But I don't think that would be the primary cost of the Great Library -- the primary cost is the books. We pay as much for an Extensive collection of a single topic as we do to get Dwarf construction workers excavating and building four very nice rooms in our Penthouse.
Remember, we have a 300 GC Book budget as Loremaster alone.
As in, Karak Eight Peaks, while
still a hot and contested Warzone was able to fund 300GC worth of books per turn for the Loremaster - and that's with military expenditure, paying mercenaries, paying for arms, paying for Halfling expertise , paying for food and necessities, the silver mines just coming online, and so on.
Remember,
you don't need to buy all the books for the Great Library all at once. It doesn't matter if the first 300GC of budget adds only a small collection of extensive books on a selected topic to the Library - Libraries are entities that
accrue assets over time , never all at once. Triggering the Boon now doesn't mean Karak Eight Peaks have to spend 3000GC to make a Great Library - 600 GC per annum over five years fulfills the boon just as much as 3000 GC right now. Even if we need 3000GCs of books before opening the Library to the Public,
it doesn't matter if we take five years to reach that point from the perspective of this boon, since it's by design a continual boon where
patience is fundamentally baked into the Boon.
The model of the Library not as a thing constructed in a day, but an entity grown over time is especially true in a technological context where Books are expensive.
Books might be expensive but
financial constraints for a Karak of the wealth of the Eight Peaks only dictates how fast the Library grows, not whether the Library exist. The real constraints for the Karak is manpower and technical expertise, not so much a 300GC Library acquisition Budget every turn. A 300GC (and growing as the finances of the Karak grow stronger) Library acquisition budget per turn
is hardly going to break the Karak, and is more than sufficient to fulfil the Boon.
Let me reiterate: the Great Library is not a I want it NOW boon. Indeed, by nature, it's a boon where the earlier we start, the better, because by nature the Library is a growing entity. By nature, so long as the budget is
not smaller than the one we already have as Loremaster, the Library would slowly grow. We are asking for a
seed that with time might become a mighty tree.
Books are expensive from a personal perspective, but you don't have to buy the collection all at once.
Don't think of bottlenecks in terms of GC, think it in terms of what the Eight Peaks are actually scarce off - Dwarfpower and Dwarven "Human" Capital. If you want to argue against the Library as expensive, it's more strategic to argue that it's Dwarfpower and Dwarven Capital expensive, rather than focusing on the GC Cost, which could easily be as low as our book Budget - which I doubt is hardly straining the Karak Finances. I haven't actually seen argument that it's manpower and human capital-wise expensive.
It doesn't matter for the fulfilment of the boon if all we can do is add a single extensive topic collection to the Library every turn because that's all the Karak can safely afford - indeed if this is the case, this is an argument for starting with the Boon
now, because every turn the Library is allowed to slowly grow makes it's impact stronger sooner in the longer run.
A great library might actually be more affordable right now, with all of the craftsmen here, than in the future. We may want to consider this during purchase.
Unfortunately, I have a feeling the
Books are Expensive argument counterargument is going to be very persuasive right now, just because
the hidden assumption of this argument , that the entire Library has to be Bought
right now will be utterly unchallenged by Library advocates, and the weaker forms of the assumption that even the Initial Collection
must be both broad and therefore correspondingly expensive will be left unquestioned, or that attempts to question this assumption is left utterly unnoticed.
Boon is easy. Spend it now, or it'd be floating there indefinitely. Emergency usage would be more likely to strain Belegar.
There are large sections of the thread that think that any Transcendatal Boon is too expensive, and would prefer to have it float there indefinitely because they think it won't strain Belegar. This argument is a toss-up too be honest, and runs into the problem that people dislike the Library idea (which isn't necessarily going to be the only idea on the table).
I think the more convincing argument is that any long run (as opposed to a one off) Boon that involves something that grows slowly over time
should be initiated as soon as possible because doing in that way will better spread out the cost of the Boon over a long period of time, and therefore represents a far lesser strain on the Karak.
Future Me might be an idiot and go against Now Me's current choices.
