Quote:Point. But, given that we're talking about a planet that gets Martian-grade sandstorms in air considerably thicker than Earth's, how small a vehicle would you want to be caught out in?
On land, on the other hand, its much easier to deal with the logistics of keeping a fleet of small vehicles together. Without the sort of pressures pushing the "one big ship" model, the greater flexibility, cost-effectiveness, maintainability, and so forth of just using lots of small vehicles would probably stop people from considering building huge "land-ships."
Honestly I'm less concerned with whether or not they make sense than I am with 'Do they make the background look more interesting?' and 'How do I execute them such that people won't feel inclined to dispute them?' IOW, their existence is being driven by their dramatic value, and dragging their technical issues along behind.
Quote:There's plenty of water, really, it's just that there's so very few places close enough to it to grow crops on. Limited supplies of land to use is a problem that's been around since forever, and given the number of isolated populations there's probably one nation or another using any version you can think of.
If these people live with only limited water supplies and arable land, how do they split it up? Are there huge class divisions where only a few people have all of the resources? If so, what mechanisms are in place to prevent uprisings? Is there a lot of fighting?
Unfortunately, I'm fried at the moment, so figuring out what those are, exactly, would feel entirely too much like work.
Quote:Population pressure is pretty fierce; not so much so that resource scarcity is a gnawing problem for any given individual, but enough to be noticable and drive a number of wars for territory. That, in turn, fuels and has been fueling some serious vendettas and power-games, like the nastier aspects of the modern Middle East and nineteenth-century Europe rolled up into one.
What about population control? The higher the population, the fewer resources per capita will be available. Are there enough wars that the population is kept low enough, or are there other measures in place?
Ja, -n
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"I'm terribly sorry, but I have to kill you quite horribly now."