metaphysician Posted January 22, 2007 Share Posted January 22, 2007 Every nova is valuable, but some are more valuable than others. Probably the most extreme case being a Temporal Manipulator who can sell extra years of life to people, and as such, would be in essentially unlimited demand, and could charge for his services virtually anything.What other powers have strong economic value? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Alex Green Posted January 22, 2007 Share Posted January 22, 2007 The big ones that come to mind are... (in order of the money involved)Temporal Manip: As previously pointed out, unlimited demand. It's a Billion dollar power.Mega-Int: A single block buster drug can make Billions (with a "B") for it's parent company.Weather Manip: A freek cold snap did a billion or so in damage to California's Orange Crop. The various huricanes do multiple billions in damage.Healing: The demand isn't unlimited, but it's high enough. Would you pay 25 grand to get your arm back? To have your heart repaired? How about $100K? Although the big money requires using it every day, it's also true that no dice are rolled so it doesn't generate taint.Warp: Be there now. Unfortunately the most economical uses of this would be for avoiding border checks so it's illegal... but there are still many legal uses for it.Mega-Manip: The reason the best lawyers make large amounts of money is because the amounts of money involved are large so it makes sense to get a good one. As expensive as a good lawyer is, a bad one is worse.Note that while it is possible to build a nova who can't rake in a million dollars, it's extremely difficult. I.e. barring taint, the average nova *could* be making at least a million dollars a year, just on the basis of his economic impact. And I'm not including Marketing in that evaluation, i.e. putting your name on toys or the like. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Blue Thunder Posted January 22, 2007 Share Posted January 22, 2007 Mega-Intelligence + Financial Prodigy = $$$I guess that's the most direct path to cash.Premonition couldn't hurt either, especially if you used it in conjunction with other money-making powers. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
metaphysician Posted January 22, 2007 Author Share Posted January 22, 2007 Matter Creation could make you incredible amounts of money if your clever and careful. It costs a WP dot to make it permanent, but WP is relatively easy to recover.So, the trick is picking something *very* valuable to make, so you only need do it occasionally to rake in money. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Alex Green Posted January 22, 2007 Share Posted January 22, 2007 Matter Creation could make you incredible amounts of money if your clever and careful. It costs a WP dot to make it permanent, but WP is relatively easy to recover.A PERM point of willpower. That's between 2 and 9 points of exp, and doing it even on a rare basis pretty much shuts down character evolution.Extreme Healing takes a temp point of willpower, which makes it a once a day thing......although presumably there are Healers who get off on it so they can do it more often. Gallants who do it to attract attention (That female cult leader from Forceful Personalities for example), Caregivers or perhaps Martyrs.But even limiting it to once a day (or 7-ish times a week) still adds up to serious bucks pretty quickly. $25K times 200 times a year is 5 Million, and that's over and above other uses of healing. If we assume baselines take Aggravated damage from fire then there's a lot of it around. I call $25K a minimum because something like a heart transplant takes MUCH more right now and does a lot less.Note that unlike Temporal Manips this isn't exactly cost free. If a Nova Healer charges $100K per heart, he's replacing a half dozen or so doctors who would have been charging $500K. Society benefits because the nova is cheaper and better, but those 6 doctors just lost their specialties if not their jobs. Although the economic pie is bigger, the lion's share goes to the nova.In addition, if I were a Hospital Admin I'd pay serious money to have a Healer on staff, not just for what he could do (that's extra) but for the ability to step in and fix any mistakes/accidents/etc any of the other doctors make. This would make the ER less interesting because in extreme situations the big guy could just wave his magic wand. It also implies a love/hate relationship with the other hospital doctors. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
metaphysician Posted January 23, 2007 Author Share Posted January 23, 2007 Thats why I suggested MC with specific, very rare and valuable creations.Hmm. . . Gravity controllers would be highly valued by any space programs. In addition to potentially lifting stuff themselves, they can also reduce the weight of anything launched. Even if he he can't fly himself, just sitting in a rocket taking off could vastly reduce launch expense. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Blue Thunder Posted January 23, 2007 Share Posted January 23, 2007 Matter Creation can still make you lots of cash...literally. You can make cash appear. It only lasts a few hours without making it permanent, but that's enough time to blow it all on stuff you want, like good clothes and expensive food and such. Just make sure you have Shapeshift or Copycat or something else. And don't spend it on stuff that can be traced back to you, like a house or a car. They'll notice you tricked them when the money fades away.Would Elemental Mastery: Diamond work? Probably not, if the Storyteller was smart and sane. But if a nova possessed the ability to sense where diamonds were they could become filthy rich, and likely be employed by diamond companies who will pay well for their services.Temporal Manipulation also has another good use besides making people younger: restoring art, buildings, and other masterpieces to their original forms. Imagine if you had Temporal Manipulation, and an art gallery paid you millions to restore famous paintings to their original quality? Imagine de-aging things like pyramids, katanas, documents, and stuff like that. It's simple work, you get paid millions for it, and you're helping preserve history. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
madcat82 Posted January 23, 2007 Share Posted January 23, 2007 Warpers have to be one of the most most valuable powers out there. Considering that getting a satellite into orbit costs between 100 and 700 million dollars. Now, consider the Nova, willing to do that for say, 50 million? Cheap... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Alex Green Posted January 23, 2007 Share Posted January 23, 2007 Would Elemental Mastery: Diamond work? Probably not, if the Storyteller was smart and sane. But if a nova possessed the ability to sense where diamonds were they could become filthy rich, and likely be employed by diamond companies who will pay well for their services.It'd work. Ditto EM:Gold, etc. These things aren't unbalanced if the player also buys 5 dots of resources.Something no one has mentioned is cyberkenetics, which is highly sought in industry. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
metaphysician Posted January 23, 2007 Author Share Posted January 23, 2007 Warpers have to be one of the most most valuable powers out there. Considering that getting a satellite into orbit costs between 100 and 700 million dollars. Now, consider the Nova, willing to do that for say, 50 million? Cheap...This would actually be alot more complicated. Openning a gate up at 10000 miles up is entirely possible. . . but if you just push the satellite through, it has no orbital velocity, so it falls straight downward. The nova in question would really need Hypermovement ( Flight ) and Mega Strength to pull that off.OTOH, Warp *would* allow for shuttling people and materials to space stations or spacecraft, quickly and cheaply.It'd work. Ditto EM:Gold, etc. These things aren't unbalanced if the player also buys 5 dots of resources.Something no one has mentioned is cyberkenetics, which is highly sought in industry.And I just realized why, though the necessary info has been floating in my head a while.Alot of major computer programs ( especially OS ) cost billions of dollars and years of time to make. A cyberkinetic who could speed the process, or reduce the personnel needed, even by a small percent would be worth his weight in gold. And if the guy is good enough to not merely help, but essentially conjure up computer programs out of his own head, well, forget being hired by the computer industry, he could probably take *over* the computer industry. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Alex Green Posted January 23, 2007 Share Posted January 23, 2007 ..And if the guy is good enough to not merely help, but essentially conjure up computer programs out of his own head, well, forget being hired by the computer industry, he could probably take *over* the computer industry.Right up to the point where he blows up the Opnet. ::devil Disintegration and Molecular Mastery could get rid of nuclear waste… especially if they also had Adaptability so they could survive being next to it. The only issue is I’m not sure if the amount you could destroy would be economical. The Mega-Attractive crowd could make movies.The Mega-Chr crowd could sell beer. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
metaphysician Posted January 23, 2007 Author Share Posted January 23, 2007 I'm pretty sure a nova could make a tidy profit destroying high end hazardous waste. Storage is expensive and long term. If he's willing to burn a perm WP and has Molecular Manipulation, he could even turn high level waste into high grade nuclear fuel, getting a two-for which might well be profitable enough to be worth the cost.Though, as figures into alot of these uses, gotta be careful you don't kill the market.Say you've got EM: Gold. You can effectively produce unlimited amounts of the stuff. So, you spit it out by the ton, and figure you can make a couple billion.Except, if you actually start dropping tons of gold onto the open market, the price is going to plummet. So, you've got an incentive to restrict your own output. Well, another incentive, that is; risking having the mining companies hire elites to kill you is its own incentive. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gideon Posted January 23, 2007 Share Posted January 23, 2007 Say you've got EM: Gold. No better yet, say you have EM:Platinum..."hey, Platinum Lad! The GM/Sysco/IBM/... would like to license you exclusively for Paltinum production for the next 10 years. Right! all you have to do is walk into a room 4 times a year and make say 4 1-cubic-meter slabs (valued at $815,974373.64US each today).We use Platinum 80% (according to CNN Money) for induistrial pruposes (fuel cells, micrchips, fertilizer, Polution filters, hard-drives, oil-based fuels, Monetary Reserves... Hmm I may have to look into this for my next "Richie Rich" character...The advantage is you coud probably find organizations that would pay you NOT to produce tonnes of the stuff. Though a few slabs a year would make you wealthy with only a few uses of the power and a handful of deals (say 10 of them - instant 8.1 Billion (thats with a dollars (US))... Then you can crash the market. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
metaphysician Posted January 23, 2007 Author Share Posted January 23, 2007 Yep. You can make a mint, just so long as you don't randomly producing the stuff and dumping it on the open market.Though, if you want to be really mean, you could sell short gold futures, and then dump a few hundred metric tons of gold onto the market. You make a fortune off the initial sale, and then you make an even bigger fortune when the gold market collapses. Ah, the malign usages are endless. . .( I checked the rules again, btw, and if you've got reasonably high levels of Matter Creation and Mega Wits, you could produce upward of a million metric tons of stuff, even without Mastery. If you roll good like that, *that* would be a good time to spend the perm WP, and thus find yourself in possession of possibly the world's biggest supply of precious metal. . . ) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Blue Thunder Posted January 24, 2007 Share Posted January 24, 2007 The problem with being able to produce stuff like diamond, gold, or platinum is that someone can always hire a telepath with Dominate or a Mega-Social elite to control you, making you nothing more than a materials-producing factory. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
metaphysician Posted January 24, 2007 Author Share Posted January 24, 2007 Yeah, but thats ultimately true of any economically valuable nova. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Alex Green Posted January 24, 2007 Share Posted January 24, 2007 Though, if you want to be really mean, you could sell short gold futures, and then dump a few hundred metric tons of gold onto the market. You make a fortune off the initial sale, and then you make an even bigger fortune when the gold market collapses. Ah, the malign usages are endless. . .I'm pretty sure that's illegal, and easily detectable.The problem with being able to produce stuff like diamond, gold, or platinum is that someone can always hire a telepath with Dominate or a Mega-Social elite to control you, making you nothing more than a materials-producing factory....I'm not entirely sure you can Dominate someone into spending perm willpower.As for the Mega-Social nova, first, that argument applies to pretty much any nova. I.e. someone could mega-social Hothead or another nova into working for them. Something else to consider, it's been done. In WW:II, we saw that Mega-Social Babe "convince" her Mega-Int parner into planning himself into a box in Great Britton. He wants to take over the world. She wants to launch her music curreer by being in the middle of a disaster. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
metaphysician Posted January 24, 2007 Author Share Posted January 24, 2007 Selling short using insider knowledge is illegal, yes. However, I'm pretty sure the disposition of personally owned assets is not considered inside knowledge. Otherwise, it would be illegal to do something like sell short, and then sell off a huge chunk of said companies stock that you already own, in order to tank the price.Oh, and Violet Mayhew was alot more ambitious than that. She planned on, basically, taking over his own organization after he took control of Britain. . . and she planned such practically from the beginning. Sometimes, it really sucks to be a mega-genius who lacks mega-socials. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Alex Green Posted January 24, 2007 Share Posted January 24, 2007 Selling short using insider knowledge is illegal, yes. However, I'm pretty sure the disposition of personally owned assets is not considered inside knowledge. Otherwise, it would be illegal to do something like sell short, and then sell off a huge chunk of said companies stock that you already own, in order to tank the price.It is illegal. It's called "insider trading" or "stock manipulation" or some such.Oh, and Violet Mayhew was alot more ambitious than that. She planned on, basically, taking over his own organization after he took control of Britain. . . and she planned such practically from the beginning. Sometimes, it really sucks to be a mega-genius who lacks mega-socials.Thanks to her "help" there was no way for his plan to succeed, to even have a chance he'd need another 10 years.Now, granted, it does leave her in charge of his group, but I never got the impression that this was all that important to her. Going public with her group means it isn't going to be taking over the Britain, much less the world. Basically it's going to be a huge mess, and turn the spotlight of the world onto her... which she will then keep via her social megas.I don't remember off hand but I'm guessing her nature is Gallant? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
metaphysician Posted January 24, 2007 Author Share Posted January 24, 2007 Nope, she's a Hedonist. From some reskimming, it seems she *didn't* intend to wreck Annington's effort, she just did so when the PCs got too close to figuring things out. It was an attempt to drop the bag in Annington's lap.Oh, did some checking. As far as I could find, its only illegal to try and effect the market after short selling if you either use insider information to do so, or release fraudulent or illegal information in the process. So, for example, spreading rumors claiming that you were going to sell half a billion dollars worth of Microsoft shares, when you in fact did not so intend, would be illegal. OTOH, spreading rumors that you were so planning, and then doing so, doesn't look illegal, even if you intend to short sell. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Alex Green Posted January 24, 2007 Share Posted January 24, 2007 The key words are if you either use insider information to do so.So if you are a corporate officer and have non-public plans to personally make the stock go down, then it's illegal. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
metaphysician Posted January 24, 2007 Author Share Posted January 24, 2007 Yep. I was, however, assuming a nova who owned the material in question because he created the lot of it. As such, it wouldn't constitute insider corporate knowledge, because there's no corporation involved.Or, conversely, a stock dump done, again, by an individual owner, rather than a company, and unrelated to any particular insider knowledge. You reveal that you yourself, as a private citizen, are going to dump stock. . . and then you dump it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Alex Green Posted January 24, 2007 Share Posted January 24, 2007 Joe Nova may be acting as a private citizen, but he's still acting on non-public knowlege. I think he's still hosed if he's already created that stack of gold... but if he only intends to, then I'm not sure if it applies.Here we start to get into how the law regulates nova powers and their effect on the economy. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
metaphysician Posted January 24, 2007 Author Share Posted January 24, 2007 The thing is, if the law were that restrictive, than it would constitute insider trading to sell your own stock, and then buy more later, if your initial sell had an effect on price. I think the point of insider trading is that you are exploiting information about the activities of another economic entity that is not generally available. With your own purchases or sales, your not dealing with any other economic entity's information, just your own.As for nova effects on the economy, well, there's antidumping laws, but as far as I know, those have to do with international trade and tariffs, so they wouldn't really be applicable ( even if the gold-production and sale constituted dumping, you can't tariff an individual ). Likewise, there are restraint of trade laws, but those would ( probably ) only come into play if the nova used the dumping to drive everyone else out of the business, and then started gouging consumers.( I say probably, because there's good odds somebody would try and sic the antitrust lawyers on you anyway ) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gideon Posted January 24, 2007 Share Posted January 24, 2007 Which if only the Nations of world listened to Divs and declared each nova a nation, then they COULD tarif individual novas ::blink ...a whole new line of lawyers would be needed, small yield import/export trading..."Yes sir, my client Mr. Pax wishes to import six McBurgers and will export 122.35 of US currentcy or 1.4 Cestus Bucks. Yes I am a bonded courier."Of course a gold generating nova would not have to worry about Insider Trading Laws. If they just started selling the precious metal in bulk - and created the material in the country of their citizenship (I could see it being argued that the material resides within the nova's potential - like an recently discovered gold mine - and his traveling to another country and releasing said gold would be an act of smuggled imports - which would result in heavy taxes and fines. Such an nova could get their wealth and destroy the market for everyone else with sufficient time. While Platinum is a slightly less volitile market, as industrial demand is currently curtailed by limited (and expensive) retreival. A nova who could introduce Platinum so easily would be able to:1: reset the value of the market to about 3/4 the currenty price as the volume they could produce (with only 1 dot in EM) would not overwhelm the market as the number of futures are so large as to mitigate the effect for a couple years. 2: It is more likely the smaller number of folks who invested in Platinum (less than 20% of the current consumers) would panic and sell, but the rest would become quite excited at the new "mine".The key difference in volitility is how the precious substance is used/consumed. Gold is primarily used as a monitary ballist, while Platinum is mostly Industrial. Thus the Crome Crusader of Platinum Platitudes would become wealthy very quickly, and would hire a few Elites to protect his interests (and free-will). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Alex Green Posted January 24, 2007 Share Posted January 24, 2007 Of course a gold generating nova would not have to worry about Insider Trading Laws. If they just started selling the precious metal in bulk...The issue isn't him being punished for ITL if he just makes the stuff. The issue is him first short selling stock in gold companies and then making enough of the gold to depress their stock. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
metaphysician Posted January 24, 2007 Author Share Posted January 24, 2007 The thing is, there is nothing actually violating the law in depressing a stock, bond, or future value so you can short-sell it. There are lots of illegal ways to depres the value, but selling your own shares isn't one of them. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Finbar Posted January 24, 2007 Share Posted January 24, 2007 Couriers: Warp and Teleport are useful here, as well as Transmit. You can charge more because of the security, and that means you can also ship more expensive items.DD5+Invisibility: Ultimate ninja. Throw in Cyberkinesis or any decent computer skill, and you've got corporate espionage down pat. Any Prodigy: Financial success and doing what you love to do...Mega-Socials: Don't forget that you can bring in money for your favorite charity...Clone: Two advantages here: If you don't have the appropriate prodigy, you can take classes in less time (instead of a bachelor's in four, make it two (some classes need to be taken in a particular order, but you can do a double-major). Also, think of the spying, assassination, or merc advantages: You can have an insta-team any time, and pick-up is easier...TS Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BlueNinja Posted January 24, 2007 Share Posted January 24, 2007 Clone: Two advantages here: If you don't have the appropriate prodigy, you can take classes in less time (instead of a bachelor's in four, make it two (some classes need to be taken in a particular order, but you can do a double-major). Also, think of the spying, assassination, or merc advantages: You can have an insta-team any time, and pick-up is easier... one nova point for Athletics 5, add a little Mega-Dex, and you are your own basketball team. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SkyLion Posted January 24, 2007 Share Posted January 24, 2007 take a limitation for only 5 clones and buy telepathic link and you will be especially so... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Finbar Posted January 25, 2007 Share Posted January 25, 2007 And, tonight, against the Sacramento Kings will be Titus Johnson, the one-man five-man!Heh...FR Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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