Primer: Economics of The Market

Replicator technology acquired from the Mekani eliminated capitalism overnight. With people capable of conjuring most things out of pure energy, and with the bottleneck on energy having been largely done away with since the advent of fusion generators. Humans could enjoy an autonomous standard of living that their ancestors could only dream of. With a few replicators a family can quickly set up a homestead on even the most inhospitable of worlds and build their own self-sufficient paradise. There were some limits. Certain forms of exotic matter such as psi-gems require specialized environments and high energy fab facilities that makes replicating them not cost effective. The Shi-Raka alone know the secrets of replicating living tissues. Creating life is something beyond the abilities of Federation and Alliance technology. But for most people the stipend of energy credits given to every Federation citizen is more than enough to satisfy all of their material and labor demands.

The introduction of chattel aliens transformed The Federation from a post-scarcity economy into what experts dub a “post capital **** market economy”. Xenos could not be replicated, and while on a granular level most xenos were interchangeable, human nature being what it was, a demand for highly trained, well bred xenos that could stand out amongst the crowd quickly arose. An entirely new currency, the shackle, was invented by a consortium of **** merchants who joined together to form the xeno-quad system of commoditizing people.

Though individuals can have special skills or exotic features that boost their value and market forces do cause prices to fluctuate; in The Arisaka Cluster, prices have held largely stable since The Shogun’s Gift raised the price of Dranza.

On a typical day, with one shackle a person can buy six Dranza, two Zee-Rai females, or an Amarlean youth. For another shackle that person can buy an Amarlean nubile or a Ligreon buck. For one more shackle that person can be the proud owner of a Ligreon cunt. Prior to the fall of Scharun, Schar were a difficult to acquire breed, but since the fall or their homeworld and the market became saturated with their kind, the price for a Schar of either gender has stabilized at four shackles. Five shackles is the price of a Zee-Rai male, which due to the unique nature of the Zee-Rai is a required prerequisite for maintaining a nest of their females.

The shackle can be further subdivided into smaller units of value. Traditionally, a shackle is seen as being composed of six chains of twenty four links which can each be broken apart into six bits.

1 chain = 24 links= 144 bits = 1 Dranza

1 shackle= 6 chains= 144 links = 864 bits= 1 Amarlean male

1 shackle= 6 Dranza= 2 Zee-Rai females= 1 Amarlean male

2 shackles= 1 Amarlean Female= 1 Ligreon Male.

3 shackles= 1 Ligreon Female.

4 shackles = 1 Schar (male or female)

5 shackles= 1 Zee Rai male.