[gurps] Re: Internet on blue planet and like worlds

[Onno Meyer]

A general comment regarding this debate, not any specific post:

Historic examples are (a) a historically grown infrastructure and 
(b) from a world with roughly 3,000 times the population of Blue
Planet. That affects even places where commo infrastructure is 
built pretty much from scratch, e.g. parts of Africa.

Further more, Blue Planet is largely a waterworld - towns are 
separated by stretches of deep (often 1000+ m) ocean. That 
makes the placement of both 'landline' and repeater stations 
more difficult. While historically underwater cables were used
even if a land connection exists (e.g. Europe to Asia or Europe
to Africa), I suspect that is to blame on political boundaries
and the cost of land for a cable. Nobody would seriously try 
to route a Spain-to-South-Korea line through North Korea ...

Next, any imported technology arrives in orbit. Landing it on 
the planet costs extra, as opposed to the astronomical cost of 
launching a commo sat at TL7.

In addition to these setting-specific points, GURPS makes high
TL radios ridiculously cheap for their range. At TL7, you need 
a 200-lb. station drawing 100 W to cover 3,000 miles. At TL10,
a 0.25-lb handheld drawing 10 W does the job, easily added
to any mobile computer.

My gut feeling is that a lower population density makes cables 
less viable, both between towns and within towns. Cities like 
Haven are different, of course.

Onno