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Ian A. Pertwee in Cavern - KI# 374362
Ahnotahm - Il quartiere
Not talking as a mod unless I say so

Actually we don't know they are golden.

When you think about it the D'ni economy spread out across the Ages, they would have had various currencies to deal with the various races. It is entirely possible that the stacks of gold coins are for another Age not for D'ni.

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Ian A. Pertwee in Cavern - KI# 374362
Ahnotahm - Il quartiere
Not talking as a mod unless I say so

They could be pyrite.

Tweek wrote:

When you think about it the D'ni economy spread out across the Ages, they would have had various currencies to deal with the various races. It is entirely possible that the stacks of gold coins are for another Age not for D'ni.

This sounds plausible.

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Random fact of the day!

Tweek wrote:

When you think about it the D'ni economy spread out across the Ages, they would have had various currencies to deal with the various races. It is entirely possible that the stacks of gold coins are for another Age not for D'ni.

Particularly in the case of Kadish, who ran a gallery supposedly specializing in ahrotahn artworks. Unless he was stealing them (in clear violation of the Loshamanesh laws), he had to trade for them somehow. Or, as has been suggested somewhere in this thread, the coins may have been considered artworks in themselves, if they came from cultures of other Ages.

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Calam wrote:

Because you're treating it like an IC conversation.

Am I? Up until you started accusing me of confusing reality and fiction, there was nothing especially OOC about your own posts. People discuss fictional things all the time. You must realise this, or you wouldn't be posting in this forum in the first place. The only reason you seem to have for calling my argument "IC" is that I have apparently crossed some arbitrary line of seriousness or something. I'm sorry if I crossed it but I couldn't (and still can't) see it.

Calam wrote:

And yes, if it was real, I'd approach it differently, because it would be real and there would be a real explanation.

I'm sorry, I still don't see how recognising something as fiction means you need to make up needlessly complicated explanations for it.

Calam wrote:

I might even care. But as it stands, you seem more interested in being proven right than having a conversation, and this is not important enough to me to try and fight you over it.

Whereas you seem to have no interest in being proven right at all. Who is being more antagonistic, the one trying to prove a point he believes to be true, or the one presenting theories only for the sake of "conversation"?

Calam wrote:

You want the simplest explanation? How about this one: there IS no explanation, because it is a game.

As has been said, we assume that this is not the answer because otherwise this entire forum would serve no purpose. I think you realise this as well, or you would have mentioned this fact to begin with.

Calam wrote:

When you're ready to hold that above any theory, and realize that this is a piece of fiction we're talking about, then maybe you'll be less aggressive in proving your point.

Maybe. I doubt it. I personally see it as a double standard to not apply one's fullest abilities to something just because one knows it's fiction unless all one is going to do is say that it's fiction and therefore moot.

Calam wrote:

I'm not against talking about this. There's nothing wrong with that. But I'm not going to participate in this conversation if it's going to become about who's right and who's wrong.

What did you think was going to happen? You and I have very different understandings of, well, communication in general it seems. Were you expecting everyone to post their theories and nobody to comment on anyone else's? I suppose that wouldn't exactly be conversation, perhaps only positive comments? But even that implicitly means any opposing theories are wrong. Perhaps you imagined we'd all just come to the same conclusion. But to me, you can't discuss something without exploring who's right and who's wrong. It's logically impossible.

Calam wrote:

There's nothing wrong with debating something from a realistic perspective as long as you remember that everything you're debating, in the end, is really just speculation about a game. I just do not have the mental energy for an argument right now, and this is not important enough for me to debate about it.

Don't feel obliged to respond to me. I appreciate you taking the effort to try and answer my questions about your arguments, but if you don't want to argue then don't.

Calam wrote:

(P.S.-- Bogardan, when half of your sentences directed at someone are ended with exclamation points, the impression is that you are yelling or angry. You may not be, and you may not think you are coming across that way, but it tends to make people go on the defensive and quite frankly it is making me uncomfortable. I feel like I am being shouted at.)

I apologise for that. I used them mostly to add emphasis. You may notice that I have not used them in this post.

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Aaaanyway...

I like the idea of the D'ni money being something hard to reproduce like Nara. Even then they could always have some sort of tracer in it that shows up under certain lighting (like those UV pens), that tracer would be heavily regulated by whoever is in charge of commerce. Because whilst Nara is hard to reproduce, there are people who used it in their daily work so counter fitting whilst difficult could be possible.

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This might have already been said, but has a currency ever really been mentioned? I mean , the only tie in I can think of is from Kadesh's vault and even that may not be from D'ni. Obvioulsy there was trade going on, but was currency used? What if goods and services were traded directly?

Xanatdul wrote:

Obvioulsy there was trade going on, but was currency used? What if goods and services were traded directly?

Tthere is no earthly economy I know of that has kept barter as a central system for trade - money is just too darn good at increasing the ability of traders to find good deals.

There is a great article about the economy that arose in POW camps during World War II that reinforces the efficiency of money/currency. Prisoners would receive identical Red Cross packages, but the preferences for the individual items in the package varied widely from prisoner to prisoner. This created perfect conditions for "gains from trade," as economists would say. At first, barter was used, but pretty quickly, the prison camps settled on common currency: cigarettes. Of course, smokers were at a disadvantage, as their "wealth" was also something they liked to consume, and there were problems with counterfeit money, as some prisoners had access to tobacco and could roll their own "money." But despite these problems, a money-economy flourished, even to the point of having prices (in cigarettes) advertised on centrally-located blackboards. (For those who want to know, the reference is R.Radford, The economic organization of a POW camp, Economica, 1945.)

Zardoz wrote:

Xanatdul wrote:

Obvioulsy there was trade going on, but was currency used? What if goods and services were traded directly?

Tthere is no earthly economy I know of that has kept barter as a central system for trade - money is just too darn good at increasing the ability of traders to find good deals.

There is a great article about the economy that arose in POW camps during World War II that reinforces the efficiency of money/currency. Prisoners would receive identical Red Cross packages, but the preferences for the individual items in the package varied widely from prisoner to prisoner. This created perfect conditions for "gains from trade," as economists would say. At first, barter was used, but pretty quickly, the prison camps settled on common currency: cigarettes. Of course, smokers were at a disadvantage, as their "wealth" was also something they liked to consume, and there were problems with counterfeit money, as some prisoners had access to tobacco and could roll their own "money." But despite these problems, a money-economy flourished, even to the point of having prices (in cigarettes) advertised on centrally-located blackboards. (For those who want to know, the reference is R.Radford, The economic organization of a POW camp, Economica, 1945.)

Wow, talk about money burning a hole through your pocket

sorry, I can't let a good pun pass me by

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"When you are courting a beautiful woman an hour seems like a second. When you are sitting on a hot cinder a second seems like an hour. That is relativity" -Albert Einstein

Another reason why game companies should consult with experts in the field - linguists, psychologists, and now I'm adding economists!

So - all that gold (looks like gold to me) in Kadish - we have to explain it. Seeing a bunch of paper laying around or text on a KI screen (the D'ni version of electronic banking!) - it's not a striking image. You don't get the idea of wealth, or of hoarding. Seeing a bunch of gold coins around - it's a nice visual reference to being wealthy, to caring about your wealth, and to hoarding your wealth

We could say that if he wanted to make use of his wealth, he could sell the gold coins, just like we sell gold coins today - something like that. That leaves the issue of the monetary system open.

My guess is that no one worked out all the issues on money/currency. Just guessing here, I would say that nothing in Uru contradicts the notion of money/currency, but nothing is known about it. I'm so not a D'ni scholar - does that seem right?

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I like Tweek's idea of special markings to denote "official" money, but I'd like to add another idea to it. Currencies on Earth, at least theoretically, are backed by gold or some sort of scarce commodity. Since Linking makes all commodities common, perhaps labor, craftsmanship, or artistry become the new commodities. I can imagine Guildsmen trading favors -- where instead of paying someone back, you do some sort of artistic work or do labor for them. This system could be codified into a system of contracts that could be marked down on an object like a coin (I imagine that the KI system could have worked like our online banking at the time of the Fall).

Try this one. What if, and this is a big what if, the ages that had access to large amounts of precious metals were actually regulated and owned by banks or mints? What if the gold in the vault was D'ni currency? As I said, that's a BIG what if. There is no real indication of the D'ni as a whole, holding precious metals very high up on the value scale. It seems like things of more natural beauty were held higher (such as the garden ages.)

Tweek wrote:

Aaaanyway...

:yeahthat:

Bogardan Mage wrote:

What did you think was going to happen? You and I have very different understandings of, well, communication in general it seems. Were you expecting everyone to post their theories and nobody to comment on anyone else's? I suppose that wouldn't exactly be conversation, perhaps only positive comments? But even that implicitly means any opposing theories are wrong. Perhaps you imagined we'd all just come to the same conclusion. But to me, you can't discuss something without exploring who's right and who's wrong. It's logically impossible.

I could sit here and spend 30 minutes quote-splicing your post with a bunch of witty dissertations, but I just don't have the energy or the time, as I already told you. Someone is always right or wrong. It's how the conclusion is reached-- and the point of the discussion-- that determines whether it's even worth arguing about. And this is definitely not. I found your points needlessly agressive, and that's why I even mentioned it. At any rate, this has fallen out of the realm of recovery and others like Tweek and BrettM have already summed up the conclusions I was wandering towards.

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In Myst V, the age Laki'ahn has a lot of Jewels ( The Hearts Of The Beasts ) in the trade house.

Maybe that is a form of currency? I think its more like gold is to us today ( Not a currency, just an expensive asset ).

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