Hardly the first time the Temple was destroyed. Been rebuild all the same.
I mean, yes-maybe. On the other hand, by the time we're in any position to consider it, a
lot will have happened. I don't care to try to predict that aspect of the future.
Plenty of Christians will have a major Problem with that.
To clarify, the point is that the site of Rome, even cleared of tiberium (assuming that this doesn't leave it below sea level, which I suspect it would) is going to have to be rebuilt from the ground up as
something. It's not pressingly needed for human habitation, so... what, exactly? A reconstruction of Rome from the past? From what era? Classical? Medieval? Early modern? 2000-era?
This is not a trivial question, and the papacy will have long since relocated to some other place anyway.
I'm not saying there won't be an effort to reconstruct
something on the site, but it's going to be a complicated thing and it's not as simple as "just restore." We are
extremely lucky in the case of Mecca-Medina that the actual sacred sites in question are still there and physically more or less intact, and haven't just been disintegrated and turned into green rocks.
Truthfully, I don't find Sarang particularly likeable as our next treasurer candidate (especially when we have no idea how we'll pivot and she's clearly pretty fixated on the orbitals), but I think my biggest concern is a Sarang treasury and a Litvinov administration would be potentially problematic.
What do you think the odds are that Litvinov will still be in office in 2066 or 2070? The chief executive of GDI is a demanding position; not many people would even want it for more than eight years, I think.
Furthermore, if Litvinov does take charge for eight years and is still in office, and if Seo decides to retire at that time, Litvinov is the establishment by then. Mikoyan's adaptability is
the point; she'll adapt to the power structure that exists, and if that power structure is Litvinov, she'll deal.
You're talking like Litvinov of eight years from now will still be in the same position as Litvinov today- a visionary constantly striving to remake everything. Maybe Mikoyan will be poorly suited to Litvinov's needs there, but she doesn't have to deal with Mikoyan,
she has Seo. By the time Mikoyan succeeds to Seo's position (
if she succeeds, since it isn't
strictly speaking Seo's position to give), either Litvinov will have largely locked in her reforms and be looking for someone who can make them continue to happen, or she'll have failed and probably fallen out of office.
...and committing to Sarang costs us a potent bargaining chip, potentially ties us down politically, could lock out any other capable candidate coming out of the inside of the treasury, and further establishes the treasury as a relatively self contained fiefdom that only promotes from within.
Now
these points are solid.
Although honestly I kind of like the idea of trying to play through all that friction. Gives us something to think about.
It is mostly conjecture Simon.
Please note the high emphasis on miniaturization and simplification of Fusion power plants in the update flavor text.
We've already been told that Phase 2 of the fusion plants will cost 300 Progress instead of 350. I'm pretty sure that's the simplification Ithillid's talking about.
From past experience QM has limited Fusion projects to a Phase or two, before switching over to a new and better model of Fusion power plants. From peakers, to staggered cycle peakers, to continuous fusion power plants (this phase). It may not be the end.
I'm pretty sure this
is the end, and we've been told to expect this being the end, because this is the point at which the technology has firmly matured. We now have stable, continuously operational fusion reactors. Further research doesn't give us the kind of fusion reactors
we build (giant power stations that generate gigawatts of energy). It gives the military reactors that might be used in their bases, things like that.
Now, we might still see some further incremental improvement. Maybe Phase 3 will cost 285 Progress instead of 300 or something. Maybe after 2-3 phases the plants go into serial production and the cost per die drops to 15 R each, so that they're finally outcompeting the available fission plant option on
cost and not just dice requirements. Who knows?
But we don't know what to expect, and I don't want to plan around the assumption that the phase cost collapses to 150 Progress or something.
From experience with tidal power plants, as the largest and more energy intensive projects are completed, what remains is smaller scale phases. Presumably not coincidentally it lines up with the desired direction the development of Fusion is to take.
I doubt it. I think it's going to be more like the coal-fired plants in Soviet Planquest, where we just slam out phase after phase at roughly the same price, and any increase in efficiency pays off in more Energy output.
Because frankly that makes more sense, given that we're talking about huge global fusion reactor expansions.
