On Sat, Apr 26, 2014 at 11:52:09PM +0200, John Geoffrey wrote:
> On 26/04/14 18:14, Knapp wrote:
> > I found it very interesting that the very top was Walmart selling
> > everyday stuff but then look just how often oil is on the list!!! What
> > would the Traveller equivalent of oil be?

I don't think there will necessarily be any such trade good.  That is,
something that is destroyed by use, obtained primarily from a few
major areas, and used by a large fraction of the planet's population
every day.  To be an equivalent it would also need to be expensive
enough to constitute a sizeable fraction of the economy while also
cheap enough that substitution by other goods isn't worthwhile.

I think the closest equivalent would likely be foodstuffs.  Some
systems will be very much more suited to producing them than others,
by a margin that would probably cover the cost of transport.

> Lanthanum maybe? Access to it could govern if a planet can actually
> build jumpships according to their TL.  Other metals also might
> figure in here.

Some systems will definitely be richer in many metals than most
others, and nucleosynthesis will be expensive even with Traveller
technology.  So yes, metals of various sorts would certainly be major
interstellar trade goods.

Such goods are not really an oil equivalent, though.  The volume of
use per capita will be comparatively small, and they aren't destroyed
by use.

> Oil itself might still be important for non-fuel applications (e.g.
> meds, plastics), and with so many planets that created carbon-based
> life this might still be an interesting trade good.

I expect that in a cheap space setting like Traveller, almost all the
hydrocarbons would be of non-biological origin.  Carbon is one of the
most common element in the universe, and most compounds of it in
nature are with hydrogen.

For example, the hydrocarbons in Jupiter's atmosphere mass more than
all of the rocky planets and moons of the solar system put together.
Other cold bodies have hydrocarbons on their surfaces in various
quantities.

So I don't think that's as likely to be an interstellar trade good.
It's probably too common in every system to be worth transporting
routinely through Jump in large quantities.  That said, it might be
worth carrying aboard starships as part of a hydrogen fuel reserve.
Like some other hydrogen compounds, it holds more hydrogen per unit
volume than liquid hydrogen does while being easier to store.

- Tim