Currencies in the Trailward Stars
(introduction)
(handling and exchanging currencies?)
Countless minor currencies and forms of exchange exist within the Terran banner, having long given up on harmonising the economics of an empire that far exceeds their reach, but a common medium of exchange would always be needed. Eagles filled the role of the ancient and long-depreciated Terran Republic Credit, a common currency that conjoined and compared every other coin seamlessly and painlessly. Accounts were formally held within the Sol system and particularly on Earth to clamp down on corruption andmaintain a connection with officialdom. Only the latter stuck, with the Eagle becoming an infamous sign of corruption and organised crime as well as the standard salary of high civil servants. As the Empire continues to fall into disrepair, the distinction between official and criminal continues to blur. Eagles are exclusively electronic, held in the ansible net and keyed anonymously to their account owner's interests. Theoretically traceable, but there are many powerful individuals who would rather than Palace never learned to do so. Anyone who has spent an extended time in Terran space working in the Terrn economy has come across a value in Eagles before, even if few honest merchants accept it. Pirates and outlaws inside the Terran territory will accept Eagles for any locally used currency, and the Rupeeans especially will buy and exchange Eagles in order to maintain their information networks. Tiatholon Pila
details - small coins or chips loaded with financial data, variable value/content. sometimes used as personal account implants injected into the palm Shanti (placeholder)
(details are up to the responsible worldbuilder) Azar Florins
details - Doing away with credit chips or variable value, Azar favours wafer-like hard coins of a tough and flexible metamaterial. Sometimes rumoured to be radioactive, or at least to show up on most body scanners, to allow security officials to known which citizens to shake down.
details - Rupeean Req
Rupeeans have always traditionally tied the value of money to the price of potable water, a responsive and sometimes stable measure of the cost of living. The Req started life as the (officially the Coalition Army Ration Requisition Unit, a military logistical unit that the Emperor rolled out to civilian life after the previous and much devalued currency was deemed unsalvageable. Req coins are biconcave circles of hard, structural plastic with a smooth depression milled into each side. The value of the coin is said to be held not in the cheap but practical material, but in the artistic quality of the milling, with higher denominations containing more complex and intricate sunken reliefs. the most common coin, the 100 Req, depicts the vacant and overgrown throne of the absentee goddess of the Fennecs. Occasionally found in electronic form where the infrastructure exists to support it, with accounts anywhere in Rupeean space billable by commercial ansible traffic after a small but inconvenient delay. Req is rigorously and studiously backed by the Rupeean government as a point of pride, and is legal tender everywhere they can possibly reach or pressure into taking it. It is still mostly only recognised inside Rupeean space and the regions they border, but use is starting to seep out into interstellar space as the coins travel and are recognised. Vaiaelon (placeholder)
(details are up to the responsible worldbuilder) Arkens Munos
The nickname for the KIR’s current currency in the present, originating with the use of battery munitions and other such items used as currency for a time following war time economic crashes. The new currency was introduced for restoration efforts but retained the nickname. Karqwati (placeholder)
(details are up to the responsible worldbuilder) Federated Suns Credits
(details are up to the responsible worldbuilder) also Terranovan Dollars Tri-Star Commonwealth currencies
details - no single currency but a loosely aligned collection of disparate economic systems pledged to mutual aid for the benefit and survival of the Commonwealth. Lanzian Ftara
With no one authority to guarantee the value of coinage, Ftara is still tied to the worth of the coin itself. Utilitarian coins of high-grade copper, gold, silver, platinum, palladium-doped steel and some even rarer materials are in circulation. It's common for anyone who deals in Ftara to have a means of testing the quality of the metal, usually by displacement and reference weight, before accepting a transaction. Electronic payments also exist, minted and guaranteed by the warband responsible in exchange for the equivalent value in coins - every other Harpy community, colony or outpost runs its own independently backed version of the common currency based on their ad-hoc bank reserve. Traders pretty quickly learn to check if the warband still exists before accepting any credit in Ftara either. The only official mints for Ftara are owned by the Aquarbuer, and the value of coins often doubles as a metric for the fitness of a pirate-monarch to continue ruling. Debasing the currency is widely seen as an act of desperation for the current Aquaruber to keep power by increasing the amount of bribes and favours available... a sign of weakness. Despite its very precarious nature, Ftara travels as widely as the Lanzians do and theres always some fence, petty trader, pirate or mercenary who will trade it for the ore dominant local currency. Being found with Ftara on one's person by authorities, though, is another matter. Steli Values
details - Comparing modern currencies in their various forms is difficult, with societies developing wildly divergent priorities for goods of various types, and not all of them having stable and officially recognised currency exchanges. To make up for this gap, an anonymous Rupeean captain maintains an index comparing the relative costs for approximately 500ml of any locally popular beverage, a surprisingly intuitive point of comparison.
Terran Currencies
Terran EaglesCountless minor currencies and forms of exchange exist within the Terran banner, having long given up on harmonising the economics of an empire that far exceeds their reach, but a common medium of exchange would always be needed. Eagles filled the role of the ancient and long-depreciated Terran Republic Credit, a common currency that conjoined and compared every other coin seamlessly and painlessly. Accounts were formally held within the Sol system and particularly on Earth to clamp down on corruption andmaintain a connection with officialdom. Only the latter stuck, with the Eagle becoming an infamous sign of corruption and organised crime as well as the standard salary of high civil servants. As the Empire continues to fall into disrepair, the distinction between official and criminal continues to blur. Eagles are exclusively electronic, held in the ansible net and keyed anonymously to their account owner's interests. Theoretically traceable, but there are many powerful individuals who would rather than Palace never learned to do so. Anyone who has spent an extended time in Terran space working in the Terrn economy has come across a value in Eagles before, even if few honest merchants accept it. Pirates and outlaws inside the Terran territory will accept Eagles for any locally used currency, and the Rupeeans especially will buy and exchange Eagles in order to maintain their information networks. Tiatholon Pila
details - small coins or chips loaded with financial data, variable value/content. sometimes used as personal account implants injected into the palm Shanti (placeholder)
(details are up to the responsible worldbuilder) Azar Florins
details - Doing away with credit chips or variable value, Azar favours wafer-like hard coins of a tough and flexible metamaterial. Sometimes rumoured to be radioactive, or at least to show up on most body scanners, to allow security officials to known which citizens to shake down.
Coalition and Neutral Currencies
Sestian Arctionsdetails - Rupeean Req
Rupeeans have always traditionally tied the value of money to the price of potable water, a responsive and sometimes stable measure of the cost of living. The Req started life as the (officially the Coalition Army Ration Requisition Unit, a military logistical unit that the Emperor rolled out to civilian life after the previous and much devalued currency was deemed unsalvageable. Req coins are biconcave circles of hard, structural plastic with a smooth depression milled into each side. The value of the coin is said to be held not in the cheap but practical material, but in the artistic quality of the milling, with higher denominations containing more complex and intricate sunken reliefs. the most common coin, the 100 Req, depicts the vacant and overgrown throne of the absentee goddess of the Fennecs. Occasionally found in electronic form where the infrastructure exists to support it, with accounts anywhere in Rupeean space billable by commercial ansible traffic after a small but inconvenient delay. Req is rigorously and studiously backed by the Rupeean government as a point of pride, and is legal tender everywhere they can possibly reach or pressure into taking it. It is still mostly only recognised inside Rupeean space and the regions they border, but use is starting to seep out into interstellar space as the coins travel and are recognised. Vaiaelon (placeholder)
(details are up to the responsible worldbuilder) Arkens Munos
The nickname for the KIR’s current currency in the present, originating with the use of battery munitions and other such items used as currency for a time following war time economic crashes. The new currency was introduced for restoration efforts but retained the nickname. Karqwati (placeholder)
(details are up to the responsible worldbuilder) Federated Suns Credits
(details are up to the responsible worldbuilder) also Terranovan Dollars Tri-Star Commonwealth currencies
details - no single currency but a loosely aligned collection of disparate economic systems pledged to mutual aid for the benefit and survival of the Commonwealth. Lanzian Ftara
With no one authority to guarantee the value of coinage, Ftara is still tied to the worth of the coin itself. Utilitarian coins of high-grade copper, gold, silver, platinum, palladium-doped steel and some even rarer materials are in circulation. It's common for anyone who deals in Ftara to have a means of testing the quality of the metal, usually by displacement and reference weight, before accepting a transaction. Electronic payments also exist, minted and guaranteed by the warband responsible in exchange for the equivalent value in coins - every other Harpy community, colony or outpost runs its own independently backed version of the common currency based on their ad-hoc bank reserve. Traders pretty quickly learn to check if the warband still exists before accepting any credit in Ftara either. The only official mints for Ftara are owned by the Aquarbuer, and the value of coins often doubles as a metric for the fitness of a pirate-monarch to continue ruling. Debasing the currency is widely seen as an act of desperation for the current Aquaruber to keep power by increasing the amount of bribes and favours available... a sign of weakness. Despite its very precarious nature, Ftara travels as widely as the Lanzians do and theres always some fence, petty trader, pirate or mercenary who will trade it for the ore dominant local currency. Being found with Ftara on one's person by authorities, though, is another matter. Steli Values
details - Comparing modern currencies in their various forms is difficult, with societies developing wildly divergent priorities for goods of various types, and not all of them having stable and officially recognised currency exchanges. To make up for this gap, an anonymous Rupeean captain maintains an index comparing the relative costs for approximately 500ml of any locally popular beverage, a surprisingly intuitive point of comparison.
Comments