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Brainstorming Boughene/Regina (SM 1904)

Grav_Moped

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This thread is just a spot to gather my thoughts (and whatever input anyone wishes to contribute) about Boughene Station.
I'll probably consolidate it all into a parallel IMTU-annotated version of the Wiki entry at some point, as I did for Collace/District 268.

Boughene/Regina (SM 1904) (trav wiki entry)
A8B3531-D
First: According to wiki, the planet's UWP is irrelevant since almost all of the 600,000 residents live on a space station in orbit around it. That's a pretty big space station (approximately 3 million Td). This space station is at least 200 years old.

Second: According to the Travellerworlds procedurally-generated description of the stellar system, Boughene is a satellite of a gas giant, in Orbit 0 at 0.26AU.
I think this puts it inside the M1V star's 100D limit! (Someone with better math/astronomy skills, please check this because I'm probably wrong.)
 
This space station is at least 200 years old.
As I mentioned in the Arcologies thread, there has been A space station in orbit around Boughene for almost certainly the last 300 years (if not longer) by 1105. However, the space station that is there "now" in 1105 and its various elements (habitat modules, etc.) are all almost certainly NOT "original equipment" from that long ago. A space station of that size would presumably be built using modules, all of which can be replaced on a rolling basis as they age out over time, with additional modules imported by a dedicated jump tender from another star system capable of manufacturing hulls of such a large tonnage.

So the space station may have been there for centuries, while the parts of the space station still in use would all be less than 40 years old (with decommissioned modules either sold for scrap or converted to "low quality control necessary" uses, such as bulk cargo storage in vacuum conditions.
 
As I mentioned in the Arcologies thread, there has been A space station in orbit around Boughene for almost certainly the last 300 years (if not longer) by 1105. However, the space station that is there "now" in 1105 and its various elements (habitat modules, etc.) are all almost certainly NOT "original equipment" from that long ago. A space station of that size would presumably be built using modules, all of which can be replaced on a rolling basis as they age out over time, with additional modules imported by a dedicated jump tender from another star system capable of manufacturing hulls of such a large tonnage.

So the space station may have been there for centuries, while the parts of the space station still in use would all be less than 40 years old (with decommissioned modules either sold for scrap or converted to "low quality control necessary" uses, such as bulk cargo storage in vacuum conditions.
The space station that was there 200 years ago might have only needed to house 60,000 personnel (Pop 4), working backwards based on typical population growth rates (current global average growth rate requires about 200 years for a tenfold population increase). 300 years ago, maybe half that.

Even if some of the original parts of the station are still there (unlikely) they'd be a tiny part of what's there now.

Edit to add: These parts would include the starport/shipyard and the General Products headquarters. I expect those sections to have been refurbished rather than replaced.
 
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Assuming the builds for houses are costly, the station's residential areas are quite likely to be relatively old compared to the commercial areas. Look at any town and the residential buildings are rarely demolished and rebuilt (modified no doubt, but the cores tend to remain because individuals don't generally have that much spare cash to regularly rebuild from scratch). There may be many new builds to accommodate population growth but there will be centre(s) of some age.

If the builds for housing are cheap, then putting up another residential shack could be like building a mud hut. When you get fed up it goes in the recycler. In this case, little is old - and any station map is changing almost yearly.

Is there only 1 station or are there a number of them? At TL D, having a grav drive for station-keeping makes siting the secure, dangerous or unpleasant parts of the industry slightly away from the residences entirely possible. Is there a periodic rush-hour as the residents of those satellite stations fly in from their detached homes?

What are the recreation facilities available on the station? Is there an Arboretum as part of the air and psychological management? Greenhouses for food production or just huge algae vats?

From where do the shipyards get their raw materials? Presumably General Products has a low-cost source for hull-materials at the very least. Tech level D allows super-dense materials and diamond casting. Both of these suggest specialist (and interesting) locations for construction. Is the need for carbon for the diamond casting what drew the yard to the type-B atmosphere?
 
My thoughts for what they are worth.

How many other moons are around the gas giant? How many other planets, dwarf planets, comets and asteroids exist in the system as a whole?

A TLD world with a type A starport can easily exploit all the resources present in a star system, so raw materials for building stuff is not an issue.

So the next question becomes - who originally colonised the system and how? At what point did the construction of the space station begin? Is it one station or many?

Where and how are the following catered for:
industry
agriculture
habitation
recreation

TL D - no need for spin gravity, a maneuver drive can provide radiation shielding from the gas giant and orbit adjustment as necessary.
 
Look at any town and the residential buildings are rarely demolished and rebuilt (modified no doubt, but the cores tend to remain because individuals don't generally have that much spare cash to regularly rebuild from scratch). There may be many new builds to accommodate population growth but there will be centre(s) of some age.
Comparing terrestrial housing to space based housing is a mug's game.

Terrestrial housing can survive for 10s/100s/1000s of years just fine, depending on the construction, sometimes with little to no maintenance, and can be refurbished with relative ease (expense is a different question).

Space based housing however has extremely LETHAL "failure modes" in which margins of safety for survival are going to be a lot tighter.

Break a window in a terrestrial house and you might have some minor damage to a single room and you can just board up the window if necessary to prevent further damage.

Break a window in a space based house and you evacuate an entire section to vacuum while scattering plenty of debris into orbit (that's going to have to be cleaned up later or it becomes a lingering navigation hazard). Oh and anyone in that section is now probably DEAD (without much warning or chance to save themselves).

The risks in a failure condition are NOT symmetrical.
The NEED for habitat integrity and safety against "the outside environment" (and yes, I'm including vacuum here as a specific environment type, but toxic atmospheres count for this as well) is so much higher that low/no maintenance of aged out habitat spaces simply becomes too high of a risk to survival at some point in the aging process for those hulls.

I figure the habitat modules are a standardized design that can be kept in serial production (say, 2 per year concurrently with staggered delivery dates, kind of like optimal nuclear submarine production at Bath Iron Works) in order to sustain the volume production discount long term. When a new habitat module gets delivered, the residents of the "oldest" habitat module in service essentially migrate en masse into the newest habitat module delivered (and still the same design as the old module) so that the oldest habitat module can be decommissioned and scrapped or whatever. That way, your new stateroom is essentially in the same place (in the new module) as your old stateroom (in the old module) and as a civilian you just get to carry on with your life after the "move" between modules. The new module could even be maneuvered into the same "slot" on the station when the old module is removed.

So there would need to be a kind of continuous rollover replacement of parts of the station every year as sections age out (presume 40 years) and need to be replaced. What gets done with decommissioned modules can be all manner of various and sundry. Kind of like how "Old Ironsides" the USS Constitution is a wooden ship from the American Revolutionary War era that is still afloat in sailing condition today, but which has had almost all of her original wood replaced since she first set sail (the sea is not "kind" to wooden ships, nor is space "kind" to space ships). However, the rate of production for habitat modules would need to be on a faster timescale than a pure attrition replacement of a new for old every 40 years in order to accommodate population growth (if any) of the population on the Boughene Station, and to account for any increase in visitor/temporary residents as the economy improves. So you can have a situation where there are (say) by 1105 some 45 habitat modules produced every 40 years to allow for pure attrition replacement while also having a slight excess production capacity to keep expanding the total number of habitat modules in service at Boughene Station.



Also, just as a culture note aside, since Boughene (the world) has a Corrosive (code: B) atmosphere and a Hydrographic code of 3 (meaning some liquid on the surface which is NOT water), I can easily imagine that a common practice for "hull cleaning" of ships and small craft would be to dip down into the atmosphere of Boughene and let the corrosive atmosphere "do the work of scrubbing" the hull. It would be akin to dipping an entire ship in bleach as far as that goes. Consequently, I wouldn't be surprised to learn that Boughene has developed a variety of "paints" that are resistant to the atmospheric composition which can be layered on in different colors to protect streamlined hulls, with the outer layer being a "sacrifice coat" which when eaten away reveals the underlying "primer" coating in a way that makes it easy to determine by visual inspection how progressive the scouring of the hull has been by the corrosive atmosphere (and thus in need of an inspection and a fresh lick of sacrifice paint protection). Consequently, you can wind up with Boughene based ships sporting an incredibly wide variety of hull surface paint jobs (a lot of them decorative and personalized), especially for streamlined ships intended to penetrate Boughene's corrosive atmosphere, which can also assist with Search & Rescue in the event of a downside mishap.

Just something to think about.
Inspiration for this notion comes from the habit of building sacrifice anode/cathode metals into wet navy vessels to resist corrosion due to seawater dielectric contact factors produced by dissimilar metals. That way the seawater dissolves something you don't care about (and can replace easily, hence the sacrifice term) rather than dissolving something you DO care about and is stupidly expensive to replace (like, say, your engines).
 
Here in New Orleans glass recycling efforts are focused on returning empty bottles to their original state and using the sand in coastal restoration efforts. A drop in the bucket but it’s a start.

Lots of cool ideas in this thread (y)
 
My thoughts for what they are worth.

How many other moons are around the gas giant? How many other planets, dwarf planets, comets and asteroids exist in the system as a whole?

A TLD world with a type A starport can easily exploit all the resources present in a star system, so raw materials for building stuff is not an issue.

So the next question becomes - who originally colonised the system and how? At what point did the construction of the space station begin? Is it one station or many?

Where and how are the following catered for:
industry
agriculture
habitation
recreation

TL D - no need for spin gravity, a maneuver drive can provide radiation shielding from the gas giant and orbit adjustment as necessary.
If we take the travellerworlds system as canon (it might not be, but I'll go with it for now), there are two other planets orbiting the same gas giant as Boughene. I'd think the station is at a Lagrange point rather than actually orbiting its host planet.

The station probably started as a respite site for workers on the planet, then someone from General Products decided that this would be a good place for a corporate headquarters. Maybe Boughene looks pretty from orbit, and the gas giant is also charmingly swirly?

The general description is that it's a single station. I think the writer(s) just didn't have a sense of scale, but again, I'll run with it. I get a strong "Ship of Theseus" vibe here, especially with modular construction.

I expect there will be fairly large assemblages of derelict ships too worn out to overhaul, stripped of their drives, attached to the station as low-income housing. When they're too far gone for use as living space, they're scrapped and recycled.

Given how much maintenance the station requires, having a shipyard seems to be almost incidental. "Hate to spring this on you suddenly, but we've got a 20,000-ton freighter that's overdue it's annual overhaul. How soon can you get to it?" "Well, refurb crews 37 and 42 finished up modules Kilo-21 and Mike-13 ahead of schedule -- we'll just send them and their equipment over. You're docked at Quebec-23 through 30, right?"

Agriculture is going to take up a lot of modules, and that's ok. There will be pretty large common spaces. This thing isn't going anywhere, so interior space isn't quite the issue it would be on a spaceship that needs to really move under volume-based drives.

As much as I'd like to have parts of the station spin for gravity, it isn't at all necessary at this TL. If there's not enough power for artificial gravity, artificial gravity isn't your biggest problem.

The station's economic drivers are the subsidies for supporting the Scout Base, starship overhauls and the occasional new construction (and revenues from General Products' operations thoughout the Marches), and its role as mostly-free port that's close to the Vargr border but not dangerously so.

I like the "use Boughene's atmosphere to sandblast ship hulls" trick. And the paints -- that's something exportable! :)
 
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Let me ... amend ... my preliminary notions that I advanced in the Arcologies thread previously.
And yes, this will affect certain other assumptions that I've been making thus far about the best way to organize these things.

Let's look at this from a hull code requires minimum computer model standpoint, and I'm going to be using LBB5.80 for this (because it's what I have access to and CT is the easiest to "convert" to any other editions of Traveller).

600 tons (hull code: 6) = model/1 required (TL=5)
1000 tons (hull code: A) = model/2 required (TL=7)
4000 tons (hull code: D) = model/3 required (TL=9)
10,000 tons (hull code: K) = model/4 required (TL=A)
50,000 tons (hull code: P) = model/5 required (TL=B)
100,000 tons (hull code: R) = model/6 required (TL=C)
1,000,000 tons (hull code: Y) = model/7 required (TL=D)

Now, if we tie those hull size breakpoints in with the Shipyard Construction rules that @Grav_Moped found in MgT2 High Guard, what makes for a sustainable combination of modular component sizes to work with for various purposes? Also, let's assume that Boughene Station was built "on the cheap" by General Products to be adequate to needs (300 years ago) and everything has simply grown from there.

So if you start with a 100,000 ton hull Jump Tender capable of transporting a 50,000 ton hull module built elsewhere (let's say Efate for convenience of conversation) you can have that 50,000 ton secondary module be a shipyard capable of construction (type A starport) with a 20,000 ton build capacity occupying 40,000 tons of the 50,000 ton secondary module.

100k ton Jump Tender + 50k ton Starport Module = 20k ton type A starport shipyard capacity
Jump Tender must be TL=C for model/6 computer and Starport Module must be TL=B for model/5 computer as minimums.

Everybody with me so far? :rolleyes:
Up to this point, I'm just repeating what I wrote in the Arcologies thread previously.



The part that I would want to amend is that the additional modules for population housing (staterooms), commercial districts (auditorium spaces), industrial districts (workshops), research districts (laboratories), warehouse districts (cargo), fuel refinery/tanker (fuel reserve and purification plants) should actually be constructed in 10,000 ton hull modules (code: K, requires model/4 computer, TL=A minimum) BECAUSE those 10,000 ton hulls can actually be constructed locally in the Starport Module with its construction capacity for 20,000 tons. That way, any additional modules for population support do not need to be constructed elsewhere (like, say ... Efate) AND the annual maintenance for those extra modules can be performed locally (usually only 1 at a time leaving 10,000 of starport capacity remaining for any other commercial and/or IISS traffic).

However, a single Starport Module would only be capable of performing annual maintenance on about 20 other modules per year while still leaving reserve capacity for interstellar trade and commerce. Additionally, the Starport Module would need to be taken, by the Jump Tender, back to Efate every year so that both the Starport Module AND the Jump Tender can receive their annual overhaul maintenance. In which case ... having only a single Starport Module is going to become a pretty serious problem, logistically speaking.

Solution?
Multiple Starport Modules

So a 10,000 ton Habitat Module mostly full of staterooms is going to have enough room for about 2000 staterooms (8000 tons displacement). For a population of 600,000 permanent residents, that's going to mean a minimum of 300 Habitat Modules of 10,000 tons each just to accommodate a population of 600,000 people.

300 Habitat Modules receiving annual overhaul maintenance locally in the local starport facilities will mean that at 2 week per annual overhaul, each 50,000 ton Starport Module would be capable of overhauling 2 modules of 10,000 tons each every 2 weeks or 52 Habitat Modules per year if that Starport Module is solely dedicated to supporting station maintenance.

So with 300 Habitat Modules needing annual maintenance, a minimum of 6 Starport Modules would be required to service local maintenance needs locally on a rotating schedule (because the Starport Modules will need to be taken offline for transport to Efate for their own annual maintenance schedules).

In point of fact, having 13 Starport Modules would mean that a 4 week rotation could be set up per Jump Tender (1 week transit to Efate at Jump-2, 2 weeks annual overhaul maintenance, 1 week return transit to Boughene at Jump-2) meaning that in point of fact there would be 12 Starport Modules available at all times, with 6 of those fully occupied with annual overhaul maintenance of just the 300x 10,000 ton Habitat Modules at all times.

1x 100,000 ton Jump-2 Tender supports up to 13x 50,000 ton Starport Modules maintaining up to 600x 10,000 ton Modules (various types)

So the Jump Tender and Starport Modules need to be on permanent rotation for annual maintenance at Efate ... but all of the other modules receive their annual maintenance locally at Boughene. Any "surplus" Starport Module capacity is used to service interstellar shipping needs.

This means that ideally speaking you would want to have:
1x 100,000 ton Jump-2 Tender
3x 50,000 ton type A Starport Modules (20,000 ton capacity each, construction and maintenance)
10x 50,000 ton type B Starport Modules (20,000 ton capacity each, maintenance only, no construction)
500x 10,000 ton Modules (minimum 350 habitat stateroom modules, 660,000 sophont capacity in modules not undergoing annual maintenance, plus 150 other types constructed and maintained locally)
Total displacement = ~5.8 million tons for the entirety of Boughene Station

Done that way, "local industry" can expand Boughene Station on an as needed/can afford basis depending on the in-system economy and the only "reliable" trade deficit would be with Efate for annual maintenance of their Jump Tender and Starport Modules (and needing to replace all of those every 40 years).

The 10x type B Starport Modules are completely dedicated to maintaining the 500x 10,000 ton Modules that make up the bulk of Boughene Station, so they're purely for local overhaul maintenance needs.

The 3x type A Starport Modules are mainly dedicated towards interstellar starship support and ongoing construction of replacement 10,000 ton modules on an attrition rollover schedule are the reason why Boughene has a type A starport rating at all. Three times a year, every year, only two of the type A Starport Modules will be at Boughene station, while the other one has been removed for transit to and from Efate for annual overhaul maintenance there, and one of the remaining two will be fully engaged in construction of replacement 10,000 ton modules to keep the space station from aging out over time.

Because Efate is TL=D the type A Starport Modules (capable of construction) are built to TL=D standards.
The type B Starport Modules can be built to whatever tech level best matches the 10,000 ton modules overall (minimum TL=A) for cost savings or could also be optionally built to TL=D standard (smaller fusion power plants are cheaper).



Ironically, the above setup is approximately "right sized" for a space based population of 600,000 permanent residents (plus 60,000 additional visitor traffic) with sufficient light/heavy industrial and research/commercial capacity to be somewhat self sustaining over the really long haul. In order to expand the population even further (to over 1,000,000 and reach population code: 6) would require an entire second space space station (1 Jump Tender, 13 Starport Modules and 500 Secondary Modules).

No wonder the government type is Self-Perpetuating Oligarchy ... because cash rules everything around me in the Boughene system.
Also, since the system remains in the Non-industrial category due to "low" population (code: 5) it makes perfect sense that the locals are attempting to improve their resource extraction potential on Boughene itself to finance further expansion and settlement opportunities in the system, improving the economy. However, that next step in expansion is going to come at a pretty steep cost with the need to add a new Jump Tender and more Starport Modules before the population can grow even further beyond the current 600,000 in 1105.



Also, side note ... the annual overhaul maintenance schedule would mean that permanent residents can expect to move/migrate their quarters every single year when the module they have been inhabiting for the past year is due to go in for annual maintenance (which requires everyone to vacate and "take their stuff" with them so maintenance crews can do their jobs properly). Consequently, "ownership" of individual staterooms would be relatively rare (basically for the wealthy only), with most people simply "renting" stateroom quarters from the owner of a specific Habitat Module with move in/move out clauses in their lease agreements covering their move/migration to another Habitat Module when the current one needs to be put into drydock for annual overhaul maintenance.
 
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Oh, trivia moment.

Let's say that the 100,000 ton Jump Tender + 50,000 ton Starport Modules + 10,000 ton Secondary Modules is the way Boughene Station is organized and built (for the sake of argument).

If every single one of the 600,000 permanent residents were given a cargo allowance of 1 ton each (basically a "public storage" allowance) ... you would need 60 of the 10,000 ton Secondary Modules configured purely as cargo holds (and nothing else) in order to have that amount of per capita storage space for the entire population of permanent residents.

60 Modules to give every stateroom an allowance of 1 ton of cargo space each.

Now figure that if there are 150 Secondary Modules of all types (commercial, industrial, research, etc.) and you spend 60 of them on "mere public cargo storage" that leaves only another 90 Modules available for all commercial, industrial, research, etc. activities for some 350 Modules loaded with staterooms.

Brings new meaning to telecommuting and "working from home" doesn't it? :rolleyes:
 
No wonder the government type is Self-Perpetuating Oligarchy ... because cash rules everything around me in the Boughene system.
Also, since the system remains in the Non-industrial category due to "low" population (code: 5) it makes perfect sense that the locals are attempting to improve their resource extraction potential on Boughene itself to finance further expansion and settlement opportunities in the system, improving the economy. However, that next step in expansion is going to come at a pretty steep cost with the need to add a new Jump Tender and more Starport Modules before the population can grow even further beyond the current 600,000 in 1105.
The reason it's a self-perpetuating oligarchy is that the government is comprised of the descendants of the executive cabal that took the station private in the first place 200 years ago. Evidently they've managed it well enough over the years to retain legitimacy.

But yes, growth is an issue. It's helpful to understand what the breakpoints might be -- that is, that the station might be at its present limits of expansion for now.
 
But yes, growth is an issue. It's helpful to understand what the breakpoints might be -- that is, that the station might be at its present limits of expansion for now.
Or at least until they can turn a seriously major profit and be able to afford the next "leap forward" into expansion of their space based habitat.
 
The reason it's a self-perpetuating oligarchy is that the government is comprised of the descendants of the executive cabal that took the station private in the first place 200 years ago. Evidently they've managed it well enough over the years to retain legitimacy.
It doesn't necessarily need to be a matter of legitimacy in the "consent of the governed" sense. It can simply be that the oligarchs have a stranglehold on the cash flow through the economy in "the game is rigged" sense that they are the only ones with the capital resources needed to finance any "public works" of any useful magnitude. Anyone can "join the club" so long as they have enough money to spend on influencing government policies.

Sort of a "one megacredit, one vote" kind of economic interests dominating the governing system to their own benefit kind of deal, except it's not a single corporation in control but rather a collection of like minded oligarchs. Sort of a Venetian Republic kind of arrangement (although that's a decidedly imperfect fit).

Consequently, "expansion" of the population/economy only occurs when the ruling oligarchs are guaranteed that they'll be even richer AFTER the expansion than they would have been relative to the status quo ante expansion ... because the oligarchs aren't going to tolerate "getting poorer" while everyone else gets richer "at their expense" (so to speak). So you can have a "rising tide lifts all boats" situation in favor of expansion, but that rising tide needs to lift ALL boats (that matter) and it also needs to lift SOME boats (the richest boats, let's be clear here) more than others (the boats of everyone "not in the club" of oligarchs).

Once you hit a plateau ... and by all indications of this analysis, Boughene Station HAS hit that economic plateau ... pretty much the only way to expand the in-system economy sufficiently in a way that will allow the ruling oligarchs to become wealthy enough to fund the leap to the purchase (and indefinite sustainment!) of a 2nd Jump Tender, additional Starport Modules and thereby expand the number of Secondary Modules (habitat, commercial, industrial, research, storage, etc.) and thus increase the population in the system that can be indefinitely supported is going to be ... RESOURCE EXTRACTION for EXPORT.

They need to find a resource that is valuable enough to be exported (presumably to Industrial Efate) for high value to improve the Balance of Trade into the Boughene system. Note that the Jump Tender hauling Starport Modules to and from Efate for routine annual overhaul maintenance could load two 10,000 ton cargo modules into the Starport Module being transported to Efate as a "free" means of bulk cargo transfer to Efate (in the "going my way?" sense of already making the trip anyway). With a 1 month turn around time at Jump-2 running modules to Efate, the Jump Tender could make 12-13 such trips each year, giving Boughene a potential export capacity of 20,000 tons of cargo per trip or 240,000/260,000 tons of cargo per year ... simply as a "side effect" of needing to maintain their Jump Tender and Starport Modules using the shipyard at Efate "on the regular" every year.

If Boughene can get a "serious" resource extraction operation going on Boughene (the moon with the Corrosive atmosphere) that is capable of producing bulk quantities of (LBB2.81 p47 speculative cargo):
  • Petrochemicals (Cr 10,000 per ton): NI-5 price modifier at Boughene, I+3 price modifier at Efate
  • Pharmaceuticals (Cr 100,000 per ton) I+5 price modifier at Efate
That then helps make sense of this line on the wiki page for Boughene:
All of Boughene's population lives on a space station in orbit around it; no one actually lives on the surface, although a few work there extracting valuable chemical compounds from primitive exotic lifeforms.
However, a vein of Radioactives and/or Gems on Boughene (the moon) would be a tremendous "shot in the arm" for the Boughene economy.
  • Radioactives (Cr 1,000,000 per ton): NI-3 modifier at Boughene, I+6 modifier at Efate
  • Gems (Cr 1,000,000 per ton): NI-8 modifier at Boughene, I+4 modifier at Efate
I figure that Boughene already is producing as much "petrochemicals" (buy low/sell high net modifier differential of 8) and pharmaceuticals (buy low/sell high net modifier differential of 5) as they can reliably secure for export already, just to be able to "pay the bills" on maintenance and sustainment of operations on Boughene station (which are neither cheap nor free).

However, every prospecting strike of radioactives (buy low/sell high net modifier differential of 9) and gems (buy low/sell high net modifier differential of 12!) will produce large fortunes of cash flow from being exported to the far more lucrative market at Efate ... until the strike is played out.

Note that such prospecting efforts for resource extraction do not necessarily need to be limited to only the Boughene moon, there are other moons and worlds available within the system (no planetoid belts though) where valuable radioactives and gems could be found and extracted from. Consequently, I would expect a substantial part of the balance of trade foundations for the economy to be based on resource extraction (chemical/pharmaceutical) on Boughene itself, with automated extraction plants situated for cyclical pickups of goods to be transported to Boughene Station for processing/refining in preparation for export to Efate via Jump Tender carrying a Starport Module loaded with two 10,000 ton Cargo Modules. The cargo can be sold (presumably via contracted +4 Broker service to "guarantee profit margins") while the Jump Tender and/or Starport Module and/or Cargo Modules is/are undergoing annual maintenance at the Efate shipyard.

Since the cargo would technically have 4 weeks during which it could be sold by the brokerage firm (due to the "regular customer" factor of the Jump Tender cycles), rather than the usual 1 week turnaround to be sold by the brokerage firm needed by tramp freighters, the brokerage firm would presumably be capable of collecting a wider variety of bids and receive a slightly better sell price for the Boughene interests due to the lack of "rush" needed on the transactions (in other words, quick sale is not necessary or the point of the transactions, rather a best price for sale and commissions on Efate is). So each Jump Tender cycle of the route from Boughene to Efate once a month brings new cargo in for sale while taking away the profits earned on the sale of cargo from the previous cycle back to Boughene.

All of which leads me to conclude that such an arrangement would be long term sustainable for Boughene and Efate (both) since they both profit from the arrangement (Efate gets "regular" supplies of raw materials needed to fuel Efate's industrial output, while Boughene gets a resource extraction balance of trade surplus that sustains the expenses of their orbital habitats).

Strikes of radioactives and gems are "limited" but do happen from time to time and there is a ready market for both at Efate, so once enough extraction of radioactives and gems from the Boughene system has been accomplished, the self-perpetuating oligarchy can consider expansion of Boughene Station and increasing the population even further (once the oligarchs are "rich enough" to absorb the risk of such an expansion).



Quite the fun little place you've found there, @Grav_Moped ... :sneaky:
 
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Quite the fun little place you've found there, @Grav_Moped ... :sneaky:
Thanks!

I'm assuming the government is "legitimate" in that it's accepted by the citizenry. The fact that it's Law Level 1 suggests that they're not ruling by coercion, and that suggests they're deliberately "leaving some money on the table" in order to maintain stability.

There's undoubtedly significant income (and asset) inequality, but even those on the edges aren't starving (well, not too severely).
 
I'm assuming the government is "legitimate" in that it's accepted by the citizenry.
If the oligarchy is a "club" of the richest people/interests in the system, rather than being some kind of hereditary only/caste limited kind of social hierarchy then it's possible for more people to be added to the "club" of oligarchs (you just have to strike it rich and decide to stay). That means that as fortunes are made (and lost) it is possible to "join the club" rather than being a case of "born a serf, always a serf" in the society.

So in true Mining Boom Town fashion ... if you "strike it rich" you can become "respectable" and move up in Boughene society (mainly because you can then afford to). The oligarchs are the ones who not only "got rich" but then parlayed their wealth into "staying rich" rather than losing or frittering all of their wealth away (or simply taking their money and leaving the system, never to return, so as to live a better life elsewhere, such as Regina). The whole economy is founded upon resource extraction, but as the population grows there are opportunities for the in-system economy to diversify into other sectors of commercial, industrial, research and even cultural interests.
The fact that it's Law Level 1 suggests that they're not ruling by coercion, and that suggests they're deliberately "leaving some money on the table" in order to maintain stability.
Consider the fact that "getting out" from Boughene wouldn't be all that difficult, once you have the credits to afford passage. Alell, Feri and Kinorb are all Rich worlds within 3 parsecs of Boughene (and Feri is within 2 parsecs), so if you need to "breathe free" on a terrestrial world, there are placed you can go instead that are relatively nearby (one jump via Subsidized Liner in fact). There's also Louzy, Efate and Enope which are all Industrial worlds within 3 parsecs of Boughene (with Efate being 2 parsecs away) and a fourth Industrial world, Roup, at 4 parsecs away. My point being that if you've got skills and want to leave Boughene, there are at least 7 worlds within 4 parsecs (3 Rich, 4 Industrial) that a Boughene citizen could emigrate to relatively easily.

In other words, coercion of the locals is unlikely to be effective. Squalid slum lord terrible living/employment conditions would likely soon cause all but the most desperate to up stakes and move out of the system. Consequently, the permanent residents probably live there because they WANT to live there ... and because there's always a chance for a prospector to "get rich" from a lucky survey strike.

Which then just circles back around to the Mining Boom Town concept framework for the culture ... except we're talking a space based "town" in orbit with the resources of an entire star system with multiple planets to explore and exploit.

And then you realize that Boughene Station must have been through multiple cycles of boom and bust over the centuries, with some oligarchs falling into poverty while others have risen to take their place. The low law level also helps feed into that pioneer on the frontier mentality in which people need to be "tough" and self-reliant in a kind of throwback to "how the west was won" kind of way (except here, the "enemy" are the environmental hazards, not an opposing culture of sophonts defending their territory).

So I agree that the oligarchs must be "sharing the wealth" from the economy to some degree in order to "buy acceptance" from the population, rather than turning Boughene into some kind of sweatshop slave camp operation where the name of the game is maximum exploitation of the lower rungs on the wealth ladder to the point of cruelty (and perhaps beyond) just for amusement value. I would postulate that oligarchs who attempt to "keep too much" for themselves wind up being less successful in the long run ... partly because everyone will know who they are (even in a population of "only" 600,000 since ALL of the oligarchs in the "club" will be known public figures due to their wealth).
There's undoubtedly significant income (and asset) inequality, but even those on the edges aren't starving (well, not too severely).
Undoubtedly there's going to be income and asset inequality.
At the same time, there will also be the possibility that "anyone can make it" with enough LUCK and the skill to not squander the opportunities your luck brings to you.
 
Hmmn. "One MCr, one vote" seems like it could work. It's not quite what I had in mind, but something like that is certainly viable.

I'd think the executive cabal wouldn't want that, though. They'd be concerned that General Products might try to wrest control back from them using the same kind of trick by which they took the station in the first place.

The circumstances of the original takeover seem interesting. The executives might have planned it as a get-rich-quick scheme: seize the station, declare themselves the government, collect rent/taxes from the corporation and the Scouts, profit. Then they discovered operations and maintenance costs -- and realized that they needed to do more with it than just sub-let to GP and the IISS. And the Imperium now has expectations of them as a member world. . .

Which gets to the question of the relationship between Imperial governance (the Knight, and above her the Count of Menorb, then the Duke of Regina) and the world (station) government. Duchy of Regina (TravWiki)

Boughene's Knights (from the Irshinri family), somewhat atypically of Imperial Nobility, tend toward serving in the IISS rather than the Navy before stepping into the planetary knight role, if they don't inherit it when they become an adult. Knighthood isn't necessarily heriditary, but the Irshinri family has done well by both Boughene Station and the Imperium so their heirs tend to get that position.
 
Hmmn. "One MCr, one vote" seems like it could work. It's not quite what I had in mind, but something like that is certainly viable.
Not to drag real world politics into this discussion ... but it's a conversation that I've had with other people standing in line to vote at my local polling station.

The conversation basically ran something like this:
What is the criterion for eligibility to cast a vote?
Is it:
  • One citizen, one vote?
  • One dollar, one vote?
  • One acre, one vote?

Some people look at voting district maps, see HUGE land areas filled with a particular color and think that such a district ought to be "weighted more" in the final tally simply because it is "big" on the map in area. But if you arrange things that way, it's not the citizens (the people) that are voting, it's the land area (the acreage) that determines how many votes that district is allowed to cast. In such a scheme, land owners who hold more land get control of more votes and cast more votes than people with less (or no) land holdings. Such a system favors the land owners at the expense of everyone else (and now that I think about it for a moment more is probably how the Aslan Hierate is actually organized at the clan/pride/family levels through vassalage arrangements and explains part of the male Aslan drive to control LAND).

Some people look at the totals of money spent by candidates/campaigns during an election and conclude (rightly or wrongly) that the money spent somehow "bought" the election results. The controlling principle being that it's not the citizens deciding the election with their votes, it's really the MONEY that is deciding the election with their dollars credits, with the candidates (and possibly even blocs of citizen voters) essentially being "up for sale" so to speak. Spend enough money and you can "buy" your way into governing power. In other words, the power of cash flow trumps/subverts the power of citizen voting, yielding a "one credit, one vote" governing system in practice.

One citizen, one vote is of course the democratic republic ideal case when legitimacy of governing authority requires the consent of the governed, but electoral minorities may not be "happy" with such a system and seek ways to influence the outcome of elections so as to yield the results that minority desires regardless of the expression of popular will through the one citizen, one vote method. This is where the "evils of democracy" start to creep into the picture, including the impulse to Gerrymander so as to allow those in power to choose their voters (the original sin of democracy) in order to remain in power, rather than allowing the voters to choose who they want to vote for (including the risk of throwing the incumbents out of office). This is where the urge and slide towards Autocracy becomes a danger, where no matter the results of an election (and especially if the results go against them), the people in power remain in power.
Hmmn. "One MCr, one vote" seems like it could work. It's not quite what I had in mind, but something like that is certainly viable.
To be fair, it wasn't my first thought either ... until I put the pieces together.
Boughene Station (and thus the Boughene system) is ruled by oligarchs ... a Self-perpetuating Oligarchy ... which means that the people with the money control the government. He who has the gold makes the rules, and all that. Consequently, it would make sense that in order for the self-perpetuating oligarchy to REMAIN self-perpetuating they would need to "rig the game" of power and economics in their favor in such a way that WEALTH is the deciding factor for who gets to rule in the government ... AND set things up such that the oligarchs are allowed to continue enriching themselves so as to remain at the top of the economic pile.

Point is that the point of cash rules everything around me then becomes the organizing principle for the society and population. Given that space based habitats are not "freebies" to sustain and maintain (unlike Rich world terrestrial habitats), the fact that cash rules everything around me starts making PERFECT SENSE since if something cannot be economically supported and sustained it's going to wither and die out on its own in pretty short order.

And once you recognize that kind of "evolutionary pressure" thanks to the economics of the situation, everything very quickly moves to a colonial/pioneer/settler/wealthy benefactor type of social dynamic in which WHOEVER HAS THE GOLD MAKES THE RULES because it's the wealthy oligarchs that are financing the very existence of the environment (Boughene Station) that everyone is utterly reliant and dependent upon for survival and their standard of living.

It's kind of like how wet navy ships tend to not be democracies.
You have a captain, the captain's officers and the rest of the crew who all answer to the chain of command.
Wet navy ships at sea simply can't afford to operate as democracies and be successful/remain afloat.

I figure that something similar has evolved into the governing culture of Boughene Station based on necessity and environmental/survival/economic pressures all conspiring together the enforce and reinforce the notion that cash rules everything around me in which wealth can translate somewhat directly into power over society (depending on how that wealth is used, of course).
 
I'd think the executive cabal wouldn't want that, though. They'd be concerned that General Products might try to wrest control back from them using the same kind of trick by which they took the station in the first place.
While this is always possible, I would consider it an unlikely circumstance. Effectively what General Products is able to get out of the arrangement is a kind of "outsourcing" of the responsibilities for maintaining and sustaining the population of Boughene Station. If General Products mounted what amounts to a hostile takeover/buyout of the oligarchs (an expensive proposition!) then they would suddenly become financially responsible for all of the life support and maintenance costs of everything associated with Boughene Station ... not to mention the "requirement" to continue fostering a standard of living(!!) acceptable to the population, which could prove to be a further drain on General Products talent and resources above and beyond the pure monetary investments involved.

In other words, taking over and running Boughene as a "corporate fiefdom" of General Products might not be in the best interests of General Products ... especially if such a (presumably hostile) takeover prompts a significant portion of the population to emigrate elsewhere, crippling the Boughene system economy and making the attempt a loss liability on the corporate balance sheet, rather than a growth asset.

Now, if there's a seriously colossal resource strike find in the Boughene system, that calculus may change for General Products (and for the ruling oligarchs controlling Boughene), since such a find would presumably be worth "a lot of money" if it can be exploited and exported adequately ... but that's a hypothetical, and maybe even then General Products would only want to secure rights to the find and subcontract the exploitation to the ruling oligarchs of Boughene Station as the "best equipped" to exploit the find.

After that, it's just money warfare all the way down.
The circumstances of the original takeover seem interesting. The executives might have planned it as a get-rich-quick scheme: seize the station, declare themselves the government, collect rent/taxes from the corporation and the Scouts, profit. Then they discovered operations and maintenance costs -- and realized that they needed to do more with it than just sub-let to GP and the IISS. And the Imperium now has expectations of them as a member world. . .
EXACTLY. :cool:

I'm thinking that part of the original impetus for the takeover by the locals was both as a part of a get rich quick scheme in the short term and as a STAY rich forever scheme for the long term. Additionally, a significant component of the drive for local control by the takeover executives would have been to improve living conditions in order to attract and retain more people so as to grow the economy and enrich the (future) oligarchs themselves even further. After all, if living conditions are poor, people would be capable of moving elsewhere relatively easily (Cr 1000 for a low berth to somewhere else is not that expensive).

So you're looking at a situation of locals figuring they can make life better for themselves than the "overlords" at General Products ever could (or would) and then the locals conspire to take everything over and they actually manage to do so.

However, the purpose behind the takeover wasn't so much to kick General Products to the curb and then run them out on a rail. Instead it was mainly to improve local control to benefit the locals. General Products "accepted" the transfer of power since doing so helped straighten out their balance sheet (somewhat) and they still retained access to the resources being produced in the Boughene system and even kept offices and representation on Boughene station. So the whole Boughene venture operation turned into a kind of "outsourcing" to a set of contractors (the oligarchs class) which then limits the risks and financial exposure General Products is liable for in the Boughene system.

Everyone gets what they want and the arrangement suits each party's individual needs.
The only ones who would want to "stop the party" from continuing as it's currently set up would be the Zhodani and the Vargr (see: Fifth Frontier War).
Which gets to the question of the relationship between Imperial governance (the Knight, and above her the Count of Menorb, then the Duke of Regina) and the world (station) government. Duchy of Regina (TravWiki)
The curious thing here is that Boughene would be grouped in with the County of Menorb simply because Yres, Menorb, Pixie and Boughene are clustered together on the map (all 1 parsec from Menorb), but Menorb wouldn't be Boughene's largest trading partner and market ... that would be the Industrialized world of Efate. So from a "musical chairs of nobility" standpoint, Boughene's economic ties with the County of Efate would be stronger than those with with County of Menorb. However, Menorb would be an important secondary export market for Boughene's products since Menorb is Poor trade classification world.

Looking at the speculative cargo table of LBB2.81 p47 again, there is a single speculative cargo type that could be manufactured at Boughene which would be competitive with similar products from Industrialized Louzy, Efate 2 parsecs from Menorb (plus Roup and Enope a bit further away), although not quite so competitive against similar products from Rich Feri and Kinorb. However, on technology level, only Industrialized Efate would be a serious competitor in the TL=13 market for speculative cargoes of ... Body Armor ... which could (statistically speaking) yield modest profits over time when shipped from Boughene to Menorb.

The reciprocal products that would sell well at Non-industrial Boughene would be Special Alloys (sometimes cheaper from Menorb than Efate), while Air/Rafts, Computers, All Terrain Vehicles, Electronics Parts, Mechanical Parts, Cybernetic Parts, Computer Parts, Machine Tools and Vacc Suits would all be preferentially sourced from Industrialized Efate (from which they can usually be supplied in larger quantities and purchased at lower costs).

So although the Knight of Boughene is under the Count of Menorb as far as court hierarchy is concerned, Boughene has far stronger links and ties to their primary market on Efate than they do with their secondary market on Menorb ... and since cash rules everything around me under the Self-perpetuating Oligarchy in control of Boughene Station (and thus the Boughene system) the Kight(s) of Boughene need to be more aware of the cross-county jurisdiction issues than most in a "straddle the line" kind of way. In fact, I would even go so far as to say that the Knight(s) of Boughene would be uniquely placed as a potential channel between the Counties of Louzy, Efate, Menorb, Roup, Enope and even the Knights and Barons of the Kinorb Cluster. In other words, the Knight(s) of Boughene would need to be WELL VERSED in the politics of multiple jurisdictions as the "go to" hub for cross-county communications channels as the "entry level" access point to set up diplomacy and negotiations (I'll have my people call your people kind of thing).

So in that respect, I'm thinking that the Knight(s) of Boughene would actually wield a fair bit more "soft power" in noble society than you might otherwise expect at first glance, since they effectively sit at a "crossroads" between not only Express Network routes but also multiple county jurisdictions within the Duchy of Regina. That makes the Knight(s) of Boughene somewhat ideal as both patrons and contact points across a wide swath of the coreward end of the Regina subsector (in the sense of You Need To Know Who's Who In Order To Know What's What).
 
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