Scams and Frauds in the Imperium

[MarcusIII]

Yeah, it's not actually that rare. Three times as abundant as lead in the Earth's crust. It's more common than Tungsten, Gold or Uranium.

At TL's 10+ making gold out of lead would be the norm. It's been done here by stripping 3 protons from lead.

 

[CordwainerFish]

Lanthanum is one of the rarest ores in common industrial use and cannot be synthesized or substituted for according to lore.

The first Vargr jump drives used barium instead, didn't they?

 

[Condottiere]

Organic bark.

 

[rinku]

At TL's 10+ making gold out of lead would be the norm. It's been done here by stripping 3 protons from lead.

Sure. But you'd only bother if it was a cheaper process than mining it, or if the demand for gold over lead was particularly high for some reason.

 

[Condottiere]

Depends on what's it's still/then, being used for.

Currently, it's deliberately being removed from the manufacturing process.

 

[actionman]

At TL's 10+ making gold out of lead would be the norm. It's been done here by stripping 3 protons from lead.

Perhaps the new valuable resources would be the heaviest elements, because the stripping process could transmute them into any elements with fewer protons. Lead would be more valuable than gold because from one amount of lead, one could get lead, gold, and any element with fewer protons than lead. Of course there would be scarcity and so on that would affect value, but you get the idea.

 

[Condottiere]

The ultimate in strip mining.

 

[phavoc]

I never read Miller's book, but don't the makers and nanotech (and even the game mining and manufacturing rules) render the need for materials relatively moot?

 

[Endie]

The nature of the law enforcement practices in the Imperium seem to be nebulous. The game itself posits and interesting juxtaposition of a strong central authority figure (i.e. the Imperium) that is both crushing in its' enforcement of laws, but also quite laisez-faire in its setting of said laws.

The quote from Dune of "the spice must flow" is apt here - except one should substitute 'trade' for 'spice'. The Imperium allows worlds a great deal of latitude, as well as individuals and corporations, to do all sorts of things against each other and 3rd parties - so long as trade and the economy are not affected. Which is an interesting dichotomy as certain activities will naturally affect economics at all kinds of levels. One cannot overthrow a planetary government, or even mining colonies or whatever, without causing short or long-term disruptions to output. I don't think it's very reasonable to assume that Party B overthrows (violently, as it's Traveller) on Day 1 and on Day 2 everything is back to normal.

So one would (or could/should) assume that these sorts of things MAY happen, they probably aren't all that common. SuSAG is probably not going to work with Interstellar Arms to wipe out an LSP manufacturing facility just to get a corner on the market. The RPG Shadowrun has a background where actively taking down opposing corps is the norm, however I've not really gotten that impression from Traveller over the decades. Sure, you may see a Hammer's Slammer scenario where oppressed colonists hire a merc company to take down their oppressors - but let's be honest here. Assuming that happens, and there is enough credits, the megacorp is gonna be back with it's own mercs to reassert control. And they'll have more money and incentive to put the colonists in their place lest word gets out and it causes a sub-sector or sector-wide 'Freedom' spring to occur.

Which I take to be that these sorts of things are not the norm. And that the Imperium isn't a repressive police state with a blind eye towards terrible governance so long as trade isn't affected. These things are all interelated because at the bottom of them all is the people of the worlds that make up the Imperium. Some sort of social stability has to be present in order for this to occur. As we have seen in history there are many paths to stability, and not every path is one that people would like to live under. At some point every authoritarian regime has fallen - either to outsiders or to internal conflict as repression tends to beget rampant corruption.

I think there is enough wiggle-room to make for an environment of adventuring without a need to create something that shouldn't probably exist for as long as the Imperium has.

The Mercenary Forces book, in the section on Ilelish, sets out some basic rules for trade wars between worlds or megacorps etc., so they do exist in the 3i setting.

 

[JupiterIndustries]

I was going to post this under the Taxes thread, but it's a bit of a drift so I figured I'd post separately.

One persons tax is another persons scam maybe?

 

[rinku]

Just because you CAN transmute elements doesn't mean it ever becomes cheaper in energy or time than extracting them. It may, but if you need a megaton of unobtanium by next quarter and the capital and running costs to transmute in that time it costs 10% more than the capital and running costs for the mining and smelting operation, it's diggy diggy hole time, boys...

 

[MarcusIII]

Just because you CAN transmute elements doesn't mean it ever becomes cheaper in energy or time than extracting them.

At TLs higher than ours (cheap fusion) it would be cheap to do what I posted. So it WOULD be the norm if you need gold and it was rare like on this planet

 

[MarcusIII]

I never read Miller's book, but don't the makers and nanotech (and even the game mining and manufacturing rules) render the need for materials relatively moot?

If makers can create elements cheaply then yes it would

 

[rinku]

Yes, it's always a cost thing. But time is a cost as well; as I posted, it may still make economic sense to mine and refine, especially if you can fill a bucket with gold significantly faster by mining than through transmutation.

Also, to transmute lead to gold you still need the lead, and in the real world the lead bearing ores may need more processing than alluvial gold deposits. In space, who knows?

So, I agree that often - maybe usually - transmutation will be used, but disagree that it would totally replace traditional (or more likely high tech, automated) resource extraction.

(Certainly not *just* because of cheap energy. Ultratech is it's own discussion)

 

[MarcusIII]

it may still make economic sense to mine and refine, especially if you can fill a bucket with gold significantly faster by mining than through transmutation.

Mining and refining takes much more time than making gold out of lead given what's available at higher TLs. IF gold is as rare as it is on earth.
All the gold ever mined in history would form a cube roughly 22 meters (72 feet) on each side. It's that time consuming

 

[rinku]

Mining and refining takes much more time than making gold out of lead given what's available at higher TLs. IF gold is as rare as it is on earth.

In terms of tonnes per week per million dollars of cost? Can you actually back that up?

I don't know for sure either, but I'd expect that a 10 million dollar gold mining operation is likely to be more productive than a 10 million dollar lead mining and gold transmutation one could be.

 

[MarcusIII]

In terms of tonnes per week per million dollars of cost? Can you actually back that up?

I don't know for sure either, but I'd expect that a 10 million dollar gold mining operation is likely to be more productive than a 10 million dollar lead mining and gold transmutation one could be.

Based on what Trav tech is supposed to be able to do at the atomic level it's a no brainer. Go study gold mining and refining at present and it will become clear to you

 

[rinku]

Go study gold mining in the far future with far future technology (IN SPACE!!!) and get back to ME.

Also, Are you transmuting hydrogen all the way up to lead? At some point you have to gather some kind of resource. Direct energy to matter is definitely ultratech.

 

[MarcusIII]

Go study gold mining in the far future with far future technology (IN SPACE!!!) and get back to ME.

I already did. But as you have zero knowledge about refining metals you wouldn't understand. Your question about hydrogen shows you also have less than zero knowledge about elements in general and what the distribution of them are on earth

 

[rinku]

Well, lend me your time machine so I can enlighten myself.