Quote:
Originally Posted by Agemegos
I prefer not to get too specific about spaceship operations, since that would tend to draw attention towards what I want to draw it away from: space-operatic stuff like spaceship and space travel. Interstellar transport in the setting is economically like steamer transport c. 1890; cheap enough that there is commodity trade, slow enough that they is no mass tourism.
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Under those conditions it doesn't seem to me like the commodities mentioned couldn't be grown cheaper on any planet that wanted them. So I thought about it a bit, and they are gen engineered crops, so maybe there are royalties required to grow them. Either no one bothers trying to get the royalties of this planet and some unscrupulous people buy it for export and then falsify the paperwork; or the planet got an exemption from paying royalties at some point in the past on account of being a **** hole and exports are legal.
Another, unrelated way this planet could make space-money would be to let companies come there and do whatever experiments they want on the local peasantry. Want to research long term effects of your new Smart food colouring? Sure! Want to try out your new chemical weapons? Well this one village have been rather uppity lately... and so on.