Economics in the Gundam universes

[JagdPanther]

Originally Posted by 4Tran

I stand corrected on the cheap point. However, my argument still largely holds. While concrete and all of those other substances are very useful, there's no reason why we are absolutely incapable of substituting other substances.

We are capable of substituting far inferior substances.

Sure. Right after we figure out how to build 30km space colonies.

Exactly.

Correction: there isn't any cheaper viable substitute. You're confusing inefficient with impossible.

There are cheaper substances, they're just incredibly inferior. Cement and rudimentary concrete have hardly changed in over 2,000 years.

I believe that you mean that you can't think of a way to do it. Obviously, if we were to build colonies, we would have to develop technologies which would be considered fanatasical today.

Yes, absolutely today we're incapable of thinking of better ways. But.... Many things don't seem to be able to be improved upon, at least for now.

In terms of Portland cement we haven't thought of a better system in over 160 years. In terms of the concept of cement combined with water, aggregate, and binder, we haven't thought of anything new in 2,000+ years. There are some things that are timeless. The ingredients have hardly changed. What has changed are certain methods.

For example, we still use a technique that is thousands of years old to quarry granite (the use of open flame to cause a physical reaction where the granite is heated and quickly cooled causing it to shear) except instead of a fire we use a super-hot torch to speed up the process (and obviously make cleaner, larger cuts). Modern granite drilling has hardly changed in over 120 years.

While many things change over the years as new substances are created or new machines are invented, certain things remain constant. I cannot forsee us changing many things ever.

Even science fiction like Star Wars has a hard time creating new things. Permutations of concrete are constantly referred to in the Expanded Universe.

You're making a few too many assumptions here. The fact is that the PLANTs were largely built by Coordinators, and there's no evidence of them kicking out vast numbers of Naturals.

And I say that in C.E. 38, when the PLANT colonies were started, I cannot possibly imagine that there were enough Coordinators who were electricians, plumbers, HVAC technicans, etc. to completely outfit even one of the giant colonies. I might be slightly inflamatory with this statement, but with Coordinators being the super-intelligent and super-physically-capable beings (among other things) they're purported to be, I don't see many Coordinators being in the manual trade professions. Are your local tradesmen college graduates with 4-year Bachelor's degrees? Mine aren't.

And that is NOT to say they're stupid or underacheiving. My family has a few tradesmen and I am friends with many (since I used to spend my summers in construction and my dad and I have remodeled 2 homes) tradesmen. The majority of them are smart, sharp individuals. But there seems to be a stigma about being in a manual trade like that, so I doubt many Coordinators would be using the hammer and saw instead of the pipet and bunsen burner.

That having been said, I'm quite curious about the nature of Coordinator society. When we see the inside of a colony, it seems to look like a normal city. I'm curious as to what professions are prevalent and if there are large differences in income and such. In C.E. 70 there obviously must be Coordinator locksmiths, HEOs, plumbers, etc. in order to maintain the colonies, but I doubt there are enough then and highly doubt there were enough in C.E. 38 to outfit colonies fully.

There are lots of ideas that were envisioned but aren't currently feasible. However, that doesn't mean that they're necessarily impossible either. To do that you'd have to show why such ideas are impossible rather than simply asserting that it is so.

When you've built a house you'll understand. I cannot forsee robots that can think through the plethora of problems in building. That wall just ended up an inch farther to the left than anticipated. Now the wires and plumbing are going to be off, and there's an A/C duct in the way that cannot be bypassed given the location. What do you do? I cannot forsee a robot that can critically think through a problem like that. It takes critical thinking skills, ingenuity, free thought, and experience. It would need to be something like a Bio-roid from Appleseed, again, to be able to do that. It couldn't be a simple robot.

And it's not necessarily (and usually not) the case that it's human err in terms of poor construction. It could be a design flaw or material flaw. Maybe you had to add an extra 2x6 stud in order to support the weight of something and that threw off the wall. Problems come up all the time in building, which I believe require a human presence to fix. And hardly ever have I seen a problem fixed immediately by one person no matter how smart. It usually takes a couple people trial-and-error to do. Don't want one person's at-the-moment bright-idea to become a safety hazard in 5 years time, when another, more experienced tradesman could've identified that eventual problem originally.

By the way, Robot Maids are quite possible within the next couple hundred years, but flying cars aren't.

Yes, I'm aware. I was just pointing out that he could think up space colony designs all he wanted, but it takes many other people long decades of further thought to bring ideas to reality because of problems that no one person can imagine alone.

Why wouldn't we be able to use metal for those as well?

For what? Roads? >_> Metal roads... Yeah, that'd be interesting. Wonder how many minutes those'd last.

Even buildings made primarily of metal require concrete foundations. But what if you just bolt the building right to the metal frame of the colony? Okay, but why do I see what appears to be dirt, grass, and other terrain features? Unless that's faux grass and plastic trees, I would like to think there is some form of "earth" on the colonies to support plant life. Enter concrete foundations for buildings. And then concrete sidewalks, roads, etc. The list goes on.

Cool.

Yeap. I'm considering expanding upon it for my Honors Thesis that I need to do in order to graduate with honors. But more than likely I'll be doing a study of military logistics in World War II.

[supperrfreek]

Technically there are better ways to make concrete, ferro concretes based on slag and polymer concretes both have better qualities than portland cement, and until neurolinking humans and machines becomes effective the ms will not be a possibility on the battlefield. Therefore (in todays money) it would require numbers larger than trillions of dolars to make anything close to an ms. Maybe in the future when it all (including the labor) becomes cheaper, yes, but for now: it would crash economies like drunkards crash cars (yes an offensive analogy, I do apologize for being offensive but I was looking for a good analogy and this is what came to mind)

[4Tran]

Originally Posted by Jagdpanther

We are capable of substituting far inferior substances.

Not necessarily. It's more that, on Earth, substitutes aren't really necessary, so we don't waste a whole lot of resources on the matter.

Originally Posted by Jagdpanther

There are cheaper substances, they're just incredibly inferior. Cement and rudimentary concrete have hardly changed in over 2,000 years.

In other words, they're not viable. However, what's cheap in space is very different from what's cheap on the ground. Add in new technologies, and an alternative to limestone-based concrete isn't out of the question. The fact that it hasn't changed much in a long time is hardly an argument that it can't be changed.

Originally Posted by Jagdpanther

Yes, absolutely today we're incapable of thinking of better ways. But.... Many things don't seem to be able to be improved upon, at least for now.

You're making the assumption that simply because something hasn't been improved upon, it's impossible to do so. This is a big no-no when it comes to science fiction.

Originally Posted by Jagdpanther

And I say that in C.E. 38, when the PLANT colonies were started, I cannot possibly imagine that there were enough Coordinators who were electricians, plumbers, HVAC technicans, etc. to completely outfit even one of the giant colonies. I might be slightly inflamatory with this statement, but with Coordinators being the super-intelligent and super-physically-capable beings (among other things) they're purported to be, I don't see many Coordinators being in the manual trade professions. Are your local tradesmen college graduates with 4-year Bachelor's degrees? Mine aren't.

Why not? George Glenn was good in all sorts of fields - why is it impossible for other Coordinators to diversify? Besides, they were canonically the ones who built the PLANTs. Your argument is a little weak in the face of that.

Originally Posted by Jagdpanther

When you've built a house you'll understand. I cannot forsee robots that can think through the plethora of problems in building. That wall just ended up an inch farther to the left than anticipated. Now the wires and plumbing are going to be off, and there's an A/C duct in the way that cannot be bypassed given the location. What do you do? I cannot forsee a robot that can critically think through a problem like that. It takes critical thinking skills, ingenuity, free thought, and experience. It would need to be something like a Bio-roid from Appleseed, again, to be able to do that. It couldn't be a simple robot.

Again, you go on about "I cannot forsee...". I would imagine that there's all sorts of construction techniques that you or I can't foresee; but that doesn't mean that they're necessarily impossible.

You're making an appeal to ignorance, and it cannot substitute for a logical argument.

Originally Posted by Jagdpanther

Yes, I'm aware. I was just pointing out that he could think up space colony designs all he wanted, but it takes many other people long decades of further thought to bring ideas to reality because of problems that no one person can imagine alone.

Do you mean like people at NASA who study the practicality of building space colonies? All of them happen to agree that the building material is going to have to be either gathered from asteroids or form the Moon.

Originally Posted by Jagdpanther

For what? Roads? >_> Metal roads... Yeah, that'd be interesting. Wonder how many minutes those'd last.

I'd imagine they'd be quite successful considering that the most efficient form of transport in a space colony would be by rail.

Originally Posted by Jagdpanther

Even buildings made primarily of metal require concrete foundations. But what if you just bolt the building right to the metal frame of the colony? Okay, but why do I see what appears to be dirt, grass, and other terrain features? Unless that's faux grass and plastic trees, I would like to think there is some form of "earth" on the colonies to support plant life. Enter concrete foundations for buildings. And then concrete sidewalks, roads, etc. The list goes on.

You're still thinking too much in terrestrial terms. Why would the building foundations have to be on the earth? It'd make much more sense to only have earth where you're actually going to grow plantlife.

[supperrfreek]

Although it is improbable resources can be harvested from asteroids. (hopefully not useless things but iron, carbon and oxides, that can be used in making steel and ferroconcretes).

[JagdPanther]

Originally Posted by 4Tran

Not necessarily. It's more that, on Earth, substitutes aren't really necessary, so we don't waste a whole lot of resources on the matter.

"Not necessarily?" Sooo..... You're saying we can substitute better materials? Then why don't we? Probably because there is none....

In other words, they're not viable. However, what's cheap in space is very different from what's cheap on the ground. Add in new technologies, and an alternative to limestone-based concrete isn't out of the question. The fact that it hasn't changed much in a long time is hardly an argument that it can't be changed.

They're not viable because they don't do as good of a job.

And again, limestone isn't cheap. But it does the job the best out of any other substance that could be used for similar purposes as making hydraulic cement and as part of the concrete mixture.

It CAN be changed, yes. But as far as history is concerned, there is no real way to improve upon it. Don't fix what isn't broken.

You're making the assumption that simply because something hasn't been improved upon, it's impossible to do so. This is a big no-no when it comes to science fiction.

It's not impossible, just unlikely.

Yes. Science "fiction." Anything is possible in fiction.

Why not? George Glenn was good in all sorts of fields - why is it impossible for other Coordinators to diversify? Besides, they were canonically the ones who built the PLANTs. Your argument is a little weak in the face of that.

Okay, in support of what you say, my father is an orthopaedic doctor as well as one of the most knowledgeable people I know in terms of the manual trades.

That having been said.... He's quite the oddity.

Why do you think the manual trades are so lucrative? People A) don't want to do it themselves, B) don't know how nor do they care to know, C) don't have the time, and D) don't have the ability to gain the experience necessary to tackle immense projects.

Coordinators are people, too. They may be super smart and capable, but are their personalities, mannerisms, and humanity any different? Most likely not. As for Glenn... Look, he was smart, could play football pretty well, was a pretty darn good athlete, and was a pilot. Last time I checked, your average NASA astronaut originally from the U.S. Air Force was also: pretty darn smart, pretty physically capable, and good pilot. Yes, George Glenn may be far superior in those fields to your average NASA astronaut, but does that really mean he's also the best plumber this side of the Mississippi River? One of the issues I take with SEED and something I am addressing in my SEED/D fic is just how much better are Coordinators than humans, anyway?

Sure Coordinators can diversify their talents, but really, I cannot see a significant amount more of Coordinators versed in the manual trades than Naturals. And again, even if the majority of Coordinators were well versed in the manual trades in the mid-C.E., I highly doubt that'd be enough to fully outfit all those colonies. We're talking absolutely unbelievably large undertakings here. The human capital required for outfitting one colony doesn't support the position that Coordinators built them alone. We're not talking a do-it-yourself I-want-to-put-in-a-new-light-switch job here. Nearly anyone, with training, can do that. We're talking hardcore construction here. Outfitting gigantic colonies with thousands of buildings, roads, a terrain features. We're talking highly experienced journeymen, electricians, plumbers, HVAC technicians, locksmiths, carpenters, HEOs, etc. with the most advanced equipment known to man. It would take A) a long time, B) a massive workforce, or C) both. My vote goes to B) in the case of Gundam SEED/D because of the speed in which 120 colonies were finished. Thirty-two years to create 120 colonies each of epic proporitions. That's a lot of Romex, PVC, and Carrier A/C units to install.

While we've been discussing this I've been researching into Gundam SEED/D to see about certain things. On the offical Gundam webpage, the entry for SEED in terms of PLANT is, to me, contradictory in nature. It says that the colonies of PLANT were "chiefly created by Coordinators," yet originally "the construction of the PLANTs began in C.E. 38, with funding supplied by the Atlantic Federation, the Eurasian Federation, and the Republic of East Asia." That, to me, implies that there had to have been massive Natural support for the creation of the colonies in what would eventually become PLANT.

And I don't see how canon really matters in this discussion. We're talking about economic and physical realism in the Gundam series here. I, specifically, am arguing against your base that a limited, expensive Earth-to-space transportation system could possibly have sufficed in building the multitude of gigantic colonies orbiting Earth in the C.E.

We're discussing possibilities and non-possibilities. Canon doesn't really have a say in this. Canon can be anything it pleases, but we're still discussing possibilities v.s. non-possibilities. If canon had any say in this, we would never have even started this discussion. It'd all be pointless to discuss because canon is canon. But here we're not regarding it as ultimate, instead discussing if it's even possible.

Again, you go on about "I cannot forsee...". I would imagine that there's all sorts of construction techniques that you or I can't foresee; but that doesn't mean that they're necessarily impossible.

You're correct. But you can't really forsee anything, either. For all the two of us know two guys in 500 years will be having this same exact discussion, wondering if they'll ever see a space colony. Or we could have a space colony in 10 years because of some incredible advancement.

You're making an appeal to ignorance, and it cannot substitute for a logical argument.

No, it can't. But I do believe you lack the understanding of the subject of construction required to see my points.

I can't make it any simpler than this.

Do you mean like people at NASA who study the practicality of building space colonies? All of them happen to agree that the building material is going to have to be either gathered from asteroids or form the Moon.

I am aware of this. But again, what we see in Gundam series indicates that the insides of colonies appear to be like a regular terrestrial city. We cannot know what all those materials are exactly, but from the detail we're given, they appear to be the basic building blocks.... Earth (dirt) and stone. You are not going to find so many of those basic building blocks in space. So....... That's where the Earth comes in.

I'd imagine they'd be quite successful considering that the most efficient form of transport in a space colony would be by rail.

Um, when I watch a Gundam series I tend to see plenty of motorized, wheeled vehicles tooling around colonies. They require roads.

You're still thinking too much in terrestrial terms. Why would the building foundations have to be on the earth? It'd make much more sense to only have earth where you're actually going to grow plantlife.

Are we even talking about the same thing anymore?

Again, when I watch a Gundam series I see roads, buildings, parks, water fountains, trees, grass, and everything else that makes me think it's a terrestrial city until I see something obviously apart of a colony or I am in some way told by the story that I am viewing a colony. With no further explanation, that means visual observation is my sole information on which to base my arguments. Which also means you, unless you are privy to information I am not, are left with the visual observations on which to base your arguments.

[supperrfreek]

4tran
Couldn't the foundation be an asteroid with the colony built on it and then launched off of it. It would be expensive to move all of the industries required out to space and to colonize several particularly large asteroids and make them into the facilities required but the after effects (a colony producing plant), would be great, it would allow plenty of people to have homes and also give a military the ability to strike from space and mess with other people's satellites in the event of war. This advantage would cause others to build colonies therefore making a colony boom.

[JagdPanther]

Originally Posted by supperrfreek

4tran
Couldn't the foundation be an asteroid with the colony built on it and then launched off of it. It would be expensive to move all of the industries required out to space and to colonize several particularly large asteroids and make them into the facilities required but the after effects (a colony producing plant), would be great, it would allow plenty of people to have homes and also give a military the ability to strike from space and mess with other people's satellites in the event of war. This advantage would cause others to build colonies therefore making a colony boom.

I'm completely ignoring the start-up costs required...

That alone would take an incredibly long time with the supposedly limited Earth-to-space travel system 4tran is mentioning.

To get all the start-up materials to space would be an immense undertaking in and of itself. I am saying that the building of the colony shell could be completed with space-borne materials, but how is the industrial presence getting to space to convert the iron and nickel from the space-bodies into production material. The shell of a colony itself is immense, as we seen in all the Gundam series that colonies tend to have vast open-air spaces. Let's take a look at the first three episodes of Gundam SEED. There is an incredible amount of open-air in which the MSs and Archangel can fight it out. Forget my talk of outfitting colonies for a second and think of the incredible size of the shell itself. The metal, plastic, glass, and other materials required for that shell would be ridiculous. Now multiply it by the number of colonies (yes, I know they're all different) floating around the C.E.-verse. The production of those materials would require immense and incredibly sophisticated production facilties. How do those facilities get space-borne? In theory, you could send up a small pre-fab facility and have it be like a Katamari (Ooooooh, that game is soooooooo fun), tooling around space, latching onto asteroids, mining them, and building materials to build itself bigger and bigger (or just multiplying like cells or a virus). How does that occur with which to begin? Needs to be a start-up.

And, 4tran, you've been knocking my assumptions about many things. How about your assumptions that there space will provide a better material for certain things I say need to come from Earth? Or your assumption that radical new processes for producing various building materials will come about? Yes, you have made that assumption. Let's say that colonies are formed from steel, among other metals (titanium is another that comes to mind). Well, the iron ore is definitely available in space. But have you seen a modern steel mill? The processes requires an enormous amount of heat energy, coke, and, most important of all, air. If you're in space, you can obtain the heat energy and have the coke shipped up to you, but how will you obtain the incredible volume of air you need to make steel? We're talking thousands of tons of pure oxygen here.

Admittedly, it is highly possible to argue that it is implicit that there is a new (I should say "different," not necessarily "new") way of producing steel in the C.E. because the C.E. began as a result of the Reconstruction War, which was a result of the exhaustion of petroleum resources... It is possible to argue that this also resulted in the exhaustion of coal resources (though, again, as a former mining engineering student, which means I was around the most up-to-date information available as of Spring 2006, coal is not in danger of running out anytime soon... And by "soon" I mean in excess of 400 years). With the exhaustion of coal resources comes the "extinction" of coke, a very key ingredient in the production of steel, which is made by "baking" coal. Charcoal can also be used in the production of steel, but it is far inferior. With the "advent" of the "exhaustion" of coal, charcoal could be used as a ready substitute.

It's equally "wrong" for me to assume that, in order to build the PLANT colonies massive Natural help would be needed, as it is for you to assume that there will be incredible advancements in the production of various building materials....

BUT.........

There would be no way for us to discuss this topic, otherwise. ^_^

[Tak]

Originally Posted by 4Tran

What faction? Cagalli had absolutely no political support. Attempting to make an alliance with PLANT would have been both unworkable and stupid.

We do not know that. As the show progresses, we were shown that Orb's military personnel had a difficult time adjusting to an Orb without Cagali, and often contradicted one another. Clearly, Cagali had some political support, they were mainly absent from the film, but they were there.

Originally Posted by 4Tran

You seem to have watched a different version of the shows. OMNI didn't seem to be having fun bombing cities or anything like that; they were attacking Orb's defenders.

You also seem to have forgotten that as a tiny, tiny nation, Orb's military facilities were often intertwined with civilian centers. And while most of EA's soldiers were indifferent, the druggies surely had a lot of fun seeing things go up in flames (and those were specifically created by Omni to do just that).

Originally Posted by 4Tran

You did: "There are no evidence suggesting that EA only concentrated on Orb military facilities, since they purposely targeted civilian centers as well."

My fault.

Originally Posted by 4Tran

This is only true if Orb had no strategic reserves.

And how long do you think those reserves would last? Last until EA run out of theirs? I don't think so.

Originally Posted by 4Tran

Please point out the use of WMDs in the attacks on Orb. I must have missed them.

I never stated the WMDs were aimed at orb. I merely referred to the reckless use of weapons in general and the scale of most battles. As conventional as they may be, most battles were highly destructive.

Originally Posted by 4Tran

The rather obvious explanation is that the two wars were different. Just because Orb's ground forces were annihilated at the end of the first war doesn't have much bearing on its condition at the end of the second. It's also obvious that Orb had a fairly powerful military in Cosmic Era 74, so I'm not sure what you're trying to argue.

The argument is a simple one. If Orb was to realistically engage in a war abiding real-world economics, they would have lost it, no questions asked. Somehow you seem to think differently. You'd have to try very hard in order to convince me that Orb could actually win a front on its own against overwhelming odds.

Although CE is fiction, a lot of situations Orb gets came off to me as too convenient and too coincidental. At the end, thinking about how Orb won the world, I believe luck had a lot to do with it.

- Tak

[JagdPanther]

This is turning out to be a rather lively debate. I'm enjoying this. Though it certainly is tiring debating my point. I'll have to take a 3-day-leave-of-absence from the discussion while I return to college to advise incoming Honors Freshmen for a few days on selecting their first courses and such.

[monster]

Originally Posted by Tak

The argument is a simple one. If Orb was to realistically engage in a war abiding real-world economics, they would have lost it, no questions asked. Somehow you seem to think differently. You'd have to try very hard in order to convince me that Orb could actually win a front on its own against overwhelming odds.

Although CE is fiction, a lot of situations Orb gets came off to me as too convenient and too coincidental. At the end, thinking about how Orb won the world, I believe luck had a lot to do with it.

In both cases where Orb was attacked, the invading party lost their main objectives (mass driver and Djibril) so the price of continuing the battle became higher than what they would get in return in the opinion of the person left in charge. Especially for the first one since Orb surrendered. So they simply stopped fighting (or retreat in the second occasion). Now doesn't that in itself obey economic law? With no supply, demand is useless, so that specific market died.

[Dan the Man]

Originally Posted by Tak

The argument is a simple one. If Orb was to realistically engage in a war abiding real-world economics, they would have lost it, no questions asked. Somehow you seem to think differently. You'd have to try very hard in order to convince me that Orb could actually win a front on its own against overwhelming odds.

Although CE is fiction, a lot of situations Orb gets came off to me as too convenient and too coincidental. At the end, thinking about how Orb won the world, I believe luck had a lot to do with it.

Yeah, luck is about the only thing going for Orb. It's the same problem the A.E.U.G. had, a small group of seasoned veterans and random rebels, facing up against a whole planet of resources, weaponry, and vast numbers with only the financial backing of a few corporations, including Anaheim. That makes for one insignificant rebellion, but somehow, they pulled it off. If the Titans weren't so incompetant, the A.E.U.G., like Orb, would've been crushed in no time.

[supperrfreek]

As I was saying, it would have to be an entirely space bourne operation, with machinery sent up to space and resources (the ones required for the building of machinery only) sent down to earth.

[4Tran]

Originally Posted by Tak

We do not know that. As the show progresses, we were shown that Orb's military personnel had a difficult time adjusting to an Orb without Cagali, and often contradicted one another. Clearly, Cagali had some political support, they were mainly absent from the film, but they were there.

Orb's politics are controlled by the oligarchies, and we saw precisely how many of them supported Cagalli when she opposed the alliance with the EA: none. Just because Cagalli was popular with the military doesn't have any bearing on her political support.

Originally Posted by Tak

You also seem to have forgotten that as a tiny, tiny nation, Orb's military facilities were often intertwined with civilian centers. And while most of EA's soldiers were indifferent, the druggies surely had a lot of fun seeing things go up in flames (and those were specifically created by Omni to do just that).

Wrong. Even the Extended were given strict orders not do damage the EA's objectives. Any destruction suffered by Orb's infrastructure would have been a result of collateral damage, not because it was targeted.

Originally Posted by Tak

And how long do you think those reserves would last? Last until EA run out of theirs? I don't think so.

My statement was in response to "A strong economy based on massive imports. Once that source is cut off, there would be no chance for Orb's continued survival as a military power. Orb could only rely on stock materials and weapons when things go bad with no chance of replenishing their supplies quickly enough to fend off any major invasion." I'm assuming that you're referring to the period between wars. In that situation, Orb could rely on their strategic reserves until their economy was largely restored.

Originally Posted by Tak

I never stated the WMDs were aimed at orb.

And so they have no relevance if we're just talking about Orb.

Originally Posted by Tak

The argument is a simple one. If Orb was to realistically engage in a war abiding real-world economics, they would have lost it, no questions asked. Somehow you seem to think differently. You'd have to try very hard in order to convince me that Orb could actually win a front on its own against overwhelming odds.

This statement seems a little odd to me. In the Cosmic Era 71 war, Orb did lose. Their territory was completely overrun and all their population centers were occupied. They only managed to get a few military assets into space to continue to fight. If it weren't for Lacus' support, they wouldn't have even survived, much less be decisive at Jachin Due. They are roughly analogous to Poland and the Polish troops during World War II.

In the Cosmic Era 73 war, the ZAFT invasion relied on Orb being incompetent to win. In other words, they absolutely bungled the operation, and lost due to that. Against Durandal, Orb's military still wouldn't have had much of a chance were it not for Lacus' intervention yet again. It's less a case of Orb overcoming anything on their own. It's more accurately Lacus doing the overcoming with Orb help.

Originally Posted by Tak

Although CE is fiction, a lot of situations Orb gets came off to me as too convenient and too coincidental. At the end, thinking about how Orb won the world, I believe luck had a lot to do with it.

Luck often plays a large part in battles and wars. Germany opting to advancing through the Ardennes in 1940 is a good example of this. In both wars, if it weren't for Lacus' help, Orb would have eventually lost.

[4Tran]

Originally Posted by JagdPanther

It's not impossible, just unlikely.
<SNIP>
We're discussing possibilities and non-possibilities. Canon doesn't really have a say in this. Canon can be anything it pleases, but we're still discussing possibilities v.s. non-possibilities. If canon had any say in this, we would never have even started this discussion. It'd all be pointless to discuss because canon is canon. But here we're not regarding it as ultimate, instead discussing if it's even possible.

I think that you're looking at it incorrectly. You seem to be looking at these issues from a feasibility perspective given our current technology. The proper perspective is to examine the issues based on what is conceivable given the depicted technology. It simply makes no sense to simply say "I don't know how" as if it's some sort of legitimate argument. This is doubly the case when discussing speculative fiction.

Originally Posted by JagdPanther

No, it can't. But I do believe you lack the understanding of the subject of construction required to see my points.

My understanding of construction is irrelevant. Basing an argument on an appeal to ignorance is a logical fallacy.

Originally Posted by JagdPanther

I am aware of this. But again, what we see in Gundam series indicates that the insides of colonies appear to be like a regular terrestrial city. We cannot know what all those materials are exactly, but from the detail we're given, they appear to be the basic building blocks.... Earth (dirt) and stone. You are not going to find so many of those basic building blocks in space. So....... That's where the Earth comes in.

Or the Moon. Besides, appearances can be deceiving, and what looks like a terrestrial city may be quite different in composition.

Originally Posted by JagdPanther

Um, when I watch a Gundam series I tend to see plenty of motorized, wheeled vehicles tooling around colonies. They require roads.

And? I wasn't exactly saying that there weren't any roads in Gundam colonies.

Originally Posted by supperrfreek

Couldn't the foundation be an asteroid with the colony built on it and then launched off of it. It would be expensive to move all of the industries required out to space and to colonize several particularly large asteroids and make them into the facilities required but the after effects (a colony producing plant), would be great, it would allow plenty of people to have homes and also give a military the ability to strike from space and mess with other people's satellites in the event of war. This advantage would cause others to build colonies therefore making a colony boom.

Nope. The main cost is incurred in sending material into space to begin with, so the most viable solutions all involve doing as little of it as possible.

Originally Posted by JagdPanther

And, 4tran, you've been knocking my assumptions about many things. How about your assumptions that there space will provide a better material for certain things I say need to come from Earth? Or your assumption that radical new processes for producing various building materials will come about? Yes, you have made that assumption. Let's say that colonies are formed from steel, among other metals (titanium is another that comes to mind). Well, the iron ore is definitely available in space. But have you seen a modern steel mill? The processes requires an enormous amount of heat energy, coke, and, most important of all, air. If you're in space, you can obtain the heat energy and have the coke shipped up to you, but how will you obtain the incredible volume of air you need to make steel? We're talking thousands of tons of pure oxygen here.

I'm afraid that you're sort of barking up the wrong tree if you think that I'm making any assumptions at all. I'm just examining whether building colonies, developing new technologies, and so forth are possible, not if they're feasible in the near future. Therefore, the onus of burden of proof is for you to show that they are impossible despite any advances in technology.

Originally Posted by supperrfreek

As I was saying, it would have to be an entirely space bourne operation, with machinery sent up to space and resources (the ones required for the building of machinery only) sent down to earth.

When building components large enough for a space colony, the vast majority of the machinery would have to be built in space.

[supperrfreek]

Not Necessarily, there are plenty of machines which would be used in production which are small enough to fit in a shuttle. And who said the colony wouldn't be built in a smaller pieces. Sure building one large piece takes less time, but in smaller pieces with more stringent quality control the colony would be less prone to any sort of failure.
Although plenty of the machinery would be built in space what would be used to make that machinery?

[JagdPanther]

Originally Posted by 4Tran

I think that you're looking at it incorrectly. You seem to be looking at these issues from a feasibility perspective given our current technology. The proper perspective is to examine the issues based on what is conceivable given the depicted technology. It simply makes no sense to simply say "I don't know how" as if it's some sort of legitimate argument. This is doubly the case when discussing speculative fiction.

We don't know anything about the depicted technology. We don't know how they do things and what certain things are capable of. Therefore we must go on visual observation and assumptions. In order to be able in any way to truly discuss the possibilities we have to mix those observations with what we DO know to be possible in our own time, as well as what is reasonably forseeable in our own future.

The ratio of the mixture is up to the individual debater.

My understanding of construction is irrelevant. Basing an argument on an appeal to ignorance is a logical fallacy.

Oh please. I'm a writer. Spare me the logical fallacy lecture. You're just dodging now.

Your understanding is perfectly relevant in this discussion of colony construction possibility. What you're saying flies in the face of the reality of construction. Therefore, I am taking advantage of that by explaining to you how construction works and how it would most likely work in the future, given current movement of the manual trades industries.

The materials used in construction for thousands of years have been used for their specific purposes because they possess very specific qualities. For example, concrete has amazing compression strength, but terribly weak tensile strength. So you add steel Re-Bar to the concrete while laying it to give the concrete very good tensile strength.

You ARE, in fact, making assumptions that there will be material available in space with the exact qualities required for basic building without knowing what those basic qualities are with which to begin.

Or the Moon. Besides, appearances can be deceiving, and what looks like a terrestrial city may be quite different in composition.

Exactly, they can be deceiving. But we have no other information on which to base our arguments.

And? I wasn't exactly saying that there weren't any roads in Gundam colonies.

But I don't remember ever seeing major rail in any of the Gundam series, though I admit I am not a super fan of the Gundam works and may not know nearly as much as the next person about the colonies' contents. I do know that most colonies are depicted as typical terrestrial cities with vast road networks.

I'm afraid that you're sort of barking up the wrong tree if you think that I'm making any assumptions at all. I'm just examining whether building colonies, developing new technologies, and so forth are possible, not if they're feasible in the near future. Therefore, the onus of burden of proof is for you to show that they are impossible despite any advances in technology.

Impossible? No, I'm saying it IS possible given that Earth-to-space transportation advances to a degree greater than you believe.

This discussion ALLLLL goes back to whether or not the Earth-to-space transportation system depicted in Gundam SEED/D is as expensive and inaccessible as you say. My argument has been a round-about way of saying that in order for the colonies to have been built, a not-necessarily vast Earth-to-space transportation sytem must exist, but one that is accessible and inexpensive enough to warrant the construction of massive structures in space.

When building components large enough for a space colony, the vast majority of the machinery would have to be built in space.

Um, obviously. I don't disagree with that at all.

But....

The start-up material used to build those machines and initial facilities with which to make the colony shells would require massive quantities from Earth. Massive. Quantities.

And we still don't know what kinds of materials they use, specifically, for the colony shells. Like I said, steel production requires, among other things, massive quanities of oxygen. I would love to know how they'd solve that problem (if they do use steel to a large degree). They obviously would have to, but I want to know how. Depending on the size of the start-up facility, the materials required to build it would choke the Earth-to-space transportation service if it were, in fact, as inaccessible and expensive as you say.

[supperrfreek]

Originally Posted by JagdPanther

The start-up material used to build those machines and initial facilities with which to make the colony shells would require massive quantities from Earth. Massive. Quantities.

And we still don't know what kinds of materials they use, specifically, for the colony shells. Like I said, steel production requires, among other things, massive quanities of oxygen. I would love to know how they'd solve that problem (if they do use steel to a large degree). They obviously would have to, but I want to know how. Depending on the size of the start-up facility, the materials required to build it would choke the Earth-to-space transportation service if it were, in fact, as inaccessible and expensive as you say.

The start up material would be large no matter how the structure is built but I suggest the structure be built in small pieces and assembled on the lagrange point where it is to be stationed.
The outside of the colonies seems to be metallic or concrete, I'm pretty sure these materials could harvested from places in space such as the moon or large asteroids.
Building colonies on the moon also sounds like a smarter idea because, the moon is large enough and is a great place to "set up shop".

[JagdPanther]

Originally Posted by supperrfreek

The start up material would be large no matter how the structure is built but I suggest the structure be built in small pieces and assembled on the lagrange point where it is to be stationed.
The outside of the colonies seems to be metallic or concrete, I'm pretty sure these materials could harvested from places in space such as the moon or large asteroids.
Building colonies on the moon also sounds like a smarter idea because, the moon is large enough and is a great place to "set up shop".

Again, not all the materials could. The iron ore required for steel need not come from anywhere but the asteroids (but I should probably qualify that not all Iron ore is created equally...). However, the coke (for steel making) would have to come from Earth. Not going to find that in space. And what about the immense amounts of pure oxygen?

Can't mine steel because it's not a naturally occuring metal. Can't quarry concrete because it's not naturally occuring, either. Not all the ingredients for either can be found in space, especially for concrete.

[supperrfreek]

Yes the carbon for steel can be found in asteroids. Check this out http://spaceguard.esa.int/NScience/n.../ast-compo.htm
Now it's just the large amounts of oxygen left to get. I'm pretty sure most of the items needed can be found or made in space (using nuclear fusion larger elements can be made from smaller ones-like hydrogen: but I'm thinking pretty far into the future at the moment).

[JagdPanther]

Originally Posted by supperrfreek

Yes the carbon for steel can be found in asteroids. Check this out http://spaceguard.esa.int/NScience/n.../ast-compo.htm
Now it's just the large amounts of oxygen left to get. I'm pretty sure most of the items needed can be found or made in space (using nuclear fusion larger elements can be made from smaller ones-like hydrogen: but I'm thinking pretty far into the future at the moment).

Okay, there's carbon, but is it like coal? No. Coal is not just simply carbon. It's a combination of many things that have to be right for the ingredients to become coal.

Even more so, not all coal is equal. There are 5 sub-categories of coal. Only bituminous coal can be turned into coke. The other 4 cannot.