Currency

[stephen.samuels]

What do we think about currency? In terms of centralised currency system across worlds, do we think a credit based system is best or a tiered currency system based on the most valuable commodities?

There is the backdrop of a fallen empire which is set against political unrest and uncertainty. This is why I am possibly leaning toward commodity and trade as economic system. Might also be worth mention that one of the main protagonists is instigating this. Any thoughts people.

[Fried Egg]

The problem a credit based system is that it needs to be regulated and controlled to work which would be problematic across worlds, especially with political unrest.

Any tiered commodity based system would run into problems unless the relative values of these commodities was free floating.

[Peter Graham]

There is the backdrop of a fallen empire which is set against political unrest and uncertainty. This is why I am possibly leaning toward commodity and trade as economic system. Might also be worth mention that one of the main protagonists is instigating this. Any thoughts people.

T'internet is your friend. Check out what happened in this country when Rome fell apart. Coinage stopped coming in, what coinage remained was quickly clipped and debased, the villa system collapsed in a big heap of lime plaster and bits of mosaic depicting satyrs frolicking with maidens and the central infrastructure wheezed on for a generation or so before crashing in ruins, at which point power shifted from fat bureaucrats in togas to mad Welshmen with enormous swords and a love of alliterative poetry.

The pottery industry around the Nene went bang and most of the towns shrank in size and/or were reduced to the status of local markets and strongpoints for men with names like Gwrast the Ragged or Peredur Steel Arms (he was one of yours until the Anglians carved him up). Taxation became tribute paid in kind and such other trade that existed would have been based around barter or goods in kind - including valuable metals and minerals.

Regards,

Peter

[stephen.samuels]

There is centralised financial regulator, tech level makes that possible. I'm leaning toward capitalism model with regulator. Trade associations and guilds are present. What system do you use?

[James Coote]

Is this set in the future?

[stephen.samuels]

Originally Posted by Peter Graham

T'internet is your friend. Check out what happened in this country when Rome fell apart. Coinage stopped coming in, what coinage remained was quickly clipped and debased, the villa system collapsed in a big heap of lime plaster and bits of mosaic depicting satyrs frolicking with maidens and the central infrastructure wheezed on for a generation or so before crashing in ruins, at which point power shifted from fat bureaucrats in togas to mad Welshmen with enormous swords and a love of alliterative poetry.

Regards,

Peter

I read Tom Holland's Rubicon (very good book). The Wheezing stage is where its at but there is centralised independent regulator at least at the start, I want narrate the enormous swords stage

[stephen.samuels]

Originally Posted by James Coote

Is this set in the future?

fictional universe, complete separate from ours. No alternate reality or jumping from it to ours involved

[Abernovo]

Credit on an interplanetary scale is always going to be tricky. All you need is a breakdown in communication (think of credit card/ATM malfunction on massive scale) and you're stuck on an foreign planet with no fuel for your spaceship, no money and no way of proving your reliability. In effect, you're a vagrant/illegal alien without funds. In some places that can get you a prison cell, or worse.

It would only take a few, or less, of these communication breakdowns for a credit system of that size to fall apart, I would suspect.


A commodity-backed currency also has its problems. As Fried Eggs says, you need a commodities market. But...are the main commodities reliable? Is the quality/purity of the commodity reliable? Are they distributed evenly between the planets. If one planet had a stranglehold on a commodity, it could manipulate the other planets (similar to how oil is presently a factor in economic stability).

The other question for a currency is: who is backing it? Governments tend to back their national currency. If the empire's fallen and there's unrest, do you trust the commodities traders to be honest? You have a regulator, but who do they answer to?

[stephen.samuels]

Each race of beings has a central government like a Senate type democratic system in most cases. The exception being men who operate a feudal system with the upper classes retaining power. Dwarves have ruling kings and high king which is decided by special circumstances. Trade is forced to happen because the Dwarves are rich in metals and jewels. Men have a large labour force and Elves have great stocks of medical provisions as well as much needed technologies. Representatives from each sit on the trade associations and prices are dictated by reserves and home world politics. But trade is essential

[MstrTal]

I know movies are often not the best reference however in MI3: Ghost Protocol they used highly encrypted data vaults backed by hard currency. This is not a far fetched idea. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_gold_currency (I know wickepedia is not the best of sources but it gives you an idea) As you had already mentioned Regulators perhaps a Guild that has a presence per planet or system that can exchange for a fee local currency from the standardized encrypted data vault funds. Each vault would contain all the information on amount of hard currency in each individual or corporate account , transactions, withdraws and so on so forth and each guild would use specialized couriers with even more specialized encrypted data vaults to update a centralized database on regularly scheduled occasions to circumvent communication breakdowns.

[MstrTal]

Oh and another idea to go with the above is CAC and Smart Cards.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Common_Access_Card (Another Wikipedia link but I didn't think it would be smart to link everyone to US milatery sites) for individual accounts or smaller than huge corporate accounts.
http://www.smartcardbasics.com/smart-card-types.html A CAC is basically a Smart Card this being scifi you can play with the concept a little.

[stephen.samuels]

Originally Posted by MstrTal

I know movies are often not the best reference however in MI3: Ghost Protocol they used highly encrypted data vaults backed by hard currency. This is not a far fetched idea. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_gold_currency (I know wickepedia is not the best of sources but it gives you an idea) As you had already mentioned Regulators perhaps a Guild that has a presence per planet or system that can exchange for a fee local currency from the standardized encrypted data vault funds. Each vault would contain all the information on amount of hard currency in each individual or corporate account , transactions, withdraws and so on so forth and each guild would use specialized couriers with even more specialized encrypted data vaults to update a centralized database on regularly scheduled occasions to circumvent communication breakdowns.

Really like that! the value of hard currency being tracked by inter-planet trading, so if a planet is experiencing a recession, the guild would know an lower the value of that planet's holdings or increase it.

[Sapheron]

I'd suggest you look for a time and place in the real world that yours can compare to. A union of city states with little technology? Look at ancient greece. Advanced nations working together in rough peace? Look at the modern world. A single sprawling empire trying to regulate over distance and cultures? Look at the romans.

Anything you're after has probably (approximately) existed at some point, so see how they worked and then change it as appropriate.

[stephen.samuels]

yeah I have looked at the structure of commerce of both roman and ancient china and read a few books on the subject. I found that to be really useful, my timeline is progressing at the moment so I'm trying to get that progression spot on

[Galacticdefender]

In my SF universe, there are often different currencies for different worlds, but each currency has it's own value, so say, a coin from one world may be worth 4.76 credits, while a coin from another world may be worth 7.98 credits. So every currency is legal tender on most worlds, but it's value is described by how many credits it is worth. So, instead of just comparing currencies to each other as we do today, there is a set value system to compare a currency against.