On Fri, Jul 10, 2015 at 8:05 AM, Phil Pugliese (via tml list)
<xxxxxx@simplelists.com> wrote:

> I wouldn't be surprised if an impoverished aslan land-holder was more esteemed than a much richer but landless one..

 Presumably, it depends.

If you "own" a continent on a frontier world, that's land-rich, buy
only if you're there, and less so, further way.

If you "own" something like Long Island in New York, it's a lot less
land area, but it generates a lot more wealth than does a continent on
a primitive frontier planet 8 months away.

Consider the Aslan Hiltons:  small plots of land, all over the place,
but they all have commercial buildings that produce a lot of income.
:)

 Being land-rich is about having the land, but it also has to be about
generating *income* from the land, and being able to generate enough
income to be able to maintain a big enough and strong enough household
to *keep* the land when some other Aslan comes sniffing around looking
for their own land to claim.

 Related is how well populated that continent is- if you own a
continent the size South America, and it's a new colony, and the known
population is the 80 Aslan in your landgrab party,  you're still not
all that wealthy.  A slightly larger band of ihatei could just jump
your claim, rather than waving politely and envying your good luck, as
the go zooming past on their search for their own planet to colonize.

Which is another wrinkle to slow Aslan expansion- you don't have to
find *open* land, you just have to find some land you can *claim*.

 Ihatei fleets from high-pop worlds might have 5k Aslan troops in cold
sleep, looking for an underpopulated world to settle on, and work on,
in return for land grants.  Or maybe they are just gonna settle in; I
mean, if nobody is currently using all that land in the
Argentina-analog....

--

"Any sufficiently advanced parody is indistinguishable from a genuine
kook." -Alan Morgan