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On Fri, 2/26/16, Richard Aiken <xxxxxx@gmail.com> wrote:

 Subject: Re: [TML] Salvage Operations (and Submarines)
 To: "tml" <xxxxxx@simplelists.com>
 Date: Friday, February 26, 2016, 11:16 PM

 On Fri, Feb 26, 2016 at
 4:05 PM, Craig Berry <xxxxxx@gmail.com>
 wrote:
 As soon as you start applying real-world economic
 thinking to Traveller, you start nudging the game in a
 post-scarcity, perhaps post-human direction that looks more
 like Star Trek or Banks's Culture novels than the
 gritty, hardscrabble Traveller future we all know and
 love.
 On Fri, Feb 26, 2016 at 12:43 AM,
 Tim <xxxxxx@little-possums.net>
 wrote:
 On Earth, the value of gold is
 mostly due to the sparsity of deposits

 near the surface. . . Virtually all of the accessible gold
 in the solar system is still out

 there in
 asteroids.
 <trying to think of a non-fiat
 reason to maintain gold scarcity in the OTU . . .
 >
 Ah
 ha!
 Let's blame
 Grandfather. He had a very high tech level and a relatively
 long stretch of time at that level. So he used automated Von
 Neumann robots to mine all the easily-accessible deposits of
 precise metals, leaving behind only the more marginal
 deposits for the poor moderns of the TU.
 What did Grandfather need with all
 those precious metals, you ask? Why, they formed an
 essential part of the Whatzit Machine he had to build, in
 order to the Very Important Thing, of course!
 :)
 --
 Richard Aiken
 ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

Droyne scientist shakes head, saying, "Aww that crazy Old Man"!

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