jpmschweitzerandClaude Opus 4.6
68867894e9
All 36 commodity stubs fleshed out with lore context, production chain descriptions, and economic intelligence briefing voice. Key treatments: fusion_fuel (D-187 8:1 ratio), services (location-bound mechanics), brands distinguished from commodities per D-185. Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.6 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
2.9 KiB
Fusion Fuel
| Field | Value |
|---|---|
| Name | Fusion Fuel |
| Tier | intermediate |
| Elasticity | perfectly_inelastic |
| Base Price (Tractus) | 20 |
| Bulk Class | liquid |
| Unit | tonnes |
| Production Ubiquity | common |
| Demand Model | utility |
| Commission Certified | Yes |
| Compact Contested | Yes |
| Shadow Viable | Yes |
| Panic Threshold (weeks) | 2 |
| Description | Deuterium/tritium refined from water at 8:1 ratio. Continuous consumption. Every system needs it. |
Fusion fuel is the Reach's operational energy currency. Every inhabited node consumes it continuously as a utility overhead — proportional to population and active systems — and three major industrial chains require it as a direct input: ore smelting (0.3t per tonne of refined metals), alloy fabrication (0.2t), and electronics fabrication (0.2t). The demand model is utility, not market: consumption does not adjust to price. When fuel becomes expensive, smelters still run, stations still operate, and the cost moves downstream into everything that depends on energy-intensive production.
The 8:1 water-to-fuel yield ratio is the structural driver of the Reach's energy geography. Eight tonnes of water refine into one tonne of fusion fuel. Water is cheap (2 Tractus/t) but the volume requirements mean that frontier refineries, which must pay elevated transport costs on water imports, produce fuel at structural cost premiums over inner corridor operations where water is locally abundant. That premium is not event-driven — it is geometric. Every hop of water transport adds to the fuel production cost, and from there to smelting throughput, alloy costs, electronics costs, and ultimately to every manufactured final good on that frontier shelf.
Commission certification is required for formal trade; Compact members contest this as currency-zone coercion. Certification fees are Tractus-denominated regardless of the buyer's Mark-primary zone, which means every fuel certification in the Compact zone involves a cross-currency conversion at the prevailing ~3% friction rate. This is not a regulatory dispute — it is a structural tax on Compact industrial operations, and it feeds directly into the shadow fuel market that operates throughout the west reach. Shadow fuel moves without certification; it prices below formal channels by enough to absorb the compliance risk. The two-week panic threshold means any credible supply threat triggers hoarding before the shortage materializes.
For nodes that are gate-energy connected, Gate Corporation's energy-over-gate service reduces utility fuel demand to roughly 0.3× baseline. Compact member systems have historically refused this service as an act of energy sovereignty — the consequence being that Compact systems run full fuel demand from their own production, but are also insulated from Gate Corporation cutoff scenarios. When a dependent inner-corridor node loses gate energy access, it is Compact surplus that absorbs the emergency demand.