the "piddling world of 1000 people" that I was referring to.

My point was, is and remains that there are historic examples of small populations in the thousands that either produce goods or consume resources (or both) far out of proportion to the average production/consumption suggested by population alone ... a nexus as Aramis described it.

Apparently, I failed a Communication roll somewhere along the way.

 

[Selandia]

The original 'example' that I was responding to was:

...The world of Paya....

That is the "piddling world of 1000 people" that I was referring to.

My point was, is and remains that there are historic examples of small populations in the thousands that either produce goods or consume resources (or both) far out of proportion to the average production/consumption suggested by population alone ... a nexus as Aramis described it.

Apparently, I failed a Communication roll somewhere along the way.

My new write up for the Rethe - Paya trade after been refered to the Canon "The Traveller adventure"

PAYA/Aramis 2509 A 655241 9, N, Ni
J1 away, A naval base with a A shipyard,

The few hundreds of independent citizens are from the Society of Evolutes. To Quote the Imperial Encyclopedia “ The Society of Evolutes, makes up the remaining population after the disaster of 1075. They have continued an eccentric but determined progress toward their idea of a perfect society. Using advanced robotic systems, the Payans have concerned themselves with extensive engineering and building projects designed to provide an ideal base for the future population of the planet. Since they intend to repopulate the world themselves, off world immigration is not permitted”. Inasmuch as trade with other worlds is part of The Plan, diversified trade does take place, usually on small quantities of goods. The only other return cargo is water.

The Navy is building a base there since 1102 and offers a steady market for a significant volume of building material. The small yard of Paya Shipyard will also buy nearly 200 t of TL 9 components a year

The families of the base are a market, as well as the Navy for some low tech manufactured goods.

have fun

Selandia

 

[Carlobrand]

...PAYA/Aramis 2509 A 655241 9 ... Using advanced robotic systems, the Payans have concerned themselves with extensive engineering and building projects designed to provide an ideal base for the future population of the planet. ...

How are we crediting advanced robotic systems to a TL9 society? Granted, that's the wording of the Traveller Adventure entry on Paya, but I'd recommend we take that with a grain of salt - or else submit Paya for errata treatment. The fact that they rely heavily on robotics is noteworthy among Imperial worlds, but their robotics would be limited to "high data" basic learning systems requiring some human oversight; they are three tech levels away from autonomous systems.

TA tells us Paya was settled about 800 years ago, that it has a gas giant and a naval base, that it is, "a small, nearly unpopulated world which is the subsector headquarters for Oberlindes Lines." Further information reveals that the population of Paya stood as high as 12 million before a natural disaster and subsequent evacuation left the few hundred of this Society of Evolutes as the sole heirs to the planet, and that these few hundred are "fabulously wealthy" owing to the leasing arrangement Oberlindes has for that A-starport and the Imperials have for that naval base. The book example has the locals spending outlandishly to build infrastructure for their future population: one antagonist is described as building a "personal city" named after himself.

Which suggests a couple of points:
1) The Payan population has wealth a couple or three orders of magnitude above the norm for a population their size. Their TL9 robotic systems would greatly increase their production base, but I don't think even that would supply the resource needs for the kind of construction being hinted at, and they've got lots of moola available to apply toward filling in any gaps. Ergo, the level of import is likely to be an order of magniture or two higher than the norm for a population of this size.

2) Neither the naval base nor the starport are under the jurisdiction of the Paya government. Ergo, the populations of those facilities, assuming they reside within the Imperial jurisdiction (and the Society of Evolutes is unlikely to agree to anything else), are not likely to be counted in the Paya census. Given the needs of a naval base, the system's Imperial population could well be one or two orders of magnitude above the local jurisdiction's planetary population. Under ordinary circumstances, this would drive growth of the local planetary population as people immigrated to take jobs indirectly serving the base. However, the local population's resistance to immigration except in a tightly controlled form, combined with the limited production capacity of the small local population - even after accounting for use of robotics to extend productivity, and especially given that much of that productivity is being focused on local infrastructure development - could lead to the base needing to import more than would otherwise be normal for it.

 

[atpollard]

The fact that they rely heavily on robotics is noteworthy among Imperial worlds, but their robotics would be limited to "high data" basic learning systems requiring some human oversight; they are three tech levels away from autonomous systems.

First, that was a great post.

Second, an observation from the most recent Agricultural revolution: In 1800, feeding the people required over 80% of the workforce to be employed in agriculture. Today, it is approaching 1% of the workforce employed in some agricultural related career (and a lot less if you ignore all of the small marginal farms and focus on the big farms that produce 80% of the food supply.)

Manufacturing appears to be undergoing a similar 'revolution' with automation allowing a dramatic reduction in the workforce needed to manufacture everything that a society needs.

If we assume that by TL 9, the manufacturing and agricultural sectors will each have stabilized at about 1% of the workforce, then the old Paya of 12 million people would have had a workforce of 6 million which would have included 60,000 agricultural workers and 60,000 manufacturing workers to meet the manufacturing and food needs of 12 million people (perhaps including the majority of the needs of the local starport and naval base). The current population of (a few hundred to a thousand is a little vague for math, so let's set the current population at exactly 1000) 1000 would include a workforce of 500 and require only 5 farmers to meet its agricultural needs and 5 manufacturers to meet its general manufacturing needs (excluding the wonder-infrastructure project). That leaves 490 surplus workers in the labor force. If they concentrate on manufacturing to support the 'dream', then the 495 manufacturing workers could oversee TL 9 automated factories capable of meeting the manufacturing needs of a population of 49,500 people.

Back when the world had 12 million people, it had factories to accommodate 60,000 workers/managers/technicians. Is it plausible that TL 9 robotics could have replaced many of those workers and reduced the need for humans from 60,000 to 6,000? Since the world has only 500 workers total and only 5 of them statistically want to work in manufacturing, I wonder if Paya could have used its wealth and contracts with the Navy Base and Starport to import the 6,000 manufacturing workers as 1,500 TL 12 autonomous robot workers? [Note, a person works 40 hours per week and a robot can work up to 168 hours per week, so each autonomous robot replaces 4 human workers doing the exact same job at the exact same rate.].

I am just trying to bracket the range of possibilities:
At the absolute lowest end, 1000 people only need 5 farmers and 5 manufacturers to meet the food and goods needs of its people. That leaves 490 workers free to specialize in whatever the world wants.

Just above that, 1000 people could specialize in manufacturing with automated factories and have the industrial capacity of a population of 49,000 (or enough surplus industry to support 48,000 people worth of exports).

At the upper end, they could import 1500 TL 12 robotic 'supervisors' to manage 15,000 TL 9 robotic 'workers' to maintain the equivalent of the 60,000 person human manufacturing workforce needed to support a world of 12 million people ... maintaining the worlds original manufacturing capacity.

Like I said, my goal is just to offer upper and lower limits to 'what if'.
Take with a large grain of salt.

 

[rancke]

Excellent post Carlobrando. To keep the discussion from going off the topic of Rethe, I've replied in a spinoff thread in the same forum (Imperial Interstellar Scout Service). I'll be replying to Pollard's post there too when I get the time.


Hans

 

[aramis]

Excellent post Carlobrando. To keep the discussion from going off the topic of Rethe, I've replied in a spinoff thread in the same forum (Imperial Interstellar Scout Service). I'll be replying to Pollard's post there too when I get the time.


Hans

Rethe is NOT the topic of the thread. Rethe is a digression from the data mining.

 

[Carlobrand]

Rethe is NOT the topic of the thread. Rethe is a digression from the data mining.

Would you prefer we stick to sector-wide demographic trends, or can we continue to explore data mining as a means of fleshing out individual worlds? I'm struck, for example by the fact that Narsil's 20 billion constitute almost 2/3 of the Sword Worlds population but that third-place Gram and her 6 billion are the dominant partner in the Sword Worlds confederation, ahead of both Narsil and Sacnoth's 8 billion - at least until the war prompted Sacnoth to part ways with the confederation. After that, Sacnoth was a rich giant among midgets, and yet the capital of the Border Worlds Confederation was first Sting and later Beater.

 

[rancke]

Rethe is NOT the topic of the thread. Rethe is a digression from the data mining.

I didn't say it was. Rethe is what the thread has diverged to discuss. I just don't want it to diverge any more.


Hans

 

[aramis]

I didn't say it was. Rethe is what the thread has diverged to discuss. I just don't want it to diverge any more.


Hans

Not your place to dictate that, Hans. Not at all your place.

If it drifts away, TOUGH!

There are very few threads where on-topic is enforced. This ain't one of them.

 

[rancke]

Not your place to dictate that, Hans. Not at all your place.

I'm not dictating anything.

If it drifts away, TOUGH!

There are very few threads where on-topic is enforced. This ain't one of them.

So what's your problem? When did spinning off threads become against the rules?


Hans

 

[Selandia]

How are we crediting advanced robotic systems to a TL9 society? Granted, that's the wording of the Traveller Adventure entry on Paya, but I'd recommend we take that with a grain of salt - or else submit Paya for errata treatment. The fact that they rely heavily on robotics is noteworthy among Imperial worlds, but their robotics would be limited to "high data" basic learning systems requiring some human oversight; they are three tech levels away from autonomous systems.

I agree with your great post.

I nontheless wish to make a precision. Quantity of import VOLUME by the local pop (as oppose to base and navy relative) is fairly small albeit a lot more than would be justified by the same number of poor peoples. I think that imports by VALUE is what get really boosted by orders of magnitude here.

As to the TL 9 "advanced robotic", I suppose that we can make it make enough sense to be playable calling this a case of "Wealthies" buying beyond the planetary TL to satisfy their obsession. As to the grain of salt, UWP need the whole spice rack. In His TU, I suppose a guy can use salt, peper, cardamone and the whole "Chef SoSo" spice rack.... some of those UWP rolls (like Paya) need quite a lot of weed in the cake to provide interesting and solid rationnalisation for Xtreme rolls.

Have fun

Selandia

 

[Carlobrand]

Not your place to dictate that, Hans. Not at all your place.

If it drifts away, TOUGH!

There are very few threads where on-topic is enforced. This ain't one of them.

That was ... rather ... animated. Yes, I think that's the safest word. And confusing, both in light of your immediate prior post and because I interpreted Ranke's spin-off as an invitation, not a dictate. There appears to be a good deal more history between you two than some of us are aware of - and perhaps it would be best if we remain unaware of it.

A clarification might help. You are the OP. Would you prefer we bring the discussion on Paya back to this post, or explore new ground? And, are we permitted to propose spin-offs, or would that be considered disrespectful to the original poster?

I agree with your great post.

I nontheless wish to make a precision. Quantity of import VOLUME by the local pop (as oppose to base and navy relative) is fairly small albeit a lot more than would be justified by the same number of poor peoples. I think that imports by VALUE is what get really boosted by orders of magnitude here.

Possibly. The native population is building a lot of infrastructure. That will involve a lot of basic resources: steel, concrete, and so forth. Whether it's import value that gets boosted or import volume is going to depend on how the game master sees things. Are the Payans using their robotics to make those resources and spending their cash on machinery to do that, or are they focusing their wealth and machinery on the infrastructure-building and importing the resources to accomplish that? There's no clue to which, so it's in the eye of the beholder, I think.

As to the TL 9 "advanced robotic", I suppose that we can make it make enough sense to be playable calling this a case of "Wealthies" buying beyond the planetary TL to satisfy their obsession. As to the grain of salt, UWP need the whole spice rack. In His TU, I suppose a guy can use salt, peper, cardamone and the whole "Chef SoSo" spice rack.... some of those UWP rolls (like Paya) need quite a lot of weed in the cake to provide interesting and solid rationnalisation for Xtreme rolls...

You lost me in the metaphor, but I think I understand the core premise: they're buying a bit of higher tech to help boost the efficiency of the world's main tech. Atpollard mentioned importing TL12 (or higher, presumably) autonomous bots to provide the supervision needed by the local TL9 bots. Am I understanding that right?

 

[Selandia]

You lost me in the metaphor, but I think I understand the core premise: they're buying a bit of higher tech to help boost the efficiency of the world's main tech. Atpollard mentioned importing TL12 (or higher, presumably) autonomous bots to provide the supervision needed by the local TL9 bots. Am I understanding that right?

About right, Atpollard had a valid way to make sense of the Canon statement. As for the metaphor, I just tried to get some superlative for the grain of salt statement, for the UWP of Paya really needs a big grain of salt. Sorry if I went overboard.

have fun

Selandia