--------------------------------------------
On Thu, 5/7/15, Richard Aiken <xxxxxx@gmail.com> wrote:

 Subject: Re: TL, Trade and You [WAS: Re: [TML] Finding transport]
 To: xxxxxx@simplelists.com
 Date: Thursday, May 7, 2015, 5:04 PM

 On Thu, May 7, 2015 at
 11:22 AM, Greg Nokes <xxxxxx@nokes.name>
 wrote:
 My only issue is that TL5
 rock with out a survivable  biosphere. Then, they cannot
 locally produce the food and essential gear that they need
 locally to survive - so all of the environmental suits, air
 scrubbers etc need to be shipped
 in.
 If the settlement is burrowed into
 solid rock - in order to give it easily-maintained
 hermetically-sealed caverns - then a decent-sized population
 can easily be supported by a native TL of 5. It just
 wouldn't be *Earth's* TL 5. Rather than
 smoke-belching coal-fired power plants, it uses massive fuel
 cells (first invented in 1839). Rather than open air fields
 of crops, it has carefully-maintained greenhouse wells
 covered by sheets of thick glass; the gardeners for Emperor
 Tiberius (42 BC - 37 AD) constructed the first
 recognizably-modern
 greenhouse. I guess that’s been one
 of my issues with OTU. I think that the local production TL
 is the worlds TL, however savvy merchants are going to bring
 cases of the new gear from the local high TL production
 center to those mooks and sell them at a
 margin.
 The local mooks don't have
 either economic or political power. That's why they are
 mooks. Off-world merchants aren't going to be interested
 in them, particularly given the high interstellar transport
 expenses of the canon OTL.  IMHO over a thousand
 years, TL is going to level out at some base (TL9? 10? 12?)
 and the higher TL systems will bring up the TL in a sphere
 of influence around them.

 Probably. But then the populace of
 those planets have stopped being mooks, assuming they've
 acquired at least indirect economic and political
 power. tbh, I see
 pocket empires more defined by higher TL systems then
 anything else. That’s where the Imperial Nobles for the
 area would want to live after all - do you want to live in a
 shack or have all of the automation and comfort a fully
 supported TL15 house and infrastructure would bring?

 At TL 15 it's easy to build an
 estate that's totally self-sufficient. Imperial High
 Nobles can therefore live anywhere they wish, even
 completely alone in the middle of an otherwise-empty
 asteroid belt. Depending upon their personal Paranoia
 Quotient, they may not *want* populated planets surrounding
 their homes. :)

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

Remember the immortal living w/ robots/androids in the old TOS StarTrek episode.

That could easily be extrapolated into a wealthy noble using anagathics long-term.
*Very* long-term!

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