Timerover51
SOC-14 5K
From Traveller 5.0.9, page 481, under trade goods.
Is gold worth anything in the 3I?
- Thread starter Blue Ghost
- Start date
You are right, and I never said that this "universal rule" of the Laws of supply and demand: a transaction is likely to take place when the ascribe value by the buyer is greater than the cost of acquisition + cost of sale for the seller " would apply only to gold. A premisce of Traveller is that interplanetary market exist for planetary caracteristics (including TL for what it means) create offer/supply imbalance.
So anything could be a trade item for an imaginative referee.
Have fun
Selandia
Straybow
SOC-14 1K
No, if known lanes are designated for shipments, those lanes can be easily monitored and ships that approach can be intercepted. If ships aren't available for interception, the thieves can still be easily tracked if they try to haul it away. Where are they going to go?
If they jump out, that would surely be detected as well. If a jump doesn't involve a spectacular display of released energy, then the disappearance of the ship while it is tracked is a sure sign. X-boat messages are sent to all systems in reach, detailing whatever data is known about the hijacked shipment. The mineral content should be known to some degree. It would take a very large criminal network to disguise ship traffic and hijacked materials. A large network of criminals attracts a large response, and it will eventually catch up with them.
So that leaves us with this high-tech version of claim jumping. If somehow some criminals managed to slip past the monitors undetected, they'd only have a valid marker to switch out if they had a valid claim they were supposedly processing. If a shipment that was on a known course shows up with a marker for a claim that couldn't have been the point of origin of the shipment, then the switch is detected and the shipment can be retraced to the original owner.
So, now the evil prospector has to spot the shipment, approach undetected, swap markers, then reroute the shipment into a new vector. This process of rerouting also has to be done so sneakily that nobody detects them doing it. That means slowly with very little energy output, which might take more time than actually mining an asteroid. It might also mean leaving something behind to mimic the hijacked shipment and distract the monitors from the sneaky rerouting.
But that still leaves the problem of the registered shipment that doesn't arrive. A spoofing transponder and a cargo net with a thin shell to resemble the missing load shows up instead. Now everybody is on the alert. The thieves would have to have previously claimed to send a shipment on that new vector, otherwise, again, it would be obvious that a shipment appeared from nowhere.
So, now the mine shipment thief has to have a mining claim, register ghost shipments, find real shipments that can be rerouted into the ghost shipments, do said rerouting, all without being detected. And provide the spoof shipment to keep people off the scent for as long as possible.
Oops. The registered claim that actually sent the shipment would include claim data, and the mineral content would be known within a certain distribution range. If the pirated shipment shows up with a mineral distribution that falls in line with the hijacked shipment, the thieves are once again exposed.
So, now the pirates have to know the mineral distribution of the shipment they want to hijack, and perhaps bring along a partial shipment of certain minerals to mix into the hijacked shipment, so that it now matches the swapped claim tags. Which means they'll have to do some mining on their own claim to get the minerals...
Dang, this piracy scheme keeps getting more complicated, time consuming, and just plain hard work. Maybe just mining the claim they've got is easier.
That's a pretty big thumb on that scale.
I refer you to adventure 3 in "Alien Realms"; "Prosperity for the Taking", just take the money and run. But, you need to have fuel and food / Life support enough to jump out of the border, and find a suitable indy-world that's on the outs with the 3I to dump your load and cash in on someone else's haul.
In plainer language, just run for the border, and don't come back for a year or so, and when you do, come back as a passenger on some ship or in another ship altogether.
In plainer language, just run for the border, and don't come back for a year or so, and when you do, come back as a passenger on some ship or in another ship altogether.
As per forum policy, the following links are to videos from Nottingham University regarding precious metals. I post these here to give a 20th and 21st century perspective on precious metals, so that Referees and Players may begin to incorporate these concepts into their gaming sessions;
Nottingham University video on Iridium
Nottingham University video on Gold
Nottingham University video on Platinum
Nottingham University video on Iridium
Nottingham University video on Gold
Nottingham University video on Platinum
Timerover51
SOC-14 5K
That is an interesting one on gold. When you consider that all the gold ever mined would only comprise a cube of about 20 meters a side, that gives some idea as to how rare gold is. That would be one very, very heavy cube.
Oh, a whole lotta places.
First, to quote Douglas Adams, "Space is big. You just won't believe how vastly, hugely, mind-bogglingly big it is. ..." Again, I've only got the local belt as an example, they could be closer in and denser - or they could be much farther out and not as dense. If the decent-size bodies are up to a couple light-seconds apart, and the belt could be up to 8 or 9 AUs in diameter, you could be dealing with anything from several light-seconds to a light minute or more between the mine and your target processor. Either they're posting the smelters close enough to keep everything controllable - which means the smelters cover a smaller area, which means more smelters and more expense, or they're investing in that monitoring you're talking about, which isn't really useful unless something's close enough to react to what's detected or someone does a nab-and-jump, so more boats. Post boats along the route, or send boats along with the ore as escort - frankly it'd cost about the same to load it onto something that can get it there under thrust, and it'd get there faster so you could use the boat for other shipments - you're spending maybe Cr60,000 or more per boat per month for something cheap.
Whether it's more boats or more smelters, overhead builds up quick, cuts into profits pretty deep. Areas with rich enough concentrations might be worth it, but other areas aren't going to be worth that kind of vigilance. Either the ore is flying unguarded or the mining crews are loading it up and flying it back themselves 'cause it's cheaper to fly for a few hours and then get back to work than to cut their profit margin with all that extra overhead. So, a lot of places aren't going to be using the ore-pushing idea because the expense of keeping it secure isn't going to be justified by the mineral value being pulled out of that chunk of belt real estate.
Second, putting aside the relative uselessness of the actual x-boat network for important communications, that image of sending the message out and everybody jumping to enforce the law is something that might happen in Core sector, but out here in the Marches there is just too much frontier for that to work. Lotsa D and E ports, lotsa struggling low pop worlds without the resources to respond to such a call - and a lot of those more likely to take the inbound criminal's money, strip the cargo of any identifying elements, and then process it down and blend it in with their own output before anybody can show up to ask questions. About 30% of Marches worlds are D/E ports.
And then there's all that open space: entire star systems with nothing more than a few thousand or tens of thousands of people on one world and absolutely no one in the remaining quintillions of square kilometers, where an organized crime syndicate could stick a mobile processing operation in some distant corner and not be found if half the Imperial Navy showed up to look for you. Roughly a third of the Marches systems are under 100,000 population, about a fifth under 10,000 population.
The frontier is frontier.
But, let's look at that communication network. You're either getting the news out to the x-boat network, and then waiting for news to travel out from the various network links, which by that time the ore's been processed down someplace and is gone, or you're building an effective network that gets news out to all the places the thief could go within a day of the thief getting there, which means enough ships in your system to reach every system within about jump 3 - and then some extra because the easy crime syndicate solution to that is to stage a theft, have the first ship abandon the cargo in some other system and flee immediately, and plan a second theft after all those ships launched to spread word. Again, starts getting expensive unless the Imperial government's doing it at their own expense. Of course, at that point the Imperium might be spending more than the system's actually producing.
You could set up a civilized sector that could do all those things, but it wouldn't look much like the Marches. Wouldn't look like a lot of the frontier sectors that players tend to play in.
But, in the end, that's what Marshals, Pinkertons, and Bounty Hunters are for.
If you're doing enough to upset the "railroad", then while hiding out is easy, "going in to town" gets more and more difficult.
mike wightman
SOC-14 10K
So a group of ner do wells purloins some ore shipments from a frontier system.
A group of ex-service personnel get wind of this and think they can make some stake money by recovering the shipment - or are directed to do so by a patron.
What tosh, what on earth do you want to suggest opportunities for adventure and a possible campaign arc for...
I love it, in fact I may make it the next Bloodwell adventure.
A group of ex-service personnel get wind of this and think they can make some stake money by recovering the shipment - or are directed to do so by a patron.
What tosh, what on earth do you want to suggest opportunities for adventure and a possible campaign arc for...
I love it, in fact I may make it the next Bloodwell adventure.
Straybow
SOC-14 1K
If you don't have the money for an on-site processor you send your ore to a central processor in the system. Many of the belters with claims in the system would have a share in ownership. It takes years to mine out an asteroid, so who cares if it takes a year or more for the ore to get to the processor on a slow transfer orbit. The belter gets a deposit up front and the balance after final sale. A share-owning belter gets continuing income from the processor, which probably returns the original investment after a couple decades.
The ore value per ton is too low to be worth carrying on a jump ship, probably less than Cr100. You monitor the ore shipments to keep everyone on the level. The processor/storage site is guarded, while the ships that buy the metal have to be or provide their own protection. Most of the metal is sold under contract, which means the buyers send their ships around on a schedule based on the ores in the pipeline. Spec traders can only buy whatever amount isn't under contract.
The rest of your arguments are based on the OTU setting, which may be valid for that setting. I see no evidence that economics on this scale were high on the priority list when the OTU was developed. That's why piracy is a question we answer in our IMTU code. Ship traffic isn't invisible, so while the occasional visit might go unnoticed, any traffic patterns will eventually get noticed. That's why I say IMTU pi (it may exist where government and corporate corruption allow it).
It's a trope in many far future sci-fi novels that gold is easily reproducible using nanotech.
Shalom,
M.
Shalom,
M.
Timerover51
SOC-14 5K
How does nanotech assist is matter conversion?
Second, in T5.0.9., Marc specifically says that Gold can be used for money purposes. That also is spelled out in Research Station Gamma, also written by Marc.
As you saying that Marc is wrong with respect to gold?
mike wightman
SOC-14 10K
It is scientific iliteracy on tha part of authors
Nanotech at best is atomic manipulation. Transmutaion of elements requires nuclear manipuleation and is more correctly termed femtotech for nuclear scale or even attotech if you want to work with quarks.
Manufacturing gold with Traveller damper technology and cheap fusion power is another thing to not talk about
Nanotech at best is atomic manipulation. Transmutaion of elements requires nuclear manipuleation and is more correctly termed femtotech for nuclear scale or even attotech if you want to work with quarks.
Manufacturing gold with Traveller damper technology and cheap fusion power is another thing to not talk about
Enoki
SOC-14 1K
Agreed. To change one element to another you need to use fission or fusion, or possibly radioactive decay. That's the only way to do it.
I would add that asteroids have a different percentage of elements than are found on Earth, so there is a distinct possibility that there could be planets with an abundance of gold or another element that is scarce on Earth.
I would add that asteroids have a different percentage of elements than are found on Earth, so there is a distinct possibility that there could be planets with an abundance of gold or another element that is scarce on Earth.
Not the point. The point is the farther it has to fly, the more vulnerable it is to grabbing. The slung-ore trope works in universes where you don't have something equivalent to jump. Larry Niven's universe, you have to get outside of Sol's gravitational influence, which extends far enough out that no one can snatch something up in the belt and then jump to FTL to make an immediate getaway. In Traveller, jumping from the belt is distinctly part of the game milieu for bodies outside of the local star's 100-diameter limit. And, as I pointed out in the remainder of the post, chasing down someone who's grabbed an ore chunk and jumped is not so simple as you'd like to make it, at least not in the frontier sectors.
I'm sorry, I didn't notice an IMTU disclaimer with respect to that issue. The example I mentioned was bringing in 20 dTons/270 cubic meters or 800 metric tons of rock to recover 20 kilograms of gold, which would have netted about Cr141,000, certainly rich enough at Cr7000/dTon to warrant a grab if the ore were propelled through a light-minute of open space to a distant processor. But, yeah, if the miners are mining claims so lean that they're generating less than Cr100 per dTon, or even less than Cr1000/dTon, there's not much incentive to nab the ore shipments.
You're right: a lot depends on starting assumptions. The GURPS universe, for example, has some trade routes on which huge freighters that carry hundreds of thousands or even millions of dTons of cargo PER WEEK, and yet even that universe has interstellar trade as only a fraction of one percent of the overall sector economy. There's not enough money there to pay for the kind of law enforcement you envision. But, it would be very easy - very very easy - to imagine that trade percentage increasing by a factor of 10, 20, 30 or more to levels that would support, would probably demand, that kind of enforcement activity. The more income is generated from trade, the more money there is to protect that trade, and the more aggressively they will work to protect that trade. If your TU is one where a respectable percentage of the sector economy comes from interstellar trade, your sector government likely has the money to protect things reasonably well.
kilemall
SOC-14 5K
It is scientific iliteracy on tha part of authors
Nanotech at best is atomic manipulation. Transmutaion of elements requires nuclear manipuleation and is more correctly termed femtotech for nuclear scale or even attotech if you want to work with quarks.
Manufacturing gold with Traveller damper technology and cheap fusion power is another thing to not talk about
With nuclear damper tech, can do.
Although it occurs to me that perhaps ND tech manipulation leaves telltale 'marks' on the molecules, and there may be differing grades of 'natural' vs. artificial gold.
Enoki
SOC-14 1K
As for asteroid mining, I see this as being mostly done on a massive scale by large corporations that systematically mine the belt for the most valuable ores and materials.
In my version, smaller asteroids are mined using robotic machinery based on standard cargo containers that are designed to be self-propelled to a limited extent and mostly are an empty box to fill with ore. A small fleet of ships (something like the subsidized merchant) continuously move these containers to and from the field while a mobile non-jump processor (tens of thousands to hundreds of thousands of tons) follows them. The refined product then ships on merchant ships out of the system or to factories and other facilities in the system.
Larger asteroids, to small planetoids are mined by machinery operated from a station on it and the ore is only coarsely refined before shipping to the processor. The equipment and station are mobile so once the asteroid is mined out the operation picks up and moves to the next.
Small ships accompany this fleet to provide security and also do surveying and marking of each asteroid as to it's viability to be mined.
It might be possible that asteroids deemed worthless are set with explosives or cheap propulsion devices to fire them clear of the field and into a trajectory that will eventually end up in deep space simply to make maneuvering safer.
The individual prospector in a "Seeker" as in Scouts and Gunboats is run out of systems where such operations are going on. They have to operate in ones that aren't being mined by some megacorporation.
When the system is played out and the mining ends, the whole operation is shipped to another system. Much of the ships, machinery, and other equipment that is deemed too expensive to move is simply abandoned in place. This gives those willing to try and salvage it an opportunity to go behind the mining companies and get themselves a thoroughly worn out ship or whatever for nothing. Makes for a good game scenario. Can you fix up and operate an ex-mining vessel that is 50 years old and been abused for decades into a viable merchant ship?
In my version, smaller asteroids are mined using robotic machinery based on standard cargo containers that are designed to be self-propelled to a limited extent and mostly are an empty box to fill with ore. A small fleet of ships (something like the subsidized merchant) continuously move these containers to and from the field while a mobile non-jump processor (tens of thousands to hundreds of thousands of tons) follows them. The refined product then ships on merchant ships out of the system or to factories and other facilities in the system.
Larger asteroids, to small planetoids are mined by machinery operated from a station on it and the ore is only coarsely refined before shipping to the processor. The equipment and station are mobile so once the asteroid is mined out the operation picks up and moves to the next.
Small ships accompany this fleet to provide security and also do surveying and marking of each asteroid as to it's viability to be mined.
It might be possible that asteroids deemed worthless are set with explosives or cheap propulsion devices to fire them clear of the field and into a trajectory that will eventually end up in deep space simply to make maneuvering safer.
The individual prospector in a "Seeker" as in Scouts and Gunboats is run out of systems where such operations are going on. They have to operate in ones that aren't being mined by some megacorporation.
When the system is played out and the mining ends, the whole operation is shipped to another system. Much of the ships, machinery, and other equipment that is deemed too expensive to move is simply abandoned in place. This gives those willing to try and salvage it an opportunity to go behind the mining companies and get themselves a thoroughly worn out ship or whatever for nothing. Makes for a good game scenario. Can you fix up and operate an ex-mining vessel that is 50 years old and been abused for decades into a viable merchant ship?
That would be an impressive feat of patrolling.
1200 light seconds from the inner edge to the outer edge, over 10,000 light seconds in circumference at the midpoint, on the order of a million large bodies spread a couple light-seconds apart to monitor, millions of smaller bodies. Short of a patrol fleet in the tens of thousands, and the costs associated with purchasing and maintaining all those patrol craft, I don't see them keeping out anyone who chose to pop in and prospect some rock away from the main focus of their activities. Of course that's our local example, but even a belt closer in would cover a whole lotta space.
I can see the megacorp bribing the local government not to let their local industry accept business from anyone but the megacorp, but I can't see them keeping a prospector from doing a bit of mining and then jump-1-ing to some other spot to get the ore processed. The ore would need to be rich enough to cover their costs, better than about Cr150 per metric ton, I think, but it's doable.
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