Asteroid Belt Settings

[AlexanderHowl]

I was wondering if anyone was using an asteroid belt as a setting in their game? If so, are you using a sparsely populated belt like in THS (where there are less than 100,000 biosapients) or are you using a densely populated belt like the Expanse (where there are around 100 million biosapients)? How do you deal with the post-scarcity economics of asteroid mining, where a medium sized asteroid could supply the metal demands of human civilization for thousands of years? Do you use baseline humans, modified humans, biological nonhumans, and/or digital nonhumans?

[Stormcrow]

I've run adventures in the asteroid belt for Tales of the Solar Patrol.

Over a million people live in the Belt. Roughly 100,000 of them dwell in Ceres City, a sprawling above- and underground complex that has grown up in a haphazard fashion around and between the four huge Ceres Station complexes. Ten thousand or so dwell on each of the other three major asteroids, about a thousand each on the next hundred largest asteroids, and the rest are scattered throughout the Belt.

The vast majority of the population is human. There are a few representatives of humanoid species from other planets and moons. The economics of asteroid mining are ignored; it's enough to say "There's metal in them thar rocks!" to put miners on asteroids so there can be adventures involving asteroid miners.

[Flyndaran]

I don't see why post scarcity has to be the thing just, because you have a huge deposit of ore. It's not like any of the gold rushes on Earth caused that.

It will still take tech, time, skill, and effort to get them out, then processed, then moved to the places they're needed.
And I doubt any single asteroid will have all the materials needed for a colony.

So most of the system's platinum group comes from Asteroid Flyndaran? How is that any different than if it came from some bonanza on Earth?


Though it seems really hard to justify actual people doing it all in any realistic setting. Great for retro or hand-waved adventure settings, of course.

A nice compromise, for me, would be to have the entire group as androids.

[AlexanderHowl]

If you have realistic fusion, it becomes economically feasible. In fact, it is so profitable from my economic models that the price of gold and platinum group metals can drop 95%, which I estimate would increase demand 400x because they have increased viable as currency and for industry, and it would still be economically viable (around a 25% profit margin). The resulting system currency would paradoxically resemble a traditional currency, with precious metals like gold and platinum group metals being the currency (and stores of such metals backing the currency of nations).

[whswhs]

Originally Posted by AlexanderHowl

I was wondering if anyone was using an asteroid belt as a setting in their game? If so, are you using a sparsely populated belt like in THS (where there are less than 100,000 biosapients) or are you using a densely populated belt like the Expanse (where there are around 100 million biosapients)? How do you deal with the post-scarcity economics of asteroid mining, where a medium sized asteroid could supply the metal demands of human civilization for thousands of years? Do you use baseline humans, modified humans, biological nonhumans, and/or digital nonhumans?

I don't think it's actually going to be post-scarcity, not only because of terminological concerns about the validity of that phrase, but because of a more factual issue. I suspect that the Jevons effect would come into play: the availabity of asteroid resources would result in enhanced consumption of those resources.

[AlexanderHowl]

I agree, though the Jevons Paradox deals with increased efficiency in a closed system rather than increased availability in an open system, but we are talking about a massive increase in the amount of precious metals. Of course, post-scarcity may be the wrong term, and less scarcity may be more appropriate. For example, the price of gold may drop from $40/gram to $2/gram, allowing 400x as much to be consumed because the price drops to the point where it makes sense to use more of it in consumer electronics.

[whswhs]

Originally Posted by AlexanderHowl

I agree, though the Jevons Paradox deals with increased efficiency in a closed system rather than increased availability in an open system, but we are talking about a massive increase in the amount of precious metals. Of course, post-scarcity may be the wrong term, and less scarcity may be more appropriate. For example, the price of gold may drop from $40/gram to $2/gram, allowing 400x as much to be consumed because the price drops to the point where it makes sense to use more of it in consumer electronics.

As far as the industrial utilization of gold is concerned, I don't disagree. I think the monetary effects may not be as you suppose, though.

* As a minor note, platinum is not necessarily going to affect the monetary situation, as despite its high value, platinum has never been a currency metal.

* "High value" is an important issue for currency metals, though. Gold and silver have historically been favored as currency metals precisely because of their high value, which enables a small mass of metal to exchange for a much larger mass of most other materials, so that the price of most ordinary commodities can be carried about in one's pockets. But that high value is high marginal value: because the metals are scarce, the marginal unit goes to a highly valued use. Increase the quantity of metal, and the marginal unit goes to a much less valued use (or, in extreme cases, becomes negatively valued, and you have to haul the excess away as trash), which makes it less suitable as money.

* By and large, in any case, increasing the quantity of money doesn't add to the wealth of an economy. There are special cases where there is so little money that all forms of indirect exchange are hindered, and people are forced to the less efficient process of barter. But I don't see any indication that precious metals have been scarce enough for that to be a problem for several hundred years. And short of that, if you have more money in circulation, it just takes more money to buy the same commodities or services.

* If anything, there have been cases where an increase in the supply of money was economically disruptive. Consider the impact of overseas sources of precious metal on Spain in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.

I'd also offer another terminological note: Drastically lowering the cost of production for gold or platinum would not necessarily increase the demand. It would increase the quantity demanded (moving to a different, higher point on the demand curve) but I don't see that it would move the entire demand curve upward. Or, at least, if you are saying the latter, I would like to see the reasoning.

[David Johnston2]

Originally Posted by AlexanderHowl

I was wondering if anyone was using an asteroid belt as a setting in their game? If so, are you using a sparsely populated belt like in THS (where there are less than 100,000 biosapients) or are you using a densely populated belt like the Expanse (where there are around 100 million biosapients)? How do you deal with the post-scarcity economics of asteroid mining, where a medium sized asteroid could supply the metal demands of human civilization for thousands of years? Do you use baseline humans, modified humans, biological nonhumans, and/or digital nonhumans?

Every time someone uses the expression "post-scarcity" a fairy dies in a tragic magic wand accident. There are no "post-scarcity economics of asteroid mining". The Earth could supply the metal demands of human civilization for thousands of years. That the metal is there there doesn't mean it doesn't have to be found, extracted, refined, and then shipped to where you actually need it and only then turned into gizmos and thingummies, some of which will be shipped elsewhere. All those things have costs.

It's fair to assume that metals are relatively abundant in an asteroid belt because if they weren't colonizing an asteroid belt would be a completely dumb idea. So metals will be relatively cheap even bearing in mind the aforementioned expenses. But at the same living space, volatiles, and you know...food will be relatively expensive.

[dcarson]

I used the asteroid belt as the finale of my Space 1889 GURPS campaign. An expedition using the improved solar boiler invented and built by the inventor PC and engineer PC, commanded by the navy PC, funded by the newspaper the reporter PC worked for. They discovered that some of the ship losses were from space dwelling giant predators. In the belt itself they discovered intelligent life stolen from this Analog story (http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/pl.cgi?57121). The navy officer was appointer the first ambassador and everyone else got too rich and famous to go adventuring.

[jason taylor]

Originally Posted by Flyndaran

I don't see why post scarcity has to be the thing just, because you have a huge deposit of ore. It's not like any of the gold rushes on Earth caused that.

It will still take tech, time, skill, and effort to get them out, then processed, then moved to the places they're needed.
And I doubt any single asteroid will have all the materials needed for a colony.

So most of the system's platinum group comes from Asteroid Flyndaran? How is that any different than if it came from some bonanza on Earth?


Though it seems really hard to justify actual people doing it all in any realistic setting. Great for retro or hand-waved adventure settings, of course.

A nice compromise, for me, would be to have the entire group as androids.

The group could be mission control for the robots. Problems could arise such as them getting out of communications range, or breaking down and having to be fetched or whatever. Much of the campaign too will be about cruising in the asteroid belt, carrousing and intriguing in port, protecting one's stake, etc.

Then too, maybe prospector drones are so expensive that no one buys them unless they have found something, and as a result, buying a large load signals competitors.