[LMB] AKICOTL: Treasure hunting - way OT:

[Paula Lieberman]

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Andrew Lambdin-Abraham" <a.abraham at gmail.com>


> I'm going to address Karen's points in roughly reverse order, as that
> seems most convenient to my mind.
>
> On 10/1/06, K Kuhn <kknolte at ecity.net> wrote:
>
>>  Any chance that most 'pirate' ships are actually
>> 'privateers' and funded quietly at least by some planetary government,
>> or would-be government?)
>
> Well, the Dendarii certainly are.  I suppose it depends on what you
> mean by "pirates", and sor forth.  I would say that while it is

The Dendarii didn't take spoils once they became a secret branch of the 
Barrayaran military.

> possible that some of the armed bands operating in Nexus space will
> have authorizations granted by some tiny government or another, that
> these will be ignored by almost everybody involved.
>
> There are three types of countries when it comes to international 
> violence:
>
> Empires are highly concerned with violence only being committed by
> legitimate actors.  They're perfectly happy to use war as an act of

That's not only empires.  There are some very much non-empire countries 
which take great offense at violent acts against them or their citizens... 
e.g. don't mess with the Swiss with their machineguns issued by the 
government in the basement!

> statecraft, or to repress internal dissent, but they will not tolerate
> the use of violence by non-state actors.  They seek out and destroy
> pirates, brigands, and even other states if they are attacking neutral

There's a range between attacking neutrals and attacking civilians... 
empires and non-empire countries pick and choose whom they defend.

> or friendly citizens.  To an empire, it's irrelevant who blessed your
> depradations with a piece of paper, if they don't consider you a
> legitimate exerciser of violence, you're destabilizing the world and

Um, "Great Britain has neither permanent friends nor permanent enemies, only 
permanent interests."  -- Lord Palmerston.  The "legitimacy" is not the real 
issue, the issues are the empire's interests and who's in power to determine 
what they are.

> need repressing.  Both Cetaganda and Barrayar will fall under this
> category, and probably would happily fight any smaller country which
> was interfering with commerce.  It should be noted that unofficial

The USA went after the British Empire  in the War of 1812 and  the British 
Empire was a lot larger in those days than the USA.

> actors which are working in the interests or the service of an empire
> are exempted from its immediate ire, but that they are always a policy
> shift away from being betrayed and cut off, as soon as their actions
> no longer serve raison d'etat.
>
> Non-aligned states are not officially any less hostile to pirates and
> similar organizations.  However, because they do not exercise power
> projection, they are not about to go out and seek violent
> organizations like pirates to suppress.  They will keep their local

If pirates are problems for them, they go after the pirates.  Again, don't 
mess with Switzerland!

> system clear of inconveniences, and perhaps cooperate with neighboring
> ones, but that's as far as they're willing to take an active role in
> things.  Naturally, they too will support groups when it suits their
> political interests.  However, they consider it critical to keep their
> groups from harassing the interests of Empires, because they know that
> they will be held responsible.
>
> Finally, rogue states are actively engaged in supporting violent
> organizations, and without particular regard to who else is harmed.

"Rogue state" is often a perception/perspective issue, however...

> They consider themselves either sufficiently remote, strong, or
> distantly connected to be able to benefit from the disorganization and
> turmoil these groups cause without suffering reprocussions.  However,
> the general trend of history is that these states will either reform
> their ways, or step across an unmarked boundary and be squashed by an
> annoyed Empire.

Some "rogue states" -become- empires!  Poul Anderson's Mercian Empire got 
its start in Anderson;s novel _Supernova_, was it? Or maybe his novella _The 
Three Sided Wheel."  One of them, and it was a Muddlin' Through crew story 
(David Falkyn, Chee Lan, Adzel, and "Muddlehead," the ship AI, employees of 
Nicholas van Rijn, owner of Solar Spice & Liquors.)

>> High-tech - although
>> given Baron Fell's cut-rate knockoffs of Betan stuff, and Miles'
>> brushoff of the Escobarans after Enrique, copyright laws don't seem to
>> be particularly enforceable off one's own planet, so I'd wonder why an

That depends upon whether than planet wants its copyright enforced 
elsewhere-- reciprocity applies.

>> inventor wouldn't try to sell as much as he could at a price only a bit
>> above manufacturing (sorta if there's a choice between getting a high
>> price but only on your own planet, vs. a low price but over all the
>> planets around, most would go for the low price.  Ezar could afford
>> Illyan's implant when that was brand new, anyway, but not exactly
>> considered reliable)
>
> Well, as Emperor, Ezar could probably afford just about anything that
> interested him, so that's not too much evidence for cheap inventions.

There were lots of things he couldn't afford, though... a completely modern 
military that could defeat Beta was one of them.

> Also, I imagine Fell can only sell what Betan devices they've managed
> to get their hands on and examine, which probably isn't in alignment
> precisely with the actual cutting edge of Betan technology.

Jackson's Whole has a lot of its own tech, though...

> Beta isn't about to go to war with Jackson's Whole over intellectual
> property infringement.  They have a sufficiently strong advantage just
> on being the legitimate manufacturers, while Jackson's Whole is a
> sufficiently useful location for the whole Nexus that attacking it
> would be seriously disruptive to Betan relations with everyone else.

Jackson's Whole is probably a whole lot less averse the making nasty 
bioweapons than Beta is...

> Unless of course a "perfect storm" of miscues by the Houses made
> enough countries annoyed with them at once that the advantages of
> their neutrality would be temporarily suspended.  Likewise, Escobar is
> looking at a private case of some financial losses from Enrique's
> exploits, which they are acting on as a matter of internal justice.
> However, Barrayar is looking at a case of having obtained a certified
> genius in a field they are very interested in developing in:  To them,
> keeping him is a matter of policy.  Thus, he's worth far less to the
> Escobarrans than he is to the Barrayarans, so they won't push the
> matter too far.
>
> As for the general case of why not sell close to production cost,
> that's because any product which needs substantial R&D spending cannot
> make a profit unless those costs are recovered through sales, while a

Non-recurring and recurring costs...  production costs a lot but theres' a 
return there, the front end R&D and productization and then manufacturing 
engineering all happen months to years ahead of any income from sales...

> competitor who makes a cheap copy doesn't have to pay those R&D costs
> and so can just about always underprice you unless you're making
> negative profits.  As such, I think that manufacturers depend on local
> sales, and sales to other systems as long as their product hasn't been
> reverse engineered yet, because I can't think of any other economic
> models that really make sense.
>
>> (OT: Do we really know what pirates go for in the Nexus?   It can't be

Likely it's the sort of high value low mass stuff easily resold  that 
pirates in this world have gone for--artwork, gems, rarities, curiosities, 
rare liquors, spices...

>> gold, given Cordelia's reaction to it.  I'm guessing that it's not a
>> good idea to plunder genetic samples off the people who are really good
>> at it - otherwise, I'd think that someone rich enough could get their
>> own cloned haut wife from Jackson's Whole - the ones that are married

The local system laws might have something to say about that.

>> off to the ghem, at any rate, don't have bubbles, and are exhibited as a
>> real trophy wife so it should be possible to get a few skin flakes, but
>> that doesn't seem to happen.  Ransoms apparently.
>
> I would imagine that a look at what the mercenaries of Cavillo's were
> intending to steal from Vervain when she betrayed it would give a good
> example of what's valuable from a smash and grab.  Off the top of my
> head, the targets were banks, information storehouses, and fine art.