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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Silverglass" data-source="post: 1222485" data-attributes="member: 14071">While the circle has no running costs per se there are associated costs, the circle will almost certainly be in a purpose designed building which needs upkeep, and those mules need handlers (or how do you persuade them to walk into a circle, you can't rope them together so 1 handler per mule, cutting down your transport rate), so you must quarter and feed the mules and feed and pay the handlers. Then you will need to tranship the goods to their final destination because as illustrated below the volume you can put through is above the volume you can sell at the destination if its anything produced from a single location like a mine.In addition to the issues that MaxKaladin has raised your figures just illustrate that fallacy that permanent teleport circles make any sense, if the average person consumed 10kg of salt a year (at 27g per day that is over double the healthy limit but without canning and refrigerators much more food would be salted or smoked) then your single shipment is a 7 month personal supply for a metropolis of 100,000 people (and a lot of commercial uses are too technologically advanced to exist). So that is probably a maximum of 3 shipments a year for that metropolis, and for large or small towns there would be absolutely no point in constructing a circle. So the bandwidth far exceeds demand.Now you could of course ship all your salt to the metropolis and then distribute it from that central point, but to do this you must therefore put it into caravans and move it overland, and any destination closer to the saltmine than the city will cost you more to deliver to than a direct shipment. The same goes for all high value commodites. The low value commodities, which make up 90% of the volume of goods shipped (e.g. grain) isn't produced in a single location and needs transporting by wagon as mules cost too much to feed and maintain.So a merchant shipping grain would need to take the grain off wagons at a central collecting point, put it on mules or porters to move through the circle and then load it onto wagons for onward shipment. Once he's paid for all of this how much profit is he really making. And successful (and rich) merchants don't rely on a single commodity from a single site. They diversify and ship many types of goods all over a region, so one circle will not be all that useful considering the investment.Simple economics mean that permanent circles will not replace ships and caravans. They will always exist to ship high value goods over vast distances (i.e. mithril to an city far over the sea) but other than that they would remain the province of rulers and powerful organisations who need to move people and information quickly over huge distances between safe and guarded locales.So yes you can expect there to be circles in fortresses that link them together for the fast movement of tropps, or between embassies for diplomatic means. But of course these then become prime targets for enemy action whenever hostilities commence.As to their being hundreds of circles existing from historical times that is also a fallacy because although the circle may be permanent it will not work if obstructed. So as abandoned towers collapse and basements containing secret circles fill in those circles become inactive. Also if the surface is detroyed through time or damage they circle will also fail.In essence circles will exist but they will only reduce the amount of mundane transport by a tiny amount as they will be used for high risk and high value goods which only make up a tiny fraction of what is moved around by merchants.And there is always the issue of security as anything can come through the circle so as mentioned above laws will probably be enacted making it illegal to create circles that teleport from areas that are not completely safe.</blockquote>

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