Quote Originally Posted by Landwalker
...but by the "extensive port upgrades" ringing in at several tens of thousands of minae, for example.
Oh, those just represent the completely crazy amounts of work and expenses incurred - since you're pretty much "landscaping" a major portage into existence where Momma Nature and Daddy Geology hadn't seen fit make one.

AFAIK historically such projects were something only Emperors and similar seriously powerful people started on, somewhere along the lines of the Great Wall of China or the Red Sea canals.