Periphery in forties FE

Can someone explain what the administration and economy of Periphery,
Anacreon Province and Terminus were like in forties?

We are told that when the Kingdom was proclaimed, Foundation had not
received a single shipload of aluminum or steel for 6 months. The
implication was that it was unusual (Hardin could describe it as a
problem), but not too different from what had been before (Pirenne was
not yet feeling the problem). Hardin tells Anacreon cut the last
connection to Santanni, Trantor and Vega - implying that there had been
other routes, which had been cut already.

And how had the nuclear power been lost in 4 Kingdoms? In Siwenna of
150-s, nuclear stations were common - several in military bases
supplying the navy, and many smaller ones in cities, guarded by
technomen. There must have been similarly common nuclear stations in
old Anacreon Province. In 80, Hardin tells that Foundation had been
able to restore many remains in Anacreon. But it is clear that by 50,
there was not a single functioning nuclear station in any of the 4
Kingdoms.

How was Terminus supplied, and with what?

Johnny Pez kirjutas:
> On Jan 26, 12:56 pm, chornedsnork....TakeThisOut@hushmail.com wrote:
> > Can someone explain what the administration and economy of Periphery,
> > Anacreon Province and Terminus were like in forties?
>
> Sure. Glad to help.
>
> > We are told that when the Kingdom was proclaimed, Foundation had not
> > received a single shipload of aluminum or steel for 6 months. The
> > implication was that it was unusual (Hardin could describe it as a
> > problem), but not too different from what had been before (Pirenne was
> > not yet feeling the problem). Hardin tells Anacreon cut the last
> > connection to Santanni, Trantor and Vega - implying that there had been
> > other routes, which had been cut already.
> >
> > And how had the nuclear power been lost in 4 Kingdoms? In Siwenna of
> > 150-s, nuclear stations were common - several in military bases
> > supplying the navy, and many smaller ones in cities, guarded by
> > technomen. There must have been similarly common nuclear stations in
> > old Anacreon Province. In 80, Hardin tells that Foundation had been
> > able to restore many remains in Anacreon. But it is clear that by 50,
> > there was not a single functioning nuclear station in any of the 4
> > Kingdoms.
> >
> > How was Terminus supplied, and with what?
>
> Terminus, according to Asimov, was lacking in heavy metals: iron,
> platinum, gold, silver, copper, iridium, etc., which was why the
> coinage on Terminus was made from steel. Also luxuries such as Vegan
> tobacco, gourmet food, book-tapes, jewelry -- basically, anything
> Terminus couldn't supply for itself. The supplies were presumably sent
> out to Terminus from the Psychohistory Project back at the Imperial
> Library on Trantor.
>
Book-tapes, obviously. Luxuries, perhaps. We are told that tobacco
could be grown locally on Terminus but Vegan tobacco was better - and
Anselm haut Rodric, one of the few most wealthy and powerful people on
Anacreon, recognized Vegan tobacco but was short of it. Of course, we
are not told if the last consignment had come from Trantor or direct
from Vega.

But metal?

Sure, the running of imperial demesne would have had its share of
inefficiency as well as embezzlement and corruption. But Anacreon and
other 4 Kingdoms kept producing metals locally. They knew an beeded
metals like chromium or vanadium.

In fourties, while the taxes due to the Empire would have been low or
mostly assigned to be used for local government, there would have been
at least some taxation. So, the Empire could have ordered Anacreon to
send a small share of their steel and aluminum production to Terminus
and accepted it in (partial) discharge of taxes due for Trantor. Local
sourcing would have made sense...

> We can assume that there are automated farms on Terminus providing
> staples such as grains, vegetables, fruit, and meat, and also automated
> factories producing building supplies and basic appliances. There may
> be irrigation projects, aqueducts, reservoirs.
>
How can we assume this? After all, when we are told that the majority
of the people on Terminus had their farms and factories to care about,
wouldn´ t it mean that many of them actually worked there?

> The Four Kingdoms would not officially have been independent kingdoms
> in the 40s, though they were probably already de facto independent if
> not de jure. We can assume that the leadership of the kingdoms was
> already hereditary, and had been for generations. The case of the
> atomic reactor on Gamma Andromeda tells us what probably happened to
> atomic power in the periphery: declining technical skills led to
> accidents, which led to the curtailment of atomic power. When the
> people found themselves without electric power, they started burning
> wood, and from there worked their way up to coal and oil -- their
> planets would have plenty of untapped fossil fuels, since up until then
> they had relied on atomic energy for power.
>
> As energy consumption fell, all but the most basic communication and
> intellectual activity would have died out; no power to operate the
> book-tape readers or comm devices.

The coal and oil powered electricity would have remained. In Siwenna of
200, Barr (a relatively wealthy and educated provincial) complained
about shortage of spares for the applications.

> Schools would close down, and most
> of the people would become ignorant agricultural workers -- peasants,
> or even serfs.

Depending on whether labour was in short supply, perhaps.

> Only a small minority of the population -- landowners
> and merchants -- would have any sort of advanced education, or access
> to relatively high technology. With no mass communications or
> education, an oral folklore would arise, maybe with some
> half-remembered scraps of Imperial culture embedded into tales of lost
> wonders. This would serve as the basis for the folk religion that the
> Foundation's technicians would find themselves absorbed into when they
> went into the Four Kingdoms after the First Crisis to restore the
> atomic power plants and infrastructure. The peasants of the Four
> Kingdoms would hear about Hari Seldon and the Psychohistory Project
> from the Foundationers, and they would add them into the mix, giving
> rise to the religion that Salvor Hardin co-opted.
>
> Mind you, not all of this is explicitly laid out in the early
> Foundation stories, but it can be inferred from them.