History Main / Fiction500

* [[StarWars The Galactic Empire]]. Perhaps it doesn't really count, what with its fifty million-member planets and quadrillions of sapient individuals, but on numerous occasions they've really gone out of their way. The Death Stars, for instance, required such incredible amounts of material that to build the 2nd Death Star in the span between ESB and [=RotJ=] would require the assembly of the equivalent of 35,000 [[StarTrek Galaxy-class Starships]] A. Second. It's worth pointing out that all the while this is happening, the galactic economy didn't even feel its repercussions.
** Also, the [[BigBad Emperor]] himself sometimes chooses rather extravagant "solutions" to dissident problems. One case has him literally shipping offworld ALL the water on a planet just to punish its denizens. If every vessel in the fleet that was doing said shipping was 71 kilometers long and 5 kilometers in diameter, it would require... 1 MILLION vessels.
** Of course, given the resources one planet can yield, an Empire in control of much of an entire galaxy pretty much has access to unlimited resources for all intents and purposes.

* [[StarWars The Galactic Empire]]. Perhaps it doesn't really count, what with its fifty million-member planets and quadrillions of sapient individuals, but on numerous occasions they've really gone out of their way. The Death Stars, for instance, required such incredible amounts of material that to build the 2nd Death Star in the span between ESB and RotJ would require the assembly of the equivalent of 35,000 [[StarTrek Galaxy-class Starships]] A. Second. It's worth pointing out that all the while this is happening, the galactic economy didn't even feel its repercussions.

Compare ConspicuousConsumption, UndisclosedFunds, OrganizationWithUnlimitedFunding.

# You ''routinely'' spend money on a scale normal super-rich people might do once or twice in a lifetime.

* [[FateStayNight Gilgamesh]]. Himself originally being the king of the world and possessor of all of its wealth. He has so much stuff that even he doesn't know what most of it is. His primary weapon, the Noble Phantasm called the Gate of Babylon, is a doorway to a pocket dimension that contains thousands upon thousands of priceless and powerful weapons; all of which belong to him. Consider this in comparison to other servants who might have two or three Noble Phantasms at most. At the same time, he has a particular character attribute called The Golden Rule, which measure's a character's ability to attract wealth to himself. His is Rank A, which means that no matter what the situation and no matter when or where he might be, he is always guaranteed to have enough money to buy whatever he needs or wants and that more will simply fall into his lap.

* [[PerfectGirlEvolution Kikunoi, Tamao]], AKA 'Princess'. When her fiance asks for help in saving one of his friends from a group of cultist, she shows up with a private army... including full sea-and-air support, Elite forces numbering in the tens of thousands, and a butler with a HyperspaceArsenal. When the same friend needed to be saved from a horde of amorous girls, she was able to make a HumongousMecha materialize under a city block, complete with gigantic hangar-gates for the sole purpose of tricking the girls into leaving.

# You personally fund projects usually associated with [[MegaCorp major corporations]], [[TheEmpire governments]], [[AncientAstronauts aliens]], etc.
** This includes CrimefightingWithCash.
# You personally fund projects that apparently break the laws of physics using ''only'' wealth and the RuleOfCool, or sometimes RuleOfFunny.
** But if some other convenient fictional trope makes something possible, it doesn't count. You don't buy sound in space when SpaceIsNoisy. It's not impressive to have InfiniteSupplies when everyone else does. Building a HumongousMecha is not noteworthy when any random scientist can make five in a weekend.

*** Upon finding out that she is [[spoiler:the Twilight Imperial Princess (and thus heir to the same fortune as Negi's mother), Asuna]] assumes this, and buys the services of [[ActionGirl Mana]].

->'''Petey:''' [[BeyondTheImpossible I have a team of accountants whose job it is to count the accountants who count my accountants]].

-->-- ''SchlockMercenary'', proving that some [[DeusAveMachina people]] ''are'' [[BlasphemousBoast richer than god]]

* [[DoomPatrol Dayton, Steve, AKA Mento]]. Routinely described as the fifth richest man on Earth in TheDCU.

** Although never overtly stated, it's long been half-jokingly theorized that DiBiase cashed in on the mother of all insurance settlements as a result of his father dying in the ring. Similarly, his son has recently inherited a massive trust fund as a result of appearing at his first Wrestlemania.

* [[{{Superman}} Luthor, Lex]] since TheEighties. At the time, writers finally decided to literally CutLexLuthorACheck and made him incredibly rich through making money off his genius. He can also budget in plans to defeat Superman.

*** There are two alternate explanations. One is that a cubic acre is a volume which is equivalent to a cube each of whose faces has an area of one acre. 3 cubic acres would thus be equivalent to a cube approximately 300 feet (over 90m) on a side. The other is that he actually meant "3 [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acre-foot acre feet]]", which is a volume equivalent to a cube over 15m (about 50 feet) on a side, which still impressive, especially considering [[http://www.kokogiak.com/megapenny/four.asp it is theoretically possible to fit $500 worth of US pennies in one cubic foot]], which would mean a 50 foot cube could hold tens of millions of dollars, and it is suggested the money bin is only a tiny fraction of his net worth.

* [[TheDCU Most Excellent Superbat (no name given)]]. States that his power is being rich enough to do anything, backed up in story by having his own private island made for him (complete with secret base), inventing an automatic mental Twitter, and in his definite CrowningMomentOfAwesome, buying [[spoiler:Japan. Yes, the entire country, to rebuild it, again with his own money.]] Do anything indeed.

Stuff that generally does ''not'' qualify you to be a member of the Fiction 500 [[hottip:*:Though being a member often ''leads'' to having at least two of them.]]: BigFancyHouse, CoolChair, CoolBoat, CoolPlane, CoolCar, BattleButler, MaidCorps, or even simply having assets in the billions.

Stuff that generally does ''not'' qualify you to be a member of the Fiction 500: BigFancyHouse, CoolChair, CoolBoat, CoolPlane, CoolCar, BattleButler, {{Meido}}, or even simply having assets in the billions.

[[{{Charlie and the Chocolate Factory}} Wonka, Willy]]. He owns the world's largest chocolate factory (so big it has an entire subterranean river system made from liquid chocolate) and develops things like teleportation just to boost his advertising revenues. At one time had a huge human workforce that he spontaneously sacked in its entirety due to industrial espionage issues (severance pay, anyone?); he then imported ''an entire unknown nation of people IN SECRET'' just to staff his factory, and had ''enough cash stockpiled to allow him to do this while the factory was closed and he was receiving no income''. Better yet he pays the Oompa-Loompa wages not in money but in cocoa beans.

* [[YuGiOh Kaiba, Seto]] has so much money he can [[ScrewTheRulesIHaveMoney screw the rules]] on a regular basis.

* [[CarlBarks McDuck,]] [[DuckTales Scrooge]]. Owner, among his million-plus other investments, of a windowless concrete block, affectionately called The Money Bin, filled with so much cold, hard cash that the bottom end probably achieved critical mass for cold fusion sometime in the early 1990s.

* [[EightBitTheater Thief (no last name given)]] qualifies more than anyone else on this list. He's:

Now this could happen in RealLife, like royalty who owned literally thousands of {{Pimped Out Dress}}es, or a man in India who built a private skyscraper for his family, staff, and fleet of cars, or Marcus Licinius Crassus, who had three times as much money as Bill Gates and personally funded the reconstruction of the Roman army. But in fiction, ''that's on the lower end of this scale''.

Now this could happen in RealLife, like royalty who owned literally thousands of {{Pimped Out Dress}}es, or a man in India who built a private skyscraper for his family, staff, and fleet of cars, or Marcus Licinius Crassus, who had three times as much money as Bill Gates and personally funded the reconstruction of the Roman army. But in fiction, that's on the lower end of this scale.

* [[MassEffect Man, Illusive.]] Cerberus' resources, while not unlimited, are still substantial enough to fund a two-year project to rebuild someone who is for all intents and purposes dead, and can replicate - with improvements - the most advanced starship in the galaxy, with unique, groundbreaking [[StealthInSpace stealth]] technology. Now, if even that doesn't sound like much, consider how valuable [[{{Unobtainium}} element zero]] is, then consider how much eezo was sunk into the drive cores of both the Normandy [=SR1=] and the Normandy [=SR2=].

** Arterius, Saren. President and CEO of Binary Helix, an interstellar biotech conglomerate capable of paying for all the [[PrivateMilitaryContractors mercenaries]] and [[WeaponOfMassDestruction WMDs]] his [[TheQuisling Quisling]] heart desires.