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We know that lux is generated by machines, the Lux Font, in Sanctuary City. We also know from Quentyn's swamp adventure that you can run out of lux. Wouldn't a distributed power system make an awful lot of sense? Why not have a personal emergency lux generation kit for when you're off to the swamp? How much would such a beastie weigh and how hard would it be to power?

1) Lux is generated by all living things (think 'the force'), but can also be generated by a device similar to a dynamo

2) Because the energy has to come from somewhere, and they don't have internal combustion engines like you'd put on a generator. (And they probably don't have much incentive to develop them, or steam for that matter.)

3) I'm pretty sure they do have a distribution grid for it. (References made in the nightmares arc and other places)

As a corollary, I've often wondered what kind of outputs you'd get if you were to rebuild one of those lux-dynamos up to our specs on parts and materials, then hook it up to a nuclear power plant so that it produces lux instead of electricity. (Just attach the steam-driven turbine shaft to the lux-dynamo instead of to an electrical dynamo.)

Well... let me think...
Unless there is some sort of upper limit/dimmising efficiency on ley line capacity as one scales up with power or distance, you could power a much greater area at the same level that the Seven Villages currently are. I don't know what the power losses of a ley line per kW/h per mile are.

In the case of the same sized population, but with an increased power availible per citizen:

Efficiency would become less important in the end DEVICES and more could be done with Lux. Lev carriages would likely replace goat carts for standard personal transport. This is just one of the things that would happen. You would be talking about going from animal power to lux power on every major device. Automatic looms (if they don't already use those), Lux driven plows, trip-hammers and maybe even 3-ton on up to 300-ton (pressure, not total mass) range die-presses for the forges.

TWO seperate but parallel distribution systems might become necessary. One would be designed for devices to use, and might be, as a safety measure, somehow made difficult to access. This would keep young Rac's, just coming into there lux powers from accidently blowing their heads off/ going into Lux shock by grabbing the 'high voltage' line instead of the 'low voltage' line for a re-charge. The other line would be meant for recharging one's personal store of lux.

The charging methods for artifacts would have to be modified probably... remember all the trouble the Lux bomb caused at the Royal's hideout? Now think of that as being a CONTINUOUS effect.

Artifacts would become proportionally more important than personal lux capacity.

Depending on the power ratios involved, one might be able to build a lux-powered Lev-ship (NOT lighter than air) with a cruising altitude of 1,000's of feet, and or even theoretically a space ship (does Lev require a reaction mass?) Note that there are theories about the possibility of building a reaction-mass less space ship IRL.

It would seem to me that marrying up lux generators to our type of modern power generation equipment would be a profoundly economically depressing event. The Rac'conan are a hard money society, beads, rings constitute their money. This would radically increase the supply of goods but it would do nothing for the supply of money. In other words, it would be very destabilizing unless new supplies of metal could be found to balance things.

TMLutas wrote:It would seem to me that marrying up lux generators to our type of modern power generation equipment would be a profoundly economically depressing event. The Rac'conan are a hard money society, beads, rings constitute their money. This would radically increase the supply of goods but it would do nothing for the supply of money. In other words, it would be very destabilizing unless new supplies of metal could be found to balance things.

Not really, no. Increased resources doesn't mean people will necessarily *buy* them. Usage increase will be gradual, and remember that much of it will go to manufacturing, which will turn the extra energy-resources into extra value-added goods, preventing the extra resources from tying up metal. Though, with that in mind, it might not be a bad idea for them to consider some sort of other currency, as it would simplify transactions in some regards.

Aurrin wrote:

TMLutas wrote:It would seem to me that marrying up lux generators to our type of modern power generation equipment would be a profoundly economically depressing event. The Rac'conan are a hard money society, beads, rings constitute their money. This would radically increase the supply of goods but it would do nothing for the supply of money. In other words, it would be very destabilizing unless new supplies of metal could be found to balance things.

Not really, no. Increased resources doesn't mean people will necessarily *buy* them. Usage increase will be gradual, and remember that much of it will go to manufacturing, which will turn the extra energy-resources into extra value-added goods, preventing the extra resources from tying up metal. Though, with that in mind, it might not be a bad idea for them to consider some sort of other currency, as it would simplify transactions in some regards.

Here's an illustration:
old equilibrium
10 sellers with 10 units each selling for 10 beads = supply
100 buyers willing to buy 1 unit for 10 beads = demand

new equilibrium
10 sellers with 100 units each selling for ?? = supply
100 buyers wiling to buy +/-1 unit each for ?? = demand

If you're a buyer, you'll play the 10 sellers off against each other. Everybody's looking at huge storage costs and unsold surpluses. They can get the stuff for less (their energy cost just went through the floor. What happens is maybe 120 get sold for 5 beads. Prices cut in half, sales up 20%. That's deflationary in its effects but simple common sense bargaining on the part of the buyers.

The extra sales will come from people being more willing to stock reserves at lower prices, more willing to replace an older/worn out unit when they would have nursed it along at the old price. If you make something cheap enough, people will find new uses for a good. Drop the cost of a plow below the cost of rocks and you'll find people no longer making field fences out of stones but out of plows instead. You get all sorts of absurd reactions when you have changes in the equilibrium that are drastic enough.

Walls out of plows? Possible, in the short term if plows are overstocked...
In the medium or long term, someone is going to figure out how to use the same metal working technology that made the plows so cheap to make chain-link fences, with a possible stop over at metal plate fencing. Either option fills up square feet of fencing required for less metal and thus less price than piling plows up on top of eachother.
Of course, some people would still use stone instead of plows because it doesn't have gaps that the rabbits can squeeze through, and doesn't rust (which might be considered ugly, and requires more maintainence).

DracoDei wrote:Walls out of plows? Possible, in the short term if plows are overstocked...
In the medium or long term, someone is going to figure out how to use the same metal working technology that made the plows so cheap to make chain-link fences, with a possible stop over at metal plate fencing. Either option fills up square feet of fencing required for less metal and thus less price than piling plows up on top of eachother.
Of course, some people would still use stone instead of plows because it doesn't have gaps that the rabbits can squeeze through, and doesn't rust (which might be considered ugly, and requires more maintainence).

True story: there's a guy out there who wants to make the shipping container imbalance (lots of imports from Asia but not so many exports going the other way) work for him. He's using those containers to grow hydroponic lettuce. Growing them locally is cheaper than growing them in California and transporting them across the country.

So let them. Lux is not so cumbersome an item as a shipping container. Finding extra uses for it could hardly do anything but benefit them. It would encourage never-before-seen uses of it on scales that had never been previously possible.

In short, you've yet to establish how this is a bad thing.

(And you won't, because no matter how you look at it, it's a net increase of resource flow into the system. Temporary inconveniences aside, it has to be a good thing overall.)

Aurrin wrote:So let them. Lux is not so cumbersome an item as a shipping container. Finding extra uses for it could hardly do anything but benefit them. It would encourage never-before-seen uses of it on scales that had never been previously possible.

In short, you've yet to establish how this is a bad thing.

(And you won't, because no matter how you look at it, it's a net increase of resource flow into the system. Temporary inconveniences aside, it has to be a good thing overall.)

You've mistaken me as someone who *wants* to establish this as a bad thing. I merely said it would be deflationary (which means it's a pain in the neck transition cost until you hit a new equilibrium). 8-9 of those hopeful sellers are going to go into some other line of business. If the space elevator optimists are right, we're going to be seeing something like this in the real world oh, around 2025-2030 as solar power satellites become economically feasible on the slow road to the stars.

I'll point out that unless they're importing all of the uranium (probably be exporting lux-powered devices), they're going to be loosing metals to run their power plants.

nick012000 wrote:I'll point out that unless they're importing all of the uranium (probably be exporting lux-powered devices), they're going to be loosing metals to run their power plants.

This is assuming that lux enhanced nonmetallic powerplant materials couldn't serve better. As long as we're parachuting in nuclear engineers, why not a few materials scientists?

what's the deal with metals recycling?
i seem to remember it being mentioned in npc that it can only be done a finite amount of times
as far as i know that's not true in rl
in aerospace metal fatigue hardens along it's life
and when you recycle it(if you can)
all that goes away and it's as if you had never used it before
by recycle i mean melt it down and resolidifie it

jonititan wrote:what's the deal with metals recycling?
i seem to remember it being mentioned in npc that it can only be done a finite amount of times
as far as i know that's not true in rl
in aerospace metal fatigue hardens along it's life
and when you recycle it(if you can)
all that goes away and it's as if you had never used it before
by recycle i mean melt it down and resolidifie it

Take a ring made of 1 oz metal, use it 5 years, melt it down and measure it. It'll be less than 1oz. Friction loss means that you don't get back what you used. The stock of metal continually dwindles.

TMLutas wrote:

jonititan wrote:what's the deal with metals recycling?
i seem to remember it being mentioned in npc that it can only be done a finite amount of times
as far as i know that's not true in rl
in aerospace metal fatigue hardens along it's life
and when you recycle it(if you can)
all that goes away and it's as if you had never used it before
by recycle i mean melt it down and resolidifie it

Take a ring made of 1 oz metal, use it 5 years, melt it down and measure it. It'll be less than 1oz. Friction loss means that you don't get back what you used. The stock of metal continually dwindles.

Not to mention oxidation and corrosion.

Is it stated that the Seven Villages are short of metals? Critically short?

Because THEN it would make sense your comments about the rings and beads being a 'hard' currency, their value being their value - like a silver or gold doller coin, with a dollers worth of silver or gold - its worth a doller cause its actually worth a doller, not because we all agree it to have a value.

Whereas US money today, only has a value because we all agree it has a value, making it a sort of 'soft' currency.

Anyone who has actually studied this, please forgive if I butcher terms. I'm self taught. >.>;;

But unless its on the CDs, I've seen nothing to suggest itself that Rac Coona rings and beads are a hard currency as opposed to a soft currency. The crucial difference is, if the Seven Villages have a metals shortage, then rings and beads made of metal have value.

Whatever point I was trying to make, I just lost. My mother, aunt, and cousin went to a pet expo, where many STUPID THINGS happened on the part of my aunt and cousin. My mother just informed me of when they saw an incubator with a bunch of chicks in it (Baby chickens.) My cousin looked at them and asked, "Don't they need to nurse?"

He's 11. I knew better than that when I was eleven.

That broke my mind. My mental train of thought derailed, killing twenty passengers and injuring a hundred others.

Bengaley wrote:Is it stated that the Seven Villages are short of metals? Critically short?

Because THEN it would make sense your comments about the rings and beads being a 'hard' currency, their value being their value - like a silver or gold doller coin, with a dollers worth of silver or gold - its worth a doller cause its actually worth a doller, not because we all agree it to have a value.

During Quentyn's quest to recover Wildcard, he spends some time playing chess. The metal shortage is laid out there. I believe there are other clues laid elsewhere but that's what I remember off the top of my head right now.

TMLutas wrote:

Bengaley wrote:Is it stated that the Seven Villages are short of metals? Critically short?

Because THEN it would make sense your comments about the rings and beads being a 'hard' currency, their value being their value - like a silver or gold doller coin, with a dollers worth of silver or gold - its worth a doller cause its actually worth a doller, not because we all agree it to have a value.

During Quentyn's quest to recover Wildcard, he spends some time playing chess. The metal shortage is laid out there. I believe there are other clues laid elsewhere but that's what I remember off the top of my head right now.

Ah, I recall that now. I'll go look it up.

*some time later*
http://npc.comicgenesis.com/d/20050616.html First mentioned, here, confirmed in the next panel.

So yeah, with a metal shortage like is being described, the Seven Villages can't really industrialize. ....not that I mind, I honestly prefer a pre-Industrial society with post-industrial ideas behind it.

When I created my Final Fantasy Dreams storyline, the Age of Peace was a land of my ideal existance: No huge cities, a few large ones, many towns, lots of villages - mostly farmsteads, with life on the farms a lot easier with magic and technology, and medical technology merged with medical magic that alows for 'miraculous' things daily. *shrug*

But back to TotQ...

If the powers that be don't intend to expand the money-base, then the rings and beads being a hard currency is a workable idea. If they want to increase the ammount of 'cash', then they have to free up valueable resources to be made into money.

It sounds like a good idea, so long as you've got the money flowing constantly. But I'm not going to trust that, not without knowing the economy of the Seven Villages a bit better.