They're not in the same market and are not competing technologies. It is a case where it doesn't actually MATTER if motorcycles are primitive or under-performing compared to starships: starships are not going to replace motorcycles.
But then what
is your argument for there being a pressing need to upgrade drives? An upgrade merely bumps a vehicle from one market niche to another, without eliminating the original niche, as evidenced by a wide range of speed categories within each of those vehicle categories you insist are separate markets (say, ships moving at all speeds between two and sixty knots). And faster ships aren't replacing slower ones ITRW: slower ships are replacing faster ones.
What, pray tell, WOULD replace a motorcycle in that market niche? The answer to that question is "better motorcycles."
It is not "faster motorcycles", that much is obvious. You don't need to upgrade to warp three to get a better cruising motorcycle because the roads are limited to warp two anyway. You can't upgrade your delivery moped to warp two because the traffic keeps you down to warp 0.8. And so forth. Indeed, there has been no significant increase in motorcycle speed for the past century, save for the niche application (not even a "market" by any stretch of the word) of a special type of high speed sporting.
This would be a valid point if the "slow trains" were still being pulled by steam locomotives.
Don't be a coward. Your one and only argument is that vehicles must get faster. You aren't allowed to talk efficiency or operating principle, when there is no known difference in those between warp 2 and warp 3 engines. If you can't argue that any more, just quit, please.
If you want to say that newer is better, then there's no argument - only times of dire distress have ever led engineers to deliberately design replacements that are clearly inferior to what they previously had, to no appreciable gain. It's just that your idea that newer would have to be faster carries no merit - it's based on financial "shoulds" that are demonstrably wrong because the effect on "is" is the exact opposite.
But the jump from warp two to warp three, on the other hand, is a difference in speed that cuts travel times -- already measured in months if not years -- by two-thirds or more. What's more, the new warp engine probably isn't even that much more expensive than the old one; the only reason they didn't buy one is because their only supplier -- the Earth Cargo Service -- didn't have them.
Mind you, there's nothing wrong with logic like this - apart from it obviously being wrong. We know the end result was dictated by a sum of factors amounting to "no speed increase required", so there are other, unknown arguments that countermand the ones you give. Both in the warp freighter example
and in the real world of shipping, so you don't even get to plead "Star Trek is silly".
No, it's like saying the ECS Fortunate hauls ore.
Mayweather says that's what the ECS freighters haul (and the
Horizon explicitly does). From this we simply get our first nice excuse as to why, as observed, speed mightn't matter to "freighters" of a certain sort: ore doesn't need to be hurried to the destination, exactly as in the real world of seaborne shipping.
The visuals offer further openings for us. Other items potentially requiring hurry would apparently not require these big containers, because their volume is seen to be minuscule here - just as in those later Trek incarnations where we see fast, small ships hauling stuff that apparently needs to be hauled fast to be profitable.
We could interpret the pseudo-facts otherwise, too. But to what end? There's no point in contradicting what already works fine in terms of Trek continuity and RW precedent.
The Boomers aren't really competing with alien freighters either. They are operating specifically in the Earth-Extrasolar import/export market.
Why would that market be devoid of alien competition? It's not as if Earth has the military muscle to impose a policy of protectionism.
The boomers won't need to worry about competing with aliens until the advent of the Federation and the opening of more fluid interstellar commerce, but then at THAT point they will (eventually, as things stabilize) be in a better position to purchase advanced alien technology from other Federation members.
At this point it might be good to consider that the Boomers didn't survive. OTOH, ore hauling at low speeds did, and freighters moving at warp two did. So the mechanisms behind this would probably be drastically different from the (again as such logical) ones you bring forth.
The Merchantman from TSFS, on the other hand, wouldn't have been a competitor with them in ANY century. For one thing, it isn't shipping to/from Earth. For another thing, it's not a bulk import/export carrier. They're similar markets, but the overlap -- if there even is one -- is very small.
It is when it comes to warp drive. That's the whole point of the warp five program.
Nobody ever claimed it was, though. That program was supposed to yield benefits in exploration and military applications, and clearly did - but was not suggested to improve commerce, and apparently specifically did not make "freighters" faster as a thing.
There's no reason to mistake "should" for "is" here, then, not even a statement from a potentially misguided character.
There's no payoff in starting a war with a second group of colonists over territory you don't actually control.
Most wars on Earth are over territory you don't actually control (because if you did, you wouldn't need to go to war). Wars are about prestige, about the ability to coerce others into doing what you say. And any lack of means by the colonists might best be compensated for by disproportionate aggression, because that's another page from the real history books right there.
I could walk all the way to 53rd street and pick a fight with a homeless guy for the right to sleep under his bridge... but that would be really stupid and also a waste of time.
If you managed to frighten him and his ilk to stay off that part of the town, your grandchildren could eventually live under those bridges, in peace and luxury unthinkable of if you let competing gangs of homeless dig in. (It's not as if the scenario would include elements like "police" or "people living in houses" or "means of motion faster than walking", mind you.)
I'm referring to the colonization efforts of Australia, Canada, the West Indies, Florida, the Americas, Central and South America. There were a few religious zealots, the vast majority of which arrived with a charter from their home governments to inflict their zealotry on the natives. The rest were businessmen, adventurers, entrepreneurs, slaves and refugees. The colonists at Terra Nova were apparently none of the above and were basically a bunch of assholes who wanted to be lords of their own new world.
As said, they live in a world very different from ours. There are no "governments" competing to send these expeditions and reap the profits. There's only one government that is conducting a Great Experiment and expecting no known payoff, except perhaps some sort of taxation further down the road.
The situation is perhaps best described in terms of the Boomers. That is, the Oklahoma ones, and furthermore the stereotyped, Lucky Luke version thereof: you rush to grab land, and you can rest assured that no authorities will catch up with you until you have settled in and founded your own little fiefdom. In the Trek version of the scenario, your great-grandchildren may well be the first ones to see an Earth government official.
Agreeing to share is stupid when you don't have to. Humans know to only give away things for free if there's hope for some sort of a return. It need not be a concrete and immediate one, but possibly a social one: I played fair, you think I'm a nice guy and may play fair, too. But the colonists here have nothing to gain from being nice and giving away land.
Timo Saloniemi
