We're not behind OTL GDI. We are very far behind where we would be if we had chosen the "Evacuation" plan at the beginning of the quest.
That does not invalidate this point that we've been focusing on the strong foundations that would have been essential to the space plan even had we picked it from the beginning.
To the extent we're behind, it is because we've been investing on noncritical things that aren't space, not that solely investing in space would have provided any particular advantage.
The evac isn't going to be fast. Like, at all. So while we're doing it it's going to get harder and harder for the people still planetside because this isn't going to be a quick process at all and there are going to be fewer people to man pretty much everything. Abatement will nose dive and NOD will immediately dogpile groundside groups, it's not exactly a subtle move, and eventually those down there are going to be massively outnumbered and outgunned while getting swamped with Tib. When it gets to that point it's going to be a close thing on if we still manage to get everyone.
We started with Practically Unlimited Labor and we're still at 51 dots after hauling the economy back on its feet single-handedly. Manpower will not be an issue for the foreseeable future.
Furthermore the vast majority of our manpower is not employed in abatement or the military directly, but in industrial jobs, agricultural, service, managerial etc. Those are the people that get evacuated first,
and the people that have their productivity least affected by being further removed from Tiberium. (Particularly since we already rely on more technological agricultural methods.)
The only bottlenecks are
1.Space lift. Once
Enterprise is fully operational, people and materials from tiberium going up, and finished goods going down--a bottle neck that, with fusion spacelifters and possibly momentum exchange tethers, we have effective solutions for.
So the space economy, once properly kickstarted, will not be the resource sink it is now, but will contribute to and, if we evacuate, completely replace the ground economy. At which point the only people left will be abatement/resourcing personnel, the space logistics to support them, and whatever security is necessary, all of which we will be pulling out in phases as Blue/Green/Yellow Zones empty out and as our reliance on Earth-Tiberium decreases.
2.Habitat construction. This is the hard one, and the one that imposes a
slow evacuation--not the hasty, scramble-for-the-lifeboats evacuation you seem hung up on. We would be starting with at most a few thousand per turn, and ramping up steadily as the space economy takes off.
It's official. Kane himself is messing with our space tech research.
Why would he want us to leave Earth, after all?
He's about to get his ass kicked by seeing-eye Orcas in about two quarters or so. I wouldn't envy him
too much.
Mecca Must Be Completed.
