Currency, Imperial and Others

[Sifu Blackirish]

I was driving home a couple of days ago, and heard part of a story about "Liberty Dollars" and how some organization was raided because the U.S. Government says their coins are not legal tender. It got me to thinking...

Does anyone know of the 3I policy towards other currencies? Is it a case of "you want the imperium here and all its benifits, you have to use our money!" or is there a lot of local autonomy in this matter?

How about corporate scrip? Can an Imperial citizen use it to pay his taxes? For that matter, can corporations use this to hide their assets?

IMTU, corporations ran things for well over a hundred years, until the ConFederation started flexing their muscle. They refused to accept anything but CF markz, but border areas still accept mercreds.

Have to!

 

[flykiller]

I was driving home a couple of days ago, and heard part of a story about "Liberty Dollars" and how some organization was raided because the U.S. Government says their coins are not legal tender.

http://www.wnd.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=58739

since the imperium "rules the space between the stars" I would imagine that interstellar trade is conducted in imperial credits exclusively, with each world that doesn't use imperial credits relating its local currency to that standard. every starport would include a moneychanger, both physical and electronic.

likely far traders would barter frequently.

 

[Captain Midnight]

Here's the first paragraph of the MT Imperial Encyclopedia entry on "Currency, Imperial" -- "The basic unit of legal tender in the Imperium is the Imperial credit. Individual worlds may issue their own currencies, and those currencies may or may not be acceptable on other worlds. Similarly, corporations and megacorporations may issue scrip, and its acceptance outside of the corporate environment is a matter of conjecture. But Imperial credits are accepted everywhere in the Imperium and in many locations outside of it."

It sounds like individual worlds can decide to issue their own currency, for whatever reasons, but they're probably required to accept Imperial credits as legal tender. As to what you have to use to pay your taxes... it depends on how you want to rule that the Imperium collects its money. If it doesn't bill individuals directly, but instead levies assessments against member worlds using whatever justification the GM chooses to postulate, then the tax will be payable in whatever form the levying authority chooses (with the caveat that CrImp may also be used to satisfy the debt). If a world decides that your annual tax payment must be made in miniphants, there's going to be a flare in the value of a miniphant as the laws of supply and demand raise their fearsome heads.

Note that Imperial law applies only within Imperial borders, for the most part. If SuSag decides that anyone in the Federation of Arden who wants to purchase their products may only pay for them in SuSag corporate scrip, there may very well be a different rate of exchange on Arden for CrImp-to-SuSag than there is on Muan Gwi. Worlds that are less friendly to the Imperium may prohibit possession of Imperial currency in large amounts, or require you to exchange it at a disadvantageous rate. There's also the possibility that various individuals or groups may flout the law, and only accept Imperial currency on poor terms, if at all.

Corporations that try to hide assets with currency manipulations will be looked at askance by the Ministry of Commerce. Is that going to mean anything? It's your universe, you make the call. Still, there will have to be some sort of requirements for corporate bodies to provide some sort of financial documentation, and really big secrets do tend to leak eventually.

If you want to get involved in the minutiae of currency trading, it can certainly be done. You're going to have to get pretty deep into the economics of the situation, and that's going to require some analysis of basic assumptions that can have unintended consequences.

 

[JAFARR]

Captain Midnight

"If you want to get involved in the minutiae of currency trading, it can certainly be done. You're going to have to get pretty deep into the economics of the situation, and that's going to require some analysis of basic assumptions that can have unintended consequences."

This pretty much sums it up. How much playing time do you want to devote to this? Personally, I would rather spend my time doing other things.

 

[zonk]

Speaking of currency, someone, a long time ago, did some nicely designed Imperium Credit notes. Unfortunately whoever did them only did the front side. There are 1, 10, 20, 50, 100, 500, and 1,000 credit images... I always wanted the back sides I'm not that good an artist. Then I could print up some monopoly money for the game.

Anyone have some good images?

 

[Icosahedron]

IMTU, credits are more like casino chips with embedded anti-forgery circuitry, so they don't need complex surface patterns.
Not that cash is used very often, most characters IMTU use smart-cards, like a self-contained debit card that can be filled or emptied in the field.

 

[Andrew Boulton]

Speaking of currency, someone, a long time ago, did some nicely designed Imperium Credit notes. Unfortunately whoever did them only did the front side. There are 1, 10, 20, 50, 100, 500, and 1,000 credit images... I always wanted the back sides I'm not that good an artist. Then I could print up some monopoly money for the game.

Anyone have some good images?

There are quite a few floating round, but AFAIK this is the only official one:

 

[Hemdian]

Speaking of currency, someone, a long time ago, did some nicely designed Imperium Credit notes. Unfortunately whoever did them only did the front side. There are 1, 10, 20, 50, 100, 500, and 1,000 credit images... I always wanted the back sides I'm not that good an artist. Then I could print up some monopoly money for the game.

Anyone have some good images?

I tried this once. I had Cr10, Cr20, Cr50, and Cr100 printed, and used old UK coils (pennies, hapnies, and farthings) for Cr1, Cr0.50 and Cr0.25. But it bogged down the game: its only good for tracking small transactions (buying a drink, or a newspaper, or a transit ticket) but if you do that you (the Referee) spend too much time playing banker.

Regards PLST

 

[aramis]

Given that canon defines the currency in the library data of the Traveller Adventure... and reiterated in MegaTraveller. and since it is slices of an extrusion, the reverse should be the mirror of the obverse. Go read the wiki article....

So seriously, there is no back on them.

 

[Blue Ghost]

What Aramis said; the official rules on currency are in "The Traveller Adventure" book. I think other reference data refers to credit card, but no the actual physical notes.

 

[Sifu Blackirish]

Thanks for the comments, all.

For those of you desiring more information, and an extensive news file with pdf documents, go here...

http://www.libertydollar.org/

 

[rancke]

Given that canon defines the currency in the library data of the Traveller Adventure... and reiterated in MegaTraveller. and since it is slices of an extrusion, the reverse should be the mirror of the obverse. Go read the wiki article....

So seriously, there is no back on them.

Not quite true. Or rather, not necessarily true. The description certainly implies it, and Loren Wiseman recently stated that this was the original intent, but the description doesn't say so outright, and a while back someone came up with the suggestion that the fibers used in production could be polarized in such a fashion as to look different from either side. This would allow the two sides to be different (I also think it's a really neat idea).

Someone also claimed that the coins mentioned in the same article were said to be made by the same process and that they did have different sides, but I haven't gotten around to checking that.


Hans