Ships sizes. When is big too big?

[Simon_Jester]

I'll try to reply to everything as soon as I can, but I'm a little busy today. Just so you know I'm going to respond to ya'll.

Don't worry too much about me, I'm saying a lot of things that I don't expect you to have some kind of answer for- because I think they are true.

The Imperium had largely mythic/archaeological evidence for the Achuultani, that and all the planets that had rocks dropped on them. Hence why it was so hard to plan for Achuultani capabilities and so easy to disbelieve in their existence.

Good point. Also a reason to make one's ships as big and effective as possible- if the Fourth Empire can build mobile battle-planetoids, they have no reason to assume the Achuultani don't build mobile battle-planetoids too, in which case it might be a disastrously bad plan to make your own 'capital ships' be anything lighter than mobile battle-planetoids.

This is over and above your observation that FTL travel speeds for even 'small' ships of 'only' a few tens of kilometers in the Achuultani fleet are very slow- theoretically FTL-capable, but still slow. The parasite ships may be similarly FTL-capable (see the plot of the Heirs of Empire novel), but they're not fast- if they were, then half the plot of Heirs wouldn't have happened because the young prince and princess and friends would have just traveled straight back to Earth on their own in the parasite ship.

Which does raise another issue. Atomic Rocket deals with it at some length, and far more eloquently IIRC, but the thrust of it is that however much mass a ship has, it will have to dedicate a certain percentage of that to power, to drives, to life support, to sensors, radiation shielding, to human passengers (unless automated, obviously) and depending on the ship and it's intended role, to cargo space, armor and/or weapons. In real life, fuel storage is a huge consideration and so we work hard to keep the mass of spacecraft down to save on it. It's unthinkable that something like the Millenium Falcon could achieve orbit, but lots of sci-fi handwaves the issue. My point is, there are good reasons for wanting a larger ship, so you have everything you need. There are likewise good reasons for smaller craft. A lot depends on the context of the fictional universe you're creating.

Well, in general if you want 'hardish' SF you assume that spaceships are "hard to build:" storing the energy supply and life support to make them work takes up most of the available space, as is true today in real life.

From what gigabytelord's said so far, his civilizations have intergalactic travel and are in general built on roughly the same technological scale as, oh, Star Wars (if without the absurd weapons yields coming from inflated figures in a cross-sections book or whatever). This suggests that technology has advanced to where powering a ship that can go from surface to orbit is much easier for them than for us.

[gigabytelord]

First something from a previous post that I missed...

Also remember that you do not need to have "trillions" in a single world. That is going to depend on the exact scaling of the ship technology. If you are trading between one end of galaxy and the other, you might have your physical goods reloaded to swarms of smaller ships which reach tens of thousands of nearby planets. So, how will your technology scale with range? Is a spaceship good to travel 500 light years appreciably different from a spaceship whose mission is 25 000 lightyears?

On the first part concerning planetary populations. I'm actually trying to avoid 'hive worlds' and the like. Obviously there will be worlds with utterly massive populations but for the most part it's extremely uncommon.

Concerning FTL, there's several different types of FTL. The fastest being used primarily by massive corporations and the various militaries. Why? Because that specific type of FTL is deadly if used incorrectly, and requires constant maintenance to prevent catastrophic failure which is both time and resource intensive. You're probably wondering why they would even use it. Well to put it simply, necessity and redundancy are extremely important. Very rarely will a local freight or passenger transport company have the monetary means to maintain a fleet of ships which use it, so that means that the majority of civilian ships slow boat from place to place using yet another less efficient and slower but much safer form of FTL. There are also several other forms of FTL each with different restrictions. To better understand it I suppose I could reference modern shipping in that several modern navies use nuclear power extensively, while civilian vessels use various forms of power generation. From diesel to coal steam and wind power. All achieve the same result but get there using very different means but many times with differing levels of performance.

All that being said technical range isn't really the issue it's speed that determines the length of transit.

Fine by me- and by implication this is clearly a pretty space-operatic setting, so it's fair to assume that the machinery needed to sustain a spacecraft's operation doesn't take up a volume too disproportionate compared to the cargo capacity of that craft.

You would be correct Sir in both cases. At least I hope my ideas about ship sizes make sense at least in-universe, if not there will be plenty of nerds available to inform me otherwise when this gets released.

Details really don't matter- the point is, if you have a ship that carries one thousand "blahs," it must be physically large enough to store a thousand "blahs." That's the kind of error people notice. Correspondingly, if your ship is huge with room for millions of "blahs," and having plenty of "blahs" is a vital necessity, you're going to look pretty silly if your ship only carries a few dozen of the things.

See above. I may post the physical dimensions of one of the warships in question if anyone wants to do some quick math. As stated before math and myself have a mutual dislike for one another.

Well, you only use this on a rough level- for example, if passenger ships only move a thousand people at a time, clearly the passenger accommodations need not be bigger than, oh... a hotel that can accommodate one thousand people.

I completely understand what you're saying and I'm trying to keep myself within certain bounds, it really helps when you've got several other people working with you on something like this who have different skills in different areas to help maintain both internal consistency and as much scientific consistency as is possible without screwing with the story. Basically I've kind of came to the conclusion that trying to maintain a level of hard-science is less important in some cases then having some damned common sense. ie "if passenger ships only move a thousand people at a time, clearly the passenger accommodations need not be bigger than, oh... a hotel that can accommodate one thousand people." That's common sense you'd be surprised at how fast it can fall by the wayside when not paying attention.

Australia currently has about 30 million international air passengers per year - close to 15 millions each way. The sea passengers are presumably few in number. Obviously handling that region of flows can be made by relatively small ships... that 15 millions is aquivalent to 40 000 each day.

But are these small, artificial settlements also dominant in terms of population? I mean, when you do encounter a planet fortunate enough to be naturally habitable, it can support several milliards of people (and accommodate much more than that). So if a habitable planet has 100 times the population of an uninhabitable one, then 10 uninhabitable planets taken together would still have just 10 % the population of the inhabitable motherland. But if there are 1000 uninhabitable planets per one habitable planet then these uninhabitable planets still have 90 % population.

But are the naturally habitable planets concentrated in the higher populated regions of the galaxy, or scattered randomly all around galaxy?

That is actually one of the things that I'm trying to replicate as far as passenger transport is concerned. Personally I see a mix of numerous smaller transport options and larger long distance options. Think about this for a second. There are instances where someone may live on one planet and work on another. I'm under the impression that in order to make something like that work you would need the equivalent to a fleet of today's mid-range passenger jets. In my mind the craft in question would need to be relatively small with a capacity of at least several hundred, but no more than a thousand. It would not have the capacity to hold these people for more than a few days seeing as the average trip is only suppose to last several hours at most. Seating would again be similar todays passenger jet aircraft.

For example, fireships are an old tactic since ancient times. They were usually old ships. But in 17th century, navies used fireships so widely that they undertook to build and store dedicated fireships in appreciable numbers. Then in 18th century, manned sailing ships got better at dodging fireships, and dedicated fireships were gradually abandoned.

Regarding the social effects of big ships: the armies on Earth have got to several millions of men, but these were units spread over thousands of km of war theatres. But in sieges, there have been several occasions with over 100 000 men defending an area a few km across... and then they relied mostly on walking to get around.

I think I get what you're saying, but can you elaborate further?

Ninja edit: Wow I fucked up the formatting on this post... I also know I missed a few things but it took me several hours to finish this post alone so I'll get to them later.

[Forgothrax]

re: Honorverse shipping.

From what I remember of the Honorverse, their economics and production technology are very reminiscent of modern Terra-- they have nothing like a universal assembler (replicator, Eclipse-phase cornucopia machine, etc) and are certainly not post-scarcity, if Haven is any indication. Populations of individual planets also seem relatively low; the entire Manticore system hovers around 3.6 billion iirc, and Manticore is one of the most influential polities. With the combination of low planetary populations and lack of soft-SF production technologies, the Honorverse may concentrate production of high-tech gear on worlds with high populations and ship said gear to lower-population worlds instead of building factories in each market.

[Terralthra]

re: Honorverse shipping.

From what I remember of the Honorverse, their economics and production technology are very reminiscent of modern Terra-- they have nothing like a universal assembler (replicator, Eclipse-phase cornucopia machine, etc) and are certainly not post-scarcity, if Haven is any indication. Populations of individual planets also seem relatively low; the entire Manticore system hovers around 3.6 billion iirc, and Manticore is one of the most influential polities. With the combination of low planetary populations and lack of soft-SF production technologies, the Honorverse may concentrate production of high-tech gear on worlds with high populations and ship said gear to lower-population worlds instead of building factories in each market.

That, and it's heavily implied that their (non-military) shipping doesn't go on a "bring good a to x planet, unload, fill up on good b, take to y planet, unload, re-load good a, repeat," but on more of a loop or circuit basis, where one starts with a bunch of (say) high-tech goods from Manticore, swings out through a terminus, and sweep through a swathe of Verge or Silesian planets, selling off some high-tech goods at each, and filling up the modest space you just emptied with whatever good that planet makes (e.g. high-grade beef from Montana). Once you've run out of your original tradestock, you take your range-fed beef, tree-that-doesn't-grow-on-any-other-planet, hallucinogenic moss, etc. back to the core world(s) and sell them at a huge markup from the origin price because they're exotic/one-of-a-kind.

It's probably more complex even than that, because surely the other Verge worlds want to buy things from each other, as well as back-and-forth trade between Verge and Core. The key point is that yes, they are 6-8 megaton freighters, but they don't load up on 6-8 megatons of a single cargo, they have an indeterminate number of smaller cargoes which get swapped out for other cargoes at various stops along the way.

[chornedsnorkack]

First something from a previous post that I missed...

Also remember that you do not need to have "trillions" in a single world. That is going to depend on the exact scaling of the ship technology. If you are trading between one end of galaxy and the other, you might have your physical goods reloaded to swarms of smaller ships which reach tens of thousands of nearby planets. So, how will your technology scale with range? Is a spaceship good to travel 500 light years appreciably different from a spaceship whose mission is 25 000 lightyears?

On the first part concerning planetary populations. I'm actually trying to avoid 'hive worlds' and the like. Obviously there will be worlds with utterly massive populations

How is it obvious? And what is "utterly massive" for you?

but for the most part it's extremely uncommon.

How uncommon?

Do these uncommon worlds have importance for the total population? For the economy, politics and society overall?

Concerning FTL, there's several different types of FTL. The fastest being used primarily by massive corporations and the various militaries. Why? Because that specific type of FTL is deadly if used incorrectly, and requires constant maintenance to prevent catastrophic failure which is both time and resource intensive. You're probably wondering why they would even use it. Well to put it simply, necessity and redundancy are extremely important. Very rarely will a local freight or passenger transport company have the monetary means to maintain a fleet of ships which use it, so that means that the majority of civilian ships slow boat from place to place using yet another less efficient and slower but much safer form of FTL. There are also several other forms of FTL each with different restrictions. To better understand it I suppose I could reference modern shipping in that several modern navies use nuclear power extensively, while civilian vessels use various forms of power generation. From diesel to coal steam and wind power. All achieve the same result but get there using very different means but many times with differing levels of performance.

All that being said technical range isn't really the issue it's speed that determines the length of transit.

Or compare airplanes with ground transport. Planes face much higher regulatory requirements on the certification of design, construction, maintenance, teaching of pilots, operating procedures etc. compared to ground transportation. Which is why a large part of air traffic is in the hands of big airlines.

Australia currently has about 30 million international air passengers per year - close to 15 millions each way. The sea passengers are presumably few in number. Obviously handling that region of flows can be made by relatively small ships... that 15 millions is aquivalent to 40 000 each day.

That is actually one of the things that I'm trying to replicate as far as passenger transport is concerned. Personally I see a mix of numerous smaller transport options and larger long distance options. Think about this for a second. There are instances where someone may live on one planet and work on another. I'm under the impression that in order to make something like that work you would need the equivalent to a fleet of today's mid-range passenger jets. In my mind the craft in question would need to be relatively small with a capacity of at least several hundred, but no more than a thousand. It would not have the capacity to hold these people for more than a few days seeing as the average trip is only suppose to last several hours at most. Seating would again be similar todays passenger jet aircraft.

A comparison from classical SF: in 80 FE, the Anacreon navy was to take 13 hours from Anacreon to Terminus. Salvor Hardin took 6 days to visit 8 principal planets of Anacreon - meaning an average 18 hours for trip plus stay on ground.

But here consider the comfort issues. How uncomfortable and dangerous is physical presence on a spaceship? And how expensive is a spaceship trip?

Just compare planes designed to spend a few hours connecting Great Britain to America or Spain - and ships also designed to spend only a few hours, connecting Great Britain to Ireland or France. On planes, seats usually have seat belts, and passengers are asked to actually fasten them on takeoff, landing and turbulence. Ships also roll in storm waves - yet passengers are NOT told to fasten seat belts, and the seats do not HAVE them. Cruiseferries typically have spacious restaurants, tax-free shops... all of which are absent on planes. Large scale use of car decks on ships, while they are rare on planes...

For example, fireships are an old tactic since ancient times. They were usually old ships. But in 17th century, navies used fireships so widely that they undertook to build and store dedicated fireships in appreciable numbers. Then in 18th century, manned sailing ships got better at dodging fireships, and dedicated fireships were gradually abandoned.

Regarding the social effects of big ships: the armies on Earth have got to several millions of men, but these were units spread over thousands of km of war theatres. But in sieges, there have been several occasions with over 100 000 men defending an area a few km across... and then they relied mostly on walking to get around.

I think I get what you're saying, but can you elaborate further?

The tactics of sea wars have been very different depending on technological opportunities.

A very popular historic use of navies has been not fighting on water at all - using the ships to transport armies and fighting on land. The other major approaches have included fighting on water by boarding attacks, ramming, and using missile weapons launched from ships.

And fireships or explosive ships.

For much of the history, fireships were, yes, improvised on favourable occasions, out of cheap ships. But in 17th century, navies found the tactics so often useful that they built predesignated fireships and carried them along with navies.

Or take "planet-busting", "filling freighters". Well, compare cruise missiles with bombers. It is true that Germany developed these, basically expendable unmanned planes in Second World War when they were the weaker side and had problems defeating RAF and safely flying over Britain. Yet USA also mass produces and employs cruise missiles. USA also has a large air force of manned strategic bombers - yet USA finds a cruise missile that does not have to fly back safely much cheaper to produce than a manned bomber which does. It does not need to be a "terrorist" weapon, even if it is a "terror" weapon.

Populations of individual planets also seem relatively low; the entire Manticore system hovers around 3.6 billion iirc, and Manticore is one of the most influential polities. With the combination of low planetary populations and lack of soft-SF production technologies, the Honorverse may concentrate production of high-tech gear on worlds with high populations and ship said gear to lower-population worlds instead of building factories in each market.

Look at Earth.
Americas and Oceania take up a third of land surface. Yet they have just a seventh of the population.
Compare USA with China, or Brazil with India.

New world STILL, after 5 centuries, has not been settled to population densities of Old World. USA, Canada, Australia, Argentina practice large scale farming... and the produce is partly directly exported to Old World, partly converted to other forms like grainfed animal meat.

It would make perfect sense for spacefarers to leave the colonies sparsely settled and move on.

In terms of Honorverse: is Manticore influential BECAUSA it is relatively populous? Or is it populous because it is influential? Or is it both by way of circle?

[gigabytelord]

How is it obvious? And what is "utterly massive" for you?

How uncommon? Do these uncommon worlds have importance for the total population? For the economy, politics and society overall?

To put this simply. The majority of planets have populations below the 1-3 billion mark. Now realistically these numbers are entirely arbitrary (There's the word I've been looking for!). However from an in-universe point of view it makes a certain sense. Basically there are different classifications for different worlds, and because naturally habitable worlds are just plain hard to find you will often see (as often as such worlds exist anyways) situations where a system may have extremely unbalanced local population, ie. it has a total population of say 20 billion but only a small percentage of that lives on the one earthlike world in the system. This is because in many cases the average person simply can't afford to live on such a world often because of governmental restrictions.
Are these universal rules? No of course not and each government takes a slightly different approach to such an issue. As a side note the more self sufficient a world is the more useful it will be in situations such as a galaxy wide conflict. Which means in some cases that over all industrial capacity is much higher than would other wise be required. This does however have very interesting long term political side effects especially once you introduce cultural, religious, linguistic, and political differences. Politics are hard I say!

There are worlds with populations ranging into the hundreds of billions and in several cases trillions, but the reason for such high population are logical and make sense in those situations.

Also I should clarify that in some cases there may be multiple populated worlds in single system. Each one having a comparably low population in the low billions, but overall the entire system may contain hundreds of billions or even trillions.

Or compare airplanes with ground transport. Planes face much higher regulatory requirements on the certification of design, construction, maintenance, teaching of pilots, operating procedures etc. compared to ground transportation. Which is why a large part of air traffic is in the hands of big airlines.

A comparison from classical SF: in 80 FE, the Anacreon navy was to take 13 hours from Anacreon to Terminus. Salvor Hardin took 6 days to visit 8 principal planets of Anacreon - meaning an average 18 hours for trip plus stay on ground.

But here consider the comfort issues. How uncomfortable and dangerous is physical presence on a spaceship? And how expensive is a spaceship trip?
Just compare planes designed to spend a few hours connecting Great Britain to America or Spain - and ships also designed to spend only a few hours, connecting Great Britain to Ireland or France. On planes, seats usually have seat belts, and passengers are asked to actually fasten them on takeoff, landing and turbulence. Ships also roll in storm waves - yet passengers are NOT told to fasten seat belts, and the seats do not HAVE them. Cruiseferries typically have spacious restaurants, tax-free shops... all of which are absent on planes. Large scale use of car decks on ships, while they are rare on planes...

Lets go for all three of these. Basically I'm imagining a world where you as a passenger have many options. From short range economy to long range luxury. Just like you would have today. Everything within reason of course. With that being said think about this for a second. Most people are likely to use the in-universe Boeing 777 equivalent while others are able to spare fewer expenses and fly in style in the interplanetary equivalent of a Concorde jet.

As to how safe it is? Well ships sink every year and people invariably died nearly every time. The same can be said for modern commercial aircraft (the crashing part that is not the deaths) yet they're considered to be statistically much safer than transport via road or rail. Think of short range inter-planetary or possibly inter-system transport being so common by this point that most people don't honestly think about it.

I'd like to think I've put a lot of thought into this.

The tactics of sea wars have been very different depending on technological opportunities.
A very popular historic use of navies has been not fighting on water at all - using the ships to transport armies and fighting on land. The other major approaches have included fighting on water by boarding attacks, ramming, and using missile weapons launched from ships.
And fireships or explosive ships.
For much of the history, fireships were, yes, improvised on favourable occasions, out of cheap ships. But in 17th century, navies found the tactics so often useful that they built predesignated fire ships and carried them along with navies.
Or take "planet-busting", "filling freighters". Well, compare cruise missiles with bombers. It is true that Germany developed these, basically expendable unmanned planes in Second World War when they were the weaker side and had problems defeating RAF and safely flying over Britain. Yet USA also mass produces and employs cruise missiles. USA also has a large air force of manned strategic bombers - yet USA finds a cruise missile that does not have to fly back safely much cheaper to produce than a manned bomber which does. It does not need to be a "terrorist" weapon, even if it is a "terror" weapon.

Basically what I was saying is that terror weapons are used but have considerable political backlash. Then again cruise missile equivalents are also mass produced but those aren't treated as terror weapons. I'm mainly referring to the instances where a smaller military power might find itself being forced to resort to things like cramming a freighter full of rocks (or nukes as was mentioned earlier) and slamming it into a populated planet at .9c. It's not as efficient as just dropping a single QVM warhead on the planet, but it achieves the required goal. ie. "Crude but effective"

[Mr Bean]

Populations of individual planets also seem relatively low; the entire Manticore system hovers around 3.6 billion iirc, and Manticore is one of the most influential polities. With the combination of low planetary populations and lack of soft-SF production technologies, the Honorverse may concentrate production of high-tech gear on worlds with high populations and ship said gear to lower-population worlds instead of building factories in each market.

Look at Earth.
Americas and Oceania take up a third of land surface. Yet they have just a seventh of the population.
Compare USA with China, or Brazil with India.

New world STILL, after 5 centuries, has not been settled to population densities of Old World. USA, Canada, Australia, Argentina practice large scale farming... and the produce is partly directly exported to Old World, partly converted to other forms like grainfed animal meat.

It would make perfect sense for spacefarers to leave the colonies sparsely settled and move on.

In terms of Honorverse: is Manticore influential BECAUSA it is relatively populous? Or is it populous because it is influential? Or is it both by way of circle?

Manticore is influential because it sits atop the Manticore wormhole junction which allows any ship leaving Manticore to skip the next best thing from one month to five months off a voyage. The Manticore wormhole junction is the largest junction found to date anywhere in known space and two of it's endpoint junctions have nearby junctions meaning it's possible to take a seven month trip in a week assuming your going from point A to point G.

It's hard to draw a comparison of how unique Manticore situation is. Imagine if Dubai had access to portals that went from it's harbors to within a hundred miles of every major port in the world making the canals of the world mostly pointless. No need to use the suez if dubai had a portal leading from the sea off Great Britan and coming out in Dubai with only a quick hop into another portal to end up end to Madagascar or New Zealand.

[Simon_Jester]

It's probably more complex even than that, because surely the other Verge worlds want to buy things from each other, as well as back-and-forth trade between Verge and Core. The key point is that yes, they are 6-8 megaton freighters, but they don't load up on 6-8 megatons of a single cargo, they have an indeterminate number of smaller cargoes which get swapped out for other cargoes at various stops along the way.

That probably helps explain it- the power of containerization is pretty impressive, and would probably scale up if we made the container ships 20-100 times bigger, which is really all that's going on here now that I think about it.

Basically what I was saying is that terror weapons are used but have considerable political backlash. Then again cruise missile equivalents are also mass produced but those aren't treated as terror weapons. I'm mainly referring to the instances where a smaller military power might find itself being forced to resort to things like cramming a freighter full of rocks (or nukes as was mentioned earlier) and slamming it into a populated planet at .9c. It's not as efficient as just dropping a single QVM warhead on the planet, but it achieves the required goal. ie. "Crude but effective"

The real question is, at what point would the availability of "crude but effective" weapons and tactics short-circuit the development of more elegant technology that is basically just a more expensive way of doing the same thing, via gimmick.

[gigabytelord]

The real question is, at what point would the availability of "crude but effective" weapons and tactics short-circuit the development of more elegant technology that is basically just a more expensive way of doing the same thing, via gimmick.

Interesting to note actually is the fact that technically as of the most current timeline of events in-universe that short circuit has already occurred. As a result of "crude but effective" tactics several of the larger powers have adopted defensive technologies that have for all intents and proposes once again re-balanced the never ending war between offence and defense, and it's currently weighted heavily in favor of the defenders. Which has caused an almost cold war-esk situation in current political affairs.

You know some times I've the feeling that I've expended way to much energy thinking up this stuff, but it's just so much fun. Especially if you're actually writing it down.

[chornedsnorkack]

To put this simply. The majority of planets have populations below the 1-3 billion mark. Now realistically these numbers are entirely arbitrary (There's the word I've been looking for!). However from an in-universe point of view it makes a certain sense. Basically there are different classifications for different worlds,

Compare again Anacreon of 80 FE. Population quoted at 19 milliards. 25 planetary systems, including 6 with more than one settled planet.
That means at least 31 settled planets, and assuming that the "more than one" is mostly 2 but one of them 3, we reach 32. Average population 600 millions per planet. So, below the 1-3 milliard mark for majority.

and because naturally habitable worlds are just plain hard to find you will often see (as often as such worlds exist anyways) situations where a system may have extremely unbalanced local population, ie. it has a total population of say 20 billion but only a small percentage of that lives on the one earthlike world in the system. This is because in many cases the average person simply can't afford to live on such a world often because of governmental restrictions.
Are these universal rules? No of course not and each government takes a slightly different approach to such an issue.

Yes, but it seems odd to me that these are "as often as such worlds exist", "many cases", "often".

In the absence of government action, living on an earthlike world is cheap compared to living elsewhere because you do not have to pay for terraforming and maintenance of terraforming. People would crowd on the earthlike planets until scarcity drives the price to the level where the cost of terraforming is lower. In absence of government restriction, the cost of living would even out - cost of scarcity vs. cost of maintenance.

A governmen that does interfere with restrictions will be making a massive sacrifice of economic efficiency. For what goal?

As a side note the more self sufficient a world is the more useful it will be in situations such as a galaxy wide conflict. Which means in some cases that over all industrial capacity is much higher than would other wise be required. This does however have very interesting long term political side effects especially once you introduce cultural, religious, linguistic, and political differences. Politics are hard I say!

There are obvious advantages of scale to concentrating large amounts of industrial capacity near each other and exporting the produce.

There are worlds with populations ranging into the hundreds of billions and in several cases trillions, but the reason for such high population are logical and make sense in those situations.

Yes. Like Asimov who had no sense of scale with Trantor of "forty billion" inhabitants. Assuming short scale, it is a ridiculously low number.

Also I should clarify that in some cases there may be multiple populated worlds in single system. Each one having a comparably low population in the low billions, but overall the entire system may contain hundreds of billions or even trillions.

Earthlike, or terraformed?

[Simon_Jester]

A governmen that does interfere with restrictions will be making a massive sacrifice of economic efficiency. For what goal?

I can think of a reason- ecological stability. Terraformed planetary ecosystems would tend to be rather fragile, with limited biodiversity and (often) an underlying climactic template not so well suited for maintaining rich ecosystems. The government might be very sensitive about anything that might cause the planet to unterraform itself and revert to its natural state... like too many people giving rise to an industrial base that pours CO2 into the air, or large numbers of people wanting to clear forests and move into the land thus cleared when without the forests the overall regional environment collapses.

Yes. Like Asimov who had no sense of scale with Trantor of "forty billion" inhabitants. Assuming short scale, it is a ridiculously low number.

Yeah. Forty billion is probably a credible number for maximizing population on an earthlike planet without actively paving over the whole thing and shipping in food from other planets. If you intensively used all available biomass to support human life as efficiently as possible, you could at least get within shouting distance. For a "whole planet is one big city" ecumenopolis, it's not credible.

[gigabytelord]

Compare again Anacreon of 80 FE. Population quoted at 19 milliards. 25 planetary systems, including 6 with more than one settled planet.
That means at least 31 settled planets, and assuming that the "more than one" is mostly 2 but one of them 3, we reach 32. Average population 600 millions per planet. So, below the 1-3 milliard mark for majority.

I've never actually read anything from the Honorverse. I keep hearing mostly good things about it though. Tell me, would you recommend it as reading?

In the absence of government action, living on an earthlike world is cheap compared to living elsewhere because you do not have to pay for terraforming and maintenance of terraforming. People would crowd on the earthlike planets until scarcity drives the price to the level where the cost of terraforming is lower. In absence of government restriction, the cost of living would even out - cost of scarcity vs. cost of maintenance.
A government that does interfere with restrictions will be making a massive sacrifice of economic efficiency. For what goal?

Let's go with a little back ground. This story is set nearly 45,000 years in the future and in a neighbouring galaxy. Why 43k? because it's entirely arbitrary and should never come up in the actual graphic novel. Certain technologies are available that significantly reduce the time and resources needed to terraform a world. That being said I keep mentioning politics and it's true, a lot of it has to do with politics, however with the development and proliferation of certain defensive technologies within the last few centuries this is starting to change. But there are underlying cultural issues pertaining to this subject as well. Basically some populations see earthlike worlds as a precious resource that need to be maintained at all cost, this isn't a universal point of view but does affect government policy.

God damn it I really want to tell you everything but it'll spoil the story!

There are obvious advantages of scale to concentrating large amounts of industrial capacity near each other and exporting the produce.

Except concentrating your industrial capacity also makes it vulnerable to a crippling military attack if located.

Earthlike, or terraformed?

Terraformed or partially terraform, ie. needing constant artificial adjustment in order to stay within a habitable range. Think of mars for instance, say we terraformed and made the atmosphere breathable. Give it a few millennia and it would start reverting back to it's original state. Why? Because it doesn't have the mass and gravitational pull to retain lighter gases. Nor does it have an active core dynamo to maintain a strong magnetosphere with which to prevent it's atmosphere from being striped off by solar winds.

Edit: Also let me add this. "Economic Efficiency" is a good idea... Too bad most modern government didn't get the memo.

[chornedsnorkack]

Yes. Like Asimov who had no sense of scale with Trantor of "forty billion" inhabitants. Assuming short scale, it is a ridiculously low number.

Yeah. Forty billion is probably a credible number for maximizing population on an earthlike planet without actively paving over the whole thing and shipping in food from other planets. If you intensively used all available biomass to support human life as efficiently as possible, you could at least get within shouting distance. For a "whole planet is one big city" ecumenopolis, it's not credible.

Shipping in food does NOT require paving over the whole planet!

Just look at the numbers Asimov MUST have had available in his 1940s if he had only had the common sense to apply them.

England, in 1940s, was producing a lot of food locally. Farms, pastures, some (modest) amounts of forests and moorlands.
Yet England also was shipping in food - at least from 1870s. If Germans succeeded in sea blockade or if England ran out of money to import food for, England would have starved in either world war.
England in 1940s (without Scothand and Wales) was 38 million people on 130 000 square km.
The whole land area of Earth excluding Antarctic is a bit more than 1000 times the area of England.

Fill in the whole Earth to the density of 1940s England and you have your 40 milliards. Shipping in food, of course, but producing a lot locally.

Now, how about urbanizing whole Earth?
Well, Manhattan island in 1910 had 2,3 million people. On under 60 square km. Yes, mostly built up or paved. Mostly. The streets were paved but open to sky (still are) and there were Central Park and other parks. Not much food production, though.

If you build up a whole planet with mostly multistorey buildings, or even just the whole land area, then note that the whole land area now including Antarctic is about 2,5 million times the area of Manhattan.

Obviously you then need somewhere to import food from, the arrangements to extract that food, and the arrangements for actual transportation.

[gigabytelord]

Shipping in food does NOT require paving over the whole planet!

That's not what he said or even implied dude, and no need to shout we're all intelligent, level headed people here.

Just look at the numbers Asimov MUST have had available in his 1940s if he had only had the common sense to apply them.
England, in 1940s, was producing a lot of food locally. Farms, pastures, some (modest) amounts of forests and moorlands.
Yet England also was shipping in food - at least from 1870s. If Germans succeeded in sea blockade or if England ran out of money to import food for, England would have starved in either world war.
England in 1940s (without Scothand and Wales) was 38 million people on 130 000 square km.
The whole land area of Earth excluding Antarctic is a bit more than 1000 times the area of England.
Fill in the whole Earth to the density of 1940s England and you have your 40 milliards. Shipping in food, of course, but producing a lot locally.
Now, how about urbanizing whole Earth?
Well, Manhattan island in 1910 had 2,3 million people. On under 60 square km. Yes, mostly built up or paved. Mostly. The streets were paved but open to sky (still are) and there were Central Park and other parks. Not much food production, though.
If you build up a whole planet with mostly multistorey buildings, or even just the whole land area, then note that the whole land area now including Antarctic is about 2,5 million times the area of Manhattan.
Obviously you then need somewhere to import food from, the arrangements to extract that food, and the arrangements for actual transportation.

Interesting information. However I think you misunderstand. He didn't imply that you'd need to pave the entire planet. To recap he stated:

Forty billion is probably a credible number for maximizing population on an earthlike planet without actively paving over the whole thing

Notice the without in there? Yeah I think we're all in agreement here to a certain extent. Also I'd like to point that available surface land area actually has very little to do population size in my universe. The reasoning is that vertical hydroponics farms are a commonality on any heavily populated world the point to of which is to prevent food shortages in the event of blockade or any other situation in which food can't there on time.

This is the reason why I keep trying to tell that you that the primary reasons for some factions in this universe placing restrictions on immigration to earth like worlds generally has more to do with political and cultural reasoning.

[Batman]

Compare again Anacreon of 80 FE. Population quoted at 19 milliards. 25 planetary systems, including 6 with more than one settled planet.
That means at least 31 settled planets, and assuming that the "more than one" is mostly 2 but one of them 3, we reach 32. Average population 600 millions per planet. So, below the 1-3 milliard mark for majority.

I've never actually read anything from the Honorverse. I keep hearing mostly good things about it though. Tell me, would you recommend it as reading?

Notice the terms 'Anacreon' and 'FE' there? 'FE' stands for 'Foundation Era'. He's referring to Asimov's Foundation/Empire universe, not the Honorverse. As for recommended reading, most of the Honorverse is available for free (legally) in the form of the Honorverse CD, and the first two book can be downloaded at the Baen Free Library.

we're all intelligent, level headed people here.

Speak for yourself

[Simon_Jester]

Yes. Like Asimov who had no sense of scale with Trantor of "forty billion" inhabitants. Assuming short scale, it is a ridiculously low number.

Yeah. Forty billion is probably a credible number for maximizing population on an earthlike planet without actively paving over the whole thing and shipping in food from other planets. If you intensively used all available biomass to support human life as efficiently as possible, you could at least get within shouting distance. For a "whole planet is one big city" ecumenopolis, it's not credible.

Shipping in food does NOT require paving over the whole planet!

You're missing the point. Fill the Earth to the population density of England and maybe you could still feed everyone without shipping in food, with sufficiently advanced technology, it would be at least a reasonable figure for an overpopulated but self-sufficient capital world. Which is what I was saying.

Then you proceed to chew me out for saying this, and for going on to say that if you filled the Earth with a megalopolis (i.e. population density of New York) you'd get a much higher population than that. I'm agreeing with you, and you're telling me I'm wrong in the process.

Please stop to make sure you understood what I was saying before telling me I'm being foolish.

[And thank you, gigabytelord]

Now Asimov, in the event, did have Trantor importing food from forty agricultural worlds (or thereabouts). Which would be far more than enough to support a planet with a population of forty billion, but not nearly enough to support a planet with a population in the trillions.

[gigabytelord]

Notice the terms 'Anacreon' and 'FE' there? 'FE' stands for 'Foundation Era'. He's referring to Asimov's Foundation/Empire universe, not the Honorverse. As for recommended reading, most of the Honorverse is available for free (legally) in the form of the Honorverse CD, and the first two book can be downloaded at the Baen Free Library.

Oh cool I'll check that out then. I'm obviously not very familiar with either.

Also do you happen to know the names of these books? I'm guessing they're written by Honor Harrington? Hence the name Honorverse?

Speak for yourself

Forty worlds to feed one world with a population of only 40 billion does seem a bit extreme. Jeebus what are they using pre-industrial era farming techniques?

[chornedsnorkack]

Yeah. Forty billion is probably a credible number for maximizing population on an earthlike planet without actively paving over the whole thing and shipping in food from other planets. If you intensively used all available biomass to support human life as efficiently as possible, you could at least get within shouting distance. For a "whole planet is one big city" ecumenopolis, it's not credible.

Shipping in food does NOT require paving over the whole planet!

You're missing the point. Fill the Earth to the population density of England and maybe you could still feed everyone without shipping in food, with sufficiently advanced technology, it would be at least a reasonable figure for an overpopulated but self-sufficient capital world. Which is what I was saying.

Then you proceed to chew me out for saying this, and for going on to say that if you filled the Earth with a megalopolis (i.e. population density of New York) you'd get a much higher population than that. I'm agreeing with you, and you're telling me I'm wrong in the process.


Please stop to make sure you understood what I was saying before telling me I'm being foolish.

[And thank you, gigabytelord]

From your wording:

maximizing population on an earthlike planet without actively paving over the whole thing and shipping in food from other planets.

I got the impression that you were conflating these two things. And even if you were not, you were expressing it so unclearly that a reader can easily get the impression. "Paving over the whole thing" and "shipping in food from other planets". My objection is that they are very different - there is a broad range of densities (about two orders of magnitude) where the planet is mostly suburbanized - dependent on shipping in food from other planet, with the remaining farmland able to feed only a minority of the population, yet the buildings and pavements covering only a minority of the area.

So yes, 40 millions is about the maximum range that could be supported. But Trantor didn´t.

Now Asimov, in the event, did have Trantor importing food from forty agricultural worlds (or thereabouts). Which would be far more than enough to support a planet with a population of forty billion, but not nearly enough to support a planet with a population in the trillions.

Officially 20 agricultural worlds were mentioned. Given the time of writing (1940s, total population of Earth 2,5 milliards), 20 planets would have had something like 50 milliard people. It would be entirely logical to have, say, an average agricultural world feeding 5 milliard people of which 3 milliards live locally including the peasants and the workers transporting the food and supporting the peasants, and exports enough for 2 milliards, in total supporting the 40 milliards in gardens of Trantor. Economically, it would actually make more sense for Trantor to use spare lands for intensive farming to feed, say, 20 milliard people, and import the food for the other 20 milliards, at the rate of food for 1 milliard people from each of the 20 agricultural worlds.

Forty worlds to feed one world with a population of only 40 billion does seem a bit extreme. Jeebus what are they using pre-industrial era farming techniques?

Just remember Asimov´s time of writing. 1940s - the Earth was just over 2 milliards them... most of them WERE pre-industrial farming. So, sounds quite plausible numbers, as I demonstrated above.

[Ahriman238]

Oh cool I'll check that out then. I'm obviously not very familiar with either.

Also do you happen to know the names of these books? I'm guessing they're written by Honor Harrington? Hence the name Honorverse?

No, the protagonist is Honor Harrington, the author is David Weber. The first two books are On Basilisk Station, then Honor of the Queen. Followed by Short Victorious War, Field of Dishonor, Flag in Exile, Honor Among Enemies, In Enemy Hands, Echoes of Honor, Ashes of Victory, War of Honor, At All Costs, Mission of Honor, and A Rising Thunder. Not counting prequels, short story anthologies, 2 spin-off series and a promised MMO that never really materialized.

When I was 15 the books were the best sci-fi ever written. As I got older and the series wore on, it seemed a lot less fantastic. Rereading the first 3 books still does it for me though.

All of this information was available to you with a search engine and 20 seconds, or a peek at the open thread about the series.



As for Asimov, IIRC the Foundation series sort of predates the Green Revolution and the creation of most modern farming techniques. You may reflect on a spot of irony how he thought nuclear power would change absolutely everything forever and permeate everyday life on the same scale as electricity, but assumed agriculture would remain the same. But of course, he didn't actually know the future.

[chornedsnorkack]

Again with 1940 numbers. US census of 1940 found 131 million people, and classified them - 74 millions "urban" defined as incorporated places of at least 2500 people, 57 million "rural". And these 57 million "rural" people were broken down to 30 million "farm" population, defined as households who produced significant farming income, ans 27 millions "rural nonfarm". The number of such "urban places" was 3464, meaning an average of under 22 000 - the cities of at least 10 000 were less than one third at 1077, and just 412 were above average and over 25 000. Out of the total urban population 56,5 %, 28,9 % lived in cities of over 100 000, numbering just 92, so 3 % of all towns. The 5 cities of over 1 million held 12,1 % of total US population, meaning over a fifth of total urban one. These 5 were New York (7,45 millions), Chicago (3,4 millions), Philadelphia (1,93 millions), Detroit (1,62 millions) and Los Angeles (1,5 millions). The 6th was Cleveland (878 thousands) and there were a total of 9 between half and one million.

For comparison, British India´s part that would be partitioned to India had 312 million people in 1940, and just 44 millions were urban - again including small towns. The biggest city of India was Calcutta, 2,2 million within boundaries and an urban area of about 3,5 millions total.

If the 1940 US farmers could export more than half of their produce to towns and cities, it was not unreasonable to guess that the people of the 20 specialized agricultural worlds might, by applying the specialized 1940s US agriculture around planets, produce food to export for 2 milliards of people on Trantor, plus their own consumption.

[gigabytelord]

All of this information was available to you with a search engine and 20 seconds, or a peek at the open thread about the series.

Yeah thanks. Needless to say I realized the error of my ways this morning and took steps in the right direction. It was 5:30 am give me a break.

As for Asimov, IIRC the Foundation series sort of predates the Green Revolution and the creation of most modern farming techniques. You may reflect on a spot of irony how he thought nuclear power would change absolutely everything forever and permeate everyday life on the same scale as electricity, but assumed agriculture would remain the same. But of course, he didn't actually know the future.

That does clarify some things a little.

Again with 1940 numbers. US census of 1940 found 131 million people, and classified them - 74 millions "urban" defined as incorporated places of at least 2500 people, 57 million "rural". And these 57 million "rural" people were broken down to 30 million "farm" population, defined as households who produced significant farming income, ans 27 millions "rural nonfarm". The number of such "urban places" was 3464, meaning an average of under 22 000 - the cities of at least 10 000 were less than one third at 1077, and just 412 were above average and over 25 000. Out of the total urban population 56,5 %, 28,9 % lived in cities of over 100 000, numbering just 92, so 3 % of all towns. The 5 cities of over 1 million held 12,1 % of total US population, meaning over a fifth of total urban one. These 5 were New York (7,45 millions), Chicago (3,4 millions), Philadelphia (1,93 millions), Detroit (1,62 millions) and Los Angeles (1,5 millions). The 6th was Cleveland (878 thousands) and there were a total of 9 between half and one million.

For comparison, British India´s part that would be partitioned to India had 312 million people in 1940, and just 44 millions were urban - again including small towns. The biggest city of India was Calcutta, 2,2 million within boundaries and an urban area of about 3,5 millions total.

If the 1940 US farmers could export more than half of their produce to towns and cities, it was not unreasonable to guess that the people of the 20 specialized agricultural worlds might, by applying the specialized 1940s US agriculture around planets, produce food to export for 2 milliards of people on Trantor, plus their own consumption.

Chornedsnorkack, we get it. You do realize this has very little to do with the subject of the thread by this point right? You've provided great but ultimately useless info. I mean it's fascinating to look at but frankly we already knew most of this and no one asked for such an info dump in the first place.

Ok let me say this again. Because of the in-universe proliferation and perfection of hydroponics technologies a planet of 1 trillion will have no worse an issue feeding itself than a planet of 1 billion it's really that simple. Whether the food is grown in orbital stations or in vertical skyscrapers dotting the surface of the planet there will almost always be food available. Whether it comes in the form of fresh green vegetables or an algae paste it'll still feed you. I've repeatedly stated that the primary reasons for some nations placing immigration restrictions on earthlike worlds has far more to do with outdated political and cultural tendencies. In other words you and them seem to have something in common right now.

I've been trying to get this over to you since the subject was raised but you seem to be incapable of letting it go.

[Batman]

If you don't like infodumps you should definitely avail yourself of the free iterations of the Honorverse before you shell out for print books

[gigabytelord]

If you don't like infodumps you should definitely avail yourself of the free iterations of the Honorverse before you shell out for print books

Oh I love infodumps that are actually needed or useful. Otherwise they're just a waste of time and an annoyance.

[chornedsnorkack]

Well, I had problems with suspending disbelief for the claim that the habitable area was not important.

Now taking the express premise:

Because of the in-universe proliferation and perfection of hydroponics technologies a planet of 1 trillion will have no worse an issue feeding itself than a planet of 1 billion it's really that simple. Whether the food is grown in orbital stations or in vertical skyscrapers dotting the surface of the planet there will almost always be food available. Whether it comes in the form of fresh green vegetables or an algae paste it'll still feed you.

Then the question is - if land on earthlike/habitable planets is not a limiting and indispensable resource, then what IS? What are the resources that are worth paying for, defending, attacking to seize or deny to an enemy, that give the possessor wealth, power and ability to build armies?

If a planet could feed 1 trillion by hydroponics, what is special about the planet that can? Why can one planet feed 1 trillion people and most others cannot support more than a few tens of millions?

In worldbuilding it is very important to establish what is impossible, and work through the implications. If you neglect that, it will be impossible to make sense of economy, military strategies and tactics, or politics. Even if there are rare exceptions, or changes that will become important to the story, you have to figure out what a well-informed insider would have thought impossible or improbable, because they will have designed their economic, military and political plans about what they know to be likely.

Even looking at the basic design of freighters... If a planet of 7 milliards will be assumed to import most of its food (because, unlike Earth, they had some means of importing it and therefore never had to develop the local agriculture to the level of supporting 7 milliards), then we have a known order of magnitude for the amount of food most of the 7 milliards will eat, and can estimate the number and size of the freighters around the known task. If they also import oil, coal, perhaps import oxygen as well and remove waste carbon dioxide from planet, we can estimate the amount of freighters for that. But if the planet is (like Earth) self-sufficient in food, then the freight flows can be arbitrarily small, or zero (Earth has not imported anything for about 40 years). For example, if the goods that a planet does import is not oil (and oxygen), but enriched uranium 235 for fission reactors, or helium 3 for fusion, then you are talking of 6 orders of magnitude smaller freight flows... and accordingly smaller freighter ships.

[StarSword]

For combat vessels another consideration is what type of weapons your 'verse relies on. For example, ships in Mass Effect tend to be very long, specifically, because that provides more room for the spinal mass accelerator that runs most of the length of the ship. This allows them to fire the slug with greater force. Because of this, dreadnoughts are usually around a klick in length and (according to the codex, anyway; the video artists weren't paying attention to this) act like artillery pieces.

By contrast, a setting that mainly uses omnidirectional energy weapons (e.g. Star Trek, with the phasers on a GCS organized into strips that can theoretically emit a beam from any point along their length) have more freedom in design.

The other consideration? Psychology. The Galactic Empire builds huge ships partly because they look scary.