Interesting discussion.
Back in the day, Marc did spend a whole lot of time talking about the
details of Imperial currency, the coins which were extruded plastic (with
chips, I think) "like Christmas candy," and paper bills also extruded
plastic, but sliced very thin, which placed a lot of emphasis on "cash,"
except that the word for them was "credits," which naturally begs the
question. Obviously all money is actually only credit, "backed by the good
faith and hoo-hah" of this bank or that Federal reserve, etc. But the feel
was of an emphasis on physical money that you carried, not credit cards.
It comes back to story-telling more than anything else.
The feel of physical currency is nice and very Old West.
The feel of credit cards or sticks or suppositories or implants is a
response to the rise of these same things in our societies, and the sense
that these are cooler and more modern. Basically around the time that
CyberPunk took off, even though CyberPunk undermined the premise.
Bottom line is that there are economies in the OTU, so SOMETHING works,
but the harder you try to pin it down the more it slips through your
fingers. Any electronic basis is going to be a permanent war of measure
and countermeasure and counter-countermeasure between the banks and the
thieves, and since Traveller is primarily about the ethically challenged,
that sort of begs the question again.
And all of the entertainment around us is all about, "hey, hack into that
webcam over there and give me a feed," or "hack into the Pentagon
mainframe and take over command of..." and these all take three seconds,
so people come to their entertainment with certain (ridiculous)
expectations.
Bottom line is that you'll want to figure out what kind of story you want
to tell. And in Derek's case, if he's already decided he needs a "follow
the money" plot device, then it has to be electronic.
Other bottom line is that I'm glad we didn't waste a lot of time trying to
describe interstellar banking in TNE. What a waste of time that would have
been.
Actually, that's where we should have had the Virus. Interstellar commerce
was based on psionically active implanted chips inside all of the money
that maintained real-time contact with each other over interstellar
distances to keep track of credits and debits and what belonged to who,
and then those chips got infected. People would have believed that. Filthy
lucre.
And then you get into the whole Imperial Warrant thing, which I would
never believe if someone stuck one in my face, and the only canonical one
in play was basically a passion play on what a horrible idea they are.
Thank God Norris found it...or forged one...or created the Edict 907 Hoax
and hacked it into every library computer in Charted Space.
> I'm thinking in the case of free traders in the wilds you'd have to use
some kind of hard gold standard currency. You'd have no way of backing
up
> a paper/credit currency in the wilds.
>
> Derek Stanley
> Sent from my iPhone...
>
> On 2013-01-18, at 8:15, Tim O'Reilly > wrote:
>
>> interesting discussion ... I'd suggest the specie currency of some type
... a gram of gold is a gram of gold regardless of what form its in
ditto for platinum, iridium etc. But another addition to the mix could
be gem stones, certain quality gems, certain cuts, certain types get
certain values - they last a long time, are verifiable as to quality,
weight, and cut, etc etc ... what was the 1950s movie? (spaceship, guy
from super adv society checking the world out etc) I want to say Brave
New World but am not sure ...
>> Tim
>> From: Richard Crowley >
>> To:
>> Sent: Friday, January 18, 2013 7:43 AM
>> Subject: [Traveller_TNE] Re: Money in Traveller
>> What about currency with holographic images on them? Also, I think that
by 1240 (or so), the Coalition could have grown large enough to sponsor
subsidized merchant service to backward systems. The might solve the
irregularity of currency. Gold or other precious substances might be
hard to come by for small-time traders (they'd jhave to land on a
possibly xenophic world, begin a mining operation and finally extract
the valuable substance).
>> --- In , "roger" wrote:
>> >
>> > Derek, I found a site that makes sense out of the use of money in a
>> Traveller universe. Look in: Traveller in the DED Zone check out money
in the "House Rules" section. To this system you can add that money is
transferred around via X-boat and by ships that are qualified to carry
mail.
>> > I also believe that the Imperium would issue its own "paper" and coin
>> money. To make counterfeiting harder nanites could be embedded in the
money to authenticate it. This Imperium money would be acceptable in
any
>> Imperium world. Many governments that do business with the Imperium
would except this money as well. Here I use exchange rates on page 230
of the rule book to exchange Imperials for/ from local money.
>> > I also found a reference to money in "Hard Times" from GDW called
>> Specie Currency.
>> > One of our group is a character who has reasons to not be tracked/
>> traced or found by the authorities so he has no wish for a bank reader
and prefers to be paid in hard coin Gold = Cr300 = 30 grams, Silver =
Cr10 = 30 grams, Copper = Cr0.2 = 50 grams.
>> > If you are playing in an RCES campaign,in the first paperback "The
>> death of Wisdom" there is a reference to Coalition credits so the
Coalition does issue money and I assume that to be a part of joining
the
>> Coalition you have to except the money.
>> > In a post-collapse campaigns, barter and specie currency will
>> dominate
>> economy. IMTU I've added (platinum = Cr1000 = 30 grams, and Iridium = Cr
>> 25,000 = 30 grams)to the specie currency list. To avoid the picture of a
>> hard working free trader walking down the street on his way to buy a
speculative cargo while pushing a wheelbarrow full of gold coins.
>> > Roger
>> >
>
Back in the day, Marc did spend a whole lot of time talking about the
details of Imperial currency, the coins which were extruded plastic (with
chips, I think) "like Christmas candy," and paper bills also extruded
plastic, but sliced very thin, which placed a lot of emphasis on "cash,"
except that the word for them was "credits," which naturally begs the
question. Obviously all money is actually only credit, "backed by the good
faith and hoo-hah" of this bank or that Federal reserve, etc. But the feel
was of an emphasis on physical money that you carried, not credit cards.
It comes back to story-telling more than anything else.
The feel of physical currency is nice and very Old West.
The feel of credit cards or sticks or suppositories or implants is a
response to the rise of these same things in our societies, and the sense
that these are cooler and more modern. Basically around the time that
CyberPunk took off, even though CyberPunk undermined the premise.
Bottom line is that there are economies in the OTU, so SOMETHING works,
but the harder you try to pin it down the more it slips through your
fingers. Any electronic basis is going to be a permanent war of measure
and countermeasure and counter-countermeasure between the banks and the
thieves, and since Traveller is primarily about the ethically challenged,
that sort of begs the question again.
And all of the entertainment around us is all about, "hey, hack into that
webcam over there and give me a feed," or "hack into the Pentagon
mainframe and take over command of..." and these all take three seconds,
so people come to their entertainment with certain (ridiculous)
expectations.
Bottom line is that you'll want to figure out what kind of story you want
to tell. And in Derek's case, if he's already decided he needs a "follow
the money" plot device, then it has to be electronic.
Other bottom line is that I'm glad we didn't waste a lot of time trying to
describe interstellar banking in TNE. What a waste of time that would have
been.
Actually, that's where we should have had the Virus. Interstellar commerce
was based on psionically active implanted chips inside all of the money
that maintained real-time contact with each other over interstellar
distances to keep track of credits and debits and what belonged to who,
and then those chips got infected. People would have believed that. Filthy
lucre.
And then you get into the whole Imperial Warrant thing, which I would
never believe if someone stuck one in my face, and the only canonical one
in play was basically a passion play on what a horrible idea they are.
Thank God Norris found it...or forged one...or created the Edict 907 Hoax
and hacked it into every library computer in Charted Space.
> I'm thinking in the case of free traders in the wilds you'd have to use
some kind of hard gold standard currency. You'd have no way of backing
up
> a paper/credit currency in the wilds.
>
> Derek Stanley
> Sent from my iPhone...
>
> On 2013-01-18, at 8:15, Tim O'Reilly > wrote:
>
>> interesting discussion ... I'd suggest the specie currency of some type
... a gram of gold is a gram of gold regardless of what form its in
ditto for platinum, iridium etc. But another addition to the mix could
be gem stones, certain quality gems, certain cuts, certain types get
certain values - they last a long time, are verifiable as to quality,
weight, and cut, etc etc ... what was the 1950s movie? (spaceship, guy
from super adv society checking the world out etc) I want to say Brave
New World but am not sure ...
>> Tim
>> From: Richard Crowley >
>> To:
>> Sent: Friday, January 18, 2013 7:43 AM
>> Subject: [Traveller_TNE] Re: Money in Traveller
>> What about currency with holographic images on them? Also, I think that
by 1240 (or so), the Coalition could have grown large enough to sponsor
subsidized merchant service to backward systems. The might solve the
irregularity of currency. Gold or other precious substances might be
hard to come by for small-time traders (they'd jhave to land on a
possibly xenophic world, begin a mining operation and finally extract
the valuable substance).
>> --- In , "roger" wrote:
>> >
>> > Derek, I found a site that makes sense out of the use of money in a
>> Traveller universe. Look in: Traveller in the DED Zone check out money
in the "House Rules" section. To this system you can add that money is
transferred around via X-boat and by ships that are qualified to carry
mail.
>> > I also believe that the Imperium would issue its own "paper" and coin
>> money. To make counterfeiting harder nanites could be embedded in the
money to authenticate it. This Imperium money would be acceptable in
any
>> Imperium world. Many governments that do business with the Imperium
would except this money as well. Here I use exchange rates on page 230
of the rule book to exchange Imperials for/ from local money.
>> > I also found a reference to money in "Hard Times" from GDW called
>> Specie Currency.
>> > One of our group is a character who has reasons to not be tracked/
>> traced or found by the authorities so he has no wish for a bank reader
and prefers to be paid in hard coin Gold = Cr300 = 30 grams, Silver =
Cr10 = 30 grams, Copper = Cr0.2 = 50 grams.
>> > If you are playing in an RCES campaign,in the first paperback "The
>> death of Wisdom" there is a reference to Coalition credits so the
Coalition does issue money and I assume that to be a part of joining
the
>> Coalition you have to except the money.
>> > In a post-collapse campaigns, barter and specie currency will
>> dominate
>> economy. IMTU I've added (platinum = Cr1000 = 30 grams, and Iridium = Cr
>> 25,000 = 30 grams)to the specie currency list. To avoid the picture of a
>> hard working free trader walking down the street on his way to buy a
speculative cargo while pushing a wheelbarrow full of gold coins.
>> > Roger
>> >
>