[Dragaera] Teleport Shipping

[Philip Hart]

On Tue, 26 Jan 2010, Scott Schultz wrote:

> To the left, teleport shipping on a large scale is probably impractical. One 
> of the reasons that there are sorcerers who specialize in teleportation is 
> that there's a mental discipline involved in fixing the location in one's 
> memory to the point where it becomes indelible. A person with an eidetic 
> memory might be able to teleport almost anywhere she's been before, but most 
> people would draw the line at a few useful locations and call it good. The 
> usefulness of certain specialists was that they had "memorized" locations 
> that were out of the way but that had high value to the parties that might 
> want to travel to that place. Deathsgate Falls, for instance.

This isn't anything like the model we have of teleporting as I recall it. 
Vlad and Co zip around all over the place at near-will.  If necessary one 
can use a psiprint iirc, or just get a picture from someone psychically.
"Hey, contact #n, give me a view of the warehouse there please".

> Even if a shipping company had a legion of sorcerers on hand to teleport to 
> dozens of shipping hubs

Or one with a rolodex.

> and there was no problem sending the goods, you still have to distribute 
> the goods away from the hub somehow.

This isn't your problem, depending on how you're organized.


> In other words, despite cutting out 
> some of the travel distance and time, in the end, you still have to load up 
> wagons and draft animals to deliver it to the final destinations.

This comes down to, Assume x = 0, then x+y is approximately y.


> Given that, it may simply be that it's more economical to use ordinary 
> shipping and let it get there a couple of days later. Tekla cost next to 
> nothing whereas trained sorcerers are rather more expensive to maintain.

I just did a lower-bound estimate for an easy shipping route midway in the 
empire (is Bryan Newell still reading) and got one Teckla-year of labor 
for the transport in question, ignoring capitol costs, insurance, oxen 
food, bribes to Orcas, local taxes, and who knows what else.  I'd like to 
see a better, lower estimate or something solid on the other side before 
believing this.


> On the gripping hand, you also have the established commercial Houses like 
> the Orca, Chreotha, and Jhegalla. These guys have all of their trade routes 
> and agreements in place and stand to lose business if things suddenly change 
> dramatically.

We know from Paarfi that things already changed dramatically.  First 
because the empire blew up, then because land transport at least became 
obsolete.