Wealth/Currency in the Imperium

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**Mike101**

I would think that it would be both because they all use a single form of money but like in the US the price of things changes for things like on terra fresh fruit an vegitables will be alot of money where as on a less industrial world where farming and such is possible it would be much less that and they my have territorial banks and this money can more then likely be exchanged like how you exchange money at a border crossing or airport

**KamikazeCanuck**

Lynata wrote:
Joey wrote:So...there IS a universal currency?
Going purely by what was written by the studio, the Imperium doesn't care at all how one of its member worlds manages its economy, what type of currency it uses (if it uses one at all) or what form of government it takes. All the Imperium requires is worship to the Emperor, acceptance of the authority of the various Imperial Adepta, and the willingness to pay tithes.
A universal currency would require a central authority to manage exchange rates for a million worlds, which would have to be updated in a regular fashion. Given that the Administratum and the Munitorum do not even manage to keep track of all the Imperial Guard regiments raised throughout Imperial space, how should they tackle such a monumental task as enforcing a universal currency? Travel times and communication are simply too unreliable to manage this sort of thing. Even on a Segmentum Level, the Imperial leaders aren't able to coordinate the movements of all the forces under their command, making regimental officers quite independent (which is how they can get away with simply volunteering their troops for a Ministorum Crusade).

Under these difficult conditions, barter does seem to be like the best possible way to resolve interplanetary trade.

KamikazeCanuck wrote:Thrones are the universal currencey.
No such thing as "Thrones" is showing up in any of the GW books (in fact, GW's Necromunda uses "Credits" as local currency), and the licensed material follows only the interpretation of whoever writes it.

There is no such thing as a "canon" in this setting, which means that there will be countless opinions (barter, scrip, Thrones, Credits, etc) all depending on which source you are looking at. Just pick one you like, but be aware of the contradictions and the absence of any absolutes.

Once again Lynata you strive to find ways of how things do not work rather than the opposite. I believe Thrones are the Terran currencey and that's why it's the most common. In a way it would be the "federal" currency and most accepted among civilized worlds. Each world may have it's own currencey too (obviously this stuff is not very useful on caveman worlds).

The closest real life equivalent would be like how every country has it's own currency but if you had to pick a "world currency" it would be the American Dollar. This of course is not the official world currency but very much the de facto one. Many worlds that are well integrated into the IoM wouldn't bother with a local currencey because afterall it is simpler and more effecient to use Thrones (just like there are nations that are not America that peg their currency to the greenback or just use it outright).

This is just my theory but I find it quite plausible and better than: studio don't say nothing bout no Thrones.

**Iracundus**

Lynata stated how it does work in the Imperium according to the given GW material.

The Imperium isn't like a modern nation state with a unified government and currency. Imperial sectors are oases of human civilization separated by swathes of wildnerness and alien dominated space, linked only by trade routes and the overarching veneer of Imperial control. The Imperial institutions we take for granted as players only interact with the normal average human in so far as they have to render up their labor or their bodies to serve them. For some worlds the Imperium is an abstract concept bordering on myth and may only show up once a generation or even less frequently.

With communication and records so unreliable due to the time lag and distortion caused by warp travel and astropathic communication, it is difficult enough for the Imperium to keep track of entire worlds, let alone the fluctuating financial conditions of the local economy. In such circumstances it makes sense to deal in commodities that have fixed inherent value. A billion tons of wheat can feed a fixed number of humans at a given level of nutrtition, whether you are on Terra or on Ultramar. Having commodities also means one does not have to deal with any issues of local authorities refusing to recognize and honor money or financial documents from the other end of the galaxy.

**KamikazeCanuck**

Iracundus wrote:Lynata stated how it does work in the Imperium according to the given GW material.

The Imperium isn't like a modern nation state with a unified government and currency. Imperial sectors are oases of human civilization separated by swathes of wildnerness and alien dominated space, linked only by trade routes and the overarching veneer of Imperial control. The Imperial institutions we take for granted as players only interact with the normal average human in so far as they have to render up their labor or their bodies to serve them. For some worlds the Imperium is an abstract concept bordering on myth and may only show up once a generation or even less frequently.

With communication and records so unreliable due to the time lag and distortion caused by warp travel and astropathic communication, it is difficult enough for the Imperium to keep track of entire worlds, let alone the fluctuating financial conditions of the local economy. In such circumstances it makes sense to deal in commodities that have fixed inherent value. A billion tons of wheat can feed a fixed number of humans at a given level of nutrtition, whether you are on Terra or on Ultramar. Having commodities also means one does not have to deal with any issues of local authorities refusing to recognize and honor money or financial documents from the other end of the galaxy.

That's fine and still all works within what I said. Back in the day GW simply didn't need to think about how things worked on a daily personal level. When the RPGs started to come out these things had to be addressed. FFG has done a good job on working out how many things must work in 40k that GW wouldn't even bother to think about. You can't have a planet of hundreds of billions of people without a currency system.

**Iracundus**

KamikazeCanuck wrote:
Iracundus wrote:Lynata stated how it does work in the Imperium according to the given GW material.

The Imperium isn't like a modern nation state with a unified government and currency. Imperial sectors are oases of human civilization separated by swathes of wildnerness and alien dominated space, linked only by trade routes and the overarching veneer of Imperial control. The Imperial institutions we take for granted as players only interact with the normal average human in so far as they have to render up their labor or their bodies to serve them. For some worlds the Imperium is an abstract concept bordering on myth and may only show up once a generation or even less frequently.

With communication and records so unreliable due to the time lag and distortion caused by warp travel and astropathic communication, it is difficult enough for the Imperium to keep track of entire worlds, let alone the fluctuating financial conditions of the local economy. In such circumstances it makes sense to deal in commodities that have fixed inherent value. A billion tons of wheat can feed a fixed number of humans at a given level of nutrtition, whether you are on Terra or on Ultramar. Having commodities also means one does not have to deal with any issues of local authorities refusing to recognize and honor money or financial documents from the other end of the galaxy.

That's fine and still all works within what I said. Back in the day GW simply didn't need to think about how things worked on a daily personal level. When the RPGs started to come out these things had to be addressed. FFG has done a good job on working out how many things must work in 40k that GW wouldn't even bother to think about. You can't have a planet of hundreds of billions of people without a currency system.

No one has said there was no currency system at the planetary level. The existence of Guilder credits on Necromunda from the Necromunda game shows there are such currencies, perhaps even hive currencies if the Guild is only for one hive. However at the larger scale Imperium level, there does not appear to be any unified currency. FFG has made Throne Gelt be the sector currency of their Calixis sector, but the Imperium is composed of many sectors.

The Imperium's approach towards local economies appears to be that of a command taxation system: "Give me 1 billion tons of wheat of a certain grade every 100 years. I don't care how you do it so long as you do it." If the planet can keep meeting these quotas, the Imperium leaves them alone. If there is a problem, then the Imperium steps in and if need be removes the local ruler and installs a new one to keep the flow of materials ongoing. The very distant and uncaring nature of the Imperium and how they can be woefully out of touch with local conditions is how the collection of tithes can trigger all sorts of economic hardship for a planet or spark outright rebellion.

The materials collected then may be distributed elsewhere to meet the economic/feudal obligations. It is here that I think the Imperium directly interacts with other economic actors. A Chartist captain may have a long standing family contract with the Imperium to transport said 1 billion tons of wheat from agriworld A to forgeworld B and in return, be allowed to sell off 100,000 tons on the market to cover his expenses with the remainder handed over directly to forgeworld authorities.

**KamikazeCanuck**

I agree. Tithes are probably never in throne gelt and most worlds are far flung like you say but many are not. There are many worlds where individual citizens interact with individual terrans and trade on a daily basis. I'd bet Armaggedon was one such place when things aren't going to hell there. Mars and Mechanicum folk probably do not use currency but I could see them aquiring it for when they do need to interact with the IoM in certain ways. Kinda like how China seems to be stockpiling large amounts of USD.
The Sabbat worlds and the sectors that feed it's crusade use Thrones too. I think you will see GW adopt this concept too as they have with other good ideas especially since someone else has done the heavy lifting on the complicated process of developing a fictional economic system.

**Lynata**

Iracundus wrote:No one has said there was no currency system at the planetary level.

Indeed, sorry if I was being unclear earlier - I thought we were talking about some proposed universal currency.

The planets of the Imperium are made up of a ton of different societies and economic models, ranging from barbarian tribes to highly industrialized Hive populations. Their currencies - or even the existence of such - will differ accordingly.
I believe even the Black Industries writers of the original Dark Heresy core rulebook addressed this by using bullets as an alternate local currency for Hive Metallus on the Calixis sector capital. Other than that, the RPG designers simply had to find a more useful means of paying for stuff that can be employed anywhere the player characters are located, so they came up with the idea of Thrones as a sector-wide currency, even if that seems somewhat unlikely given the aforementioned problem. I suppose it could have been avoided by simply having the players requisition things, but for some reason they thought it'd be more classy to have characters run around like mercenaries rather than Inquisition operatives, probably because it was closer to a standard roleplaying game.

KamikazeCanuck wrote: I think you will see GW adopt this concept too as they have with other good ideas especially since someone else has done the heavy lifting on the complicated process of developing a fictional economic system.

I don't see them adopting this as it'd go against their oft-stated fact that the Imperium is a monolithic bureaucratic mess. Having "Thrones" be a common currency would undermine that effort. Besides, why should they do something like that when they already have their own local currencies in the fluff?

**Castiel**

I'm sure I've seen "Imperial credits" mentioned as money before. It was probably in Gaunt's Ghosts, but I don't have them to hand to check.

**KamikazeCanuck**

Because they are bureaucratic mess. The concept of a non-official de facto currency that once again places Terra at the centre of the galaxy is exactly the kind of complicated economics that fits well with 40k. As you understand: the more complicated and byzantine it is the better in 40k and this brings in more layers of that.

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Castiel wrote:I'm sure I've seen "Imperial credits" mentioned as money before. It was probably in Gaunt's Ghosts, but I don't have them to hand to check.

Eisenhorn used "Imperials" or 'perials but in a way we might say "American" or "bucks".

**Castiel**

That's probably it then.

**BLOODCLAWallday**

In Horus rising there is a part where a remembrancer goes into a bar on a newly conquered planet and pays for liquor with imperial currency, and I believe the people were offended by the gesture.

**KamikazeCanuck**

That's kind of like Eisenhorn. The mutants in a bar are afraid to use Imperial currency because they're not allowed.

**CalgarsPimpHand**

Joey, I appreciate your devotion to the ideals of 20th Century Chicago-school capitalism, but get over it man. It's science fiction about a massive, unwieldy galactic empire with a distant central government stuck in a never-ending war, and you're concerned about comparisons to the Soviet Union going under because it couldn't make enough quality washing machines to keep people happy?

Think of it like this. Even today we have over-production and under-employment as commonplace issues in industrialized societies. These are dangerous deflationary forces. Too little money in too few hands chasing too many products. Now look at the effect war spending has on economies. It's the purest form of government stimulus: waste. You pay someone to build a bomb, then you pay someone else to drop it on other people/things. Surplus population is killed off, the end product is destroyed, but wages are high, and the economy is booming. Deflationary spiral averted.

So when the Imperium says "Raise 10 Regiments and produce 10,000 armored vehicles per year or we destroy you", you just do it. If you think that means the Imperium is screwed up and backwards, then welcome to 40k.

**Connor MacLeod**

Credits have been mentioned in various sources: Munitourm manual (Imperial Credit units as a means for Regiments to gain supplies for the regiment) and in other novels like Crimson Tears.

I would point out that it IS Possible to have a somewhat interconnected economy (like the global economy of the modern world) without having one single, unified, government behind it or one single currency. Think of the Imperium as a whole as being analogous to the world, and the various sectors/subsectors/systems/planets being components (cities/countries/nations/etc.) You just need some sort of exchange rates or a form of measurement for the exchange of economic resources (similar to the way they abstract military manpower and equipment into 'regiments' for administrative purposes.)

**CalgarsPimpHand**

Man, this thread is moving fast. I think the command taxation system is exactly right. That's how it's always been described.

As for a galaxy-wide currency, it just doesn't make much sense. I think it must be hard enough to run a currency across multiple worlds in a subsector, much less a million distantly-linked planets where even the dating system has a built in estimation of error.

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Connor MacLeod wrote:Credits have been mentioned in various sources: Munitourm manual (Imperial Credit units as a means for Regiments to gain supplies for the regiment) and in other novels like Crimson Tears.

I would point out that it IS Possible to have a somewhat interconnected economy (like the global economy of the modern world) without having one single, unified, government behind it or one single currency. Think of the Imperium as a whole as being analogous to the world, and the various sectors/subsectors/systems/planets being components (cities/countries/nations/etc.) You just need some sort of exchange rates or a form of measurement for the exchange of economic resources (similar to the way they abstract military manpower and equipment into 'regiments' for administrative purposes.)

Yeah, certainly. At the edges of different sectors or subsectors you would even have overlapping currencies. Determining exchange rates might be difficult, but surely not impossible. But when it comes to the Imperium as a single, unified government, the idea of them having a single currency doesn't make much sense.

**Connor MacLeod**

I never said they had to have a single currency (although plenty of sourcs are treating Throne gelt as being something akin to that.. its even made appearances in the HH series for crying out loud.) But that's thinking in purely terms of something tangible like most fiat currencies. Not having a fiat currency doesn't mean they don't have some measure for the vast amounts of resources that get created, shipped about, or tithed off (the tithe is just taxation with a funny name after all.)

**Lokirfellheart**

http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/362483.page

**Melissia**

Lynata wrote:No such thing as "Thrones" is showing up in any of the GW books

It showed up in the Cain books and the FFG books, which makes it more consistent than the other terms.

In the end you could just reason it as "throne gelt" being a local colliquial term for credits though.

**Connor MacLeod**

You generally don't see much in terms of ecnomics or other factors in the GW codexes because they focus on wars and explosions nad rules and how awesome the special characters are. The licensed sources are different because they tend to focus on different aspects (FFG for example has a strong emphasis on worldbuilding, so you get details like economics and industry that you owuldn't normally get in the Codexes.)

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Melissia wrote:In the end you could just reason it as "throne gelt" being a local colliquial term for credits though.

As I understand it being described in the FFG stuff, that basically is how Throne(gelt) are used. They seem to mean the same thing - thrones are just a way of 'keeping track' for adminsitrative purposes and it includes basically any form of currency or means of trade that the Imperium might engage in - both tangible and intangible.

**Iracundus**

CalgarsPimpHand wrote:Man, this thread is moving fast. I think the command taxation system is exactly right. That's how it's always been described.

As for a galaxy-wide currency, it just doesn't make much sense. I think it must be hard enough to run a currency across multiple worlds in a subsector, much less a million distantly-linked planets where even the dating system has a built in estimation of error.

Automatically Appended Next Post:

Connor MacLeod wrote:Credits have been mentioned in various sources: Munitourm manual (Imperial Credit units as a means for Regiments to gain supplies for the regiment) and in other novels like Crimson Tears.

I would point out that it IS Possible to have a somewhat interconnected economy (like the global economy of the modern world) without having one single, unified, government behind it or one single currency. Think of the Imperium as a whole as being analogous to the world, and the various sectors/subsectors/systems/planets being components (cities/countries/nations/etc.) You just need some sort of exchange rates or a form of measurement for the exchange of economic resources (similar to the way they abstract military manpower and equipment into 'regiments' for administrative purposes.)

Yeah, certainly. At the edges of different sectors or subsectors you would even have overlapping currencies. Determining exchange rates might be difficult, but surely not impossible. But when it comes to the Imperium as a single, unified government, the idea of them having a single currency doesn't make much sense.

Exactly. Rogue Traders or Imperial personnel that travel between sectors might have exchange rates in different local sector currencies. The mention of "credits" in an IG publication doesn't mean there is a universal currency as that can be a localized publication much as how the Infantryman's Uplifting Primer (or technically one local variant of it) had a section on the Tau because they were near Tau space.

The Imperium however taxes in materials and manpower. When the Imperium cannot even figure out the date of things in a reliable manner, you cannot have quick up to date exchange rates on any currency. By taxing in kind, the Imperium doesn't need to worry about a local currency being inflated or deflated, and deals in items of direct inherent value. However local units of the Administratum might deal in local currency, through conversion of the taxed resources to local currency by selling them off.

**Joey**

Connor MacLeod wrote:
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Melissia wrote:In the end you could just reason it as "throne gelt" being a local colliquial term for credits though.

As I understand it being described in the FFG stuff, that basically is how Throne(gelt) are used. They seem to mean the same thing - thrones are just a way of 'keeping track' for adminsitrative purposes and it includes basically any form of currency or means of trade that the Imperium might engage in - both tangible and intangible.

They'd be like any other foreign currency, with the exception being that they're backed up by the most powerful entity in the universe (the Imperium). To a respectible Imperial Citizen, Imperial Bonds (or "thrones") are worth money, and probably traded with the local currency. But to a rogue trader or xenos they're worthless since they lack access to the routes necessy to redeem them for something worthwhile (local currency and/or goods).
In fact printing these thrones could be a good source of income for the Imerpium, since its "conventional" costs for beurocracy etc would probably still be huge, like any government.

**KamikazeCanuck**

I think Thrones or Throne Gelt is the official term and the word credits are used instead of money.

**Arturius**

Throne Gelt is specifically refereed to as the Calixus sector currency, not the universal Imperial currency.

**Melissia**

It's used well outside the Calixis sector, all the way over across the galaxy in the Segmentum Ultima. It's a very wide ranging colliquialism, just not a universal one.

**Iracundus**

Melissia wrote:It's used well outside the Calixis sector, all the way over across the galaxy in the Segmentum Ultima. It's a very wide ranging colliquialism, just not a universal one.

Citation please?

**Melissia**

Iracundus wrote:
Melissia wrote:It's used well outside the Calixis sector, all the way over across the galaxy in the Segmentum Ultima. It's a very wide ranging colliquialism, just not a universal one.

Citation please?

All of the Cain books that deal primarily with the Guard..

**Iracundus**

Melissia wrote:
Iracundus wrote:
Melissia wrote:It's used well outside the Calixis sector, all the way over across the galaxy in the Segmentum Ultima. It's a very wide ranging colliquialism, just not a universal one.

Citation please?
All of the Cain books that deal primarily with the Guard..

That's not a citation. Can you quote a specific passage from a specific book, with page number reference, that shows the use of Thrones elsewhere other than the Calixis sector?

**Lynata**

"Wealth and money takes many forms throughout the Calixis Sector. On some worlds Acolytes may find people trading with precious shell tokens or coins of rare metals, while on others they may encounter cloth trade scrits and currency tracked only in the circuits of cogitators. In Dark Heresy, all of these kinds of currency are referred to as Throne Gelt or Thrones. A Throne is a measure of currency throughout the Calixis Sector, secured against the massive amounts of wealth generated by Imperial planetary tithes. In its most literal form, Throne Gelt refers to what is essentially the Emperor's money.
You can use Thrones to gauge the price of items from world to world as well as the Acolyte's own personal wealth, even though they may carry a myriad of different forms of currency."
- DH p. 124

Of course it'd be entirely possible that, by sheer coincidence, some other region of Imperial space just happens to have its own currency that has exactly the same name.

Or maybe we should keep in mind that the authors of licensed material do not work on a single consistent setting and are free to come up with just about anything they want, or disregard other material because they think it's not cool, or adopt other writers' material because they think it was a good idea.
Tallying what type of currency is used in which source doesn't really mean anything when all these sources are but independent opinions not in the least required to present a uniform perspective.

Andy Hoare wrote:It all stems from the assumption that there’s a binding contract between author and reader to adhere to some nonexistent subjective construct or ‘true’ representation of the setting. There is no such contract, and no such objective truth.

**Melissia**

Iracundus wrote:Can you quote a specific passage from a specific book, with page number reference, that shows the use of Thrones elsewhere other than the Calixis sector?

No, as I'm too lazy to look through thousands of pages of books just to prove a point (I don't have an e-book version, or I'd just search through them that way). However, Cain make frequent references to the term Thrones for money. And for reference, the Calixis sector is in the Segmentum Obscurus, and Cain makes a reference in Cain's Last Stand about them being across the galaxy from the Black Crusade on Cadia. Furthermore, we also know that at one of the Cain books take place near Tau Space (again practically on the opposite side of the galaxy from Segmentum Obscurus, on the far side of Segmentum Ultima).

**Lynata**

For what it's worth, the Cain books also want to tell us that a coward would make it through the Schola Progenium education and become Commissar instead of simply being sent to a civilian occupation (voluntarily or forced). They also want to tell us that a Sororitas is free to fraternize with men "for fun". And they want to tell us that the Schola Progenium doesn't practice strict gender separation when it's clearly stated in the Codex.

But of course everyone has to judge for themselves if these novels really offer a good representation of the setting.