Date: Sun, 9 Oct 94 23:22:09 -0500 From: bonn0015@gold.tc.umn.edu (Steve Bonneville) Weird...I had this all set to go, and then when I read my back messages, saw that the economic discussion had started again.... When I saw the colony rules in the new _World Tamer's Handbook_, I wanted to see how far I could stretch them to get some interesting results. This is my first experiment: using the population totals published by DGP, I've used the rules to model the economy of the Third Imperium. The suprising thing was, it seemed to work out pretty well. Judge for yourself! TCr 1 == one teracredit (one trillion credits) == one million MCr == Cr 1,000,000,000,000. ------------------- The Third Imperium: TOTAL POPULATION: 15.77 trillion Agriculture: 1.52 trillion 9.6 % Resources: 2.06 trillion 13.1 % Industry: 11.56 trillion 73.3 % Military: 0.63 trillion 4.0 % Annual Industrial Product: TCr 538000 (Does not include value of raw materials or rations.) Resource use: 20.3 quadrillion tonnes yearly 14.2 quadrillion cubic meters yearly 1.01 quadrillion displacement-tons yearly Power use: 34000 terawatts (not including vehicles) Capital Value: TCr 694000 (Ag/Ind/Power/Resources only) Housing Value: TCr 474000 (300 cubic meters per person) Depreciation: TCr 44900 paid annually (Ind/Power/Housing only) Cultivation: 1.52 trillion square kilometers 152 trillion hectares 376 trillion acres Military Bases: value: TCr 8820 depreciation: TCr 423 yearly Infrastructure: -not computed, see below- INDUSTRIAL composition: 5.710 trillion heavy industry 49.4 % 5.710 trillion construction 49.4 % 0.135 trillion light industry 1.2 % (Changes in these figures can affect resource needs, capital value, annual industrial product, and anything dependent on them. This is where the Imperial free market reigns. The above proportions were chosen as rough compromise figures. See below.) MILITARY composition: 472.8 billion civilian dependents and auxiliaries 2.52 billion wet navy 1.6 % 9.46 billion near-space forces 6.0 % 0.126 billion navy 0.08 % 145.5 billion ground forces 92.3 % Space units: 42000 major, 126000 minor Ground units: 7.3 million divisions COAC units: 47.3 million batteries/aircraft Wet Navy units: 840000 major, 2520000 minor *** ASSUMPTIONS, OMISSIONS, AND DISCUSSION *** For this analysis, I treated the Third Imperium as if it were, on average, TL12. (In MegaTraveller, "Avg Stellar".) I think this is a more accurate reflection of the Imperium than assuming TL15, since so many HiPop worlds are not TL15. There are no net imports/exports of rations or raw materials. SN == 2.5 (arbitrary). Six-month growing seasons were assumed; no modifiers used; half of agricultural production is always idle. SS == 300 cubic meters (arbitrary). SL == Cr 3500 (TL12). All power is considered to come from TL12 fusion plants. No excess labor or excess capital was used for any calculation. Once the population needed to support a TL12 standard of living and the military were removed from the work force, the remainder were assigned to heavy industry/construction and supporting resource production. Transportation infrastructure value was not computed for either civilian transport of goods or military supply. The need for gravitic freighters and 100000 disp-ton bulk haulers is tremendous. As an aside, a merchant fleet of 20 million "Common Imperial Transports" from _Rebellion Sourcebook_ would carry over 200 billion displacement- tons of cargo, be worth TCr 70000, and using WTH cost TCr 3400 every year for maintenance and depreciation. Even scaling this up suggests that most transport and production is in-system. Blaine Tukera and his brothers could easily have been quadrillionares, before the Rebellion! (That's million-billionare!) And then there are the megacorporations that are heavily in banking and lending like Hortalez et Cie, which could be even more intimidating. The troops in the military were divided up according to _Path of Tears_, as if the Imperium were a HiPop world. The force in the space navy was doubled to reflect a greater interstellar focus and account for the IISS and Planetary Navies. The figures above include *all* Imperial and local forces in the Imperium. Military capital was purchased at TL12, reflecting the majority of local planetary armies; TL15 would increase all values by x1.5. No allowance was made for equipment purchases or the resource needs; somebody else want to try that? Naval equipment value can be estimated. _Rebellion Sourcebook_ agrees well with the above and suggests the following rough calculations: IN + Subsector Reserves == 640 fleets of about 5 squadrons each. Assume each squadron is worth almost TCr 1. Then the aggregate force is worth roughly TCr 3000. They have a total of about 1000 major ships in each of about 22 sectors, so double this to include the IISS and Planetary Navies, and we get about TCr 6000 total value. Roughly TCr 300 must be paid yearly on depreciation and repairs, according to _World Tamer's Handbook_. Supply adds more costs. Each HiPop world's share of the navies would be about TCr 5. This is actually quite close to the figures in _Trillion Credit Squadron_! This estimate needs more testing. Supply ships are not included -- they are covered in the military infrastructure computation which I didn't try to do. Each HiPop world's share of the ground force is about 6500 divisions. The ag info should be taken with a grain of salt. I tested the ag model on the Earth at TL8 to find a carrying capacity at nutrition of 1.0 assuming all land hexes were of richness 1.0 and could be 100% farmed -- an unrealistically high assumption. I could only feed 2.6 billion people with *all* land hexes in farm production. (Six-month growing season; no other environmental effects included.) This has to be off by at least a factor of four, more likely a factor of ten or more; does anyone know what the current estimates for human carrying capacity on Earth are? Or other relevant information? This appears to be a major bug in the colony econ rules. Also, under the rules, using ag products as resources is a losing proposition at almost all tech levels, so I didn't do it. TL12 ag production also uses more raw materials than TL8 ag production, even after land and yield are taken into account, which may or may not be plausible. There should be a provision for a recycling program, though. In 1100 years, assuming population is steady and tech level stays at 12, the Imperium uses up enough raw materials to fill the entire volume of the Moon. (UWP size-2 world.) According to WTH, it gets *worse* at higher tech levels. I wonder where all that raw material is going? Finally, lets bring TNE into this. The Regency has a total population of somewhere around 900 billion to 1 trillion. So if you divide the calculations for the Third Imperium by 16, you should have a rough estimate of the economy of the Regency.