Hey folks, it's your local spreadsheet fetishist here. After a conversation in another thread last night, It came to my attention that the value of the Galactic Credit is pretty much "whatever the writer wants at the time". To quote Savin, they're basically Zimbabwe Bucks. In an attempt to actually get a unified value system, I'm going to start laying out some discussions here. It'll be heavy on economics and low on the sexy stuff (unless playing EVE and the like got your motor going) but everyone's welcome to pitch in.
So, to start, we're going to take a base value. I'm choosing to use "the daily wage of an entry level job" which based on some stuff Fen's said, is about 80 credits a day. Now, meet Jim Wulfsen. Jim's the the cashier at the local McAusars, always ready to take your order tail wagging and ears perked. Jim works full time at McAusars because he's got that corporate loyalty, and so he earns 400 credits a week, or 1600 a month. For the sake of simplicity, Jim's monthly necessities (his rent, his bills, his food needs) come to 1000 credits a month, which leaves our ausar friend with 600 credits a month to spend on whatever he wants.
Now, let's start getting into the nitty gritty here. The basic TF items, IE Ausar treats, Humana+, Kaithrit, Nepeta, etc cost 600 a pop. So, by saving his free money for a month, Jim can take a single dose of transformative micromachines, assuming he wants to become one of the common races of the UGC. This seems fair enough, given that in lore transforming yourself appears to be a pretty major decision for people not blessed with a full suite of medical nanobots (AKA Steele). A single dose also isn't enough to fully transform either, that'd be roughly 4-6 doses. So to fully transition from adorable half-dog to baseline human or adorable half-cat, Jim's going to need about a third to a half a year's wages. Again, seems fair enough.
Now let's say Jim's neighborhood is onset by rascally hoodlums and Jim wants some personal protection to sleep better at night. The cheapest gun in game is the holdout pistol, at 300 credits, or half a month's wage. That's actually nice and cheap for a gun, but it's basically a snub .38 special in an age of lasers and shield generators. So Jim wants something nicer. He decides on a Mark 3 laser pistol, since it's flash and less explodier then the Mark 2 was. This beaut is going to run him 1000 credits, or a month and half's wages, which again seems pretty fair for personal protection. (For reference, Cabelas sells a 1911 for 1000 dollars IRL).
So far, we've kept things pretty sane, right? Jim's gonna need about half a year to fully TF to a different species, and he'd need a month and a half to buy a nice gun. Now let's drop a bombshell. To buy a sentient being, Jim only needs to save up about 8 month's wages. For a living being. Sure, that being is addicted to lust drugs and requires constant supervision, but still. 5000 to buy a person. Actually, this is pretty overpriced if we look at historical values for slaves. A healthy 23 year old in 1850 cost $100, which is about 3000 in modern moneys. So Reaha is actually a bad bargain, given she is most decidedly NOT healthy.
Speaking of Reaha, let's discuss her briefly, shall we? Reaha states she fell into debt because she blew all her money on bovine gene mods. Poor life choices aside, we've just proven it's 6 month's minimum wage to earn a full gene mod course, so what the hell was Reaha doing that she fell so far she sold herself into slavery? There is always the chance bovine mods cost far more then the average, perhaps because of increased demand for fetish purposes? Reaha isn't the only NPC that appears to have been ripped off on Gene mods. Sera is alsaso implied to be heavily, heavily in debt (her expac documents confirm this, Sera's pretty much in the same boat as Reaha vis having to sell herself, literally.) At least in Sera's case the gene mods she bought are said to be experimental, custom, or simply not readily produced.
This is simply the first of many posts on the matter by me, and naturally anyone is welcome to post their findings, theories, or views on sorting out how exactly the costs of various items work both in game and in story. Next post will be on the subject of expensive guns and starship costs (and an actual discourse on the original debate topic, the costs of AI/androids/sexbots)
So, to start, we're going to take a base value. I'm choosing to use "the daily wage of an entry level job" which based on some stuff Fen's said, is about 80 credits a day. Now, meet Jim Wulfsen. Jim's the the cashier at the local McAusars, always ready to take your order tail wagging and ears perked. Jim works full time at McAusars because he's got that corporate loyalty, and so he earns 400 credits a week, or 1600 a month. For the sake of simplicity, Jim's monthly necessities (his rent, his bills, his food needs) come to 1000 credits a month, which leaves our ausar friend with 600 credits a month to spend on whatever he wants.
Now, let's start getting into the nitty gritty here. The basic TF items, IE Ausar treats, Humana+, Kaithrit, Nepeta, etc cost 600 a pop. So, by saving his free money for a month, Jim can take a single dose of transformative micromachines, assuming he wants to become one of the common races of the UGC. This seems fair enough, given that in lore transforming yourself appears to be a pretty major decision for people not blessed with a full suite of medical nanobots (AKA Steele). A single dose also isn't enough to fully transform either, that'd be roughly 4-6 doses. So to fully transition from adorable half-dog to baseline human or adorable half-cat, Jim's going to need about a third to a half a year's wages. Again, seems fair enough.
Now let's say Jim's neighborhood is onset by rascally hoodlums and Jim wants some personal protection to sleep better at night. The cheapest gun in game is the holdout pistol, at 300 credits, or half a month's wage. That's actually nice and cheap for a gun, but it's basically a snub .38 special in an age of lasers and shield generators. So Jim wants something nicer. He decides on a Mark 3 laser pistol, since it's flash and less explodier then the Mark 2 was. This beaut is going to run him 1000 credits, or a month and half's wages, which again seems pretty fair for personal protection. (For reference, Cabelas sells a 1911 for 1000 dollars IRL).
So far, we've kept things pretty sane, right? Jim's gonna need about half a year to fully TF to a different species, and he'd need a month and a half to buy a nice gun. Now let's drop a bombshell. To buy a sentient being, Jim only needs to save up about 8 month's wages. For a living being. Sure, that being is addicted to lust drugs and requires constant supervision, but still. 5000 to buy a person. Actually, this is pretty overpriced if we look at historical values for slaves. A healthy 23 year old in 1850 cost $100, which is about 3000 in modern moneys. So Reaha is actually a bad bargain, given she is most decidedly NOT healthy.
Speaking of Reaha, let's discuss her briefly, shall we? Reaha states she fell into debt because she blew all her money on bovine gene mods. Poor life choices aside, we've just proven it's 6 month's minimum wage to earn a full gene mod course, so what the hell was Reaha doing that she fell so far she sold herself into slavery? There is always the chance bovine mods cost far more then the average, perhaps because of increased demand for fetish purposes? Reaha isn't the only NPC that appears to have been ripped off on Gene mods. Sera is alsaso implied to be heavily, heavily in debt (her expac documents confirm this, Sera's pretty much in the same boat as Reaha vis having to sell herself, literally.) At least in Sera's case the gene mods she bought are said to be experimental, custom, or simply not readily produced.
This is simply the first of many posts on the matter by me, and naturally anyone is welcome to post their findings, theories, or views on sorting out how exactly the costs of various items work both in game and in story. Next post will be on the subject of expensive guns and starship costs (and an actual discourse on the original debate topic, the costs of AI/androids/sexbots)
