Quote:
Originally Posted by Agemegos
That depends on the cost of transport, doesn't it?* If transport is cheap nearly anything will do. Even charming handicrafts. Australia's main exports are essentially dirt (bauxite and haematite) and rocks (coal). All we do to them is quarry and load them. And we don't even have an advantageous exchange rate. Or look at the typical petrostate: they all trade like crazy, and none of them except Norway could really manage TL7 production on its own, while some would struggle to make a steam engine without imported parts.
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To provide a counter example, Afghanistan has plenty of mineral deposits, but no one is eager to develop them because it's land locked and doesn't even have rail roads (and they'd probably get blown up every other day if someone would build any). The typical petrostate on the other hand can cheaply ship their stuff on tankers and buy as many solid gold toilet seats as they want.
Now from reading the description so far it doesn't sound like there are cheap-to-orbit facilities all over the place (are there?). If there are only a few such facilities it would add a lot to the effort they would need to expend for each noble they send of to get a cattle head (I assume this is not super cheap).
So is there cheap interstellar travel in this particular setting? Or is it left open?
Another (rather cliché) way of motivating trade is to give a planet unique unobtainium deposits. Would that mesh with the setting?