I've  previously expressed the opinion concerning how far the analogy can be pushed vis-a-vis present-day Earth & the TU..

So, then, what it comes down to, IMO, is this;

What sort of interstellar trade volume would a super-tech (compared to the present day) universe like the TU have?

IMO it would be much, much lower than MT levels.

And, from what I've read, T5 seems to indicate that it's even lower still.

===========================================================

On Mon, 8/25/14, Craig Berry <xxxxxx@gmail.com> wrote:

 Subject: Re: [TML] expected ship traffic
 To: xxxxxx@simplelists.com
 Date: Monday, August 25, 2014, 12:50 PM

 There's a huge amount
 of large-container-ship traffic now, in real
 life, with voyages measured in weeks to months
 -- and with all trading
 partners living in
 the same ecosphere, with access to resources much
 more similar than what one would find between
 planets.

 As for comm lag,
 that really only matters for non-commodity cargo. You
 know months in advance when you're going to
 start shipping the new
 model of grav bike,
 and how long it will take shipments to reach
 dealers, so you build that into your plans (for
 shipping and for
 marketing) well in advance.
 Again, this is routinely done in the real
 world.

 And
 yes, this does tend to lead to near-monopolies; look at
 e.g.
 Maersk. They started out by ruthlessly
 dominating shipping in the
 Baltic a few
 centuries ago, and haven't lost that drive since. And,
 of
 course, in Traveller this shipping
 dominance by e.g. Tukera is a
 matter of
 canon.

 For more urgent
 non-bulk-commodity shipments, you turn to the
 equivalent of UPS or FedEx, which charge a huge
 premium over bulk
 shippers in exchange for
 getting things there much more quickly. In
 Traveller, this can be accomplished through
 some combination of using
 higher-jump ships,
 using more direct routing, and departing on demand
 rather than on a schedule.

 Finally, for illegal or otherwise clandestine
 cargoes, you turn to
 smugglers, who charge
 an enormous premium for the risk they incur, and
 also have a distressing tendency to decide
 it's more lucrative to take
 the goods
 themselves.

 On Mon, Aug 25,
 2014 at 12:19 PM, Phil Pugliese (via tml list)
 <xxxxxx@simplelists.com>
 wrote:
 > This email was sent from
 yahoo.com which does not allow forwarding of emails via
 email lists. Therefore the sender's email address (xxxxxx@yahoo.com)
 has been replaced with a dummy one. The original message
 follows:
 >
 > Actually,
 there's another issue.
 >
 > I just don't believe that there would
 be *that* much trade volume on even the *heaviest*
 routes.
 >
 > I mean
 anyone can produce a table that will indicate that there
 will a gazillion dTons 'tween here & there but
 anyone else can also produce one that will show almost
 nothing in the same situation. From what I've read it
 appears that T5 leans heavily towards the latter rather than
 the former but haven't there been differences amongst
 each morph of Trav in this regard?
 >
 > I can remember reading about that on this
 very list, back in first 1/2 of the '90's.
 > Someone, in response to a question, posted
 about how MT changed the 3I (or TU, can't remember
 exactly) from a setting of smaller merchantmen to one of
 massively gigantic ones.
 >
 > Still, that's where the 17th century
 maritime analogy, that has always been the template for the
 TU from the beginning, comes in.
 > Esp by
 the late 18th century you had the monster warships w/
 smaller merchantmen.
 >
 > Then there's also the comm lag.
 >
 > Obviously that's
 not present these days so how would that affect things?
 > I think it would argue for smaller ship
 & more frequent visits.
 >
 >
 --------------------------------------------
 > On Mon, 8/25/14, Craig Berry <xxxxxx@gmail.com>
 wrote:
 >
 >  Subject:
 Re: [TML] expected ship traffic
 >  To:
 xxxxxx@simplelists.com
 >  Date: Monday, August 25, 2014, 9:42
 AM
 >
 >  That's
 >  the basic issue at the core of this
 discussion. Economies of
 >  scale will
 always win (in the absence of market-distorting
 >  regulations).
 > 
 Personally,
 >  I think the CT
 "feel" works just fine in a TU with
 >  100 kdt+ container ships. Just as in the
 real world you
 >  couldn't run a
 successful cargo business with an 80'
 >  tramp between Long Beach and Tolyo,
 you're not going to
 >  last long
 running a Far Trader between Mora and Vincennes.
 >  But conversely, just as in the real
 world you can run a
 >  successful tramp
 freighter business between backwater ports
 >  in the South Pacific, you can do so in
 Traveller between the
 >  backwater
 worlds of the Marches.
 >
 >
 >
 >  On Mon, Aug 25, 2014 at
 >  9:14 AM, Bruce Johnson <xxxxxx@pharmacy.arizona.edu>
 >  wrote:
 >
 >
 >
 >
 >  On Aug 25, 2014, at
 7:54 AM, Phil Pugliese (via tml list)
 > 
 <xxxxxx@simplelists.com>
 >  wrote:
 >
 >
 >
 >  >
 >
 >  > It's not a question of of
 monster ships vs 200dT
 >  ships.
 >
 >  >
 >
 >  > It's a
 question of mostly ships up to 1000dT's
 >  w/ a few going higher, may be even as
 high as
 >  20KdT's.
 >
 >  >
 >
 >  > And it's
 every 10 weeks in *some* systems, but more
 >  (even *much* more) in some systems &
 even less in
 >  others.
 >
 >  > And that
 applies to not only the 3I but the TU in
 >  general.
 >
 >
 >
 >  If you are doing "much more"
 trade along a
 >  route with multiple
 20KDton ships, one 200KDton Dt ship will
 >  handle the trade and be more
 profitable.
 >
 >
 >
 >  --
 >
 >  Bruce Johnson
 >
 >
 >
 >  "Wherever you
 go, there you are." B. Banzai,
 > 
 PhD
 >
 >
 >
 >  -----
 >
 >  The Traveller
 Mailing List
 >
 > 
 Archives at http://archives.simplelists.com/tml
 >
 >  Report problems to
 xxxxxx@travellercentral.com
 >
 >  To unsubscribe from
 this list please goto
 >
 >  http://www.simplelists.com/confirm.php?u=PltOdItWBSgOP4y0Q6abkGbDI1eus0lz
 >
 >
 >
 >
 >  --
 >  Craig Berry
 (http://google.com/+CraigBerry)
 >  "Eternity is in love with the
 productions
 >  of time." - William
 Blake
 >
 >
 >
 >
 >  -----
 >  The
 Traveller Mailing List
 >  Archives at http://archives.simplelists.com/tml
 >  Report problems to xxxxxx@travellercentral.com
 >  To unsubscribe from this list please
 goto
 >  http://www.simplelists.com/confirm.php?u=EwREIRgLK8vaUEhNlnoNdSGKwnjoID8a
 >
 -----
 > The Traveller Mailing List
 > Archives at http://archives.simplelists.com/tml
 > Report problems to xxxxxx@travellercentral.com
 > To unsubscribe from this list please
 goto
 > http://www.simplelists.com/confirm.php?u=PltOdItWBSgOP4y0Q6abkGbDI1eus0lz

 --
 Craig Berry (http://google.com/+CraigBerry)
 "Eternity is in love with the productions
 of time." - William Blake
 -----
 The Traveller Mailing List
 Archives at http://archives.simplelists.com/tml
 Report problems to xxxxxx@travellercentral.com
 To unsubscribe from this list please goto
 http://www.simplelists.com/confirm.php?u=EwREIRgLK8vaUEhNlnoNdSGKwnjoID8a