Basic Trope: A race whose hat is being Intrepid Merchants.
- Straight: An alien race has strong mercantile tendencies and buying and selling as a backbone of its culture.
- Exaggerated:
- The alien race finds trade to be a religious ideal, and being given a gift without paying its fair price is a Dehumanizing Insult.
- The alien race buys and sells EVERYTHING it can, with people being charged a fee for every breath of air and every cup of water.
- Downplayed: The alien race is well-rounded and proficient in several fields, but has stronger trading leanings than most other races.
- Justified: The alien race is weak and cowardly, so warfare or exploration doesn't suit them, but they have an extensive industrial base in key fields without being a self-sustaining economy, meaning they rely on heavy trading to survive.
- Inverted:
- These aliens run a massively powerful consumer economy, so they buy and import vast amounts of resources, although they don't actually SELL much of anything.
- These aliens' hat, unique among the universe's sapient species, which continue to debate this, is believing that Capitalism Is Bad.
- Subverted:
- The alien race initially seems to be all about commerce, trading extensively with humans, but this turns out to be an attempt to gather information on their targets before their Alien Invasion.
- Those of the alien race first encountered are always Intrepid Merchants, but this is soon to be revealed as a persecuted minority of their brutal warrior culture.
- Double Subverted:
- The alien race initially seems to be all about commerce before revealing to be a cover for their Alien Invasion, before it's revealed that this invasion is only to defend their economic interests that's essential to their heavy trading activities.
- The alien race first appears to be a Proud Merchant Race, before it's revealed that they're only a persecuted minority of their warrior culture. However, it's revealed that the majority of the race ARE traders, however the warrior-leaders present themselves as the majority of their race for the sake of maintaining the honor of their species and downplay the successes of their trader brethren.
- Parodied:
- An alien merchant is asked why he got into trading, before he points out that it's all his species ever does.
- Alien B'ab was thought to be the Last of His Kind, but after being revealed to be part of the still-extant Proud Merchant Race, immediately starts bartering for everything he can.
- Zig-Zagged: The alien race arrives and begins extensively trading with mankind. However, this is shortly revealed to be a ruse for their extensive spying. However, they're revealed only to be spying to sell the information gathered to mankind's enemies. However, this in turn is revealed to be a chance to spy on them, to allow them to take over as a brutal military power. However, even then, this is only to protect their own trading interests.
- Averted: Due to the Crapsack World, trade is nearly nonexistent as all races are isolationist and trapped in Forever Wars with their allies.
- Enforced:
- There has to be a proud merchant race, as the writers are trying to tell a story about what could happen if entire culture focused exclusively on capitalism, such as it becoming hopelessly greedy and materialistic.
- The Proud Merchant Race is created to balance out the game mechanics and counteract the military faction and science faction.
- Lampshaded: "Sorry, mom, we're part of a Proud Merchant Race, so even filial piety has a price!"
- Invoked: "We should look into building a massive, galactic marketplace to make a gigantic profit. There doesn't seem to be a Proud Merchant Race, so there's a gap in the market for our race to step into!"
- Exploited: The Big Bad funds his evil through a fleet of Space Pirates, knowing that the Proud Merchant Race will make the perfect target for them.
- Defied: The aliens make an effort to support those who don't want to be merchants.
- Discussed: "Ultimately if a race doesn't become evil autocratic imperialist nation, it seems quite likely that they'll be forced to ally themselves with other nations, helping the resulting peace survive through trade reliance based around their role as traders."
- Conversed: "Well, this group of characters turned into Straw Characters for the anti-capitalist Designated Hero to browbeat rhetorically in no time flat."
- Implied: An offscreen race of aliens is often referred to as where a character bought his Hidden Weapons.
- Deconstructed: The race quickly spirals into rampant consumerism and materialism, with the government being prone to bribery of government officials and secretly only led by Corrupt Corporate Executives, which quickly leads to a downward spiral into strife and Civil War as this exploitation inherently can't sustain itself.
- Reconstructed: The alien race is entirely based around trade, but this is mainly to force other races to become economically dependent on them to make way for their Benevolent Alien Invasion, so they can conquer the galaxy while continuing to be Actual Perfect Pacifist People, without even having to fire a bullet.
Back to Proud Merchant Race.
