The Economy of Sky Islands

[artiestroke]

I've run into an interesting worldbuilding dilemma- the main setting is a gaslamp fantasy series of man-made floating islands, sailing along leylines to gather magical energy to do stuff with. One of the things this magic can do is transmute, similar to soulcasting, which helps a bit with the resource problem, but there's still a very finite source of material to transmute into needed goods- and the islands are in the sky to begin with is because man-made disasters choked the surface with smog and ash. How can these sky islands collect new resources without mining the ground out from under them for stone, or leeching the limited nutrients from whatever soil they have for wood?

[Hemalurgic Headshot]

I've considered the plausibility of a skybound civilization before, and the economics of such a place is hard to justify. I've settled on two sources of income large enough to fund a nation with a very limited supply of resources: either they have access to a very rare luxury resource they can sell at a premium, or the entire government is entrenched in organized crime.

Though neither of these solutions provide literal material resources, they generate the capital necessary to import them. In the case of "rare luxury," the leylines might create some sort of natural phenomenon, a byproduct of the flow of magical energy through them. This phenomenon might manifest itself in magical creatures or a harvestable substance that then can be sold for a premium elsewhere. In the organized crime scenario, I suggest looking at Andy Weir's Artemis, which not only is a great read, but explains this with more realism than I will now.

However, there is a problem in the particular situation you have. The surface is a polluted wasteland. However, this does not mean that they are unpopulated. Despite being literally toxic, the surface does have something that the islands do not: resources in virtually infinite supply. Of course, surface wood is not as... well, healthy as the fabricated version the islands can create, but it is a heck-of-a-lot cheaper than transmutation. Even with shipping costs. Now, for political reasons, public knowledge of people living on the surface might not be the best thing, but a grounded (heh heh) resource base is what your islands need to survive.

[artiestroke]

7 hours ago, Hemalurgic Headshot said:

I've considered the plausibility of a skybound civilization before, and the economics of such a place is hard to justify. I've settled on two sources of income large enough to fund a nation with a very limited supply of resources: either they have access to a very rare luxury resource they can sell at a premium, or the entire government is entrenched in organized crime.

Though neither of these solutions provide literal material resources, they generate the capital necessary to import them. In the case of "rare luxury," the leylines might create some sort of natural phenomenon, a byproduct of the flow of magical energy through them. This phenomenon might manifest itself in magical creatures or a harvestable substance that then can be sold for a premium elsewhere. In the organized crime scenario, I suggest looking at Andy Weir's Artemis, which not only is a great read, but explains this with more realism than I will now.

However, there is a problem in the particular situation you have. The surface is a polluted wasteland. However, this does not mean that they are unpopulated. Despite being literally toxic, the surface does have something that the islands do not: resources in virtually infinite supply. Of course, surface wood is not as... well, healthy as the fabricated version the islands can create, but it is a heck-of-a-lot cheaper than transmutation. Even with shipping costs. Now, for political reasons, public knowledge of people living on the surface might not be the best thing, but a grounded (heh heh) resource base is what your islands need to survive.

You know, harvesting rock from quarries in the surface and scooping up ash to transmute both into useable goods does provide a certain worker aesthetic that goes with the sort of late 1800’s style I’m trying for (coal miner types and soot stained chimney sweeps and all that), so having a profession of folk who brave the surface for such things makes a lot of sense.

As for the second half, I absolutely do already have Plans (TM) Involving whoever may or may not have been left on the surface after those wealthy enough rode up on their islands in the sky 

I also suppose such limitations would also force a kind of culture where nothing goes to waste- anything not useable for goods off of organic things would go for composting and such, and things carved from wood would be a luxury as opposed to more easily transmuted mineral objects 

[+Invocation]

I was gonna say they could harvest the ash/smog stuff below them (clearly it's heavy enough you could draw it up in airtight buckets and not lose much if they can float about it) but it appears you already had that idea.

Could always take advantage of the peculiar time effects of ley lines to regenerate resources faster, or take from the future while sending that section back to before they harvested it using the line's energy. Condensed ley line energy gems for a mass gain maybe, or just for being sold as fuel or something. 

If you want to go macabre with it, you could say they transmute everyone and everything that dies on the island. That's a lot of resources right there every time someone dies (and provides an interesting use for a government assassin department whenever things run low).

[Eagle of the Forest Path]

This suggestion depends on to which level these islands of yours are man-made, but if their flight depends on some sort of rare mineral or some such, rather than technology (or applied magic), you could have new islands occasionally pop up out of the smog, when the "random, natural magic background energy" reaches a threshold in an area (or when topsoil erosion exposes a new lode of levistone).

With a source of new sky-islands, you could have the inhabitants of the older islands either mining the new ones into oblivion, or just migrating to a fresh island when the old one wears out.

Edited July 16, 2019 by Eagle of the Forest Path

[Karger]

It also might still rain.  Water has both mass and uses.

[ShawnMC]

It seems that this is a pretty old thread but its also the kind of general world-building topic that I love seeing explored (especially by sharper minds than my own). With the islands being at a higher (and moving, it would seem) altitude, this would change the sort of regular atmosphere the people are accustomed to. This could even change the potential location of resources such as pulling water vapor from the air. This also all depends on the specific limits of the transmutation being used.

Playing off of @Hemalurgic Headshot's idea (that is such an awesome name), even if the surface world isn't habitable enough to sustain life, what about underground? Now there is potential for conflict between two drastically different societies vying for similar resources on the surface world. 

I wish I was more competent in certain subjects such as economics or environmental science. They're boring subjects (to me) but are a natural resource in the sort of in-depth world-building I love reading about.   

[SirWolfe]

Ideas:

-The government has these banks where people can turn in random junk and dust/ash/soot. In return, they are given some form of credit that allows them to purchase food or goods. Meanwhile, the bankers take this material, compact them into bricks, and then have dedicated magic users transform the bricks into gold or iridium or some other dense and relatively stable material (assuming that transmutation is mass-conserving). This allows material to be stored for later use (like turning a 100 gram cube of iridium into 100 grams of food later) as well as being easily storable due to denser materials taking up less space than equally massive but less dense materials. Trade would be conducted at specialized government warehouses using either the credit, or by direct barter (I'll give you this 1kg bucket of ash and soot for that 1kg bag of flour). However, things like soil and stone and clean water are considered illegal by the government to trade (leading to some interesting black markets where dirt is valuable). This would also incentivize the general public to try and save material, as literally anything can be converted into value.

-Inter-island trade would probably have to do with labour and resources. Wealthy islands with low population but lots of material have trade deals with the poorer islands with higher populations, in which the wealthy island provides mass and resources, in return for which the poor island workers build and manufacture products for the wealthy island. 

[Frustration]

Alternatively if it isn't mass converting but rather size, transmuting junk into water and freezing it and transmuting Ice would be interesting, I really want an author to just say you know what screw physics this is magic.

[Zachary Holbrook]

I like the idea of a world where anything solid can be valuable-- yet solid objects are relatively hard to come by. Also the idea of a civilization from the sky competing with a civilization unground.

What limitations does the transmuting magic? Can they turn soot into food as easily as they can turn it into gold, or wood? Are certain materials better as bases to be transmuted than others?

[Channelknight Fadran]

If all else fails, you could just say that a bunch of slaves work on the surface.