Elite: Lore
12 Jul 2021, 7:56am
12 Jul 2021, 12:43pm
I find a figure where Amazon is estimated to have 20% of its workforce at robots. If 1 in 5 is robots, and we assume each robot can do the work of 6.6 humans, that means that to the 4 humans, the robot is working for another 6.6. Let's give them a slightly concervative 60% of the work is done by the robot. So to replace the robots with slaves, you'd need to increase that work force by 150%.
I find it likely that other manufacturing industries are at least as automated as Amazon (think any videos you see from car manufacturing etc). So with that assumption, were looking at minimum 60% of the manufacturing work force will be slaves/clones. Other industries such as agriculture too. Another quick Google of employment numbers (ibisworld.com), I found the top 10 global biggest industries by employment. Using those numbers, of the top 10, 45% of the employment is in industries I consider likely to be/become automated in Elite: Consumer electronics manufacturing, fast food restaurants, apparel manufacturing, coal mining, and auto parts & accessories manufacturing. If we take a wild stab and assume that the rest of the industries are similar, then about 40% (concervative) of the world employment is in industries likely to use automation. Using the Amazon figures, replacing existing or automation of 20% with slaves, we get that 150% more people would need to be slaves than currently work there. That give us in addition to the citizens working, we need 60% slaves/clones doing the work of robotics. That means that for every 10 employees, you have another 6 slaves/clones.
Not quite a majority but that's a high number. Let's say you though I wasn't conservative enough and we halv that. For every 10 working age people in the Empire, another 3 are slaves/clones.
Last edit: 12 Jul 2021, 12:54pm
12 Jul 2021, 1:04pm
Donate bile, for example.
12 Jul 2021, 2:47pm
SakashiroThe Empire needs slaves because there are things robots can't do.
Donate bile, for example.
...Or lungs, heart, eyes, liver. Spare parts, if you got what I mean.
Anyway, as far as I can see Federation's future will be of a split between hardcore dictatorship (Zac Hudson, of course) and democratic parliament (Milady Winters).
Empire is running to a nasty family feud. And perhaps a slave rebellion in the likes of Spartacus stuff.
Last edit: 12 Jul 2021, 2:52pm
12 Jul 2021, 3:12pm
BurstarMy impression is that the Imperial economy is stronger than the Federation's but there is not shortage of Imp Slaves so???
Where's that impression coming from?
12 Jul 2021, 7:19pm
Rebecca Hail Where's that impression coming from?
It is my understanding that Poverty within the Federation is a huge problem. Drew Wagar has pointed this out numerous times in his lore breakdowns.
In game this is intentionally represented by Federation ports generally being in poorer condition than their Imperial counterparts. Empire ships are objectively higher build quality. The Empire has held their own against the Federation for most if not all of its existence despite being the lesser in total number of citizens and controlled systems (up until recently, nowadays the Empire actually has a marginal advantage here too) and this can be attributed to superior technology and industrial capability, both strong indications of a better economy.
This actually goes against my personal bias ftr. I prefer Fed ships over Imp despite their shortcomings, and I've always been neutral opportunist than a dedicated supporter of any of the factions. All of the superpowers could collapse tomorrow as far as I'm concerned and it'd probably be for the better.
12 Jul 2021, 7:23pm
Amata LireinIn my headcanon the slave-to-be has a say in what kind of work s/he can be used in when signing up for a term of service with the ISA, but I guess that certain jobs are "worth" more then others regarding how long you need to be a slave in order work off your debt.
canon explicitly disagrees with this interpretation, at least situationally
12 Jul 2021, 8:31pm
BurstarRebecca Hail Where's that impression coming from?
It is my understanding that Poverty within the Federation is a huge problem. Drew Wagar has pointed this out numerous times in his lore breakdowns.
In game this is intentionally represented by Federation ports generally being in poorer condition than their Imperial counterparts. Empire ships are objectively higher build quality. The Empire has held their own against the Federation for most if not all of its existence despite being the lesser in total number of citizens and controlled systems (up until recently, nowadays the Empire actually has a marginal advantage here too) and this can be attributed to superior technology and industrial capability, both strong indications of a better economy.
This actually goes against my personal bias ftr. I prefer Fed ships over Imp despite their shortcomings, and I've always been neutral opportunist than a dedicated supporter of any of the factions. All of the superpowers could collapse tomorrow as far as I'm concerned and it'd probably be for the better.
While poverty is a problem in the Federation, since one of its central themes is income inequality, the rest of those impressions seem to be a bit arbitrary.
Take the example with the ports: How do you determine that? The ports and their appearance don't change depending on who controls them (afaik). So a federal port in poor condition can either be in poor condition because it is federal, because it was overtaken from someone else who determined that it'd be in poor condition at the start or because the economic level of the faction controlling it is poor. I'm hearing for the very first time that ports in poor condition are more likely to be federal than imperial and that this is intentionally.
As for ship quality, there's no objective way to measure this and there's no real meaning to "ship quality" either since it encompasses a vast number of factors that would need to be considered to determine that (including stuff that we simply can't determine from our perspective in the game). Even under the assumption that Imperial ships are higher quality, this can be reasoned with the Federation mass producing ships. It's simply not an indicator of better technology or economy, because it isn't directly dependent on those factors.
As for the Federation not going to war against the Empire, there's one simple reason for that: it's not worth it, even if the Federation would win. On the opposite, for both the Federation and the Empire the jingoism against the respective other is a valuable political tool to control and unite their population. It's the same reason why the Federation won't go to war against the Alliance. In a 1vs1 match-up, there's no way the alliance would win. But even if the Federation would be able to achieve all it's goals, it'd be such a significant investment that it's simply not worth it as opposed to just keeping the status quo. There's simply not yet a factor at hand that forces the hand of the Federation (or any other of the two superpowers) to declare a war and even if there was a factor grave enough to prompt that, it wouldn't be guaranteed that the Federation wins against the Empire. Even in the beginning when the Federation and the Empire were in an open war for 50 something years, the Federation came to the conclusion that it'd simply be too expensive to achieve its war goal of annexing Achenar. Similiar to that, the Empire came to the conclusion that it couldn't project its power enough on the federal core systems to actually get concessions from the Federation.
Especially the superior industrial capabilities of the Empire is something I just can't see, considering that robotics are still largely substituted by slavery in the Empire.
12 Jul 2021, 8:52pm
OOSqueekyAmata LireinIn my headcanon the slave-to-be has a say in what kind of work s/he can be used in when signing up for a term of service with the ISA, but I guess that certain jobs are "worth" more then others regarding how long you need to be a slave in order work off your debt.
canon explicitly disagrees with this interpretation, at least situationally
[img=629x307]https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/715336388479811645/864225156434755584/unknown.png[/img]
That does not necessarily disagree with my theory, as the height of that "guaranteed sum of money" could very well depend on what kind of work you're willing to perform. Think of a catalogue that lists what kind of work is worth how much. As an example: if you say you just want to work as a household slave it would be work 50k a year, but as a zero-G-worker at an Imperial Navy shipyard 150k.
13 Jul 2021, 8:52am
Rebecca Hail While poverty is a problem in the Federation, since one of its central themes is income inequality, the rest of those impressions seem to be a bit arbitrary.
Especially the superior industrial capabilities of the Empire is something I just can't see, considering that robotics are still largely substituted by slavery in the Empire.
They're hardly arbitrary. They all support the idea that the Federation economy is not as good as the Empire's. All the points I brought up for this are admittedly not absolute concrete proof, but they are much better than just saying 'nuh uh!'
To rephrase my points to make the argument clearer:
The Federation has a reputation of rampant poverty, the Empire doesn't. Are you trying to say a weaker economy employs more people?
Ship design/quality (Imp's objectively better: Take any federation ship and contrast it with its imperial counterpart and you'll see it is clearly outclassed), and station upkeep (something you should probably pay more attention too) has an intentional contrast. While the paintjob and economy doesn't change when controlling faction does, the cleanliness/lack of gloominess does when Imps take control. It is clearly a proud culture. The cracks of which would be far more visible if the economy was in shambles, It's clear to me that the Empire has the quality advantage, but do they have the quantity one too? I'm unaware of any hard numbers to show this but....
The Feds and Imps have literally gone to war at least a couple of times historically. The Imps won each time despite being the smaller power so they obviously have something going for them and I doubt it's their crack team of slave special forces...
13 Jul 2021, 9:25am
BurstarRebecca Hail While poverty is a problem in the Federation, since one of its central themes is income inequality, the rest of those impressions seem to be a bit arbitrary.
Especially the superior industrial capabilities of the Empire is something I just can't see, considering that robotics are still largely substituted by slavery in the Empire.
They're hardly arbitrary. They all support the idea that the Federation economy is not as good as the Empire's. All the points I brought up for this are admittedly not absolute concrete proof, but they are much better than just saying 'nuh uh!'
To rephrase my points to make the argument clearer:
The Federation has a reputation of rampant poverty, the Empire doesn't. Are you trying to say a weaker economy employs more people?
It is absolutely possible to employ more people and still have a lower economic output. Employment and economic output correlate over a number of factors. Quality of life is better in the Empire, but that doesn't mean that it's economy is stronger. It's simply not something you can accurately judge without hard numbers.
Ship design/quality (Imp's objectively better: Take any federation ship and contrast it with its imperial counterpart and you'll see it is clearly outclassed)
That's like saying that a Vulture outclasses an ASPX. They're completely different ships, constructed for completely different purposes. You can't just say "imperial ships outclass federal ships" without being more precise about what you mean and what you want to do with them. Obviously a FGS will be outclassed by a Clipper when you're trying to use them for a multirole purpose (well, for a FGS generally every other purpose than combat), but in Combat the FGS will outclass the Clipper.
, and station upkeep (something you should probably pay more attention too) has an intentional contrast. While the paintjob and economy doesn't change when controlling faction does, the cleanliness/lack of gloominess does when Imps take control. It is clearly a proud culture. The cracks of which would be far more visible if the economy was in shambles, It's clear to me that the Empire has the quality advantage, but do they have the quantity one too? I'm unaware of any hard numbers to show this but...
I have never noticed this in 1600 hours of gametime and it's the first time I've heard it being brought up in any discussion about imperial/federal lore. So without a proper source for it (other than your impression) I'm simply not buying that it happens or that, if it happens it's intentional.
The Feds and Imps have literally gone to war at least a couple of times historically. The Imps won each time despite being the smaller power so they obviously have something going for them and I doubt it's their crack team of slave special forces...
Historically Imps and Feds went to full scale war only once, which ended with a victory for the Empire. Sure, over the centuries there were always tensions, proxy wars and border skirmishes but neither side mobilized for a full scale war. As I said, war is expensive and politically risky if it spins out of control and both sides know that.
As for the imps always winning, that's flat out not true. The Federation used to crush the Empire in every combat CG that happened between the two of them.
13 Jul 2021, 9:28am
Rebecca Hail The Federation used to crush the Empire in every combat CG that happened between the two of them.
Emphasis on "used"?
(Sorry, couldn't resist
)13 Jul 2021, 9:32am
Amata LireinRebecca Hail The Federation used to crush the Empire in every combat CG that happened between the two of them.
Emphasis on "used"?
(Sorry, couldn't resist )
Well, it's true isn't it? Not like the current ongoings are a stellar hour of the Federation.
13 Jul 2021, 9:36am
Rebecca HailAmata LireinRebecca Hail The Federation used to crush the Empire in every combat CG that happened between the two of them.
Emphasis on "used"?
(Sorry, couldn't resist )
Well, it's true isn't it? Not like the current ongoings are a stellar hour of the Federation.
To be fair though: So far it's only been the Paresa one. The last one was against independents.
