Quote:
Originally Posted by Anthony
Neither one? THS doesn't go into detail that I know of, but it probably requires fairly extensive infrastructure to produce those materials -- but they're also legal bulk commodities, so not hard to buy in most places.
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This seems inconsistent with the descriptions of how space colonies and space trade (for lack of a better term) work. Nanotubes are never mentioned as an important trade good in the deep beyond, for example.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Flyndaran
I'd guess at default that they're as easy to acquire as bread. While possible to make from scratch using one's own field of wheat, it's almost always more hassle that it's worth.
Out of the way colonies just get occasional shipments and ration what they have rather than going 100% never need contact with any other industrial scale group ever again.
That's certainly adjustable for setting preferences.
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I like this interpretation. It's AFAICT consistent with everything else in the setting, but is a bit more plausible than assuming nanotubes and such are
easy to make.