Fenspace Has Something Earth Wants...

[Bob Schroeck]

...or at least the United States -- more oil than the Middle East will ever produce.  And the means to transport it cheaply.
Imagine how that little factoid might affect the attitudes of certain Congresscritters seen in the "Mr. Fnord Goes To Washington" story/thread...
-- Bob
---------
Then the horns kicked in...
...and my shoes began to squeak.

[robkelk]

"Cheaply", yes... but it isn't sold to the 'Danes at anywhere near cost.

How do you think Noah Scott went from being a millionaire to a billionaire in less than a decade? Tourism isn't that lucrative... He justifies it as not undercutting OPEC (and plows most of the profit into the Venus Terraforming Project, another source of hydrocarbons and the major reason the Stellvians and Senshi get along), and in exchange no fatwah is issued against him. Other "tanker barons" behave the same way.
--
Rob Kelk
"Governments have no right to question the loyalty of those who oppose
them. Adversaries remain citizens of the same state, common subjects of
the same sovereign, servants of the same law."

- Michael Ignatieff, addressing Stanford University in 2012

[Bob Schroeck]

...Rob, did I miss/forget existing backstory somewhere, or did you just do a magnificent job of pulling that out of your hat as you wrote it? (Either way I applaud, mind you. Just wondering.)

And by fatwah you mean literally? As in by a Muslim cleric somewhere, as opposed to a figurative one by the US government? Because that may not be a stable situation in the long run. Someone is going nervous about the economic health of the Mideast being utterly dependent upon the good graces of a handful of infidels in space, and will try to do something about it. Since this is Fenspace, after all, such attempts will probably work out to be Arab-flavored Three Stooges sketches, but still...
-- Bob
---------
Then the horns kicked in...
...and my shoes began to squeak.

[Ebony]

...Rob, did I miss/forget existing backstory somewhere, or did you just do a magnificent job of pulling that out of your hat as you wrote it? (Either way I applaud, mind you. Just wondering.)

And by fatwah you mean literally? As in by a Muslim cleric somewhere, as opposed to a figurative one by the US government? Because that may not be a stable situation in the long run. Someone is going nervous about the economic health of the Mideast being utterly dependent upon the good graces of a handful of infidels in space, and will try to do something about it. Since this is Fenspace, after all, such attempts will probably work out to be Arab-flavored Three Stooges sketches, but still...

Given the information network managed by Buckaroo, that's distinctly possible. Anything that hits the Internet or passes near a member of the Global Frequency collective will make it's way back to Buckaroo, who will then share it with the Institute and the Underweb (roughly in that order, although it may happen fast enough to be considered simultaneously for non-AIs). From there, some subtle social engineering would take place, leaving anyone who wanted to do something about the unbelievers who have all the oil being forced to actually talk to the Fen, rather than blow them up. It's difficult to build bombs when the supplies that keep trying to get through your black market contacts keep getting rerouted to the Hague and other locations through "computer error."
Ebony the Black Dragon
http://ebony14.livejournal.com

"Good night, and may the Good Lord take a Viking to you."

[Black Aeronaut]

Interesting idea. Might be a good way to get the US Government to give Green Energy solutions a more serious look. After all, all those hardliners against the Fen don't want their fossil fuels coming from Saturn, of all places.

[Cobalt Greywalker]

Of course, the next problem for the 'Danes is the fact the Fen have not only the technology but the resources for most Green Energy projects sown up already. Fusion power tech from the Fen has already been deployed Down the Well, so I doubt there'll be much public interest in a native version. Plus the fact that the easiest isotopes to use exist in usable quantities only in Fenspace. Solar Power satellites are again a Fen technology at this point (Venus and Mars make extensive use of them). Hydrogen Production can easily fit into the Life Support category of 'Wavetech (fuel and water).

Quite frankly, it's because the Fen aren't dicks (well, mostly) that I see the 'Danelaw governments surviving as well as they are. By about late 2014 I see Fenspace becoming self-sufficient in food (vat growth systems and extremely efficient hydroponics, plus agri-stations), and then all Fenspace needs from is IP and luxury goods. (OK, maybe I'm exaggerating. But Fentech at this point, with the help of the WFC, is more than capable of such things.)

A good public relations blitz by the Fen could have the various 'Danelaw governments being FAR nicer to the Fen, given all they can help solve Down the Well.

OK, rant over. We now return to our regularly scheduled programming.

[robkelk]

...Rob, did I miss/forget existing backstory somewhere, or did you just do a magnificent job of pulling that out of your hat as you wrote it? (Either way I applaud, mind you. Just wondering.)

I have a lovely hat here.

(Yes, it's new.)

By about late 2014 I see Fenspace becoming self-sufficient in food (vat growth systems and extremely efficient hydroponics, plus agri-stations), and then all Fenspace needs from is IP and luxury goods.

And, considering how many Fen are creative types, the IP need from the home planet is significantly reduced.
--
Rob Kelk
"Governments have no right to question the loyalty of those who oppose
them. Adversaries remain citizens of the same state, common subjects of
the same sovereign, servants of the same law."

- Michael Ignatieff, addressing Stanford University in 2012

[Bob Schroeck]

There'll be a quality differential, at least initially, that'll still drive a market for IP from Earth, though. Until things like the Re-Animator and serious professional production houses get going in Fenspace, at least.
-- Bob
---------
Then the horns kicked in...
...and my shoes began to squeak.

[Jinx999]

I've been thinking about this and while Fenspace would have no shortage of raw minerals and inorganic materials and lots of Havwavium ultratech,  and can just about stomach having it be self-sufficient in basic foodstuff (even though importing from Earth, where you don't have to build the agricultural land would be MUCH cheaper), I can't see them being able to produce much in the way of basic hardtech manufactured goods, without nanotech or magic replicators (and you'd need to think long and HARD about the consequences of that - because you'd be dealing with a post-scarcity society). The population and logistics don't support it. Either you have people hand crafting things that are cheaply mass produced by 'dane factories, or you spend a lot of time and effort building massive factories that'll produce more of one particular widget than fenspace would be able to possibly consume.
That's a lot of processed food (Pizza, Coke, Wine, Marshmallows and Pocky, for a few examples off the top of my head), simple tools (penknives, soldering irons), cloth and clothes, clocks, torches, computer discs, electrical cables, matresses, bookshelves, cooking pans, washing up liquid, vacuum cleaners, carpets, agricultural machinary to produce the food Fenspace grows and a whole lot of other stuff that you'll need or want that it would be insanely tiresome to have to produce. Try thinking about the supply chains that go into producing a simple pair of jeans. Did you consider the factory that provides the electronics that control the machine that makes the tyres of the cotton harvester?
I can easily imagine people having things like 3-d printers capable of running off a solid metal object like a frying pan. But what about something with moving parts? What about the non-stick coating on the pan to stop your eggs from burning? - Then think about your buds you're cooking for who don't have biomods . . . yet.

[firvulag]

It really depends on the time frame.  At the moment (sometime in 2015) Fenspace most likely isn't self sufficient, but are working on getting there.  Hermes Universal Deliveries makes a lot of their money hauling goods up from the well[0].  And as for nanotech and magic replicators, well, they exist in some forms, the Juilan Frieze machine for example.  They appear to be somewhat rare though, depending on the author.  Fenspace seems to have a very variable tech level[1].  You've got people who are making do with stuff that's little better than hardtech (although very few of them) and some who are carry around personal force fields and grenades that summon the underwear off of every female within a certain radius.
I think that at the moment we should say Fenspace is rather dependent on Earth, particularly  Australia, for a lot of things, but that they're working on getting away from that.  Organizations such as Hephastus, the VVS and Starfleet, among others are working on getting their own infrastructure set up, when they're not buying chunks of it outright[2].  It will definitely take a fair bit of time though, especially for stuff like electronics.
I do find myself going "they managed to do _what_ in only 7 years?" sometimes though.  In a lot of instances Fenspace works on the principle of that if you promise you won't examine it too closely, we'll try not to be too blatant about it.  The setting itself has blue hair I think.
[0] IIRC their first major cargoes were mostly junk food.
[1]  TL 8^ a la GURPS 4th according to Rob, who would know.  I choose to interpret the ^ as "Very odd in some places, and often rather silly".  And yes Rob, I know it has an actual definition.
[2] *cough* Stellvia *cough* ^_^;;;
--
Documentation: Cryptic, lacking, erroneous. Pick any three.
-- Arvid

[M Fnord]

In a lot of instances Fenspace works on the principle of that if you promise you won't examine it too closely, we'll try not to be too blatant about it.

Pretty much this.

There's a huge glut of Cool Stuff in the world that we want to slide into the setting and play with as we see fit. Some of it's prepackaged media stuff, some of it's stuff we've come up with ourselves. Now, if we were doing a *realistic* world - or something as close to realistic as would fit within the bounds of "nigh-magical substance allows for mass space travel/colonization" - then Fenspace would *at best* consist of people clogging up Earth orbit and cislunar space, with a few (very small) outliers on Mars and maybe the Belt feeding the colony rush. It'd be kind of like Gundam, only with flying cars instead of giant robots.

But that's not the story we really want to tell. We want Grand Swashbuckling Adventures(tm) in the greater solar system & beyond, and we can't really *have* that in 2015 unless we stretch plausibility out to the elastic maximum. So we get crystal cities drifting in the Venusian skies, and the topless towers of Helium, and the great dome of the Bottle City, and herds of goats chewing on terraformed grass while Jupiter hangs in the sky above big and orange, and on and on.

You're absolutely right that this requires infrastructure, tools to build the tools and so on. So where do they come from? Don't examine this too closely, but if you absolutely *must* then we'll say... it's robots. Handwaved assembly lines, like the ones on How It's Made only they don't need human operators. That's as good a dodge as any.
Mr. Fnord interdimensional man of mystery

FenWiki - Your One-Stop Shop for Fenspace Information

"I. Drink. Your. NERDRAGE!"

[Cobalt Greywalker]

The 2015 timeframe is pretty much the cusp of Fenspace becoming capable of what most people would call mass production. Drones have been mostly stable since roughly the end of 2013, and with the Boskone War out of the way people can get down to the nitty-gritty. With drones that can build more drones and the machines to make the parts (raised to the third power) to do so, and you get a very rapid growth in industrial capacity. Tag on chemical refining, and for the most part I'd say Fenspace is verging on being self-sufficient for all necessary tech. And for everything else, the 'Wave can provide as long as you don't mind the quirks [1].

Food is all basic raw vegetables and vat grown meat. Not exactly pre-packaged burgers in a bun I'll admit. And no T-bone stakes unless you adapt a fast cloning machine for cattle.[2] Animals need space, so domes and terraformed grass for the smaller ones.

So yes, Fenspace is still dependant on many things from Down the Well (processed foods being a major example). But I think Fenspace has hit the independent survival level. Survival doesn't mean comfortable after all.

IMO,YMMV,Void when applicable, etc, etc...

Edit before post: And Fnord covers most of it more simply.

[1] A.C. uses this principle to make what she wants, then she reverse engineers the heck out of it to make it easier to reproduce. She then sells the tech and/or designs to other parties. It does mean that the Forge is full of bits of tech that can make other tech in a somewhat rapid fashion.

[2] Since the fast growth process doesn't apply to brains, you can't rapidly get a herd of cows and corner the Fenspace milk market.

[Black Aeronaut]

Funny thought. Some Trekkie managed to make a food replicator. The quirk? Everything tastes like chicken.

[Rod.H]

Funny thought. Some Trekkie managed to make a food replicator. The quirk? Everything tastes like chicken.

Then what does the chicken from it taste like, chocolate?

[Black Aeronaut]

Nope. That's the one thing it doesn't make!

[Jinx999]

Just so long as you consider this. I can imagine Fenspace trying deliberately to be self-suffucient in necessities, because of a fear of being cut off. Some degree of automated magic assembler is quite concievable with handwavium (with all the benefits and disadvantages of that). However there have to be limits and there are a lot of stuff that it would be much easier to get from Earth, unless you have trek replicators for everyone (and then you'd have an almost unrecognisable post-scarcity society).
And tramp traders (and smuglers) are a large part of they mythos.

[Foxboy]

WEll, essentially you have the traditional level of fen crafting visible at a convention: The absolutely AMAZING, "took me forever" bespoke items, and the kludged, "Good enough" ones.

IRon Man in Good enough mode.

Iron Man in ZOMG mode.
''We don't just borrow words; on occasion, English has pursued other languages down alleyways to beat
them unconscious and rifle their pockets for new vocabulary.''

-- James Nicoll

[Black Aeronaut]

Hrm... One of Jessica Ayanami's creations would leave it in the dust - it would look authentic and be comfortable to wear. The quirk? You're always in character when you wear the costume, even when you don't want to be.