(BTW: the 100 Trillion was a typo, i started typing one thing then erased it, then switched to another and the 100 was actually supost to be 1.)
1. Think about this. In the future there are what, 100's of other planets with there own economy? All of witch are investing in ship parts? To me, the amount of money Waltz Enterprises makes doesn't seem that unreasonable because 1. in REAL LIFE the NFL makes more money than the US government. and 2. If you have 100's of planets investing in ship engines that are worth how much each? A NASA rocket propulsion system costs some 5m to construct, and these engines are nuclear. So by my estimations that's worth about 10m PER engine. So lets say you need 3 of these engines at 3m. that's 9m made from ONE ship that goes to the company. Now how many ships are there in ONE Planet?? 1000's? so, if each one of those ships has 3-10 engines on it, from ONE ship alone that profit can be 30m. 30m*1000=Thirty-billion. Now multiply that by the number of planets in the galaxy. so lets say... 200? So 30b*200.
600B dollar's from 200,000 ships. Now say they make that many ships in the course of half a year. double that profit into 1.2T a year.
(BTW: An individual nuclear power plant costs about 100m to make, with the core its self around 50m to make. So im REALLY dumbing down the cost of the engines. Just so ya know ^w^)
2.
roleplay/nebulas-dawn-f-s-s-salient/characters/elizabeth-waltz, theres the character.
3. Does it even matter how much money the company makes? Elizabeth commands almost NONE of its wealth. She game it up before enlisting.
4. Her engines. She knows them better than anyone else. BTW, shoes make it hard for her to concentrate because her feet get hot. And you wouldnt want a lost/unfocused engineer fiddling around with the only thing that keeps your ship floating... Now do you?