Currency Talk

[Thaal Sinestro]

As opposed to clogging the poor Quick Questions chat, I'm putting this here:

I will also add this. While it costs OM to move your HQ from one verse to another, there is technically nothing preventing you from relocating your base within the same verse if you desire. So if you wanted to, you could roleplay starting off as a small business in the lower Tiers, only to gradually move up as your business grows until you have a needlessly shiny Tier 1 skyscraper of your very own.

Hmm... really? Interesting.
So going by that logic; would it be possible to have a mobile base (though obviously it would still have to be too large to fit through a portal, so would need to be relocated to another verse via the usual method)? And if so, what limitations would there be on that kind of thing? Would it be restricted to something lame like a camper van, or could you have an epic, gigantic airship for a base?

http://omniverse-rpg.com/viewtopic.php?f...ins#p38375
^ From four pages ago.

That may work for gold coins (though even then, I'm not too sure), since gold is fairly valuable regardless of whether it's shaped like a disk or not; but modern-day or sci-fi currencies generally contain little-to-no precious metals (and that's before you even consider paper & plastic payments); those could be produced so effortlessly that actually trying to spend them would be much like trying to use Hyper-Inflated Currency. It just wouldn't work. At all.
One little ball of Raw Omnillium the size of a pebble might be just as valuable as a whole armful of paper notes, for example.

Modern currency is valuable solely because it is limited. That's why governments and bankers go to so much effort to prevent their notes from being easily forge-able. In the Omniverse, however, doing something like that is completely and utterly impossible, and as Nealaphh pointed out in his Monotruth (which, to the best of my knowledge is accurate... in this respect, at least); an object's value in Omnillium is determined solely by the value of its components as raw elements (i.e. the same amount of gold will always be valued the same, regardless of whose face is printed upon it); meaning that people can't just make their currencies more valuable by arbitrarily assigning values to them. Making a $100 note would be little (if at all) more demanding than making a $1 dollar note, for instance.

Plus, since Secondaries can't extract things themselves, not only would they have to pay a Prime to summon objects for them, but they'd also need to pay them to extract the OM in the first place... in somewhere like Minas Tirith, where they presumably have a lot of merchants/markets all over the place, selling all manner of goods, it might be easy enough to get away with spending gold, but in any place where resources are scarce, I honestly can't imagine that using anything other than OM would really be viable, since Primes would just be able to take advantage of the economy far too easily.

You're an admin, of course, so you're free to overrule Dark Link if you want... but if you actually think about it, what he said make a lot of sense, so I for one hope that you won't.

Sorry if my argument comes across as rude or anything, Proto, I really don't mean it that way. I just happen to take economics a little too seriously. :roll:

The fact is that ANY form of currency is only worth the Omnilium you put into it, so all that precious/not precious stuff doesn't matter. The only currency in the world is omnilium, and the different verses accept different forms of easily carried omnilium. There are no rules as to how much omnilium takes up how much space, so a currency with a 100 on it could very well be worth more than a currency with 10 on it.

Primes will eventually be the ones to convert the currency back into OM, but having a standardized or at least SEMI standardized system for currency would allow merchants to base their currency off of SOMETHING. Like, what the fuck did peasants do with gold? They gave it to people who did stuff with it in exchange for other goods. That's how money works.

Additionally, because OM only TRULY exists within the control of Primes, it has to be formed into SOMETHING in order to be GIVEN to a Secondary. If you make the physical form of OM a shimmering sphere of whateverthefuck, COOL, but that's not an inherently more "pure" form of OM, and it seems a hell of a lot harder to carry and count.

Also, a lot of motherfuckers are stupid. A shiny gold coin is probably a lot more alluring to a medieval peasant than some weird glowing glob of who the hell knows what.

@Thaal; I had a huge comment typed out to reply to you, attempting to refute what you'd said... but then I remembered the Shrink power.

It doesn't weaken people, so they must still have the same "value", despite being tiny. Logically, then, this principle ought to be able to apply to inanimate objects as well. In other words - you're right, and I was completely mistaken, in that regard.
Since OM can be compressed, it would be possible to differentiate between notes and coins. That's an awesome point, so thanks for making it.

Do you really think that everyone would accept everyone else's currency here, though? Because if not then OM still trumps everything, regardless of whether or not people like the look of Omni's Balls. Just think; if you strolled into Camelot and tried to spend Imperial Credits, would that go down well with the locals? Even if it wasn't illegal to use the currency of a nation at war with theirs (and it might well be), it'd be certainly enough to get you looked at with suspicion.

That may not pose much of a problem to Primes, who can just spend a few minutes extracting and reformatting their currency... but Secondaries would be left at the mercy of money changers and unscrupulous Primes, who could charge whatever rates they wanted for money-changing services, knowing full well that the secondary might not even be able to buy food without their help.
It just doesn't seem convenient.

Of course, taking into account the point you raised about imbuing, things just become even worse. In fact, it's shocking that the Secondaries have any sort of functioning economy at all. Think about it; Primes may have ways of sensing the amount of OM, roughly, at least, within something (I don't know if they can actually do this, but it wouldn't surprise me if they could... even if it had to be purchased as a move, it's probably theoretically possible, at least), but Secondaries sure as hell don't - Primes could just hand them a coin and claim that it was worth ten times what it actually was!
The rich might have had Primes develop devices for them capable of testing things like that, but the average commoner most certainly wouldn't.

Honestly, in a scenario like this, anything other than just trading goods directly doesn't really seem viable to me. I no longer have any idea how anything in this reality could function as a currency. The only way to get things done would seem to be to bring your goods directly to a trustworthy Prime and have them transformed into whatever you needed... or whatever someone else wanted in exchange for doing some work for you - basically, a magically-enhanced barter system.

What do you think? Can you see any way out of this, or is it just a fact that Primes are free to scam Secondaries every time they make any sort of transaction at all?

I think the vast number of the points you bring up are actually sort of reinforcing the concept of a standardized currency. The Empire sure as hell doesn't want people trading with Camelot and visa versa, so having forms of currency which are NOT accepted is actually advantageous to the powers that be in this situation.

Also, having a MORE trusted system of standardized currency for the Secondaries would give them a BETTER idea that they are getting what they are asking for, as opposed to not. Sure, barter is probably preferred in a lot of cases, but the reason we moved from barter to currency in almost every culture ever is that it's a pain in the ass to haul a bunch of chickens and bread around when you want to get a pint at the pub. It's not convenient and it's not quick. It's also much more difficult to determine value. Is it worth two chickens? Is it worth... a fucking landspeeder or whatever?

So, I mean yeah, Primes could probably make some pretty convincing counterfeits (that is if Secondaries can't determine the OM value of items by handling them, or that there isn't some unmistakable way to verify how much it is), but the alternatives are just untenable.

Also, let's remember the actual Rules post about Omnilium:

It has been theorised that omnilium represents value itself. It can take many forms. When held by a Prime, it absorbs into their being and becomes a kind of essence that cannot be given or stolen, only used. It can take many physical forms, but the default is a kind of malleable sphere that can be split or combined at will, instantly reconfiguring itself to the same shape, size and weight but changing in 'density' depending on how much actual omnilium the orb represents. While anyone can split and recombine omnilium, secondaries cannot hold it within themselves as Primes can.

The only "true" form of OM is within the body of a Prime. Anything else is just a Prime's summoned representation of OM. Even a shiny sphere of whatever the shit isn't even the "true" form of OM, because OM is just a representation of "value." If a Secondary can't inherently determine the OM value of an object, then trading with shiny stuff wouldn't really work either, because something being the same size, shape, weight, etc but being of a variable visual density is a really hard thing to count beans with.

Even the most standard of visual representations are meaningless to people who can't absorb the shit, so having a standardized currency that is usually of the same value would be very useful for people, even if it could be counterfeited.

[Deadpool]

I know my opinion probably doesn't mean much here, but here's my perspective on the whole issue:

Whatever type of currency is used throughout the Omniverse is still, in essence, used OM. Even the precious metals of the Omniverse are made of used OM.

With that being said, currency should be up to the perspective of whoever is writing. Maybe there can be some sort of measurement (density, weight, etc), but I find it really hard to explain anything beyond that. Not unless the Empire and Kingdom stamp their faux-coins.

[Reece]

I think the vast number of the points you bring up are actually sort of reinforcing the concept of a standardized currency. The Empire sure as hell doesn't want people trading with Camelot and visa versa, so having forms of currency which are NOT accepted is actually advantageous to the powers that be in this situation.

Oh, undoubtedly; all I meant was that I wasn't sure whether merchants would use those currencies or not (if you had a choice between a universally accepted currency, and one which you'd need to pay money changers to swap if you ever left your home city, which would you opt for?)... that said, I guess in the case of Secondaries who have found a verse to settle in, using one of these other currencies would probably be fine (aside from the counterfeiting).

Also, having a MORE trusted system of standardized currency for the Secondaries would give them a BETTER idea that they are getting what they are asking for, as opposed to not. Sure, barter is probably preferred in a lot of cases, but the reason we moved from barter to currency in almost every culture ever is that it's a pain in the ass to haul a bunch of chickens and bread around when you want to get a pint at the pub. It's not convenient and it's not quick. It's also much more difficult to determine value. Is it worth two chickens? Is it worth... a fucking landspeeder or whatever?

Certainly not convenient, no... but it'd be easy enough to determine value if you had a trustworthy (<with emphasis on this word here) Prime to help you out; they just take not of how much OM is in different objects (by extracting and rebuilding, if necessary) and tell people what each is worth...
That said, saying this has made me realise that few Primes, if any, would ever waste their time like this; they were brought to the Omniverse because they're supposed to be interesting, after all, not to hang around valuing chickens and pints for Secondaries. So I guess I'll have to concede this point.

So, I mean yeah, Primes could probably make some pretty convincing counterfeits (that is if Secondaries can't determine the OM value of items by handling them, or that there isn't some unmistakable way to verify how much it is), but the alternatives are just untenable.

You're probably right. It's kinda unfortunate that any Prime with even a hint of deviousness is likely to figure this out at some point, and could subsequently become immensely rich simply by lying about the value of the notes/coins they were handing over with every trade they made... but I guess that's just how this world must work. This may well be just another reason the Secondaries get screwed over so much.

Also, let's remember the actual Rules post about Omnilium:

It has been theorised that omnilium represents value itself. It can take many forms. When held by a Prime, it absorbs into their being and becomes a kind of essence that cannot be given or stolen, only used. It can take many physical forms, but the default is a kind of malleable sphere that can be split or combined at will, instantly reconfiguring itself to the same shape, size and weight but changing in 'density' depending on how much actual omnilium the orb represents. While anyone can split and recombine omnilium, secondaries cannot hold it within themselves as Primes can.

The only "true" form of OM is within the body of a Prime. Anything else is just a Prime's summoned representation of OM. Even a shiny sphere of whatever the shit isn't even the "true" form of OM, because OM is just a representation of "value." If a Secondary can't inherently determine the OM value of an object, then trading with shiny stuff wouldn't really work either, because something being the same size, shape, weight, etc but being of a variable visual density is a really hard thing to count beans with.

Hmm... I somehow forgot about the density-changing. I guess it must work like that with everything, then; the shape & weight are the same, regardless of the 'value' you put into it, but some objects are more dense than others... obviously, though, you can't just go around stress-testing everything, since you're gonna end up tearing/bending/breaking a whole bunch of your notes/coins/glowy-balls...
So yeah, I can't deny this either, I guess.

Even the most standard of visual representations are meaningless to people who can't absorb the shit, so having a standardized currency that is usually of the same value would be very useful for people, even if it could be counterfeited.

Well, I guess you have me convinced... though I do get the impression that you may be slightly underestimating the likely scale of the counterfeiting. True, no one whose stories I've read so far has mentioned it, but that's likely due to their characters simply not having even considered the possibility. But anyone who did, and was willing to break a few rules, could easily start churning out 100-Gold coins which were actually only worth 1-Gold... and once they passed that secret along, their (Prime) friends could also take advantage of it. Basically; Primes can embezzle everyone they meet with no effort at all.
True, this might not work for someone who had taken up residence in one specific place, since they'd end up with a reputation as a cheat, but for travelling Primes, it ought to pose no problem... especially for those with forgettable faces, skill with disguises, or shapeshiting powers.

Whatever type of currency is used throughout the Omniverse is still, in essence, used OM. Even the precious metals of the Omniverse are made of used OM.

Yeah, the problem we've found, though, is that unless you want your 100-Gold-Coin (or whatever the equivalent would be in other currencies) to be one hundred times the size of the 1-Gold-Coin, you're going to have to compress it... and assuming everything else follows the same rules as Omnillium compression (which is highly likely, given that the Shrink power allows you to reduce your weight, as well as size), then the only difference other than the coin's design will be that it is more dense... and since density can't be easily measured, it would be incredibly easy for unscrupulous Primes to take advantage of this by summoning less dense (and therefore cheaper) versions of the coins, but which have large numbers printed upon them. By trading these, then extracting their purchases and making more fake coins, then repeating the process, it would be possible to make a huge amount of OM (at the Secondaries' expense) in only a short period of time.

With that being said, currency should be up to the perspective of whoever is writing. Maybe there can be some sort of measurement (density, weight, etc), but I find it really hard to explain anything beyond that. Not unless the Empire and Kingdom stamp their faux-coins.

True, I suppose.

[Retane]

I know my opinion probably doesn't mean much here, but here's my perspective on the whole issue:

Whatever type of currency is used throughout the Omniverse is still, in essence, used OM. Even the precious metals of the Omniverse are made of used OM.

I tihnk DP is correct on this.. but give me a fewminutess to pull out the rule book that answeres whatever question

[Retane]

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Secondaries are functionally independent of those who summoned them, but their existence benefits Primes because they harvest Omnilium, boosting the local 'economy'. This Omnilium ultimately finds its way to Primes when they are employed by (usually wealthy) secondaries.

Our economy is our currency, yes or No? THink this should clear up drama

[Magus]

Well. No. Economies are not currency.

However the info you cited is what should have been referenced at the start of this whole conversation; the fact that secondaries can harvest Omnilium makes the ability to have a currency more realistic. I'd imagine if you're capable of harvesting Omnilium, you must therefore also be able to measure it - this implies that Magus churning out $10,000,000 Omnibucks that only turn out to be worth 1OM is therefore not possible (or at least, you'd have to find a really, really dumb secondary).

Plus, the rules in the same section Retane sourced state that the relationship between Primes and secondaries is seen as exploitative by some, so a lot of the difficulties that present themselves are canon.

[Reece]

http://omniverse-rpg.com/abouttheworld.p..._The_World

Secondaries are functionally independent of those who summoned them, but their existence benefits Primes because they harvest Omnilium, boosting the local 'economy'. This Omnilium ultimately finds its way to Primes when they are employed by (usually wealthy) secondaries.

Our economy is our currency, yes or No? THink this should clear up drama

Hey now, don't you think Thaal and I already know that? =P

We were just discussing this because of Dark Link and Proto Man's replies to Black Mage's Question (No. 2). DL said Omnillium was the only currency, and Proto corrected him.

It's complicated, but basically the answer to the currency question seems to be that (unless Omni posts something contradicting this) both Omnillium & other forms of money are suitable... however, neither of them really appear likely to work all that well when you take a closer look at the Omniphysics involved (see previous posts for the detailed reasoning behind this).

That said, Thaal has been able to correct a couple of my misconceptions on this issue already, so he may be able to come up with a decent solution... or Omni could just pop in and say "Oh yeah, FYI there's a special never-before-mentioned aspect to Omniphysics that stops people forging money"... or something like that. That would also solve the problem, I guess.

[Magus]

Well you can't counterfeit money based on my theory above. If a secondary can harvest and measure Omnilium, they'd be sensitive to the value of it, regardless of it being a gooey OM blob or a stack of cash.

That's how I see it, anyway.

[Reece]

However the info you cited is what should have been referenced at the start of this whole conversation; the fact that secondaries can harvest Omnilium makes the ability to have a currency more realistic. I'd imagine if you're capable of harvesting Omnilium, you must therefore also be able to measure it - this implies that Magus churning out $10,000,000 Omnibucks that only turn out to be worth 1OM is therefore not possible (or at least, you'd have to find a really, really dumb secondary)

Oooohhh... I was just taking "harvest Omnillium" to mean that they gathered wood and stuff; I assumed that because they couldn't summon things, that meant that they also wouldn't be able to extract things like Primes can. :roll:

That said, having the ability to extract something doesn't necessarily give people the ability to sense how much there is of it in an object, without actually having to extract it to check. It'd certainly make sense if it does turn out to work that way, but so far as I know, it's never been mentioned in the rules or anywhere else... hell, I don't even know if Primes can sense the amount of OM in something without actually extracting the OM from it.

[Magus]

However the info you cited is what should have been referenced at the start of this whole conversation; the fact that secondaries can harvest Omnilium makes the ability to have a currency more realistic. I'd imagine if you're capable of harvesting Omnilium, you must therefore also be able to measure it - this implies that Magus churning out $10,000,000 Omnibucks that only turn out to be worth 1OM is therefore not possible (or at least, you'd have to find a really, really dumb secondary)

Oooohhh... I was just taking "harvest Omnillium" to mean that they gathered wood and stuff; I assumed that because they couldn't summon things, that meant that they also wouldn't be able to extract things like Primes can. :roll:

That said, having the ability to extract something doesn't necessarily give people the ability to sense how much there is of it in an object, without actually having to extract it to check. It'd certainly make sense if it does turn out to work that way, but so far as I know, it's never been mentioned in the rules or anywhere else... hell, I don't even know if Primes can sense the amount of OM in something without actually extracting the OM from it.

You're right. I have no idea if the above is correct. Just my best guess.

[Guilmon]

Personally, if I were a Secondary, I'd probably keep a few of each type of coin (or some other counterweight) on me to measure their weights. If a customer pays in OM of any sort, just apply the price to one side of a balance and have them equalize it on the other. Now, this was a common practice back when they they measured coin value by its weight or whatever. I've seen in movies, at least. It's also common to see merchants fudge the values of their counterweights before, but those are the more unscrupulous ones.

[Reece]

Personally, if I were a Secondary, I'd probably keep a few of each type of coin (or some other counterweight) on me to measure their weights. If a customer pays in OM of any sort, just apply the price to one side of a balance and have them equalize it on the other. Now, this was a common practice back when they they measured coin value by its weight or whatever. I've seen in movies, at least. It's also common to see merchants fudge the values of their counterweights before, but those are the more unscrupulous ones.

Yeah, not a bad idea... except for the fact that density =/= weight:

Also, let's remember the actual Rules post about Omnilium:

It has been theorised that omnilium represents value itself. It can take many forms. When held by a Prime, it absorbs into their being and becomes a kind of essence that cannot be given or stolen, only used. It can take many physical forms, but the default is a kind of malleable sphere that can be split or combined at will, instantly reconfiguring itself to the same shape, size and weight but changing in 'density' depending on how much actual omnilium the orb represents. While anyone can split and recombine omnilium, secondaries cannot hold it within themselves as Primes can.

The important part is bolded and underlined.

It's a fair bet that everything shrunk in the Omniverse also follows this rule (otherwise any human-sized characters would end up weighing WAY too much if they actually ever shrunk themselves down to, let's say, a couple inches tall, via the Shrink power), so simply weighing coins wouldn't actually tell you anything.