Fireflies, Economics and Gorram Budgets

Budgets are fun. They’re filled with numbers, formulas, calculations and all around mathematical models. And if you think they’re fun, you either wanted to be an accountant (or mathematician) since you were six or you really should have a doctor examine that hole in your head. Budgets are work. Budgets are boring. No one ever sits down and does a budget unless forced to…unless they find something that could make it interesting. Role Playing Games (RPGs) are not widely known for their accuracy when it comes to economics (you’ve found a treasure chest! Plus 200 to your wealth!). However, in recent months one such RPG stands out. Serenity RPG is based upon the short television series Firefly and its big-screen adaptation Serenity both created by Joss Whedon of Angel and Buffy the Vampire Slayer fame. It’s a sci-fi show, so it has spaceships, terra-forming and the like but lacks all those bumpy foreheads, pointed ears and dozens of ambassadors like so many other sci-fi shows. Instead of delving into the long and complicated exposition of the “‘Verse” lets just dive right into what this essay is supposed to be about, a monthly budget. We’ll be focusing on a Greenhorn (that’s a beginner for those of you who don’t speak western drawl) wanting to make a living out of interplanetary freight service from a model 03-K64 Firefly class transport.

Okay here’s a few things you need to know about the ‘Verse and its economics. First, it’s just on the cusp of overcoming a five year civil war, the war of Unification, with the victors being the Core planets of the Alliance. The Alliance is Gene Roddenberry’s sci-fi future manhandled, where large corporations influence a gigantic bureaucracy that is too large to seem effective. The Alliance and its corporations just won power in the bloodiest war in the history of humanity and aim to keep it by inflating prices. Second, there’s a new currency in the year 2518 called an Alliance standardized credit (C) which comes to about $25 US. This