Federal Credits Draft
Federal money takes three forms — electronic balances within a system, letters of credit carried between systems, and a tightly-regulated hard-currency alloy issued by the Republic.
World Rules
- Within a single system, value moves electronically between customers and merchants. Both parties must hold accounts with accredited institutions in that system; charges are then exchanged electronically. Does not cross between systems (comms are limited by travel time).
- To move value between systems, parties carry letters of credit from respected institutions. Issuers range from independent groups known across multiple systems to licensed Federal Republican banks. Licensed federal banks must accept letters from member institutions.
- The Federal Republic issues hard currency as a metallic alloy of specific, Republic-governed ratios. Producing alloy in this formula is highly regulated; counterfeiting means reproducing a controlled alloy, not just stamping coins.
Overview
Money in the Federal Republic of Worlds comes in three forms, shaped by the hard fact that communication and value can only travel as fast as ships do between systems.
Details
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Electronic credit (intra-system). The everyday form: balances transferred electronically between customers and merchants. Works only when both parties hold accounts with accredited institutions in that system. Fast and frictionless at home — useless across the gate.
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Letters of credit (inter-system). Because nothing settles electronically across systems, value travels as letters of credit carried from a respected institution in one system to another. Issuers run from independent outfits known and trusted across multiple systems up to the licensed Federal Republican banks, which are obliged to honor letters from member institutions.
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Hard currency (Federal alloy). The Republic’s physical money is a metallic alloy mixed to specific, Republic-governed ratios. Producing the alloy is highly regulated — the value and anti-counterfeiting both live in the controlled formula, not a mint stamp. Counterfeiting it is a capital offence, punishable by death. The Republic protects the formula the way it protects the gates: absolutely, because the whole inter-system economy rests on it.
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What paying in hard alloy signals. On a frontier station where electronic credit covers everyday business, handing someone physical federal alloy is a deliberate act. It leaves no account trail, it cannot be frozen or clawed back, and it is troublesome enough to obtain that producing a stack of it says the payer is serious and wants no record.
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Hard currency on the frontier. Some frontier operators deal only in physical credits because they distrust banks. Harding Roberts paid the crew that way on Peric IV D. Confirmed Session 11.
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Import tax at the gate. A starport can tax goods carried through its security gate. At Furosuto Supaia Spaceport a tool costs five credits to bring in and a bottle classed as a bioluminescent byproduct costs two; weapons are declared separately. Confirmed Session 12.
Cross-Domain Links
- Politics and Citizenship — the Republic’s licensing power is the same lever behind accredited institutions and federal banks.
- Interstellar Travel — why letters of credit exist at all: value, like people, can’t outrun the ships that carry it.
- On a frontier dead-end like the Thides System, expect letters of credit and hard alloy to do most of the real work; electronic credit only matters inside MacMillian Station IV’s own economy.