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On Mon, 3/28/16, Bruce Johnson <xxxxxx@Pharmacy.Arizona.EDU> wrote:

 Subject: Re: [TML] Relic tech and Scarcity-Driven Imperium (was: Salvage Operations (and Submarines))
 To: "xxxxxx@simplelists.com" <xxxxxx@simplelists.com>
 Date: Monday, March 28, 2016, 11:21 AM

 A TU that doesn’t have much trade has no need
 for an Imperial Navy, or an Imperium, as such.

 You cannot have both a
 universe where PC's have a Type A far trader, that Far
 Trader is the standard mode of interstellar trade and an
 Imperial Navy patrolling a couple thousand subsectors.

 The economics simply don’t
 make any sense at all. A low-trade TU cannot generate
 sufficient taxes to sustain such an Imperial Navy. Certainly
 not one with Tigress battleships and the like.

 You can HAVE such a TU, it
 just won’t have internal consistency.

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OTOH, I don't think you must have the humungous Bulk Carriers introduced w/ MT in order to have Tigresses, etc.

Commercial merchant ships up to 20k DT  from CT would be sufficient.

That would, IMO, be more like the 18th century than the post-container cargo ship contemporary world.

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