Sci-Fi Economic Stories?

File: unobtanium_1.jpg (16KB, 508x284px) Image search: [Google]

16KB, 508x284px

Without causal and low-energy FLT. Space trade doesn't make any sense. There's literally no material substance or good that justifies travelling over the interstellar distances, even a few light years.

>>50973200
Well, we are running this in a Star Wars system, so that's not much of a problem.

>>50973150
I'm gonna soap box for a second but stick with me:

Spacefaring in the frontiersman era is going to be where you see societies break out and form disparate groups, federalization/globalization can't occur whenever everyone is early in the spread, and if earth-like and bountiful planets exist the need for interstellar trade on non-durable goods is going to be low.

Merchants will be savvy and not weirdos, they'll know how to talk to the communists on some agrarian station the same as an observational platform of corporate scientists. They'll trade in rarities, alien life-forms , unique minerals, data, and machinery/parts more than they will commodity goods. Luxury items will be among these items but probably not a focus.

A smart businessman will be targeting developing economies a.k.a. new colonies, and most likely trading on cycle with large vessels willing to reach the edge of the frontier to make large sales. I'd imagine a convoy of ships lined up with thousands of merchant ships in almost stock market feeding frenzy.

Smuggling is usually about getting from territory A through territory B to territory C-- depending on your FTL. If it's direct warping (which is lame IMO) focus on how dangerous the Black Markets are. If you're using warp gates or hyperlaning any point where there's a bottle-neck in the system expect your pirates.

As for intrigue if two nearby systems aren't getting along expect a shitton of privateering to be done and lots of pirates. Likewise your party could be the privateers or clearing them out.

The big thing here is not to focus on commodity trading in any way for realism. Heavy/Soft metals should be in abundant supply and if something is being traded as a commodity remember that weight/value is going to be the most important thing and it's value has to be pretty widely accepted. -- That's not to say you can't let your party accept a reward in gold bars and then get stranded in a mining system paying 1/10th the value :)

Try the Expanse, maybe? It's kinda pulpy trash, but there are some halfway decent ideas in the books about economic inequalities and politics between Earth, Mars, and the outer planets of the solar system.

>>50974641
I'll look into it. Thanks.

File: Suns of Gold.jpg (372KB, 900x1150px) Image search: [Google]

372KB, 900x1150px

>>50973150

If you're just looking for ideas, I highly recommend a read-through of Suns of Gold. It's a splat book for Stars Without Number (a sandbox sci-fi system) designed specifically for running merchant and far trader campaigns in a sci-fi setting. Even if you ignore all of the rules content, the book contains a ton of adventure seeds, world creation tables, and is generally a treasure trove of "stuff that will be relevant if your campaign is about interplanetary trade."

Like, there's a table out there for "possible currency backing" on planets that don't use (or aren't advanced enough to use) the generic "credit". Options include your standards, like "Gold or other precious metal" and slave labor, but also more exotic options, like "Oxygen on a world without atmosphere." Players figuring out who to sell the half-million tons of this planet's yearly neo-krill harvest is assumed to be a part of play.

It's also got tables of goods for planets to have for trade and a system for randomly generating previous trade-stuff, with categories such as "agricultural", "low tech", or "alien".

Then there's the world generation system itself, with trader-relevant tags such as "Restricted", "Theocratic", or "Vendor".

And all this is without the actual trade adventure creation tables (if you're not getting the gist here, the whole book is a bunch of random generation tables for space trader campaigns), with such classic adventure seeds as "Do a Favor" and "Kill a target" mixed in with ones like "Unseat Authority" or "Incite Rebellion", for those planetary governments that don't like far traders.

It might not be 1-for-1 what you're looking for, but I can guarantee it'll have a ton of ideas you'll want to incorporate.

>>50973256
>Star Wars
You have all the inspiration you could ever need: the EU.

>>50976758
I'm tentatively looking into it. Is there a /tg/ reading guide? Also any good ones with the above themes that aren't centered on Jedi?

>>50976758
>the EU
The EU was fucking terrible, anon.

>>50977443
It's hit or miss. I didn't say "use all of it". I said it's inspiration material.