Are We The 1%?

Jace Harriman

Jace Harriman
This has been clonking around in my head as I've been trundling around the galaxy lately. Landing at A, filling up my Type-9 with a few hundred tons, and flying off to sell it at B, I feel like an interstellar truck driver. I don't feel fancy, I'm not sitting in luxury (not in a Type 9, that's for damn sure!), I'm just a simple man making my way through the galaxy. Except that my ship is worth a nine-figure amount, and I can expect a few million in profits when I get to my destination. Add up the value of the ships I have stashed away back home, and my net worth is in the billions. And I'm not even that well off. I'm sure there are players out there who are Jeff Bezos rich.

So we're rich, but are we abnormally rich? Has money become so inflated by 3307 that the 52k you drop on a Hauler is the equivalent of a teenager's first hatchback, rather than buy-a-small-house amounts of money? Is being that level of rich a fairly common occurrence, making us the scruffy Han Solo style everyman members of society? Are we more on a par with a farmer, working with a (relatively) small staff and a pool of expensive machinery to Farming Simulator our way to glory and riches? Are we more like a shipping magnate, with a fleet of container ships that we can somehow operate solo and use only one at a time? Or are we completely, ludicrously, disgustingly rich? Are we show up to work in a suit rich, or show up to work in plaid and jeans rich?

How do you think the folks on the planets and space stations we deliver to regard people like us? Are we living-the-dream celebrities who've accrued enough wealth to liberate ourselves from the dreariness of normal existence? Or are we no different from truck drivers, postal workers, baristas, just people doing a fairly mundane job? Do they envy us? Resent us? Forget we even exist? Are we rich enough to have our own entry on space Wikipedia, or are we just nobodies?
 

Mrc_NorthEast

Mrc_NorthEast
Nah. We are just the long haul truckers and taxi drivers of space. Once you have several cutters, a FC or two (if you have an alt char), and you decide where and when to make your millions, or not, cause you never need to 'work' to grind credits again. Then you are the 1%.
 

Danieros

D
Yes, we are too rich lore-wise.

The figures we are earning and casually stashing are comparable to the billions it takes for an imperial slave to pay his debts and move all the way up the social stratum to run for the senate itself.

The outpost built at the galactic zenith was completely financed by a multi-billionare.

Taking those two examples, commanders who have fully abused the money-making schemes should be in the hundred billion or even in the trillion range. With those amounts they're rich enough in the lore to fund their own multi-system society completely away from the bubble.
 
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Jukelo

Jukelo
It used to be that owning a ship, even a sidewinder, was supposed to show you were relatively well off in the setting. Akin to having your own light or ultralight airplane: you're not crazy rich, but it's not something everybody can afford without some dedication. Moving up from there was also supposed to take some effort: it was after all the whole point of the game.
Things have changed, in a bad way.
 

Aidan Brooder

Aidan Brooder
Well, most of us are very rich at this time. It's even gotten quite easy to get rich, which was not the case when ED first went live, but ya know...
We must have all the toys in 24 hours or baaad game.
(I know it doesn't take 24 hours anymore... ;) )

The thing is, if you were that rich in reality, you'd expand your money-making facilities and also you'd dump some of your wealth into goodies for yourself.

Buy a moon! Start terraforming it! Hire crazy xeno-biologists to name ugly prickly plants after you! Buy a palace!
Get a guard squadron complete with your own stylized uniform and marry a noble and have honeymoon inside an Anaconda filled with champagne!

Or are we? I don't know, because there are no real comparison values. How much is a beer in a bar? How much does a normal house cost? What's a dock worker's salary like?

So I suspect we are filthy rich... Or many of us are... But it's really hard to put it into a relation, as we can't spend money on anything but trade goods and ships and stuff for the ships.
 

CMDR Harada

CMDR Harada
Jace Harriman said:
How do you think the folks on the planets and space stations we deliver to regard people like us? Are we living-the-dream celebrities who've accrued enough wealth to liberate ourselves from the dreariness of normal existence? Or are we no different from truck drivers, postal workers, baristas, just people doing a fairly mundane job? Do they envy us? Resent us? Forget we even exist? Are we rich enough to have our own entry on space Wikipedia, or are we just nobodies?
Click to expand...

I've often wondered this : What do all those people in the stations/colonies think about us ?

Are we seen as Murderers/Killers/Thugs/Heros ? I think there might be some fear, after all I've terminated 10k+ other ships sometimes just for laughs and money. Maybe hero's since we help in civil wars and unrest ( or make it worse at times ). Heavily armed agents of chaos ? But they sell us the weapons and ships. Perhaps from behind the tall castle walls of a Coriolis station we're just useful tools ?

What about the ship techs who repair/modify our ships ? Do they ask questions like : How did this CMDR run thru 10k rounds of MC ammo in 45 minutes ? Where the heck did these laser scars come from ? Is this the ship that shot up that wedding barge last week ?

Rich ? I don't know, our wealth comes from the stations.. I mean, that's where we cash in our missions, trade our goods, and collect our bounties. Where else can we spend it ? And on what ? I've never seen the option to spend a quick million at the Pleasure Palaces of Achenar or tour Old Amsterdam on Earth.

What about the major powers ? I have a Corvette, but I've opposed the Feds in combat multiple times. I'm an Admiral/King, but a cap ship will still light me up if I stray too close. And I've yet to receive an invite to an Imperial event. Halsey has never sent me an Xmas card..

Too many questions.. Maybe the reward is that we have a whole ship to ourselves. Not having to sleep in a noisy cramped barracks with 100 other workers might be a powerful incentive.
 
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