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Gazetteer Topics
Re: Venusian Terraforming Redux
#70
I have an answer to the Trade Issue (though I'll admit that Kestrel stole a whole lot of my thunder. You'll see.)
So... Economically speaking, making money isn't just a matter of doing something that's worth money. It's a matter of doing it in aome way that's *better than anyone else*. (Worst-case scenario, you do it by paying your workers a pittance, and trying to make it on price.) Now, there are basically three things (that I can think of) that you can do to make money from a stable location without taking it by force. (ie, leaving out Information Gathering and Trade - neither of which Venus is well-equipped to exploit on a significant scale, and theft/conquest - which they'd be opposed to.)
- You can gather raw materials. This requires that you have a location rich in said raw materials. Being relatively close to potential buyers, having the proper gear for raw material extraction, and having reasonably well-trained workers also help.
- You can manufacture raw materials into something useful. This requires that you have the infrastructure and trained (or trainable) workforce to do the manufacturing. Being relatively close to both potential buyers and resource providers also help.
- You can do tourism. This requires that you have something that people want to see or experience. It helps if you are close.
- You can do some sort of information/human interaction work. This requires highly skilled workers, some critical bits of (generally quite portable) infrastructure, and adequate lines of communication with your customers/clients (where "adequate" varies dramatically depending on particulars and may or may not have anything to do with physical location).
Running through this list from the bottom up, the Venusians start out looking pretty hosed. The Senshi wont generally be particularly tech-savvy as Fen go. They might be able to tellecommute as customer service for a little while, but that's a really *good* way to utterly crush the soul of your growing nation, and they'd realize that pretty quick. Information work is out. Tourism is going to pretty much be a Dane thing, and Venus is pretty far out of the way for most Danes. The ones who *do* decide to come visit will probably be doing it mostly for the *cough* scenery *cough*. Again, taking this one too far gets to be rather on the soul-destroying side. They don't have any infrastructure to start with, or much in the way of starter capital to get any, and the average level of manufacturing skill among the group is also pretty low, so no real advantages there.
That pretty much leaves raw materials. So... let's ignore Thionite for the moment (since no one knows abotu it, it's got waaay too many political complications to be worthwhile and the Senshi would would be violently opposed to the idea anyway). What else do they have. Well, they've got heat. It's not directed enough to tap for energy, but it might be useful in some low-level industrual processes. They've got pressure. Again, it's pressure as in atmospheric. Again, not so much on the power-generation, but might be useful industrially. Finally, if they put a bit of effort in to reshuffle some bonds, they've got a whole lot of oxygen, and a whole lot of carbon. Why not sell diamonds?
Now, the market for diamonds as gemstones is limited by purity. You could probably put the savage hurting on DeBeers pretty quickly, but most of the diamond that comes out of your production lines won't be high enough quality to go that way. The market for industrial diamonds would saturate pretty rapidly, even once you drop the price down past "everyone who can afford one right now" to "everyone who might want one." (You know that Sears is going to love the idea of selling diamond saws at reasonable prices in its "power tools" section.) Still, that's okay. Once we take Kestrel's idea (which seems obvious on the face of it, now that it's been mentioned) the senshi are going to have a number of cities on the surface (what's the gravity down there, anyway?) that are pumping *tons* of tappable waste heat out of their heat sinks, and will have at least a few general-purpose handwaved device-types for creating extreme pressure gradients. setting up a diamond factory won't even be *hard* - and that means you can go even *bigger*. What do you think the market for diamond knives will look like? You think there's anyone out there with a whole lot of money to burn who might like the idea of a diamond staff? What about a diamond cutting board?
Mind you, you *do* have to be careful to keep things in balance. If you pull too much carbon out of the atmosphere without doing anything about the heat and pressure, your diamond domes *will* burst into flame. For the moment, you can take care of it by making sure that the domes are multi-layered, and that the bits with the heat and the bits with the oxy atmosphere aren't ever the same bits, but it's definately something to be careful about.
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Messages In This Thread
Gazetteer Topics - by Bob Schroeck - 12-21-2006, 04:40 AM
Re: Gazetteer Topics - by Valles - 12-21-2006, 05:31 AM
Re: Gazetteer Topics - by Evil Midnight Lurker - 12-21-2006, 12:48 PM
Re: Gazetteer Topics - by Feinan - 12-21-2006, 01:14 PM
Timeline Follies - by M Fnord - 12-21-2006, 11:56 PM
Re: Timeline Follies - by Rieverre - 12-22-2006, 12:14 AM
Re: Timeline Follies - by M Fnord - 12-22-2006, 12:19 AM
Re: Timeline Follies - by drakensis - 12-22-2006, 01:30 AM
Re: Timeline Follies - by M Fnord - 12-22-2006, 02:15 AM
Re: Timeline Follies - by Valles - 12-22-2006, 02:51 AM
Re: Timeline Follies - by M Fnord - 12-22-2006, 03:04 AM
Re: Timeline Follies - by Bob Schroeck - 12-22-2006, 03:37 AM
Re: Timeline Follies - by CattyNebulart - 12-22-2006, 03:45 AM
Re: Timeline Follies - by robkelk - 12-22-2006, 04:05 AM
Re: Timeline Follies - by M Fnord - 12-22-2006, 04:41 AM
Re: Timeline Follies - by CattyNebulart - 12-22-2006, 06:29 AM
Re: Timeline Follies - by M Fnord - 12-22-2006, 06:41 AM
Re: Timeline Follies - by drakensis - 12-22-2006, 11:53 AM
Re: Timeline Follies - by robkelk - 12-22-2006, 05:28 PM
Re: Timeline Follies - by ECSNorway - 12-22-2006, 07:24 PM
Re: Timeline Follies - by M Fnord - 12-22-2006, 07:55 PM
Re: Timeline Follies - by CattyNebulart - 12-22-2006, 09:07 PM
Re: Timeline Follies - by M Fnord - 12-23-2006, 12:33 AM
Re: Timeline Follies - by ECSNorway - 12-23-2006, 01:49 AM
Re: Timeline Follies - by M Fnord - 12-23-2006, 01:53 AM
Re: Timeline Follies - by Rieverre - 12-23-2006, 02:05 AM
Re: Timeline Follies - by M Fnord - 12-23-2006, 02:09 AM
Re: Timeline Follies - by ECSNorway - 12-23-2006, 02:48 AM
Re: Timeline Follies - by ECSNorway - 12-23-2006, 03:09 AM
Re: Timeline Follies - by M Fnord - 12-23-2006, 03:14 AM
Venusian plants... - by Feinan - 12-23-2006, 03:36 AM
Re: Venusian plants... - by M Fnord - 12-23-2006, 03:49 AM
Re: Venusian plants... - by Feinan - 12-23-2006, 05:22 AM
Venusian Castle (draft) - by Valles - 12-23-2006, 05:24 AM
Re: Timeline Follies - by drakensis - 12-23-2006, 10:13 AM
Re: Timeline Follies - by Anpwhotep - 12-23-2006, 01:58 PM
Re: Venusian plants... - by Norgarth - 12-23-2006, 07:21 PM
Re: Timeline Follies - by M Fnord - 12-23-2006, 07:33 PM
Re: Timeline Follies - by Anpwhotep - 12-24-2006, 04:55 AM
Re: Timeline Follies - by M Fnord - 12-24-2006, 05:16 AM
Re: Timeline Follies - by ECSNorway - 12-24-2006, 06:17 AM
question about communications - by Norgarth - 12-24-2006, 06:45 AM
Re: question about communications - by M Fnord - 12-24-2006, 06:55 AM
Re: Timeline Follies - by drakensis - 12-24-2006, 02:07 PM
Re: Timeline Follies - by Rieverre - 12-24-2006, 03:33 PM
Re: Timeline Follies - by ECSNorway - 12-24-2006, 08:56 PM
Re: Timeline Follies - by Norgarth - 12-24-2006, 11:10 PM
Re: Timeline Follies - by Anpwhotep - 12-26-2006, 05:46 PM
Re: Timeline Follies - by Rieverre - 12-26-2006, 05:49 PM
Re: Timeline Follies - by Anpwhotep - 12-26-2006, 05:53 PM
Re: Timeline Follies - by KJ - 12-28-2006, 01:23 AM
Venusian Terraforming Redux - by M Fnord - 12-28-2006, 04:57 AM
Re: Venusian Terraforming Redux - by Valles - 12-28-2006, 05:59 AM
Re: Venusian Terraforming Redux - by M Fnord - 12-28-2006, 06:23 AM
Re: Venusian Terraforming Redux - by Valles - 12-28-2006, 08:44 AM
Re: Venusian Terraforming Redux - by CattyNebulart - 12-28-2006, 09:46 AM
Re: Venusian Terraforming Redux - by Sirrocco - 12-28-2006, 09:46 AM
Re: Venusian Terraforming Redux - by Valles - 12-28-2006, 10:55 AM
Re: Venusian Terraforming Redux - by M Fnord - 12-28-2006, 05:13 PM
Re: Venusian Terraforming Redux - by Valles - 12-28-2006, 07:50 PM
Re: Venusian Terraforming Redux - by M Fnord - 12-28-2006, 08:13 PM
Re: Venusian Terraforming Redux - by Bob Schroeck - 12-28-2006, 09:47 PM
Re: Venusian Terraforming Redux - by M Fnord - 12-28-2006, 10:15 PM
Re: Venusian Terraforming Redux - by ECSNorway - 12-29-2006, 12:13 AM
Re: Venusian Terraforming Redux - by M Fnord - 12-29-2006, 12:27 AM
Re: Venusian Terraforming Redux - by Sirrocco - 12-29-2006, 04:13 AM
Venus Earth forming - by hmelton - 12-29-2006, 09:24 AM
Re: Venusian Terraforming Redux - by Valles - 12-29-2006, 10:01 AM
Re: Venusian Terraforming Redux - by kestrel404 - 12-29-2006, 07:24 PM
Re: Venusian Terraforming Redux - by Sirrocco - 12-29-2006, 11:37 PM
Re: Venusian Terraforming Redux - by drakensis - 12-30-2006, 12:01 AM
Re: Venusian Terraforming Redux - by Valles - 12-30-2006, 01:05 AM
Re: Venusian Terraforming Redux - by M Fnord - 12-30-2006, 01:14 AM
Re: Venusian Terraforming Redux - by Valles - 12-30-2006, 01:29 AM
Re: Venusian Terraforming Redux - by M Fnord - 12-30-2006, 01:47 AM
Re: Venusian Terraforming Redux - by Sirrocco - 12-30-2006, 05:53 AM
Re: Venusian Terraforming Redux - by Duane Peters - 12-31-2006, 09:54 AM
Re: Venusian Terraforming Redux - by drakensis - 12-31-2006, 11:22 AM

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