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[Katrina Oniseki]

Yup, this is another Kat thread, asking you what and how you RP about a certain topic!

Today's topic is... luxuries reserved for the elite and upper class in space!

Living in space is likely to come with certain restrictions and expenses for things we often take for granted here on Earth. Sometimes, just by virtue of being in the far flung future, other items would be considered expensive antiques or low-tech luxuries.

For me, most of this falls into the category of perishable foods. I'm sure fresh meat and fresh vegetables (never frozen) would be fairly expensive. Probably too expensive for the average station dweller. Dairy products would be expensive as well, and I imagine calcium supplements and hard cheeses take the place of things like milk and yogurt. Ice cream would be even more expensive I suspect. While livestock could be kept on a station, I doubt it will have the same quality as free roaming cattle beef and poultry (including eggs). Basically, anything that must be produced on a planet for either quality or production concerns would be very expensive for the average Joe Smith on a station.

When I say expensive, I don't mean prohibitively so. I'm sure there are ways to preserve the food, or lower the cost in such a way that it becomes manageable for regular folks to buy. A frozen cut of steak would probably cost around 50% more than it would on a planet. That same cut of steak never frozen would be at least triple the cost, because it would have to be purpose shipped within the last 48 hours to prevent spoiling. That's a luxury, but it isn't too much of a luxury. It's just not something you could afford to buy every day.

As for non food items, The Empyrean Age (Tony G.) mentions a scene where the Minmatar ambassador guy is in his office filled with real paper books. Emphasis is placed on the fact that these are paper books, something considered an unnecessary luxury in futuristic times where datapads and plastic sheet instead of paper is the norm. Wood is probably also something that's considered a luxury, because you don't grow trees for cutting on a station. You grow them for decoration, but not for cutting. So wooden shelving and paper books is a sign of wealth and power on a station, because it's a luxury most don't have the need or means to afford.

You're probably thinking, well there's plenty of convoys supplying those stations. Yes, there are, but Stations are also meant to be self sufficient (i.e. Intaki Syndicate), so these convoys aren't supplying stations as much as they are merely trading goods there. Furthermore, even if there were regular shipments of beef there, it doesn't make it affordable. Also keep in mind that even in the United States, steak is considered a high-end dinner for many families, up to and including middle class, and for other families. I'm no economist though.

Anyways, those are some of my rambling thoughts. what other things would be considered a luxury for those living in space?

[Tiberious Thessalonia]

Nothing is a luxury when Tiberious, Poorest of the Poor capsuleers, can still pull in 5 million ISK per hour being lazy.   

[Saikoyu]

5 mil an hour, and you call yourself poor?  I was only pulling in 20 million every two days for a while there.

Back on topic, in any economy where people have more money to spend than they need to survive, someone will come up with a luxury for them to spend it on. Jewelery is always good, made out of some rare mineral.  Doesn't Verone have some gun with Morphite handles or something? 

Since we are living in space, anything made on planet with a large amount of mass would be expensive, depending on the tech level.  If you still use rockets of some sort for lift off the planet, you are not just paying for the item, you are also paying for the fuel to get the item into space.  So any furnature made planetside would become a collector's item. 

If you go by the books, even living on a station can be a luxury, since unless you live near the top, it will be like living in a metal can. 

Showers, or better still, baths, since water is recycled.  The height of luxury might be to have a shower or bath with non-recycled water.  Maybe extend that to food prepared on station, if even your food has non-recycled water in it.  Fresh air, as air is also recycled.  I'll think about it some more, see if anything else floats up to the top.

[Esna Pitoojee]

I suppose this gets back to the age-old question of whether stations are "Domed cities" (i.e., they build an outer shell and choose one surface to serve as the "ground" and build normal buildings "up" from there) or the "big apartment" model (i.e., stations are built in "floors" successively one after another, with the cieling of one apartment/store/whatever serving as the floor of the next).

The reason it matters is that the first model is far more condusive to small, personal gardens on tops of buildings or in other small corners, which would make fresh fruits and vegetables marginally less rare, but they'd still be in quite short supply. The latter option, on the other hand, leaves virtually no room anywhere for small gardens, so the only vegetables that would be imported and thus frozen.

That said, wood being a luxury in space is probably one of the few things that TonyG got right... I'd imagine any kind of long-growth plant would be difficult to rationalize in a station, although the level of genetic modification existant in New Eden may mean that we're underestimating the rate at which all would grow.

[Katrina Oniseki]

Well, not to derail, but I'd imagine that stations are sufficiently large enough to allow for apartment style honeycombing, and much larger hangars with hydroponic gardens. There are biodomes on the stations anyways, with visible cities in some of them.

[Seriphyn]

I think stations are more cities-in-space than corridor-mazes, yeah, but by habit we go with the latter because of what we typically identify "space stations" as. Minmatar stations have domes and from the looks of the flat texture, likely just jam-packed with industrial/urban buildings with no greenery, contrasted with Gallente domes that have a lot of greenery and thus are probably like planetside stuff.

Anyway, Seri has one of these in the biodome of his home station.

[Kaleigh Doyle]

I dunno about that. In a hostile environment such as space, one would assume some precautions would be taken to ensure that a hull-breach doesn't instantly kill billions of people at once.

[Lyn Farel]

Some Amarr and Caldari Stations also have domes. Smaller though.

[Saikoyu]

Well, idea comes from a different universe (Gundam and Macross to be exact) but I think with the level of tech, you could easile say that the domes would have a self sealing function that would allow them to patch small to medium sized holes before too much got sucked out.  Anything bigger than that and you would probably have more to worry about than loss of oxygen anyway. 

Getting back the the question of how are stations made, if you go by The Burning Life, then it seems EvE stations are made in layers, possibably with large areas in the middle where you can look up and down.  So maybe some cross between a city of skyscrapers and a really large version of the hotels taht have a courtyard in the middle where all the rooms look out on.  That would let people have some sort of view into the open center to give a sense of space.  It would also let us rich folks amuse ourselves by spitting off the top and wondering if it killed anyone on the way down. 

[Esna Pitoojee]

Well, not to derail, but I'd imagine that stations are sufficiently large enough to allow for apartment style honeycombing, and much larger hangars with hydroponic gardens. There are biodomes on the stations anyways, with visible cities in some of them.

Certainly, although there are FAR more efficient things to put in a Hydroponics Garden than vegetables or trees.

And yeah, some stations are definitely the "city in a bubble" style - those OldVets here will remember a second Gallente station interior that actually had your ship sitting on a pad in the middle of such a city, complete with little highways going around you - it was eventually removed, ostensibly because its design made it difficult to update it with the new station skins/shaders.

[Katrina Oniseki]

This thread is derailing quickly.

Back on topic though, if you wouldn't be growing veggies in a hydroponics garden, what would you be growing? Would that mean vegetables grown fresh would likely be imported too?

[Lydia Tishal]

Back on topic though, if you wouldn't be growing veggies in a hydroponics garden, what would you be growing?

Coffee, tea and sugar are three things that immediately jump into my head.

[Esna Pitoojee]

Depends if your objective with that garden is to grow consumables for your station, or simply create large amounts of oxygen via photosynthesis. If it's the latter option, an algea or bacterium of some sort. If it's the former... hrm.

Amarr = whatever the local Holder is fond of? If he's a more practical type, it could slide somewhat more towards the...

Caldari = whatever you can't easily freeze and ship in. This will command the highest prices in the markets at the stations, and save you money doing some kind of special high-speed hauling run to move the stuff before it spoils.

Gallente = I'm obliged to make a pot joke here, but in reality, hard to say? Whatever the locals have voted on, maybe?

Minmatar = I actually see the Minmatar as being closest to the Caldari. They're still a rebuilding nation, and I imagine there'd be little room for luxury or expense on most stations.

[Marcus Gord]

Putting my two cents in, I'd say things like real leather would be expensive, since it'd likely be imported from planetside.

I personally RP Marcus as having wood and leather furniture in his quarters on the Orca, because it's expensive and he can afford the luxury. He has fresh food in the galley too.

Capsuleers can pull in stupid amounts of ISK without breaking a sweat, so I think it's likely we'd have luxuries that other space dwellers can only dream of.

[Silas Vitalia]

I think it comes down more to character tastes than affordability. If you can afford to own a stable of starships and capital ships with thousands of crew, I'm sure you could have gold-plated toilets if one desired it so

So the ostentatious capsuleers are ostentatious, and the more humble ones don't live rediculously.