Sectors of an Ultra-Tech/Bio-Tech economy

[David Johnston2]

One thing which strikes me is that it is only relatively unpopulous worlds which will really specialize. If you only have a few million inhabitants you can have your world's economy revolve around things like a pharmaceutical business, or farming for the export market but the bigger your domestic base, the more diversified your economy will become.

[whswhs]

Originally Posted by David Johnston2

One thing which strikes me is that it is only relatively unpopulous worlds which will really specialize. If you only have a few million inhabitants you can have your world's economy revolve around things like a pharmaceutical business, or farming for the export market but the bigger your domestic base, the more diversified your economy will become.

Why do you suppose that to be so?

A Neolithic village might have, let's say, a weaver, who specialized in making cloth. But if you asked them to imagine an entire city, with more people than their village, where hundreds of people worked in making cloth and clothing, and many of the rest provided the cloth people with goods and services . . . likely they'd say you couldn't possibly have that sort of setup. Where would all the farmers be, they'd ask, and what about all the other crafts? They simply would not have any experience with any economy with a million times as many people as their village.

But the setting we're talking about seems to have close to a million times more than THAT. Our imaginations, too, may be limited.

Bill Stoddard

[Agemegos]

Originally Posted by David Johnston2

One thing which strikes me is that it is only relatively unpopulous worlds which will really specialize. If you only have a few million inhabitants you can have your world's economy revolve around things like a pharmaceutical business, or farming for the export market but the bigger your domestic base, the more diversified your economy will become.

At any given tech level, the larger a local population is the more diverse its economy can be, up to the point where its diversity encompasses the entire technological set. The typical population of a planet in FLAT BLACK is about one billion, and that is probably enough to encompass the whole diversity of our present technology: or at least with peace, adequate infrastructure, honest government, and light regulatory burdens it would seem to be.

But as tech level increases the diversity of materials, products, and manufacturing operations increases, and it takes more and more population to (a) provide the diversity of economic roles and (b) justify the construction of efficient-scale factories. I suppose that these tendencies will continue as technology progresses.

A typical hunter-gatherer band of perhaps ninety people is enough to produce the entire range of palaeolithic technology. But a typical village of 2,000 people was too few to support specialists the full range of mediaeval trades, and it did not consume enough iron to amortise the cost of a Catalan forge. Nowadays the efficient scale of an automobile factory is 200,000–300,000 cars per year, and the efficient scale of a semiconductor foundry is three to four billion dollars, requiring annual sales of $500 million or more.

You need a bigger population both to produce and to justify a higher-tech economy. At some stage, the necessary scale will be greater than the comfortable population of a planet. At that point (if transport costs permit) there will be industrial specialisation of planets, and interplanetary trade. If transport costs do not permit it will prove economically impossible to implement the technology, and there will be little or no trade.

[Agemegos]

Originally Posted by Fish

So, Brett, do you have enough suggestions from this thread to put together a preliminary first draft of the world as proof-of-concept? At this point, I think it would be helpful to see a list of what you're going to use thus far. From that we'll be able to see which gaps still need to be filled in. Or, if I'm suggesting things along the wrong lines, then at least I'd know what else you're looking for.

Tentatively:

• The Empire is the transport sector, as noted elsewhere. It buys spaceship components, manufactures stardrives, assembles starships in its orbital dockyards, and conducts a monopoly in interstellar transport and communications. This perforce gives it a contingent monopoly over the development of uninhabited systems as real estate. The staggering profits of that enterprise fund its development-assistance programs.
  
• Aeneas specialises in classic electro-mechanical hard tech, producing for instance the control feedback and mechanical components of robots, exoskeletons, powered armour, vehicles etc.
  
• Eden II specialises in high tech materials: microcomposites, micorbots, micro electro-mechanical surfaces etc.
  
• Esbouvier is the place for completely-engineered multicellular organisms, including the most capable, stable, and divergent parahumans, bio-bots, bioshells, biogadgets. Only Esbouvier is capable of designing ontogenic embryologies for organisms that are wildly divergent from natural models, so only Esbouvier can produce artificial phylums. Lesser technologies can make individual such animals by 3-D tissue printing. Esbouvier can make them to breed true. Esbouvier's biomechanics is also better than any other.
  
• Jungfrau specialises in bionanotech: the design and manufacture of enzymes and other molecular machines.
  
• Paráiso is the financial centre. Profits from the financial and banking industries make it rich, but repatriating those profits forces up its exchange rate to the detriment of its industrial exports.
  
• New Earth is the place for cellular biotech. It produces micro-organisms, cell and tissue cultures for eg. food vats, surgical implant materials, medical "nanomachines" and (equivalently) cosmetic symbionts, terraforming extremophiles, etc.
  
• Tau Ceti specialises in photonics and is uniquely capable of producing optical phased arrays. Cutting-edge holographic projectors, ladars, PESA (passive electromagnetic sensor arrays), comms lasers, optical fibre systems, optical components for visual/hyperspectral homing systems etc. come from Tau Ceti. Tau Ceti provides sensors and beam weapons to the Imperial Navy, and is starting to produce rainbow lasers that promise at last to overcome the tactical limitations that have kept laser weapons off the battlefield to now.
  
  I have for assorted reasons derogated progress in computing in FLAT BLACK. I may freeze computing technology at TL9 or halfway between TL9 and TL10. If I had not decided to do so TAU Ceti might also be producing leading-edge photonic computers.
  
• Todos Santos is the place for neurology. Neural interfaces, brainhacking, the best cyborg gear and bioshell control components come from Tau Ceti. Todos Santos does brain uploads, personality editing, mechanical rehabilitation of criminals and dissidents.
  
• Vanaheim is the IT centre, at the leading edge of AI, mind emulation, and I think probably psychology, sociology, and perhaps even ecology.
  
• Xin Tîan Di is the leading economy in power generation, storage, transmission. That includes advanced fusion and also the production, storage, transport, and use of antimatter. Antimatter used to have a big role in FLAT BLACK technology under ForeSight, but with the switch to GURPS I'm going to turn down the antimatter and switch mostly to advanced (not quite super) fusion. Xin Tîian Di supplies power plants and advanced fusion torch drives to the Imperial Navy and Imperial Spaceways.

[martinl]

Originally Posted by Brett

[*] Xin Tîan Di is the leading economy in power generation, storage, transmission. That includes advanced fusion and also the production, storage, transport, and use of antimatter. Antimatter used to have a big role in FLAT BLACK technology under ForeSight, but with the switch to GURPS I'm going to turn down the antimatter and switch mostly to advanced (not quite super) fusion. Xin Tîian Di supplies power plants and advanced fusion torch drives to the Imperial Navy and Imperial Spaceways.[/list]

They produce industrial amounts of antimatter on an inhabited planet? Or is Xin Tîan Di one of the rare colonies with extensive space infrastructure?

[Fish]

Interesting, Brett. Let me comment:

Originally Posted by Brett

The Empire is the transport sector, as noted elsewhere. It buys spaceship components, manufactures stardrives, assembles starships in its orbital dockyards, and conducts a monopoly in interstellar transport and communications.

So the stardrives are manufactured entirely by the Empire? Or do they buy stardrive components from elsewhere and assemble them?

Tau Ceti specialises in photonics and is uniquely capable of producing optical phased arrays.

The one thing I don't really see on your list of sectors is microsensors, or whatever advanced-TL device will be used in place of scanning electron microscopes. The manipulation of molecular structures for nanotech will require advanced nano-scale scanning devices for detecting, analyzing, and precisely manipulating tiny structures. Does anybody do this?

Todos Santos is the place for neurology. Neural interfaces, brainhacking, the best cyborg gear and bioshell control components come from Tau Ceti. Todos Santos does brain uploads, personality editing, mechanical rehabilitation of criminals and dissidents.

The interface between a living being and a complex machine is a matter of translating signals from one system to another. I would suggest this makes them uniquely suited to language, translation and cryptography as well.

Vanaheim is the IT centre, at the leading edge of AI, mind emulation, and I think probably psychology, sociology, and perhaps even ecology.

In short, the study of patterns from chaotic systems. Such systems might also include evolution, weather, and tectonics.

There are other systems which I don't see on your list, but I don't know if it's a deliberate omission: the studies of gravity (artificial gravity, G-stabilizers, gravitic communications, etc), force fields, and actual medicine (as it is practiced by either human or robotic surgeons). You mention medical nanomachines and transplant materials, but what about doctors? Nanobots don't transplant arms or brains or kidneys themselves, do they?

[Agemegos]

Originally Posted by Fish

So the stardrives are manufactured entirely by the Empire? Or do they buy stardrive components from elsewhere and assemble them?

Well, they certainly don't do the whole process from raw materials to Eichberger Drive themselves. On the other hand, they certainly keep some critical fabrication in their own hands. Raw materials, refined materials, components, and assemblies probably pass back and forth to some extent. In fact I have established Margulis as a planet with an Imperial/Eichberger Foundation shipyard in orbit, and as handling Eichberger Drive components advanced enough that they have Naval Intelligence crawling all over them.

The one thing I don't really see on your list of sectors is microsensors, or whatever advanced-TL device will be used in place of scanning electron microscopes.

Good point.

The manipulation of molecular structures for nanotech will require advanced nano-scale scanning devices for detecting, analyzing, and precisely manipulating tiny structures.

In general perhaps, but in my setting "nanotech" is molecular biology.

The interface between a living being and a complex machine is a matter of translating signals from one system to another. I would suggest this makes them uniquely suited to language, translation and cryptography as well.

Good thought.

In short, the study of patterns from chaotic systems. Such systems might also include evolution, weather, and tectonics.

Noted.

There are other systems which I don't see on your list, but I don't know if it's a deliberate omission: the studies of gravity (artificial gravity, G-stabilizers, gravitic communications, etc), force fields, and actual medicine (as it is practiced by either human or robotic surgeons).

I don't have artifical gravity, antigravity etc. in my setting. The superscience is rather limited. But I'm glad that you mentioned it because doing so makes this discussion more useful to other participants.

You mention medical nanomachines and transplant materials, but what about doctors? Nanobots don't transplant arms or brains or kidneys themselves, do they?

No, but I didn't think that training surgeons benefits from economies of scale the way that fabricating silicon chips does. There are 47 TL10-development planets (on my incomplete list), and they can probably all train adequate physicians and surgeons. And for that matter it is probably expensive but possible to train physicians and surgeons on TL9-development colonies too.

[SuedodeuS]

Originally Posted by Brett

No, but I didn't think that training surgeons benefits from economies of scale the way that fabricating silicon chips does. There are 47 TL10-development planets (on my incomplete list), and they can probably all train adequate physicians and surgeons. And for that matter it is probably expensive but possible to train physicians and surgeons on TL9-development colonies too.

I think you're right on here, but I also think it's likely that there will end up being at least one "go-to" school for, say, surgery, and at least one "go-to" hospital when it comes to at least a specific kind of surgery. Nothing important for the setting as a whole, but it does add some nice flavor. Off the top of my head, I'd say Tau Ceti might have the best hospital for something like laser eye surgery (provided it's still done). I suspect Margulis, with its close ties to the Empire (implied by the fact they actually manufacture important bits of the drives), might also have some of the top hospitals in the setting - although there might be some serious security hoops to get in if you're from off-planet (indeed, I kind of expect some serious security for anyone trying to get planetside).

[Agemegos]

Originally Posted by SuedodeuS

I suspect Margulis, with its close ties to the Empire (implied by the fact they actually manufacture important bits of the drives), might also have some of the top hospitals in the setting

The Empire doesn't run a shipyard at Margulis because they are politically close, but because it is a good place to get the more massive and unsophisticated TL10 components comparatively cheap: armour, mostly. Also, it happened to have a few good mines for rare earth elements needed for Eichberger Drive components.

In any case, the Empire is likely to place its best hospitals as near as it can to where its people get hurt, not for political security. Spaceships are slow in this setting.

although there might be some serious security hoops to get in if you're from off-planet (indeed, I kind of expect some serious security for anyone trying to get planetside).

That would be about as practical as the Federal Government in the USA trying to restrict access to New York on account of the presence there of Brooklyn Navy Yard. Margulis has about 14 billion people, and the locals present as much threat to the shipyards as any interstellar visitors would. Restricting interstellar commerce and travel would choke the place's economy, **** off the locals, and probably do more harm to security by provoking dissent than it did benefits to security by excluding wicked foreigners.