Re: GZG FH: Blue water navy.

john atkinsshon (:-) wrote:

>You wrote: 

>>to which john atkinsON, dammit! replied:

>>why can't this be true offworld? if there are balkanised
>> planets (which is not certain; it depends on your 
>>universe), then sea trade may be as vital as it is here.
>> on those planets, without the un looking over
>> everyone's shoulders, there may well be planetary
>> conflicts.

>But will ships be the major economic asset?  Yeah, you might have 
>fishing and other resource extraction taking place offshore,

btw, did anyone (in the uk) see that channel 4 thing on `the deep`?
about how the deposits around deep-ocean hydrothermal vents contain
minerals at 1000 times the concentrations in land deposits? wow. mining
these could be a major activity on colonies.

> but you 
>likely won't have trade between the colonies of two seperate powers 

 what about colonies of the same power on different continents? or the
same continent, but where there wqas no easy land route, eg it goes via
mountains?

>(unless they are friendly--like if the NSL and NAC had colonies on the 
>same planet).	Besides, the colonies would likely both be in the 
>raw-materials stage of economic development, trading their products for

>the finished manufactured goods of the more developed worlds.

what about shipping grain from the agricultural regions at the tropics
to the polar / equatorial mining districts? what about shipping stuff to
the equatorial transit sites (spaceports are better on the equator as it
maximises the assist from planetary spin; space elevator anchors are on
the equator). what about more mature colonies where there is on-planet
industry (shipping refined dilithium offworld is gouing to be a lot
cheaper than shipping the ore).

Tom

btw has anyone considered the place of space elevators in the scheme of
things yet? do people even know what they are?

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