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Old 11-12-2004, 02:01 AM   #8
Kyle Aaron
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Join Date: Sep 2004
Location: Melbourne, Australia
Default Re: Infninte Economy

Quote:
Originally Posted by WineShark
The source book stipulates that the cost of transporting goods via conveyor is relatively low - comparable to sending it via other mass transport - and that materials are indeed brought from other worlds.
It also states that the cost of getting one is very high. Running it is cheap; getting it is expensive. That's why I drew the parallel with modern container ships. They're expensive to buy, but cheap to run (all relative, of course).

Campaigns gives the price of $10 million for a conveyer or 1 ton capacity, plus another $10 million per ton. A projector's ten times as much.

A conveyer transporting oil, which costs $50 a barrel, can transport about 8 barrels a trip. That's $400 a trip. It's stated that it takes about 30 minutes to recharge after a trip. So, you can only do 48 trips - 24 round trips - a day.

24 trips at $400 worth of oil a trip is $9,600 in oil sales a day. So it'll take 1,041 days to pay off the conveyer.

Of course, someone has to load the thing, and it requires maintenance, too, which it seems likely Infinity will charge a bit for ("licenced technicians only"), and of course you have to build and man and equip the oil drill over the other side, too. At a rough guess, you're looking at ten years before you pay back your initial investment. Most modern companies look at two years to pay back capital investment.

And that's just for the subquantum conveyer. Let's not even think about the quantum ($20M + $150M per ton) or two-quantum ($30M plus $300M per ton) conveyers...

So, either corporations start thinking differently, or the conveyers won't be used to transport bulk goods like oil.

(This reminds me of the calculations I made for the replicators in THS - conclusion - people will still be making bricks in kilns.)

Quote:
Diamonds won't stay sky high due to DeBeers owning 98% of the world's mines. Alternatives would wreck the monopoly. Nations that have large trades in "precious" materials would find them less valuable fairly quickly. (The idea of protecting these monopolies will be an interesting plot too...)
Indeed. Who's got $100 million for a large conveyer or small projector? Not your small prospector, that's for sure. DeBeers has the money. They'll be onto this real quick...

Quote:
[regarding bringing in a Fleming in 1890 with penicillin]
Sure. But for THAT parallel's future, not Homeline’s. Remember this is not a traditional "Time Travel" campaign. Changing the effects on another world don't affect ours - they may just move it around the time stream and quantum levels some, but not change our present.
Ah, not exactly.

Firstly, people will be motivated to move a Fleming around, or pass on the information he has, for profit. It's not going to change our world, but it'll change theirs, and they'll pay good for that. Imagine a 1935 echo of Earth, with Hitler and Stalin and Mussolini plotting away... you reckon they'd pay $10 million for nuclear weapon plant plans? Ten minutes of searching on the internet in our 2004 would be worth ten million bucks in their 1935. That could pay off that conveyer...

Secondly, it's specifically stated that interfering in echoes might change our world. And certainly the echoes can be moved to new quanta. Suppose some low-tech world is being exploited for its resources and people - they might pay to be moved. Or the Reich-5 lot might get subtle like the Centrans, and decide to move worlds closer to their own.

Oil, etc - they seem to me at once the least likely, and the least interesting parts of the possibilities...



Only certain wealthy nations and companies will be able to afford the tech for world-spanning work, but they can gain immense wealth with it. I would imagine it would further stratify some existing relationships...I'm trying to figure out which ones.

The issue of population movement will be interesting indeed, but only on some worlds. Uninhabited and colony worlds are sure to have some transfer. But many of the populated worlds are going to be off limits to a bunch of Homeliners going and setting up shop. If for no other reason than to protect The Secret.



Actually, (according to Time Travel and 4e) other more advanced tech societies have been found - but none have discovered or are able to use parachronic travel. No future parallels have been found; Homeline has the highest Absolute Date. This means that penetrating and learning these new techs is high priority and a very interesting possibility for growth. The key is to keep a low profile doing it.[/QUOTE]
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