Planets/Systems on the fringes of Periphery states -- come and go?

[abou]

Looking at the maps of the Periphery across the history of the universe, I noticed that the Outworlds and Magistracy shrank quickly, but then after 3050 they began expanding into systems that disappeared from the map. In the Outworlds, I thought those lost systems were mostly apathy and abandonment, but now I'm not sure.

Were these systems abandoned, seceded, lost... recolonized? I just can't find any info on them.

[Adacas]

Looking at the maps of the Periphery across the history of the universe, I noticed that the Outworlds and Magistracy shrank quickly, but then after 3050 they began expanding into systems that disappeared from the map. In the Outworlds, I thought those lost systems were mostly apathy and abandonment, but now I'm not sure.

Were these systems abandoned, seceded, lost... recolonized? I just can't find any info on them.

Many were lost by the wars of succession and a combination of factors, terraforming problems with water treatment plants, raids, ceased to be economically attractive and strategically important and the abandonment.
Search ISP3 there is a good collection of neighboring systems Canopus and other states abandoned to their fate, some villages and others do not

[glitterboy2098]

given the populations required to even show up on the maps, i suspect that the abandonment was more political than literal.. the government left them to their own devices when a world became too difficult to keep around.

odds are this means that a lot of those worlds went through a "Postman" period where tech regressed to locally sustainable levels with pockets of more advanced stuff, and the planetary governments went through upheavals as they restructured themselves to be on their own. (assuming any planetary governments survived at all, and the worlds didn't regress back to city-states and such.)

[Adacas]

given the populations required to even show up on the maps, i suspect that the abandonment was more political than literal.. the government left them to their own devices when a world became too difficult to keep around.

odds are this means that a lot of those worlds went through a "Postman" period where tech regressed to locally sustainable levels with pockets of more advanced stuff, and the planetary governments went through upheavals as they restructured themselves to be on their own. (assuming any planetary governments survived at all, and the worlds didn't regress back to city-states and such.)

It is quite possible your point of view, some of the background that lei for example Kleiwert in Canopians Ruins, when a large number of runaway slaves end up joining arrives with a group of old people who remained isolated on the planet.

The same could perhaps be in worlds agricultural base that are breathable atmosphere, societies regress to a pre-industrial level, but if they had a number of people may well survive their way through casual contact, free traders or pirates or explorers

[Natasha Kerensky]

Looking at the maps of the Periphery across the history of the universe, I noticed that the Outworlds and Magistracy shrank quickly, but then after 3050 they began expanding into systems that disappeared from the map. In the Outworlds, I thought those lost systems were mostly apathy and abandonment, but now I'm not sure.

You should get the new First Succession War sourcebook.  It deals with this topic better than any other canon source.  Specifically, the nature and causes of "Lost Worlds" are covered on pages 105-107.

In short, ComStar generally removed planetary systems from maps when their population fell below 10K.  But there were exceptions to this, say, if a system had an important resource (like a recharging station), if a larger population was in hiding/relocated on-world after a major act of war or nature, or if the ComStar cabal was just up to their sneaky shenanigans.

The new First Succession War sourcebook also covers the specific loss of Outworlds Alliance systems in some detail.  In short, there were no acts of war in the Alliance, but the war caused investors to withdraw from terraforming efforts in the Alliance and forced merchants to reduce or eliminate their trade with dependent Alliance worlds.  With a weak central government and little investment/trade/help from the Inner Sphere, populations died off as their ecosystems and/or supply chains failed.  Whether any small remnant populations remained when the Outworlds began recovering some of these worlds in the 31st/32nd centuries is probably covered in ISP3 (I don't recall) or up to the GM.

The Taurian-Concordat war is also covered, and the fates of specific systems like Detroit, Spencer, and Portland are detailed.

Hope this helps.

[Red Pins]

...(Because they're being 'rescued' by a Deep-Periphery civilization with no interest in leaving witnesses to tattle to those loser Successor States.)...

No idea.  Really.

[abou]

Hmmmm... I was hoping for something more specific. I have ISP3 and the 1st SW historical. I was hoping the topic would have been mentioned elsewhere.

Dang.

[RunandFindOut]

Or just as likely most all those worlds are still there and habitable and still have human populations on them, some pretty sizeable.  Unless they were specifically noted as rendered uninhabitable they are still inhabitable.  Which means they are likely inhabited.  Thing is those were all worlds that by nature were not advanced and didn't produce anything the interstellar economy needed.  So when times got tough the central governments just stopped calling and tended to bigger problems at home.  So yes all around the fringes of the periphery states you'd have many, many independent planets often with fairly sizeable populations.  And they're completely unimportant because none of them can produce anything more advanced than the early 20th century so nobody cares and they don't interact with the larger interstellar economy. 

During periods when things get better for the periphery states they might pick a few of them back up as they return and tell the population they're part of the state again and put them back on maps.  But nothing really changes because the people there don't have anything anybody wants.  And the periphery states don't have the resources to change that in any systemic way.  So they'll make a PR stunt out of putting them back on the map and making them a "part of the nation" once more.  Maybe send out some people and inexpensive materials to move them from "still using fire-tube boilers" to "produce primitive planes and internal combustion engines."  But nothing really changes and sooner or later things will get tough again and they'll be abandoned once more.

[Korzon77]

Note, for exmaple, the ISP 3 says that some ofthe Outworld Wastes worlds have substantial populations, and an early 21st century technology*-- and yet are still not listed because they're just not that important.

*btechs 21st century tech, not our 21st century tecth.

[SCC]

Slight problem with that, it's been repeatably stated that moving food, and essential food at that, consumes a not insignificant portion of all interstellar trade.

Also those worlds would have self-sustaining economies and could easily expand production of anything they do produce for export. Sure it would be crap by normal IS standards (I think, Herb has stated that the Abrams has BAR 7, Tech Level C armor) it's better then nothing, which is what most people in the IS have on offer.

[HABeas2]

Nope. Abrams would be BAR 6.

-

[Korzon77]

Slight problem with that, it's been repeatably stated that moving food, and essential food at that, consumes a not insignificant portion of all interstellar trade.

I don't believe that's the case anymore-- I think Cray stated that staple foods were not a major part of interstaller commerce.  In any case, it can't be, without breaking the setting completely. The amount of imported staples, for say 2 billion people eating 5 pounds of food a day, would require five million tons of food-- every day. If we assume a notational "perfect dropship" of 10,000 tons cargo capacity, that's 500 full dropships load, a day. Then add in the fact that it takes jumpships to transit it, and many of them to factor in the recharge times-- there's absolutely no way that the interstellar shipment of food staples works at all, given the assumptions of battle tech.

[Archangel]

And the fallout of Fasanomics continues.  The attempts to clean up issues regarding to food import dependency have only been partially successful.  According to the USILR, planets with an Agricultural Rating of C, D and F are dependent upon food imports.  The degree of dependency ranges from marginally dependent (C) to heavily dependent (D) to critically dependent (F) upon food imports.  During the FedCom Civil War, Katherine Steiner-Davion attempted to bully Galax and its people into supporting her regiment by restricting food shipments to the planet.  Fortunately, due to the generosity of nearby planets, "Galax remained supplied with the food its people needed." (HB:HD, p94).

Unfortunately for planets in the Periphery, limited transportation capability as well limited number of agriculturally strong worlds plus the economic collapse of many planets' economies after they were suddenly cut off from their primary source of income (the Star League and the member-states) resulted in many worlds suffering from famine in the early Succession Wars.  It didn't help that neither the periphery governments nor the planetary governments were prepared for the crisis.

[glitterboy2098]

hmm.. could you quasi-retcon such incidents away by having the imports be shipments of fertilizers and other chemicals needed to support agriculture in a semi-hostile environment (be it soil treatments, or stuff to build greenhouses/hydroponics to expand such faster than the population does?)

[RunandFindOut]

Just ignore it and change the numbers.  No planet that needed food imports to survive could have because there was NEVER enough shipping even at the height of the SL to support it on even a handful of planets.  So it's not true and never was, just more disinformation planted in the source in-universe by C*.  Then you just alter the USILR numbers to reflect this.

[Archangel]

hmm.. could you quasi-retcon such incidents away by having the imports be shipments of fertilizers and other chemicals needed to support agriculture in a semi-hostile environment (be it soil treatments, or stuff to build greenhouses/hydroponics to expand such faster than the population does?)

Not really because then you would be negating a portion of what made the fall of the Star League so tragic and the Succession Wars (especially the 1st and 2nd) so devastating.  Not to mention that would not only mean the governments were prepared but would cost a lot of resources (especially money) to set up on so many planets (far more than any periphery state had available) and in some cases would require SL tech that they no longer had access to.

[wanderer25]

And the fallout of Fasanomics continues.  The attempts to clean up issues regarding to food import dependency have only been partially successful.  According to the USILR, planets with an Agricultural Rating of C, D and F are dependent upon food imports.  The degree of dependency ranges from marginally dependent (C) to heavily dependent (D) to critically dependent (F) upon food imports.  During the FedCom Civil War, Katherine Steiner-Davion attempted to bully Galax and its people into supporting her regiment by restricting food shipments to the planet.  Fortunately, due to the generosity of nearby planets, "Galax remained supplied with the food its people needed." (HB:HD, p94).

Unfortunately for planets in the Periphery, limited transportation capability as well limited number of agriculturally strong worlds plus the economic collapse of many planets' economies after they were suddenly cut off from their primary source of income (the Star League and the member-states) resulted in many worlds suffering from famine in the early Succession Wars.  It didn't help that neither the periphery governments nor the planetary governments were prepared for the crisis.

Direct quote from  the USIIR  table.
Agricultural rating C: Modest agriculture. MOST food locally produced, through some agricultural needs rely on imports.

So a world rated C could survive. It might not produce enougth milk to go around so Ice cream would be inported  or grapes dont grow  there for X reason and wines are imported. This to say a C rated world is NOT dependant on food imports, just better off with them. D and F tought are screwed. In the case of D you could see a die off till either the population goes to what  is available  could support ( C rating) or the  food production goes up  to C level or better.   


From what I recall a about generating  woulds in the outworld waste all surviving world  have AG ratings of B or A . From the above you could make an argument  for a few C's depending on population. (say a few 100k) In the real world you would call it  subsistance agriculture. You make enought to stay alive with out any excess to sell/export.




 

[Archangel]

Ice cream would be considered a luxury.

A planet with a C rating wouldn't be able to meet a certain part of their population's dietary needs or would only be able to meet a portion of the planet's population's needs.  For example, an arid/desert world might only be able to support a limited number of cattle.  That herd can only provide a limited amount of milk and an even more limited amount of meat while remaining at sustainable levels.  Hunting can only supplement the needs for meat to a limited degree even without bringing sustainability into the picture.  The remaining need/demand for meat and milk is filled at least partially by off-world imports.

[RunandFindOut]

Yes, which is why I don't have ANY worlds that aren't B or A agriculture except small outposts with a very good reason for existing and for the parent House to divert dropship traffic to keep them going.

[Archangel]

Yes, which is why I don't have ANY worlds that aren't B or A agriculture except small outposts with a very good reason for existing and for the parent House to divert dropship traffic to keep them going.

Works fine in your alternate universe but not in the canon universe, which is what we are discussing.

[Iracundus]

We have in AToW an example of a high population C agriculture world, Ovan.  Population 5 billion.  The diet is said to be limited mostly to simple staples like rice and soya, producing a population that is short and lean.  The nobles and wealthy non-nobles are the ones that might be able to get slightly plump.  C agriculture does not mean you necessarily starve but your diet might be monotonous.  Traded interstellar foods are luxury foods, not staples (see the retcon of Drozan from providing 5% of Confederation food to 5% of Confederation luxury foods).  So the nobles might not be able to get their space quinoa or rich marbled steak...but the population is sustainable for the long term at C.

 

[RunandFindOut]

Works fine in your alternate universe but not in the canon universe, which is what we are discussing.

Or possibly the canon universe doesn't actually exist.  It's just a mess of contradictory statements over 30+ years and attempts to retcon them into working.  We already have statements by devs that with the exceptions of a few small outposts settled worlds do not require imports of food to survive, interstellar food trade is in luxury goods.  This isn't a case of an AU, this is a case of the canon contradicting itself and requiring us to edit out the contradictions.

[Korzon77]

Works fine in your alternate universe but not in the canon universe, which is what we are discussing.

The problem is, unless we assume that all non-self-sufficient worlds have tiny popuolations-- under a few million for all of human space the canon universe cannot, full stop, end of argument, work.  The entire system is based on limited FTL transport with no real way to increase it until well after the Jihad.  The Mule is listed as one of hte most common dropships and it carries about 8144 tons of cargo.

That is...tiny compared to even small cargo carriers in actual service, most of which mass over 50,000 DWT (many, such as the Maersk Triple E container ships Mass a lot more -the Triple E can carry up to 18,000 TEUS).

Okay, so to simplify things, I'm going to go with the traditional 4ish pounds of food that every person eats per day. So, a world with 1 million people, needs four million pounds of food per day!
4,000,000/2000=2000 tons per day.
Okay, not so bad, about 1/4th of a mule's cargo load. 
Now let's multiply it by 365: 730,000 tons of food per year.-- over 89 dedicated mule trips per year. 
And that's the bare minimum, if someone misses a flight we starve, level of shipments. For one world.  one world with 1,000,000 people.
IF the world was important, and on a major trade route and NO house lord EVER diverted shipments, it might be doable. 
But a world with one billion people?
1,000,000,000x4, 4,000,000,000/2000=2,000,000/8144=245.5 Mule equivelant shipments.
Per day. 27 of the largest civilian jumpships ever built would be required for every day, so you'd actually be talking hundreds of jumpships and thousands of dropships  that would have to be always in motion.

Save for a few tiny worlds that also have something very important on them, there is no way any world in Btech can be dependent on food shipments. 
And this really runs into problems because as late as the Jihad series, you had Buenos Aires which stated: "Buenos Aire’s food found its way to 25 billion customers on six
diff erent worlds—no more."
But even if we assume that you're only talking a pound a day, that's,  12,500,000 TONS of food shipping per day.  If you drop it to one ounce of food stuffs per day (and note that the food was specifically described as things like grain and meat), thats still over 781,000 tons of food.
Per day. 

Now you can drop it lower-- but at that point, Buenos Aire's is no longer a food exporter, but a world that occassionally sends a few shiploads out-- certainly not a world that anyone would talk about having 25 billion customers for food.

[glitterboy2098]

Ice cream would be considered a luxury.

A planet with a C rating wouldn't be able to meet a certain part of their population's dietary needs or would only be able to meet a portion of the planet's population's needs.  For example, an arid/desert world might only be able to support a limited number of cattle.  That herd can only provide a limited amount of milk and an even more limited amount of meat while remaining at sustainable levels.  Hunting can only supplement the needs for meat to a limited degree even without bringing sustainability into the picture.  The remaining need/demand for meat and milk is filled at least partially by off-world imports.

ohh.. that could be a partial explanation. they aren't shipping in food itself.. they're shipping in vitamins and supplements to make up for something the world's own Flora lacks, or which the introduced earth species can't provide enough of.

[Archangel]

Or possibly the canon universe doesn't actually exist.  It's just a mess of contradictory statements over 30+ years and attempts to retcon them into working.  We already have statements by devs that with the exceptions of a few small outposts settled worlds do not require imports of food to survive, interstellar food trade is in luxury goods.  This isn't a case of an AU, this is a case of the canon contradicting itself and requiring us to edit out the contradictions.

As I said before they were only partially successful in cleaning up the mess of FASAnomics.  Unfortunately cleaning up all the contradictions would in turn other contradictions.  Truly cleaning them up would require a massive rewrite if not a reboot.  As far as those statements by the devs are concerned, they are frequently contradicted by materials subsequently released which invalidates the statements under 'new material trumps old'.  And as far as your edits go no matter how well-intentioned or researched they are still not canon.

[Korzon77]

That is a problem. I mean, I would like a completely rewritten setting that tries to work all of this in...but, it runs into two problems.
1.how many people would like to spend the next 5+years getting "updated material" that goes over stuff we generally know.
2. Would enough people even buy it? The Pen and paper battletech game functions on a fairly tight margin, I believe. 

[Kovax]

The situation probably lies between the extremes.  Korzon77's math, with 4 pounds per day, assumes that the planet grows almost none of its own food, and virtually everything is imported.  glitterboy2098 gives a counter-example of shipping in vitamins and food supplements.

My own "take" on it is that any inhabited worlds with sizable populations are going to need to grow their own "bulk" food, because it's virtually impossible to feed them from outside, BUT those planets may be dependent on importation one or two specific amino acids or vitamins that can't be produced locally.  The shipment of modest quantities of one or two specific "bottleneck" items, possibly as food additives or vitamin supplements, could be done for fairly sizable populations, because you're talking about milligrams per person, not bulk protein or carbohydrates.  That could mean a Mule dropship load twice a week or every other month.  In other cases, the machinery to produce those bottleneck items is dependent on parts or unusual raw materials from elsewhere.

The places where "bulk" food is imported would be limited to a few thousand in population, mainly mining outposts, research or monitoring stations, or other cases where it requires a few people stationed there to tend the machinery, but permanent "settlement" and agriculture are not possible.

Anything beyond that falls into "luxury" items, some of which may consist of exotic foods and spices.

[wanderer25]

ohh.. that could be a partial explanation. they aren't shipping in food itself.. they're shipping in vitamins and supplements to make up for something the world's own Flora lacks, or which the introduced earth species can't provide enough of.

Had the same idea them tought the above would work in the IS but in the periphery maybe not so much depending on traffic  frequency. If you only get a tramp trader a year or so, maybe!  You might run out of vitamin C  before the next shipment unless you have fruits growing in a sealed green house.

After my 1st post I went back to read the ISP3 refere section on the Outworld waste and it stated surviving world had Ag ratings of A to C. So I think the   supplemental imports cant be something too critical for the world to survive longterm. Production shortfall in some areas makes more sence. Say mostly a vegetarian  diet with little meat.
Or maybe the opposite, a mostly meat diet thanks to local  thamed fauna but greens limited to hydroponics and a few heavely process native plants.


 

[Iracundus]

As I posted earlier, C is about the minimum long term sustainable agriculture rating for a sizable population.  The AToW example of Ovan shows what this might be like: a simple diet of staples and a short, lean population. 

Space traffic cannot be super rare if we are talking nutritional supplements, because the human body reaches depleted levels within months (rate depends on what nutrient is being talked about).  For the really really isolated worlds, any imports would have to be an issue of diet variety, rather than any essential nutrient. 

[snewsom2997]

I figure that unless it is on a major trade route, any planet with a sizable population will be relatively self sufficient enough to feed the populace. Any planet not on a major trade route that cannot routinely feed itself isn't going to have a large population it will be a mining outpost or something like that. All the planets with large populations that couldn't feed themselves died in the 1st and 2nd SW.

Without an amount of trade that FASAnomics doesn't allow, planets post Star League have to be self sufficient, have to be on a trade route, or have to have something hideously important. Important enough to pay billions just to have medicine, food, and water transported back and forth every month. If the planet sucks, with the exception of the CC and DC, the free people will leave, you basically have to either handsomely reward people to stay on bad or marginal worlds, or you have to conscript them.

[Archangel]

You are trying to apply logic to FASAnomics which is usually an exercise in futility.  Worlds needing food imports is keeping in the with the nature and spirit of the BT universe.  As I have previously said, developers have been trying to clean up many of the problems created by Fasanomics with mixed success.  Getting food to worlds that need it in quantities needed without causing further issues is probably one of their biggest hurdles and isn't likely to be completely resolved without a reboot.  In the past they have tried increasing the number of JumpShips and DropShips which created problems elsewhere.

[abou]

I'm comfortable with small populations, subsistence farming, and the possibility that some planets can produce food with sufficient calories, but not nutritionally complete: similar to how rice and beans complement each other in regards to essential amino acids. I am willing to brush aside the hard numbers and universal inconsistencies and look at food shipments -- except in the most extreme of examples -- as being relatively small amounts of foodstuffs delivered to guarantee the intake of micronutrients.

I know that isn't perfect, but what do you do?

[snewsom2997]

You are trying to apply logic to FASAnomics which is usually an exercise in futility.

I know, but it is fun anyway.

Some things are not as far fetched with minor changes like major depopulation of a thousand basically unknown worlds. A yearly Star Lord or Monolith or 2 with Mammoths or Behemoths, is probably enough to bring a years worth of supplies in exchange for a years work of mine output, to a mining outpost of 100,000 people. After mastering Spaceborne Hydroponics, I'd imagine Terrestrial Hydroponics would be a walk in the park, so food would just be supplemental anyway, especially if it takes anything like Domes on the world.

Having 100 JS and 300 to 600 DS going to 1000 worlds a year isn't all that far fetched. Especially when most worlds have 100k people or less instead of 10 or 100M people.

The other 100-200 worlds that are capitals, military strongpoints, factories, agriworlds, which do require weekly or even daily jumpship pickups deliveries can be handled with whats left. 8
Plus with the Belters, and the fact that a bunch of Jumpship Yards did survive and even more were built between 3085 and 3145, it doesn't really require a major rewrite.

Since 1988 the developers have been able to give themselves some wiggle room. With rising technology and relative peace even during the 4SW, 3039, clan invasion, up to the FCCW and Jihad. There was always the Comstar bottomless pit of Jumpships also.

[Korzon77]

Note that even vitamens and supplements really don't work that well for large populations-- even assuming one ounce per week for a population of 1.5 billion people means that  you need about 47,000 tons of supplements, every week. 

I think it's best to assume that we're not talking about raw materials, per se, as the equipment designed to make them-- you don't ship a load of vitamins,  but the machinery needed to make the vitamins.  That does require us to change the fluff about a number of worlds, IE, Buenos Aires, but that's far less problematic than having to assume a vastly increased number of dropship/jumpship cargo carriers.

[Kovax]

Importing food doesn't mean importing ALL of its food.  Even with that large population of 1.5 Billion people (VERY large for a planet that's not really "habitable"), if the planet is running a 20% deficit of some specific 1 ounce item that provides an essential nutrient, that's 9400 tons per week, meaning that a single Mule dropship arriving each week could almost cover that.  Interrupting shipments means that half of the population is going to suffer from malnutrition to some degree, and prolonged lack of those nutrients could lead to millions of deaths, outbreaks of disease ravaging a weakened population, and an eventual collapse of authority, which in turn could reduce the planet's ability to produce what little of that rare but essential element it could make.

Of course, if you're talking about pounds of bulk food per person for that kind of massive population, then it becomes totally impractical by the somewhat vague transport capacities which have been described so far.

The other half of the issue is: how did those absolutely massive populations GET to those planets in the first place.  Normal reproduction rates really don't add up (or multiply, to be more accurate) to those figures in the amount of time available, and the limited transportation capacity doesn't seem capable of moving the enormous amounts of settlers required to allow natural reproduction to get a sufficient head start.  Also consider that for every group of settlers going to the planet, you're going to have a couple of settlers who had second thoughts and returned to their planet of origin.

Obviously, we're either dealing with FASAnomics throughout, and need to dismiss the vast majority of it as "misinformation", or else the Star League had FAR greater transport capacity than the successor states, and most likely some combination of the two options.

[snewsom2997]

I have no doubt that the TH had superior transport capability, plus they were not really transporting stuff outside of the hegemony except troops. That greatly increases the Transport Density in the TH.

Like I was musing earlier, once you get out of the Hegemony I wouldn't expect the population densities of the Hegemony. Hence my comments about planets on Trade Routes and Mining Outposts of 100k people.

[Archangel]

I have no doubt that the TH had superior transport capability, plus they were not really transporting stuff outside of the hegemony except troops.

Even pre-SL there was plenty of trade going on between the TH and its neighbors especially after the TH government foreign policy switched from conquest to aggressive diplomacy.  Obviously there was more trade going on with nations they were on good terms with (while they were on good terms with them) and equally obvious there were trade restrictions on military technology in order to preserve their technological advantage over their neighbors.  After the Lyrans revealed to the rest of the Inner Sphere that they had BattleMech technology when they killed Captain-General Geralk Marik, the TH imposed "massive trade restrictions on the Lyran state" (HB:HS, p20).

[glitterboy2098]

The other half of the issue is: how did those absolutely massive populations GET to those planets in the first place.  Normal reproduction rates really don't add up (or multiply, to be more accurate) to those figures in the amount of time available, and the limited transportation capacity doesn't seem capable of moving the enormous amounts of settlers required to allow natural reproduction to get a sufficient head start.  Also consider that for every group of settlers going to the planet, you're going to have a couple of settlers who had second thoughts and returned to their planet of origin.

artificial insemination and surrogate parenthood, with economic incentives (or outright requirements) towards their use on colony worlds?

several scifi's i've read in the "reasonably plausible tech" genre used that as their solution to the mass problem in space colonization. sperm and Ova, or fertilized embryo's, don't take up nearly as much space and life support as a adult person, letting you bring fairly large stocks of them. and depending on the way you've set up the colony creation program, you could select colonists that prefer larger families, set up economic/material incentives to bear "genetic colonists", or outright require every adult colonist to bear a genetic colonist or two before they can have a kid the traditional way.

[wanderer25]

Importing food doesn't mean importing ALL of its food.  Even with that large population of 1.5 Billion people (VERY large for a planet that's not really "habitable"), if the planet is running a 20% deficit of some specific 1 ounce item that provides an essential nutrient, that's 9400 tons per week, meaning that a single Mule dropship arriving each week could almost cover that.  Interrupting shipments means that half of the population is going to suffer from malnutrition to some degree, and prolonged lack of those nutrients could lead to millions of deaths, outbreaks of disease ravaging a weakened population, and an eventual collapse of authority, which in turn could reduce the planet's ability to produce what little of that rare but essential element it could make.

I would think any planet dependant  on something  critical from an outside source would be wise enoght to stock pile a month or two  incase of trade disruption.

[Archangel]

I would think any planet dependant  on something  critical from an outside source would be wise enoght to stock pile a month or two  incase of trade disruption.

They do.  But what happens when the JumpShips and DropShips that normally carry the agricultural goods are recalled by their owners and never seen again while locally owned JumpShips and DropShips are conscripted by the state for the duration of the emergency?  It could take months or even years before they are released and when they are they may receive little to no reimbursement by the government for their time of service forcing some out of business.  That is what happened to many independent and some national operators in the Combine as a result of the War of 3039.

For Periphery worlds this was especially bad.  The Star League had made them economically dependent upon them so many routes ran from the Periphery into the Inner Sphere.  By the beginning of the First Succession War most had been recalled to the Inner Sphere by their owners and those trade routes were never re-established.  Worlds that were dependent upon those trade routes suddenly found themselves abandoned as new trade routes that bypassed them were established.

[wanderer25]

For Periphery worlds this was especially bad.  The Star League had made them economically dependent upon them so many routes ran from the Periphery into the Inner Sphere.  By the beginning of the First Succession War most had been recalled to the Inner Sphere by their owners and those trade routes were never re-established.  Worlds that were dependent upon those trade routes suddenly found themselves abandoned as new trade routes that bypassed them were established.

As I mention before, I dont think Periphery worlds with critical dependance that rely on trade to fill would survive to 3025.

[Archangel]

As I mention before, I dont think Periphery worlds with critical dependance that rely on trade to fill would survive to 3025.

And most didn't.  They, for the most part, died out early in the Succession Wars.  The rest survived after their population fell to sustainable levels.

[Medron Pryde]

I am perfectly fine with the idea of "food imports" being vitamins or amino acids or other vital things like that.  Luxury foods.  Fertilizer for green houses and the like.

The thing is that on a world that can't support food, we would build green houses above ground or hollow out caves below ground.  Either way we would grow our own bulk food.  I mean sludge.  I mean pink slime.  Soylent Green.  ;)

Whatever.  ;)

As noted, there is simply not enough ships in the BattleTech universe to transport bulk food or bulk ore or anything bulk anywhere in the universe.

Interstellar trade has to be in rare, high value materials.

Or in lead.  Lead is always in high demand, especially when ejected at high velocities from rifled barrels by well-trained individuals...;)

[RunandFindOut]

Yes, lead is always in high demand as the number one cure for human stupidity.  For well over a thousand years humans have been ending stupidity with a brief introduction of lead.  So unfortunate that human stupidity appears infinite, but it means there's always a market.

[Archangel]

As previously stated this disconnect between planet food dependencies and limited in-universe cargo capacity is one of the outstanding issues of Fasanomics.  It is canon that there are quite a few planets that are dependent upon 'food' imports (meaning crops, meats, etc not vitamins or supplements) for their survival.  It is also quite clear that to support even a fraction of any major planet's dietary needs would take a huge number of DropShips.  The developers have looked at this issue from time to time but have come to no satisfactory resolution that doesn't have a major ripple effect down the line.

[Sharpnel]

A simple solution is to increase the number of JumpShips by two or three orders of magnitude. This will lead to a corresponding increase in DropShips as well.

[Medron Pryde]

That "simple" change changes the entire economic and transport situation of the Inner Sphere.

The whole idea of there being a couple thousand jumpships out there is that it takes a major bugger of a time to put together a real invasion.  That is why the Succession Wars petered out.  There wasn't enough jumpship capacity left to move the military anymore.

That's why when the Federated Commonwealth attacked the Capellans, they had to strip their own territory of trading ships in order to move enough troops to nail the Liao flippers to the wall.

Increasing jumpships and dropships just destroys the setting.
Changing "food imports" to "vitamin imports" balances the setting to the way FASA designed it to be.

AKA...it is less destructive to the atmosphere and setting of BattleTech to change "food imports" than it is to increase the number of spaceships.

[skiltao]

As previously stated this disconnect between planet food dependencies and limited in-universe cargo capacity is one of the outstanding issues of Fasanomics. 

With the caveat, of course, that the disconnect only exists when too many "major" worlds are assumed to be too dependent on food imports. Populations in the periphery (especially outside the Concordat and Magistracy) seem to be very low - tens of thousands to low millions - and so there should be no issue with Mules hauling staple foods at "Fasanomic" rates there.

Changing "food imports" to "vitamin imports" balances the setting to the way FASA designed it to be.

It also helps to assume that the typical "needy" world is small, and that exceptionally "major" importers/exporters are in the same star system as complementary exporters/importers.

[Archangel]

Increasing jumpships and dropships just destroys the setting.
Changing "food imports" to "vitamin imports" balances the setting to the way FASA designed it to be.

Actually it doesn't.  Your 'solution' makes the setting seem less desperate than what FASA was striving for.  What makes the situation sound worse: "We haven't received this month's shipment of food/water" or "We haven't received this month's shipment of vitamins"?

With the caveat, of course, that the disconnect only exists when too many "major" worlds are assumed to be too dependent on food imports. Populations in the periphery (especially outside the Concordat and Magistracy) seem to be very low - tens of thousands to low millions - and so there should be no issue with Mules hauling staple foods at "Fasanomic" rates there.

Even a single major world requiring only a small amount of imports to sustain the local population would require huge numbers of DropShips and JumpShips regularly bringing food shipments.

[skiltao]

Even a single major world requiring only a small amount of imports to sustain the local population would require huge numbers of DropShips and JumpShips regularly bringing food shipments.

Like Irian, yeah? It's feasible without breaking the setting.

[Archangel]

Like Irian, yeah? It's feasible without breaking the setting.

It quickly adds up once you start cranking some numbers.  In the Dark Age, Irian has about 1.3 billion people.  Lets assume that on average those 1,300,000,000 need to have 2 pounds of food imported per month.  Doesn't sound a lot until you start doing the math.  That means on average that 2,600,000,000 pounds of food (or 1,300,000 tons of food) each month.  Per year that is 31,200,000,000 pounds of food (or 15,600,000 tons of food).  How many DropShips will be needed to carry all that food?  The most commonly available cargo DropShip is the Mule which can only carry about 8,100 tons of cargo.  How many Mule shipments of food are needed to supply the needed food per month?  Per year?  And this is after the Blakists killed more than a third of the planet's population during their withdrawal from the planet.

In 3067 the planet Summer had an F rating in agriculture and needed to import food for more than 2.5 billion citizens.  How much food do they need to import to maintain their margin of safety (meaning they don't have to utilize their emergency supply of food) per month? Per year?

[Medron Pryde]

Actually it doesn't.  Your 'solution' makes the setting seem less desperate than what FASA was striving for.  What makes the situation sound worse: "We haven't received this month's shipment of food/water" or "We haven't received this month's shipment of vitamins"?

If you are going to die without the right vitamins because the planet doesn't provide them, it is just as bad and just as civilization ending...

[skiltao]

The numbers do add up quickly, but... well, let's look at the environment Irian was written for:

Bulk shipping on high capacity routes is handled by big cartels operating Mammoths and Behemoths, not independent traders operating Mules; Behemoths are less common than Mules among independent traders, but not particularly less common overall. Old stats amount to ~42ktons per collar (Behemoths occupy two collars). Irian has 2.169 billion people, eating poor rations, most of which are imported - assuming ideal rations of 2.13kg per person per day, then at 2/3rds rations of which 2/3rds are imported, they'd need to import 49 collars of food each day.

• With recharging stations and Monoliths (12.5 day round trip), it would take ~68 JumpShips to feed Irian. That's around 1/6th of the FWL's fleet - in other words, each House could manage ~2 Irians without breaking the setting.
• The FWL possesses the Ryan Ice Fleet: if the Ryan Cartel method can be used to transport bland food-like substances, then Irian would only need one deposit per decade.
• Many star systems have more than one inhabited world. Space habitats also exist. If Irian's food can be sourced from within its own star system, no JumpShips are needed at all.

So there's a few ways that exceptional worlds like Summer can fit into the spirit of the BT universe.

[Archangel]

If you are going to die without the right vitamins because the planet doesn't provide them, it is just as bad and just as civilization ending...

As long as people are getting sufficient foods to survive, vitamin deficiency, barring other medical conditions, isn't likely to kill anybody before the supply line could be restored.  At best it might cause some health issues.  Lack of food will quickly cause massive loss of life, both to starvation and in food riots as the masses struggle to survive.

[SCC]

That "simple" change changes the entire economic and transport situation of the Inner Sphere.

The whole idea of there being a couple thousand jumpships out there is that it takes a major bugger of a time to put together a real invasion.  That is why the Succession Wars petered out.  There wasn't enough jumpship capacity left to move the military anymore.

That's why when the Federated Commonwealth attacked the Capellans, they had to strip their own territory of trading ships in order to move enough troops to nail the Liao flippers to the wall.

Increasing jumpships and dropships just destroys the setting.
Changing "food imports" to "vitamin imports" balances the setting to the way FASA designed it to be.

AKA...it is less destructive to the atmosphere and setting of BattleTech to change "food imports" than it is to increase the number of spaceships.

Actually no. Sure there are more JS and DS now, but as most of them are tied up shipping food around, it doesn't matter. It's not the absolute number of JS and DS that matter, but rather how many can be turned over to military service without causing major problems else where, as long as that number doesn't change, everything remains the same.

[Archangel]

The numbers do add up quickly, but... well, let's look at the environment Irian was written for:

Bulk shipping on high capacity routes is handled by big cartels operating Mammoths and Behemoths, not independent traders operating Mules; Behemoths are less common than Mules among independent traders, but not particularly less common overall. Old stats amount to ~42ktons per collar (Behemoths occupy two collars). Irian has 2.169 billion people, eating poor rations, most of which are imported - assuming ideal rations of 2.13kg per person per day, then at 2/3rds rations of which 2/3rds are imported, they'd need to import 49 collars of food each day.

• With recharging stations and Monoliths (12.5 day round trip), it would take ~68 JumpShips to feed Irian. That's around 1/6th of the FWL's fleet - in other words, each House could manage ~2 Irians without breaking the setting.
• The FWL possesses the Ryan Ice Fleet: if the Ryan Cartel method can be used to transport bland food-like substances, then Irian would only need one deposit per decade.
• Many star systems have more than one inhabited world. Space habitats also exist. If Irian's food can be sourced from within its own star system, no JumpShips are needed at all.

So there's a few ways that exceptional worlds like Summer can fit into the spirit of the BT universe.

One, you do realize that Behemoths never intentionally go planetside right?  They are unloaded via its 20 shuttles which can take a long time especially since largest shuttle can only carry 31.5 tons of cargo. 

Two, while Monoliths are the largest JumpShip available, the FWL isn't likely to have "~68" of them in their whole fleet.  According to 3057R (p106), "less than fifty vessels remain in the armies of the Successor States, half of which serve with the DCMS."

Three, besides "1/6th" of the FWL fleet devoted simply to supplying a single planet?  That doesn't leave a lot leftover for any other planets not to mention keeping the FWL's interstellar economy going or supporting the FWLM.  Although such a concentration of JumpShips would make an awfully tempting target.  >:D

Four, Ryan Cartel and space habitats, uh no and no.  The Ryan cartel didn't care how the ice turned up in the target system, in the end it was still water.  Containers of food wouldn't fare any better.  Personally I prefer to keep pieces of steel, plastic, styrofoam, etc out of my diet.   Each space habitat would only be able to produce a small percentage of the food required to feed a large planetary population and the cost of building and maintaining each habitat would outweigh any benefit.

Five, the capital of the FWL, Atreus, had 8.4 billion citizens and an agricultural rating of D.  How much of the FWL's fleet would be required to feed Atreus and Irian alone?  Would there be any ships remaining for interstellar commerce or the military to wage war or other planets that need to import food?  Les Halles has 1.25 billion citizens and an agricultural rating of D.  Three planets in the FWL with a rating of D and a combined population of over 10 billion.  And what about all the smaller planets that have an agricultural rating of D or F but have less than a billion citizens?  As I said it quickly adds up.

House Steiner has similar problems.  In addition to Summer, there were at least 3 more planets with an agricultural rating of D and more than a billion citizens.  Dar-Es-Salaam had more than 3.6 billion, Rahne hasdmore than 3 billion and Arcturus had more than a billion.  Three planets with a rating of D and a combined population of almost 10 billion.  And again that doesn't even include all the planets with an agricultural rating of D or F but have less than a billion citizens.

[MrJake]

I will now brand myself a heretic.
.
.
.
Wait for it....
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.
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Fasanomics works just fine (at least in this particular case).

The bottleneck seems to be in transport tons available, either thru dropship or jumpship scarcity. Tonnage however, is only part of the transport equation. Caloric/nutritional density is the other, more important variable, and as luck would have it, is still officially undefined (outside of space travel). 

"Bulk" foodstuffs are not going to be ears, or even kernels, of corn; they're going to be high fructose corn syrup which has three times the caloric density of just the kernels. And that's to produce a substance that can be used immediately. I'm pretty sure the caloric density could be increased by a factor of ten or more, if the engineers designing the process were allowed to stipulate that reversing the process so the calories could be consumed would require substantial reprocessing.

Add in the passage of a thousand years and a bright, glorious Star League, and there's plenty of room at the bottom. Highly compressed blocks of pure protein, all cellular components removed, artificially stabilized for long term storage, could provide the needed minimum nutrient for ten's of thousands of people, per ton. It might take a month to process it back into something approaching edible, but the number of DS/JS visits you need to keep a population fed quickly plummets to more manageable levels.

Either define the caloric density of bulk goods, or, even simpler, add: "Only the use of heavily processed high density bulk foodstuffs make trade, and colonization, on such a scale (barely) possible." Do that and none of the previously published numbers need change, just our assumptions about undefined aspects of the 'verse. Assumptions, I would point out, about a science fiction universe.


Edit: Spelling

[glitterboy2098]

Highly compressed blocks of pure protein, all cellular components removed, artificially stabilized for long term storage, could provide the needed minimum nutrient for ten's of thousands of people, per ton. It might take a month to process it back into something approaching edible, but the number of DS/JS visits you need to keep a population feed quickly plummets to more manageable levels.

"It's pure, Patience. Genuine A-grade foodstuffs. Protein, vitamins, immunization supplements. One of those'll feed a family for a month. Longer, if they don't like their kids too well."

[MrJake]

"It's pure, Patience. Genuine A-grade foodstuffs. Protein, vitamins, immunization supplements. One of those'll feed a family for a month. Longer, if they don't like their kids too well."

Ya know, just once I'd like my original idea to actually be original....


Edit: To include quotation and image

[Medron Pryde]

Tastes kinda like cardboard...

 8)

[Archangel]

I thought it was supposed to taste like chicken?

[MrJake]

Assuming that bar weighs a kilo (for convenience), a family of five, and 30 days per month, then each bar provides 150 nutrition days per kilo, or 150,000 nutrition days per ton.

There's a couple of different ways to look at it:

400 years of food for one person.

1 year of food for 400 people.

365 tons provides all nutrients (but not water) for 150,000 for an entire year.

365 tons provides the same for 10% of a marginal world with 1.5 million mouths to feed that needs a little help.

3,650 tons would provide the same world with all nutrients for all citizens for a year. Still no water, tho.

A planet with 1.5 billion citizens, entirely reliant on imports, would require 3,650,00 tons.  That's still a lot, but definitely doable.


Also, please be gentle if my math is wrong. It's late.

[skiltao]

Cardboard? Chicken? So what's the chalk-flavored one supposed to be...

@MrJake: yeah, depending on how many highly-populated worlds FanPro & Catalyst added, that might be the way to go. Unless we can just say "terrible, terrible famine on this, the eve of the Jihad" without worrying how the 3067 populations go so big in the first place.


@ArchAngel: I forgot to dehydrate the rations! Apparently that could reduce their mass from 2.13kg to 0.617kg, so it would only take twenty Monoliths to feed Irian.

• 2- Replace as many Monoliths with Star Lords as you feel necessary. At worst Irian goes up to using 1/4 1/13th of the FWL's ships.
• 3a- Players don't know how fast or slow the interstellar economy is going. We don't know how many ships is "a little" or "a lot" for a given planet or civilian good. You can halve or double the economy and players are still only interacting with it through random encounter tables. Hundreds of ships doing arbitrary shipping off-screen isn't distinguishable from hundreds of ships doing slightly different arbitrary shipping off-screen.
• 3b- The old Marik book does mention how foolish IrTech is for staying on Irian, yeah. :)
• 4a- Make the food sticky enough to hold together on its own. You can add packaging after the Ryan jump.
• 4b- You might want to review the Handbook entry for Irian before making any claims about orbital farming.
• 5- The USILR ratings are pretty vague. Worlds with a rating of "D" seem like excellent candidates for the vitamin solution discussed earlier.
• 1- Loading and unloading aren't slow enough to make a difference.

Say a Monolith arrives at Irian's jump point, carrying a Mammoth and four Behemoths; Behemoth engines are bad, so we'll give them 10 days to make the 7.5-day transit. The rules don't put an upper limit on how fast you can shove cargo out a door, so let's say each of the Behemoth's twenty cargo decks has its own door and that five tons of cargo move through each door per minute.

The planet sends shuttles with 50-ton cargo bays (you don't need steerage quarters for a surface-to-orbit run). When the Behemoth arrives, the first shuttle takes 2.5 minutes to dock, ten minutes to fill its bay, half a minute to undock, some minutes (say five) to reach the planet's surface, maybe another ten minutes to unload, and another few minutes to return to the Behemoth. The round trip is thirty or forty minutes, so figure three or four shuttles per door, taking turns every thirteen minutes. The Behemoth is empty in about 18 hours.

Remembering now to use dehydrated food, that's 63 Behemoths heading for Irian, 5 unloading in orbit, 63 leaving, then all that again in another star system. So: loading times don't matter. The transit time matters. And if Irian has a moon like Earth's, then well-mapped pirate points would let you shave that down to almost nothing. (Before saying "but we never see cartels use pirate points," see response 3a).

[Iracundus]

The House Marik Handbook says Irian is dependent on imports (though not from where).  AToW attempts to reconcile this by writing this as off-world imports but not from another star system:

Irian, one of the most famous food importers in the Inner Sphere, managed to survive the early Succession Wars through the rapid construction of orbital and lunar farms.  To this day, more than half the food for Irian's 2 billion inhabitants comes from off-world sources, though very little comes from other star systems. 

Irian is given an Agricultural rating of D.  It says more than half of its food came from off-world, but it does not say all.  So we can interpret a D agri rating as <50% being produced on the world itself, though the exact percentage is unknown.  So that means Irian itself still produces enough food to feed somewhere under a billion people, which ameliorates somewhat the amount of daily food shipments needed.

[skiltao]

Whoops. :-[  I knew I saw it somewhere, I just didn't think it was in the USILR explanations. Thanks for the correction.

[Kovax]

"Guv'mint Cheese" protein blocks.  Not edible unless you boil or otherwise process them for a few days.  Also usable as building materials in a pinch, except that they're brittle until they absorb some moisture.  Qualifies as "assault with a blunt instrument" if thrown while unprocessed, or "assault with a deadly weapon" if shattered into sharp fragments before throwing or feeding to humans.

Irian: less than 50% of its food comes from on-planet, with MOST of the shortfall grown in-system.  That puts outside shipments below 25% of the total requirement, although it doesn't specify how much less than 25%.

[Maingunnery]

Campaign Operations has some interesting things to say about Agricultural Dependence (p 128).

In short, almost all planets that couldn't feed themselves died off in the early Succession Wars. Only small settlements/outposts and extremely wealthy planets import significant amounts of food.

[Shin Ji]

I gotta say, I love the idea of the Inner Sphere running on Lembas Bread.   ;D

[jackson123]

Bugs could be used as processed food. high in protein.

[idea weenie]

Wasn't there something about nutrient patches that could be applied to one's skin and would provide the nutrition one needed, though you were hungry all the time?  If I could remember the book I saw it in that would provide endurance, mass, and cost.

So a local planet would grow something that is fairly easy to produce and keeps one feeling full, but the shipments of nutri-patches are what keeps the population alive and relatively healthy.  Now they just need an additive to the patch that overrides hunger signals so the person using the patch never feels hungry.

[Archangel]

Patches are meant as short-term solutions not long-term.

[MrJake]

I gotta say, I love the idea of the Inner Sphere running on Lembas Bread.   ;D

And now I'm picturing an unusually graceful Archer and an unusually short Hatchetman arguing over who got the most kills....

"Bah! When you run out of LRMs, we'll see what your impossibly high Gunnery skill gets you!"

[Greyhind]

Not modern bugs: the endo-steel tastes funny.

[Øystein]

And the fallout of Fasanomics continues.  The attempts to clean up issues regarding to food import dependency have only been partially successful.  According to the USILR, planets with an Agricultural Rating of C, D and F are dependent upon food imports.  The degree of dependency ranges from marginally dependent (C) to heavily dependent (D) to critically dependent (F) upon food imports.  During the FedCom Civil War, Katherine Steiner-Davion attempted to bully Galax and its people into supporting her regiment by restricting food shipments to the planet.  Fortunately, due to the generosity of nearby planets, "Galax remained supplied with the food its people needed." (HB:HD, p94).

Unfortunately for planets in the Periphery, limited transportation capability as well limited number of agriculturally strong worlds plus the economic collapse of many planets' economies after they were suddenly cut off from their primary source of income (the Star League and the member-states) resulted in many worlds suffering from famine in the early Succession Wars.  It didn't help that neither the periphery governments nor the planetary governments were prepared for the crisis.

I'll tell you a little secret.

Noone cares about Fasanomics. TPTB have never cared about it, and never factored it into anything. It's just a pretty statistic no one uses for anything :)

If anyone even suggested using them for anything in a product, they would in all likelyhood never be heard from again. Just another unmarked grave in Death Valley. Kind of like the Objective Raids/Reports. ;)

Planets have always been added/removed from the map as the story needs it. An excuse can always be made up after the fact if needed.

Øystein

[rebs]

I've always thought of it like this:

The maps are documented "in-universe" by canon organizations and interstellar nations.  What gets listed and marked on a map and what does not depends a lot on how much importance a given planet has to those who "make" the maps.

That's a great example of what Oystein is saying.  Some call these excuses, others call them reasons, but it's all the same.  Just because a name disappears from a map does not necessarily mean that planet is no longer inhabited.  Most of the time, if a planet is truly 'gone', it rather deserves explanation for gaming purposes, and receives that explanation in the fluff.  Names of planets that are on one map but not on another are still there, it's just no longer important to the map makers in-universe to show all of them.

[snewsom2997]

I've always thought of it like this:

The maps are documented "in-universe" by canon organizations and interstellar nations.  What gets listed and marked on a map and what does not depends a lot on how much importance a given planet has to those who "make" the maps.

That's a great example of what Oystein is saying.  Some call these excuses, others call them reasons, but it's all the same.  Just because a name disappears from a map does not necessarily mean that planet is no longer inhabited.  Most of the time, if a planet is truly 'gone', it rather deserves explanation for gaming purposes, and receives that explanation in the fluff.  Names of planets that are on one map but not on another are still there, it's just no longer important to the map makers in-universe to show all of them.

One only need to look at Pre industrial colonization efforts to see the same thing in real life. Think of the Viking Settlements in Canada and Greenland 400 years before Chris C.

[kato]

One only need to look at Pre industrial colonization efforts to see the same thing in real life.

An even closer match would be European forts in Africa pre-18th century, especially on the West African coast. They'd pop up on maps in Europe, even be important for a while, then silently vanish as if they never existed.