Imperial Credits: What, exactly, are they?

[Border Reiver]

As an aside the reference to Imperial Credits and their manufacture can also be found in The Traveller Adventure and an alternate view on Credits can be found in White Dwarf. I can no longer recall the issue as I sold them all on e-bay last year.

IIRC credits in high tech society were issued in cards, personal account cards which carried the owners personal balance from system to system and generic "cash" cards which were issued in denominations and could have funds withdrawn from them and disposed of when empty. In fact I now regret not making copies of the various articles from WD before selling as there was some great work to be found by such luminaries as Andy Slack, Bob McWilliams and Marcus Rowland.

 

[Maladominus]

Credit Cards make sense... but only if the individual lived completely inside the Imperium. What happens when he goes into Solomani Confederation space? What happens when he travels into Vargr space, with thousands of different Vargr governments honoring completely different currency? Credit becomes meaningless in "foreign territory" that probably does not honor Imperial tender. In these cases, valuable coins and hard cash make more sense. Cash currency which has universal value (e.g. gold tinted coins) means that the precious value of the cash will be important everywhere.... not just in Imperial space. For example, all Vargr governments probably value gold or platinum/iridium just as much as the Imperial government. Likewise, the hostile Solomani Confederation will still value gold/iridium/platinum just as much as their rivals inside the Imperium.

IMTU, currency is flexible and varied, just like it is in modern Year 2006 America. It comes in the form of precious coins, currency bills, checking accounts, and also Credit/Debit Cards.

 

[Maladominus]

And to add to my comment above.... what happens when the Government of the Third Imperium COLLAPSES (MT Rebellion)? Does anyone think the Grand Bank of the Two Thousand Worlds will still honor debit cards and legal tender coming from the Imperium?? Highly unlikely! The Imperial government no longer exists like it once did. What stellar empire would honor Imperial currency after Strephon was assassinated, the Imperium in shambles with no clear leader, and the Imperium gets shattered into a dozen rival segments? Just something to think about for the MegaTraveller players.

I'm thinking that in the era of the Shattered Imperium.... the ancient system of bartering (e.g. I'll trade you 20 chickens and my daughter for your laser pistol) would have returned.

 

[kafka47]

The question is not of honouring paper notes but the capacity that those notes entail. The term credit implies that it is an extension of some sort of industrial machine.

Remember, just because the government went to hell in the Rebellion, the financial system still faired pretty well. None of the factions introduced their own currency or do serious harm to their Core industrial assets, save Dulinor who lost Verge.

Furthermore, if you read back over the original AMs most items are denoted in credits just as gold at one time had a set value, so do credits independent of the Imperium's chaos. Also, not all of the major races are monetary based systems, some rely upon quite passive financial mechanisms. For instance, I can see the Hivers engaged in one big LETS project. The Zhodani use markets as indicators but not drivers of their economy. The Solomani have simply adopted the Imperial Credit.

Of course, I know about the heretical article in The Traveller Chronicle that outlines the implications of the facturing of the currency base but that is just one more level of complexity for my Hard Times adventures, not neccessarily that of the Rebellion.

 

[parmasson]

I have a hard time believing that Deneb credits would be honored in Lucan’s terrtory.

They may all say “Imperium” but I think that without a unified political authority you would now have a speculative market for these currencies. Yeah thay are all called the Credit and may have similar buying power in their home areas but a few years into the conflict the old currency system would collapse.

 

[RainOfSteel]

Well, I found what I was looking for.

Over on Stuff Online, there is one version of what Imperial currency looks like