Cash in Traveller

[Ambassadore G'car]

I've been thinking that interstellar banking doesn't actually make much sense in Traveller. Since communication is so slow, electronic cash isn't a real advantage (the only reason it works well in 21st century Earth is because it is so much faster than transporting physical cash).

I'd also be very wary if I were a bank of giving money to someone who's details (including ID and account balance) I couldn't verify for two weeks minimum! This is to say nothing if giving them millions of credits so that they can buy a starship that then travels parsecs away (makeing debt recovery problematic). I wouldn't even invest or put my money in banks that would do such things.

Thus I would think that cash is far more common in the Imperium than people think, especially among spacefarers. This is a two edged sword for adventurers - on the plus side, thier transactions are hard to trace but on the other side, they can easliy be robbed of large sums and they are targets for robbery.

It also means that I provide other ways for PCs to aquire starships. The price is also somewhat more fluid since getting a loan from a bank isn't usually possible.

 

[aramis]

It's quite likely a two-phase system.

Phase 1: On-world.
Local currency, often electronic at TL 7+

Phase 2: Off-world
Usually high-complexity currency or precious metal specie currency.

Joe Local of Regina decides to go on vacation at Wypoc. He goes to the banking office (neighborhood branches just are not needed when e-currency is normative), and makes request for clearance for cash, in the order of KCr50.

He then waits for a week for the request to be approved; wait times are to reduce black marketeering. He can pick up the cash at the starport. He goes, gets his wad, and buys passage (KCr15 or so), and hops a ship.

He gets there. At Wypoc, he deposits his currency in two accounts: KCr15 with the Starport for a return ticket, and KCr20 for spending cash on Wypoc.

Just before boarding, he clears out the second account, and gets it back in cash. Quite possibly even some of the same notes.

When he gets back to Regina, he redeposits the cash in his electronic account.

 

[mike wightman]

IMTU one of the jobs of the x-boats is to carry financial transaction records from world to world. Subbies with a mail contract with a world have this job too.

 

[Icosahedron]

I'm with Mike. Something that a lot of Traveller players (and Referees) overlook is that ships leave busy starports daily.

In real life, you order your travel money in advance and convert it to whatever currency is needed for your trip to foreign shores (we're used to this in Europe).

Say you are planning a trip from world A to world B. You go to bank A and transfer some, or even all, of your money to bank B. That information is carried in today's mail. Your trip is booked for the end of the week. By the time you get to your destination, the transaction has been verified and completed - you can go to bank B and use your card as normal - no need to carry thousands in cash. I call it 'Advance Transfer', it's one of several methods I use IMTU.

 

[mmbutter]

I use anonymous electronic cash. Accepted anywhere.

 

[Gadrin]

I've been thinking that interstellar banking
doesn't actually make much sense in Traveller. Since communication is so
slow, electronic cash isn't a real advantage (the only reason it works well
in 21st century Earth is because it is so much faster than transporting
physical cash).

GURPS Traveller's FAR TRADER talks about this. Basically electronic transfers
occur between banks or businesses that have some sort of reciprocating agreement.
It also might happen if the participants are covered by some sort of Imperial
guarantee. However if your cash gets a little % whittled away each stop, you
have to plan for this in advance.

It too is also much cheaper than paying for a courier, even say middle passage
and his other expenses, just to truck CR 10,000 from Glisten to Mertactor.

I'd also be very wary if I were a bank of
giving money to someone who's details (including ID and account balance) I
couldn't verify for two weeks minimum! This is to say nothing if giving them
millions of credits so that they can buy a starship that then travels parsecs
away (makeing debt recovery problematic). I wouldn't even invest or put my
money in banks that would do such things.

Obviously some sorts of safeguards would be built into this. In most of the
descriptions I've seen the Imperial ID (I think it's mentioned in detail in the
T4 books) are almost un-forgeable (same with Imperial Credits). So people showing
up and wanting to "Close an account" might be put under close scrutiny. There are
cameras everywhere in our own society and I doubt it'll change even on E-class
starport worlds that have banks. I simply assume that the writers during their
conception of the 3rd Imperium have taken this into account, and despite not being
covered specifically, they simply found a sensible way to pull off the way the RPG
works. In other words, I like the RPG and the players aren't likely to nitpick a
way around getting easy money by check kiting or something.

Thus I would think that cash is far more
common in the Imperium than people think, especially among spacefarers. This
is a two edged sword for adventurers - on the plus side, thier transactions
are hard to trace but on the other side, they can easliy be robbed of large
sums and they are targets for robbery.

One of the websites has some sample Imperial Notes on it. Every ship would likely
have a safe, probably in the captain's suite and he would store all the operating
expenses in it, crew advances, etc. If the ship crosses borders he might also have
to have many types of credit notes.

I'm setting up a Reaver's Deep mini-campaign and the first thing you notice about
the place is it's full of all sorts of different polities; and naturally each one
will mint/print it's own currency. In addition, each Aslan clan prints it's own
currency. So if they do trading with other races they'll need to have a monetary
system that's equitable to both (like Crimps, or one of the other duchies, or if
the clan is big enough and well thought of, use Aslan credits.

It also means that I provide other ways for
PCs to aquire starships. The price is also somewhat more fluid since getting
a loan from a bank isn't usually possible.

I usually give the PCs a ship without too much hassle, but even the CT books mention
that the upkeep on a starship -- even a paid off one -- is still staggering when you
need to fuel it, maintain it, salaries, landing/docking expenses, life support, etc, etc.

Unless the players want to clang their head against the brick wall of crushing debt...



>

 

[ThunderChilde]

Some very useful ideas here. The vast bags of swag were always a point of stress. That and being poor assed broke, with a small mountain of wealth somewhere else.

I will be refering back to this as I get MTU closer to starting.

 

[veltyen]

Some very useful ideas here. The vast bags of swag were always a point of stress.

Depending on the model you are using the same thing happens today.

Often the primary target of piracy is the captains safe with all the hard currency for the crew salaries and for ship expenses that need to be paid in cash. Citation is from wikipedia but also something I've heard of independently.

I would suspect that carrying large quantities of currency would likely be a point of stress well into the future. At the most stressful end that would be bank transfers - either using distribution, secrecy and insurance to minimise the risk, or using IN or other heavily armed craft to do the transfers. With a billion credits of precious material in the hold most ships should be a little nervous.

 

[Icosahedron]

Yes, IMTU any transfer of hard (non-electronic) currency between worlds is made to coincide with naval task force manoeuvres in order to provide a substantial escort. After all, the main peacetime purpose of the navy is to protect the local economy.

 

[pendragonman]

I hate to bring in the whole "Traveller is isomorphic to the age of sail" argument again, but during the age of sail much of these same problems occured. Letters of credit from reputable banks and bullion were the norm for large transactions. Cash for the smaller ones. Local regions printing script (often at a horrid exchange rate with the "mother" currency) like the HK dollar to cover local needs of the government. Probably would be here too.

At least in my TU. Results may vary in YTU.

 

[Supplement Four]

Just for official CT reference on this topic:

Cash in the Imperium is handled in a Library entry in the Traveller adventure, complete with a picture of what Imperial Credits look like. If I remember correctly, these were sliced silicon or plastic or some other high tech, nearly indestructible, but-felt-like-paper bills of cash that are near-impossible to counterfeit.

A JTAS article covers using a credit card in the Imperium, but from what I remember, the requirements were quite steep. I think a TL 12+ world was required (and some other requirements as well), which makes most of the worlds on the fringe sectors, like the Spinward Marches, unable to make use of the credit card viable (there aren't too many worlds in the Aramis subsector that are TL 12+).

And, this supports your thoughts in the OP.





I remember watching Han Solo take his boxes of coin (or whatever it was) he got for rescuing the princess from the Death Star in A New Hope and thinking, "Man, that's a lot of heavy boxes he's got there...why not use cash, or better yet, credit?"

Conversely, I remember watching Trek IV, when they were back in time in San Francisco to save the whales, and Kirk says, "They're still using money..."



I think, for Traveller (at least form these CT-perspective lenses I view the game through), that cash and coin is used throughout the Imperium as the Library entry in the Traveller Adventure states.

There may be some close worlds, all TL 12+, that use the credit card shown in the JTAS. And, these must be fantastic for those Travellers who venture only to those worlds.

For the rest, who go to all sorts of places, it's cash that makes the economic system in the Imperium work.

It isn't only communication that is knocked back to the 18th century because of the distance between worlds and the Jump Drive. Money is effected too.





It seems that a creative and enterprising GM could make for some interesting encounters concerning money exchange (if the players are carrying Imperial Credits and the world only uses local currency outside the starport), if he put his mind to it.

 

[BlackBat242]

Conversely, I remember watching Trek IV, when they were back in time in San Francisco to save the whales, and Kirk says, "They're still using money..."

Gold... pressed... Latinum!

Cash in Traveller

There is ALWAYS a place for "The Man In Black" anywhere in my games!!!

 

[Supplement Four]

Gold... pressed... Latinum!

That was Feringi money, right? The Federation didn't use it...I don't think.

 

[veltyen]

That was Feringi money, right? The Federation didn't use it...I don't think.

Yup. Considering how universal the concept of money is at the present time, a culture that has moved beyond it is an unusual choice. They never describe how this happened (which is a good thing - financial technobabble would have been excruciating) just that it is that way.

As an aside the federation could be described as one of the most dysfunctional hellholes from the source material supplied. That is a discussion for elsewhere.

The culture (Iain Banks) also doesn't use money internally, and is better described and somewhat more believable.

 

[aramis]

Given that Trek shows a system of specific allocations rather than currency... it seems the federation is a highly socialist managed economy with multiple electronic "currencies"... replicator rations, meal allowances, clothing allotments, computer allotments, etc.

Quite likely, several high-law worlds of TL12+ are likely to have similar currency-free mutiple allotment systems on world.

I'm minded of the Disney system. When I stayed at a disney hotel, my room key not only allowed access to my room, and to the parks, but also got me two meals a day, and a beverage container and refills each day. It also got me a towel loan at the pool. It also served as a credit card and a debit card, depending upon balance.

I can see one or more of the more insular worlds having developed a resort economy, with a similar daily resource set, possibly charging a daily fee for tourists, and crediting 1.5 days per shift worked. Some form of resource point for books, toys, games, knicknacks, and that such.

Make for a hell of a vacation world. Cr100 per day, all expenses covered, including a small shopping allowance for souvenirs...

 

[BlackBat242]

That was Feringi money, right? The Federation didn't use it...I don't think.

The Federation didn't officially use it, but lots of Federation citizens sure seemed to spend a lot of their time & effort to acquire it... I even seem remember an episode where it was accepted for "black-market" deals on one of the Federation core worlds!

Like many of the claims of TNG/DS9 Federation "enlightenment" the "cashless society" was more facade and less reality, once Roddenberry was no longer around to enforce his utopian vision.

 

[veltyen]

The Federation didn't officially use it, but lots of Federation citizens sure seemed to spend a lot of their time & effort to acquire it... I even seem remember an episode where it was accepted for "black-market" deals on one of the Federation core worlds!

Like many of the claims of TNG/DS9 Federation "enlightenment" the "cashless society" was more facade and less reality, once Roddenberry was no longer around to enforce his utopian vision.

Cashless is quite different from moneyless.

We might soon reach a cashless society - it will take a lot longer to get to a money free society (even if that is ever an aim). There needs to be someway to allocate resources, and a adequately constrained free market seems to currently be the best of breed.

 

[boomslang]

Joe Local of Regina decides to go on vacation at Wypoc.

OT: Oh dear heavens, why?

Four possibilities:

1. Joe is a glutton for punishment who enjoys taking a break from the shirtsleeve environment of his T-prime homeworld to spend a few weeks living in domes and tubes breathing recirculated air and eating reprocessed fungi-foodstuffs.

2. Joe's travel agent is a vicious practical joker and/or holds a serious grudge.

3. Joe is a psionically-trained undercover NI operative functioning as a courier.

4. Joe is a deep-cover Zhodani agent on an espionage and/or sabotage mission.

However, your point is well-taken; whatever spurious rationale motivates him, he will definitely want to pre-pay his return ticket...


:smirk:

 

[aramis]

Why Wypoc? Big Game, man. The Hilands have a 44 ton FLYING predator that can eat an air-raft... the infamous Wypoc Dragon.... and then there is the tuk-tuk, which uses a catalytic explosive to propel chunks of horn at 400m/s...

(when I first rolled up Wypoc's animal encounters, I got some rather wierd stuff....)

 

[boomslang]

Why Wypoc? Big Game, man. The Hilands have a 44 ton FLYING predator that can eat an air-raft... the infamous Wypoc Dragon.... and then there is the tuk-tuk, which uses a catalytic explosive to propel chunks of horn at 400m/s...

Ah... so it is some variation of #1, then...

(Unless of course the reported fauna is merely an NI cover story to discourage casual tourism...)