Payment options on the (SF) frontier

[Fred Brackin]

Originally Posted by thrash

Part of it is a setting design preference: I want to clearly distinguish the frontier from the panopticon society back in the Solar system.

Part of it is necessary, I think, in order to allow some transactions and services to be viable. I already mentioned using "security contractors" for plausible deniability. A manager could also hire an independent scout to monitor the neighboring corps' outposts, or search for claim-jumping opportunities. An independent merchant might be "encouraged" to deliver contraband weapons to a nascent workers' revolt at a rival's outpost. All of that is made more difficult if the enabling transactions leave a viable audit trail.
.

If there's only ever one ship at an outpost at a time and it's the Company bulk freighter several of these missions are now impossible. If these corporate outposts (the word "Frontier" has been leading to misconceptions) are single ownership for entire planets and systems then there's no independent traffic to carry arms or for scouts or whoever to ride. It's all just hitching rides on the Company freighters and the Company can refuse any passengers or any cargo it doesn't like.

Even if any of these "independents" have their own ships the (local)Company doesn't have to let them land or allow them to do business in its' territory.

I'm afraid I have to agree that you've defined PCs out of existence.

[lwcamp]

Originally Posted by Anaraxes

Actually, spending the same digital coin more than once is one of the bigger problems with digital currencies -- as yet unsolved, AFAIK.

You might be able to appeal to quantum mechanics here (along with some amazing ultra-tech stuff). It is fundamentally impossible to fully copy a quantum state (getting around the "you can spend it more than once" issue). You can transfer the state (or its information, same thing) to another place (allowing you to spend it), and you can make so-called "weak" measurements to verify the existence of the state without destroying it. I haven't thought through all of the issues of how this could be used as a currency, but this may be a start.

The problem is that at our tech level, quantum states decohere on a short time scale - typically femtoseconds to picoseconds. Those systems that have electronic states that last as long as microseconds are being extensively researched for quantum computing. Nuclear spin states can maintain coherence for seconds, minutes, even hours for some materials. Needless to say, a currency will not be any good if your equivalent of dollar bills vanish into the wholeness of the universe after a few hours, so you will need to handwave some ultra-tech substrate that can maintain quantum coherence indefinitely (at least decades if not longer).

Luke

[thrash]

Originally Posted by Fred Brackin

If there's only ever one ship at an outpost at a time and it's the Company bulk freighter several of these missions are now impossible. If these corporate outposts (the word "Frontier" has been leading to misconceptions) are single ownership for entire planets and systems then there's no independent traffic to carry arms or for scouts or whoever to ride. It's all just hitching rides on the Company freighters and the Company can refuse any passengers or any cargo it doesn't like.

Even if any of these "independents" have their own ships the (local)Company doesn't have to let them land or allow them to do business in its' territory.

I should clarify: the UN-granted licenses are not for entire planets, although they have that effect if there's no competing license, and there is no "ownership" except of the outpost's facilities -- that would violate the Outer Space Treaty. Worlds with multiple outposts are a different sort of problem, though, which is why I've been concentrating on the single outpost case.

There is independent traffic, as I have stated, although it is irregular. Ships are relatively cheap, so the barriers to owning one are lower. Yes, the corp can forbid non-affiliated ships from using their facilities, but then they lose out on the benefits of offworld contact: news, data updates, novel goods, etc.

The rest of your objections can be answered by noting that planets are big places. The tech I'm assuming allows jumps much closer to the surface than Traveller's 100 diameters. There is also no gravitic tech, and the fusion torches are slightly less unrealistic than the ones in Spaceships. I have done the math: it is possible to jump in and maneuver to the ground while a single outpost is out of sight below the horizon.

[thrash]

Originally Posted by Anaraxes

In the setting, it sounds like Earth is at least the main (or only) hub. With little colony-to-colony traffic, verification with Earth is all you really need to do; the bad guys came through Earth to get to your little world anyway. And that link has the highest traffic rate, at least....

Many of the digital cash schemes also start with an assumption that there's no authority to trust, as a philosophical preference. In this setting, though, Earth might still be the trusted central authority with a resource and tech advantage that could supply the counterfeit-proof currency.

This is an interesting point. I'm starting to think the "bank in a box" approach might be viable.

Digital signature schemes benefit from a trusted central certificate authority to distribute the public keys needed to verify the signatures and link them to particular identities. An Earth-based bank (whether national or corporate doesn't matter) could serve as that authority for its clients.

Each "bank in a box" is certified by a particular corresponding bank on Earth. It is issued to an identified individual (or authorized corporate officers) with a specific private encryption key, and the associated digital certificate (with ID and public key) distributed on data networks. The box itself serves four functions: keep the private key secure, authenticate the owner's identity for any transaction, verify the available balance on the box, and record digitally signed transactions on a Write Once Read Many (WORM) memory.

Two boxes are required for a transaction. Each owner authenticates his identity and authorizes his part of the transaction. The boxes exchanged two digitally signed records each: one credit, one debit, and acknowledgements of both. Using the digital certificates issued by their respective banks, the boxes verify the authenticity of the transactions. These signed and authenticated transactions and receipts are engraved on the WORM memory, with enough redundancy to prevent tampering after the fact.

Periodically, each box sends its transaction history back to the issuing bank for consolidation and comparison. If there are any discrepancies, the bank revokes the box's certificate and issues a recall to the owner. There are certainly lags in both directions, but the signed transaction history serves as a local check against fraud.

"Man in the middle" attacks are avoided by having the boxes in physical proximity, rather than sending transactions remotely (for these, see Stross' Neptune's Brood). The scheme should be as secure as the WORM memory medium, which could be pretty good until the widespread availability of dry nanotechnology.

A prudent independent might want to keep several different boxes, in case there's a certificate glitch with one of them. Some smaller nation-states on Earth might go in for looser banking regulations (allowing anonymous, numbered accounts, say) and act as "flags of convenience" for shady dealing.

[vicky_molokh]

Originally Posted by thrash

I should clarify: the UN-granted licenses are not for entire planets, although they have that effect if there's no competing license, and there is no "ownership" except of the outpost's facilities -- that would violate the Outer Space Treaty. Worlds with multiple outposts are a different sort of problem, though, which is why I've been concentrating on the single outpost case.

There is independent traffic, as I have stated, although it is irregular. Ships are relatively cheap, so the barriers to owning one are lower. Yes, the corp can forbid non-affiliated ships from using their facilities, but then they lose out on the benefits of offworld contact: news, data updates, novel goods, etc.

The rest of your objections can be answered by noting that planets are big places. The tech I'm assuming allows jumps much closer to the surface than Traveller's 100 diameters. There is also no gravitic tech, and the fusion torches are slightly less unrealistic than the ones in Spaceships. I have done the math: it is possible to jump in and maneuver to the ground while a single outpost is out of sight below the horizon.

If ships are cheap and corps want the goodies provided by ships, why don't they buy their own ships, hire some crew, and get 100% of what they need without having to tolerate stuff that may be unwanted?

[thrash]

Originally Posted by vicky_molokh

If ships are cheap and corps want the goodies provided by ships, why don't they buy their own ships, hire some crew, and get 100% of what they need without having to tolerate stuff that may be unwanted?

Efficiency and risk. The ships they do buy and staff are committed to known requirements, which are several orders of magnitude greater than the odds and ends that the independents bring. The market for those extra goods is speculative and very uncertain. Many independent merchants go bankrupt when they fail to find a buyer for what they carry, which is one reason they may turn to more dubious pursuits. The data they carry is almost always welcome, however. From both a legal and a practical standpoint, the corps can't really prevent the independent from being in the system or landing outside the area the corp is licensed to work. It may be better to have the independents where they can can see them.

There is also a political aspect to it. A corp outpost may tolerate the occasional independent working its way across the frontier, but a visit from a rival corp's vessel raises all sorts of other questions. (In my background, there was a shooting war among the corps and their proxies a few years back, euphemistically referred to as the "Adjustment." Tensions are lower now, but still not fully resolved.)

Sooner or later, as I have alluded above, there will be enough demand for cross-frontier trade that the corps will invest in it. We are just not at that point yet.

[cptbutton]

Originally Posted by thrash

There is also a political aspect to it. A corp outpost may tolerate the occasional independent working its way across the frontier, but a visit from a rival corp's vessel raises all sorts of other questions. (In my background, there was a shooting war among the corps and their proxies a few years back, euphemistically referred to as the "Adjustment." Tensions are lower now, but still not fully resolved.)

Per this independents are handy for deniability reasons.

[thrash]

The proxies I mentioned were also mostly independents. Why maintain your own expendable assets, when you can outsource?

[(E)]

One situation I could see developing is a multitude of currencies as various groups attempt to fill the vacuum caused by an absence of a single currency.

All the individual currencies would have their own strengths and weeknesses and the situation would be evolution in action to see which one dominates.

[jason taylor]

One I thought of was the "cubin" because it is backed by a transporters promise of a cubic inch for his goods. Or alternatively of warehouse space. In fact ware space may be better as a redemption because while Free Traders might at times want to sub out aboard lines they will always be wanting to have warespace for stray goods and more importantly security to guard them.

On the other hand the economy could be based on the assumption that the Free Traders handle the trading on the far extreme of the frontier but the lines move goods back and forth from Terra. Effectively the Free Traders would be nomadic retailers.