posted
I'm not sure it's the right subboard for this question as I'm mainly trying to figure this out for a time period that is not canonical - the pre-TOS times but as designed in the Starfleet Museum. The gist of the question and the musings is at the absolute bottom.
Obviously a lot of transportation before the invention of reliable transporters would still be done by sea or train or whatever (if you can connect a few points in the network with orbital tethers held by superdense bases on the ground, suddenly train would likely seem much more attractive again, especially since having that technology also likely means being able to maintain rail networks doing links like Gibraltar-Tangers or a Transberingia line), but a lot of extraction that required maritime transportation is likely to have moved on to space, basically offloading the pollution offworld to "repair" post-ww3 earth, besides the asteroid belt, the oort cloud and the kuyper belt would be far far far richer in mineral wealth than the settled planets at that point (I figure Venus, Mars, the Moon, the outer two jovian moons and Titan would be the most likely candidates for early major UE colonization efforts with some trickling down to the neighbouring objects and Triton; I think Uranus's moons might have some just because iirc some fanon posited that earth's first dilithium mines were in one of the Uranian moons (probably Miranda)). And that got me thinking.
From what I have as calculations, earth shipping tonnage is in the area of about 1.2 billion deadweight tons and almost 800 million gross tons (that second one is a huge approximation, the real number is likely a bit under 700MGT to be very honest, growth from 1985 to 2000 was from 420 to 550MGT, worldwide shipyards built about 24-25 MGT a year the last few years, which would not all be growth obviously but still) as of 2010. It's grown slightly faster than earth population but not massively so, and is not growing as exponentially as it was in the 60s in part because there's saturation as of now. One of my problems is basically that I'm not quite sure how to make sense of the Bison's displacement - deadweight tons might not be the most useful measurement in 22nd century space, and the gross ton is probably too close to the actual tonne to remain much longer (maybe as a unit of volume of about 2,5 cubic meters though, it's not like these customary-to-metric-rough-equivalent didn't happen with the 500g pound for an example).
The other thing is figuring out the amount of cargo earth would shift around. I figure a colonial convoy would be on the order of a gross ton or two for each colonist (hey, here I have my excuse for the survival of the gross ton as a unit of volume! "gross ton" as 2,5 or even 5 cubic meters of supplies for a colonial convoy, just like jewelers keep the carat as a metricized measurement), but earth is not constantly shifting around millions or billions of people, that would be mostly coming by bursts. Well it probably does shift millions around constantly though.
I'd be tempted to go with a base assumption that earth's total cargo capacity might be about 25 to 50% higher per capita than what we have nowadays maybe. Or maybe just 10%, assuming current cargo capacity is oversaturated.
For numbers, the Museum's Bison deckplans give a cargo hold of 101.000 tons. In the imperial customary system that's 35.689 gross tons; with a metricized 2,5m3 gross ton(ne?) that's 40.400 of them. It would take a little over 22.000 Bisons to reach earth's modern carrying capacity in GT. Assumptions on population, now; in a non Trek (but with inspiration, obviously - a friend called it the illegitimate child of Firefly and Trek - convinced me I had to watch Firefly now) setting I'm writing up for a RPG game with friends, but where I'm using the museum ships, I assume a population of Earth itself at 15 billion, with the rest of the system roughly equal and the ABP Centauri system also about equal to Earth; the rest of humanity is also almost three times those three combined but much more spread out. So at similar cargo capaity per capita, the sol system alone would require 110.000 Bisons, half a million for interstellar lanes, and a solid network of orbital tethers to drop that much to the ground because they're not landing. Of course at the same time those ships are fast, the Sedna-Terra run would take about 4 days back and forth at a quarter of light speed, assume a day of loading/offloading and a good weekend and you have your week in the Terran merchant marine, but a lot of the material doesn't need to get back in atmosphere, however, I'm just not sure how much or how little. IIRC, Earth had 12 billion people as a typical rule of thumb in trek, with probably a few billion more in the system. Mars is getting huge amounts of resources thanks to being the UES and later Starfleet's largest yard. Moons as industrial centers in a pollution conscious earth might be an idea, sure most industry would remain on worlds, but I can see a lot of the more problematic industries being moved out off world once it's cost-effective with the technology of the day to do it.
But in 2161 what's the number, too; I figure about 12 billion for the entire sol system, with a few billion in ABP centauri and a few billion scattered, maybe a total of 18-24 billion for the entire UE might be the high end?
At 10% more carrying capacity, with 18 billion, we end up with 70k-ish bisons.With 24, about 90k. With my obviously high and untreklike 180, a whopping 700k. It's not that huge though all told, at 90k massive interstellar cargo ships, that would mean that while worldwide carrying capacity has more than quadrupled, the number of ships has not even doubled. And it might be cost effective to not mount warp drives on most of them as they'll be confined to Sol or Centauri internal system lanes, although practicality concerns might make this unlikely; especially the UE might not be too keen on having a part of its carrying fleet be unable of interstellar travel and might give out subsidies to shipping cos who go that extra mile.
So with all these musings, how do you envision Early UFP/UE shipping?
Registered: Aug 2010
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Teh PW
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the last time we has somethig this long and insane.... was E and his fucking rotating Nacelles... whothefuckAREYOU?
Daniel Butler
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Yes, please introduce yourself first before big tldr obscurities -_-
And the answer is, I really never thought about it before. I suppose you're right, lots and lots of cargo ships moving around, basically. Probably quite like seagoing transport today...captains...shipping containers...merchant marines...cargo manifests...etc...
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I'm new, that much is obvious, I'm also a long-time non-registered lurker, that much is not that obvious (but can be guessed ). I'll deal with proper intro And I'm extremely geeky when it comes to society; for all his effort in linguistics and mythology, I feel that Tolkien's world has a problem with economics and it always nagged me. I find this aspect of world building entertaining.
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Thank goodness that Tolkien didn't have a love for cargo manifests. Would've just wrecked the appendices. *ponders daily gross supply intake and consumption of Barad-dûr, not counting silver tray with baby to be delivered every hour on the hour to topmost tower*
Would you be working on a custom mod for E.V.E Online, Nixie? In case one found the original game too whimsical and flamboyant, not enough economics?
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quote:Thank goodness that Tolkien didn't have a love for cargo manifests. Would've just wrecked the appendices. *ponders daily gross supply intake and consumption of Barad-dûr, not counting silver tray with baby to be delivered every hour on the hour to topmost tower*
Oh dear, I suggest you don't read anything by David Weber.
quote:Originally posted by Nim: J.R.R Non Sequitur?
Thank goodness that Tolkien didn't have a love for cargo manifests. Would've just wrecked the appendices. *ponders daily gross supply intake and consumption of Barad-dûr, not counting silver tray with baby to be delivered every hour on the hour to topmost tower*
Would you be working on a custom mod for E.V.E Online, Nixie? In case one found the original game too whimsical and flamboyant, not enough economics?
It's not so much a non sequitur as an example of something I do at times; as for trek a lot can be chalked to special effects budgets and authors not thinking these things through in favour of spinning a good yarn first (just as why Coruscant doesn't have millions of cargo ships visible around it to keep itself fed). On the other hand I like roleplaying games and I write a lot and since my brain has no special effects budget to go over, and I like the "make the world work" part of things, i do tend to figure out "why not think them through" - I'm basically the bane of vs debates because I feel the movie is more good yarn than representation of what the universe it shows would be on a realistic scale. It doesn't even have to be blatant in the end result, it's just something I keep track of in background notes.
As for the EVE online thing - Hah, touché, I actually love the game - I just can't play it much on my student income
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Teh PW
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oh good. Someone smart, sensible & and completely immune to asshattery from me. He's perfect
posted
Thanks for the welcome I guess (and my intro in the officer's lounge hints at ma'am, but I'll take sir just as well I figure ) plus rereading I obviously needed a bit of "whoah there", wall of text got far longer than I planned xD
Also I did make a miscalculation, I didn't realize that cargo modules weren't counted in the plans by Allen Rolfes as part of bulk cargo, and the quick calculation I got right now tells me each module is an addition 9 cubic meters of cargo (a 3 cubic meters gross tonne then? would work with his numbers >.> that makes the cargo capacity of those about 2,5 times what I counted initially).
[ August 05, 2010, 05:24 PM: Message edited by: agnosticnixie ]
Registered: Aug 2010
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I pulled most of the numbers for the SFM out of my ass! Don't put too much stock in them. However, I've thought about how worldwide shipping traffic on Earth might compare with UE/Fed traffic at various time periods. But comparisons are difficult because I had trouble finding the appropriate data.
-------------------- When you're in the Sol system, come visit the Starfleet Museum
Registered: Oct 1999
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Interesting puzzle here. I think the best way to tackle it is to try to work with a few of the assumptions, first.
For example, Earth's population. I think that a figure of 15 billion is ridiculously high for two reasons. First, the Third World War would have caused a serious dent in the population growth curve—not just the deaths due to the war itself (and I'm assuming that's the number Riker was quoting in First Contact), but also due to deaths from radiation sickness, famine, brush wars, etc. in the decades afterwards. Also, advancing technology and adapting social beliefs would probably cut back the birth rate quite a bit. And you could probably argue that the Eugenics Wars also cut down on the population growth in the Third World countries during the 90's, which would further reduce the potential population in the future.
I'd say that a population of around 6-9 billion would be reasonable (no more), but it could be even less depending on your opinions of a sustainable population for the environment.
Second, I think it might be inappropriate to use 20th/21st century transportation figures as a model for the 2150's UE. Because there's a big factor you're missing: economic cost. Economics is essentially the mathematics of power consumption and effort to produce and transport a good or service, and takes into account the availability (common or rare) of said good or service. If it takes a lot of power and resources to build and man a transport ship, then the cost of transporting goods on such a ship will be much greater.
Therefore, a much more appropriate model or interplanetary and interstellar trade would be European colonial times, the 17th/18th centuries. After all, a colony is in many ways self-sufficient, but does rely on trade to bring in supplies and return the produce for sale. A lot of goods for basic life would be handled locally, and any incoming supplies and goods would be treated either as necessities for survival or as luxury items.
The level of trade happening on 21st century Earth is largely due to the fact that it's happening between mature, fully-industrialized nations, and post-industrial service-based nations. It's a very different kind of trade from what would likely happen for developing colonies of the UE.
-------------------- “Those people who think they know everything are a great annoyance to those of us who do.” — Isaac Asimov Star Trek Minutiae | Memory Alpha
Registered: Nov 2000
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Maybe the population fuigure includes the Lunar colony and some domed cities at the southern pole. I cant imagine the Earth is more populated that it is now though- not with offworld colonies and such.
Plus- Mars. It might be that people with a desire for a large family are encouraged to colonize- gifting a parcel of land or whatever as incentive.
Trade between non-warring nations would be race to produce the best idea- obviously manufacturing and labor would be a minimum due to technological advances. Whole cities might change theirappearance from year to year as attitudes and style changes. Every citizen would be able to vote on every topic instantly, making representation a matter of who can best elaborate on an issue, swaying the most real-time voters to his/her cause.
In such a global society, there might even be a market for isolation from the interconnectivity that we are only now begining to see. A retreat or society where the influences of dozens of cultures do not influence art and music- allowing for a clarity of vision otherwise clouded with the white noise and distractions of the "global village". Not really a Luddite movement, but an attempt to build a new cultural identity with minimal interfereance....though nationalism would have to be discouraged where possible.
Also, I sometimes go all "stream of consciousness" with my posts.
-------------------- Justice inclines her scales so that wisdom comes at the price of suffering. -Aeschylus, Agamemnon
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Masao made a series of maps a while back, which are highly accurate with respect to real-life astronomy. He plotted out likely "spheres of influence" given the homeworlds of Vulcan, Andor, and Tellar, and how far out each planet would likely settle (and in which direction).
In the 2155 map that I have handy, which is showing mainly the habitable systems, there are three worlds relatively close to Sol that would have been colonized relatively early on: Alpha Centauri, Tau Ceti, and Ross 128. The other worlds (the Libra Colonies, about 6-10 of them) are much further out—between 15-30 light-years away, and thus would have a much smaller population, even in the late UE period.
I think that having a total offworld population of 1 billion would be generous, for a total UE population of about 7 billion.
-------------------- “Those people who think they know everything are a great annoyance to those of us who do.” — Isaac Asimov Star Trek Minutiae | Memory Alpha
Registered: Nov 2000
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Admittedly my numbers at 9 billion for Earth itself where with the assumption of a post-ww3 recovery baby boom (earth's population did quadruple in the 20th century despite it being the bloodiest century since the 17th with the gunpowder empires) between the 2050s and the 2150s. And I do think advanced agricultural methods may have reached the point where it's feasible (we probably could even today tbh), especially since a century should have cleaned up most of the radiation. I was unsure, though, how good terraforming would be at that point (if it's good, Venus is the main colony at that point, if it's not so good, Mars is, but 1 billion for the Centauri system itself might be a reasonable count, it would have been reachable by sleeper ship much before warp drive was invented and all)
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Teh PW
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in short, nothing says getting over big drama like fucking like mad rabbits...
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). I'll deal with proper intro ![[Razz]](tongue.gif)
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