Imperial_Economies.txt

Date: Sun, 9 Oct 94 23:22:09 -0500
From: bonn0015@gold.tc.umn.edu (Steve Bonneville)

Weird...I had this all set to go, and then when I read my back
messages, saw that the economic discussion had started again....

When I saw the colony rules in the new _World Tamer's Handbook_, I
wanted to see how far I could stretch them to get some interesting
results.  This is my first experiment: using the population totals
published by DGP, I've used the rules to model the economy of the
Third Imperium.  The suprising thing was, it seemed to work out
pretty well.  Judge for yourself!

TCr 1 == one teracredit (one trillion credits) 
      == one million MCr
      == Cr 1,000,000,000,000.
	  
-------------------
The Third Imperium:

TOTAL POPULATION:  15.77 trillion

Agriculture: 1.52 trillion               9.6 %
Resources:   2.06 trillion              13.1 %
Industry:   11.56 trillion              73.3 %   
Military:    0.63 trillion               4.0 %

Annual Industrial Product: TCr 538000
(Does not include value of raw materials or rations.)
 
Resource use:       20.3  quadrillion tonnes yearly
                    14.2  quadrillion cubic meters yearly
                     1.01 quadrillion displacement-tons yearly
Power use:          34000 terawatts        (not including vehicles)
Capital Value:      TCr 694000             (Ag/Ind/Power/Resources only)
Housing Value:      TCr 474000             (300 cubic meters per person)
Depreciation:       TCr  44900 paid annually (Ind/Power/Housing only)
Cultivation:        1.52 trillion square kilometers 
                    152  trillion hectares
                    376  trillion acres
Military Bases:     value:        TCr 8820    
                    depreciation: TCr  423 yearly
Infrastructure:     -not computed, see below-

INDUSTRIAL composition:
  5.710 trillion heavy industry     49.4 %
  5.710 trillion construction       49.4 %
  0.135 trillion light industry      1.2 %
(Changes in these figures can affect resource needs, capital value,
 annual industrial product, and anything dependent on them.  This
 is where the Imperial free market reigns.  The above proportions
 were chosen as rough compromise figures.  See below.)
 
MILITARY composition:
  472.8   billion civilian dependents and auxiliaries
    2.52  billion wet navy                              1.6 %
    9.46  billion near-space forces                     6.0 %
    0.126 billion navy                                  0.08 %
  145.5   billion ground forces                        92.3 %

  Space units:    42000 major, 126000 minor
  Ground units:   7.3 million divisions
  COAC units:     47.3 million batteries/aircraft
  Wet Navy units: 840000 major, 2520000 minor


*** ASSUMPTIONS, OMISSIONS, AND DISCUSSION ***

For this analysis, I treated the Third Imperium as if it were, on average, 
TL12.  (In MegaTraveller, "Avg Stellar".)  I think this is a more accurate 
reflection of the Imperium than assuming TL15, since so many HiPop worlds 
are not TL15.  

There are no net imports/exports of rations or raw materials.
SN == 2.5 (arbitrary).  Six-month growing seasons were assumed; no 
modifiers used; half of agricultural production is always idle.
SS == 300 cubic meters (arbitrary). 
SL == Cr 3500 (TL12).

All power is considered to come from TL12 fusion plants.

No excess labor or excess capital was used for any calculation.

Once the population needed to support a TL12 standard of living and the
military were removed from the work force, the remainder were assigned
to heavy industry/construction and supporting resource production.

Transportation infrastructure value was not computed for either civilian 
transport of goods or military supply.  The need for gravitic freighters
and 100000 disp-ton bulk haulers is tremendous.

As an aside, a merchant fleet of 20 million "Common Imperial Transports"
from _Rebellion Sourcebook_ would carry over 200 billion displacement-
tons of cargo, be worth TCr 70000, and using WTH cost TCr 3400 every
year for maintenance and depreciation.  Even scaling this up suggests 
that most transport and production is in-system.  Blaine Tukera and his
brothers could easily have been quadrillionares, before the Rebellion!  
(That's million-billionare!)  And then there are the megacorporations 
that are heavily in banking and lending like Hortalez et Cie, which 
could be even more intimidating.

The troops in the military were divided up according to _Path of Tears_,
as if the Imperium were a HiPop world.  The force in the space navy was
doubled to reflect a greater interstellar focus and account for the
IISS and Planetary Navies.  The figures above include *all* Imperial and
local forces in the Imperium.  Military capital was purchased at TL12,
reflecting the majority of local planetary armies; TL15 would increase
all values by x1.5.  No allowance was made for equipment purchases or 
the resource needs; somebody else want to try that?

Naval equipment value can be estimated.  _Rebellion Sourcebook_ agrees
well with the above and suggests the following rough calculations:

   IN + Subsector Reserves == 640 fleets of about 5 squadrons each.
   Assume each squadron is worth almost TCr 1.  Then the aggregate
   force is worth roughly TCr 3000.  They have a total of about 1000
   major ships in each of about 22 sectors, so double this to include 
   the IISS and Planetary Navies, and we get about TCr 6000 total 
   value.  Roughly TCr 300 must be paid yearly on depreciation and 
   repairs, according to _World Tamer's Handbook_.  Supply adds more
   costs.
   
Each HiPop world's share of the navies would be about TCr 5.  This 
is actually quite close to the figures in _Trillion Credit Squadron_!
This estimate needs more testing.  Supply ships are not included -- they 
are covered in the military infrastructure computation which I didn't 
try to do.  Each HiPop world's share of the ground force is about 6500 
divisions.

The ag info should be taken with a grain of salt.  I tested the ag
model on the Earth at TL8 to find a carrying capacity at nutrition
of 1.0 assuming all land hexes were of richness 1.0 and could be
100% farmed -- an unrealistically high assumption.  I could only
feed 2.6 billion people with *all* land hexes in farm production.  
(Six-month growing season; no other environmental effects included.)
This has to be off by at least a factor of four, more likely a factor
of ten or more; does anyone know what the current estimates for human 
carrying capacity on Earth are?  Or other relevant information?  This 
appears to be a major bug in the colony econ rules. 

Also, under the rules, using ag products as resources is a losing 
proposition at almost all tech levels, so I didn't do it.  TL12 ag 
production also uses more raw materials than TL8 ag production, even
after land and yield are taken into account, which may or may not be 
plausible.  

There should be a provision for a recycling program, though.  In 
1100 years, assuming population is steady and tech level stays at 12, 
the Imperium uses up enough raw materials to fill the entire volume 
of the Moon.  (UWP size-2 world.)  According to WTH, it gets *worse* 
at higher tech levels.  I wonder where all that raw material is going?  

Finally, lets bring TNE into this.  The Regency has a total population
of somewhere around 900 billion to 1 trillion.  So if you divide the
calculations for the Third Imperium by 16, you should have a rough
estimate of the economy of the Regency.