gold coinage sol(dek) 1.60 ounces $680

demi (dem) .70 ounce $297

dece (tenner) .35 ounce $148.75

gram (piece) .035 ounce $14.87

silver coinage lune (silver) 1.60 ounces $12.80

half (half) .70 ounce $ 5.60

dece silver (silverbit) .35 ounce $ 2.80.

gram silver (libby) ,035 ounce $ ,28

bronze coinage

(bronze and copper are reckoned as portions of a silver lune, and fluctuate with the value of the lune.)

penny 1/10 lune $1.28

halfpenny (pennybit) 1/20 lune $ .64

cent 1/100 lune $ .128

copper coinage copper (bit) 1/10 cent $ .0128

Chattalen Coinage

gold coinage credit (cred) 1.60 ounces $680

demis (derni) .80 ounces $340

dekas (dek) . 16 ounces $ 68

silver coinage standard (round) .35 ounces $2.80

silver penny (skimmer) .035 ounces $ .28

copper coinage penny (flor) 1/10 standard $ .28

halfpenny (half) 1/20 standard $ .14

cent 1/100 standards .03

Some idea of the true value of currencies may be gained by knowing the value per ounce of gold and silver on the current market; but where living standards vary widely or where there is a great difference in technological level or a wide gap between rich and poor, a good measure is the cost of a staple such as a day's supply of bread.

In Merovingen 2 cents will buy a loaf of bread or a decent fish; but you would pay 2 or 3 lunes for a pound of imported meat; and while a sweater on a canalside (a better measure than a pair of shoes, since shoes are a luxury there) might sell for a halftone, the very same sweater might go for 8 lunes in an uptown shop; and a silk scarf (imported fabric) could go for a gold dece or 4 lunes silver, Thereis a vast difference between luxury and necessity in Merovingen.

Banking

Each city stamps its own coinage, in gold, silver and base metal. There is also scrip, as traders and bankers exchange letters of credit which are very like banknotes—transferable with appropriate seals and signature—to avoid physical shipment of gold and other valuables from city to city with attendent risks of loss. But a clever thief with a good fence can manage to steal and negotiate letters of credit: corruption does go high up. The common thief, unless well-placed, does not receive near face value: this is the principle deterrent to thievery of such paper. It does notstop those high enough to wash it illegally through cooperative agencies.

Manufacturing and Trade

There are some heavy manufacturing centers on Merovin, Most such industry is located well away from population centers. Some few industries such as the iron and steel mills, the few refineries and the small plastics industry are well organized with permanent employment of skilled staff, but it is considered a hazardous occupation and there are fewer people anxious for employment in what might become prime targets in another Scouring—than might be imagined. Cities generally will not tolerate such centers near them, so they are isolated, which further diminishes the number of job-seekers.

In Merovingen as an example, there are traders, there are cottage industries and small operations like goldsmithing; there are services like taverns; a small iron foundry; there are tiny breweries and distilleries and importers and exporters. There arc those who move freight on the canals. There are the bankers and rich landlords and there are the latecomers and the victims of disasters like flood or political upheaval. And in this economy many transient and many poor live from hand to mouth, in the tradition of their spacefaring ancestors who well understood the benefits of recycling. Anything thrown out is sorted and claimed down the line until very little is actually thrown away.

Merovingen exports fish, salt, and what comes in by sea; artworks, crafts, lace and leatherwork, some drugs and medicines, and many cottage industry items; some weapons; fine metalsmithing; fertilizer.

It imports: petroleum products, some drugs, textiles, grains, meats, leathers, raw metals.

In various adjustments for local abundance (Nev Hettek, for instance, is in the grain belt for the whole Det Valley and has grazing animals, but imports some fish and produces some little amount of petroleum) this is representative of Det Valley trade; and quite representative as a unit of other areas.

The tropics produce other items which arrive at Merovingen, among them raw materials and exotic luxuries and exchange is for the petroleum the Chattalen totally lacks.

Clothing and Fashion

Since the technology of Merovin was mid-27th century gone backward, Merovan technology is a hodgepodge of the modern and the makeshift. Merovin has forgotten a great deal that it once knew; certain areas of the globe remember things that other areas have forgotten due to the presence of a particular group of individuals who retained the knowledge, due to the preservation of records, or due to the prevalence of an industry elsewhere in disuse—an example of the latter being the petroleum industry in a few areas around the globe.

It is an advanced technology reduced to an earlier technology and hindered by an artificial cap, ie, that advanced technology is frowned upon.

The tendency in furnishings and dress and even in manufacture is toward the baroque: ornament for ornament's sake, but founded on a Classic age (the 27th century) which was austerely simple and high-tech. So in many respects this tendency to the baroque wars with the Classic ideal, and the result is a combination of 27th century pragmatic simplicity—for example the idea that clothes and furniture should be comfortable above all else; and the tendency of Merovan craftsfolk to embellish and complicate what they produce. Fashion exists in a few larger cities, and particularly in the Det River cities, where the river affords more than usual movement of ordinary citizens (as opposed to traders) from one city to the other, and where there exists considerable social division. In the Det Valley and also (but differently) in the tropic Chattalen, exists a concept of modishness, with all the attendant expenditure on changing fashion.

There is, underlying all of this concept, that persistent Classic ideal, which looks back to the sleek, simple comfort of 27th century dress which relied on advanced materials, and which had no particular gender-distinction. So whatever local dress has become, it is worldwide from the same origin. Since the prosperity of the Colonial period established itself in the popular mind as the epitome of human development, the tendency was to preserve the basic garments and to add accoutrements and ornament.

In Merovingen-below, certain economic factors bear on style of dress. There are terrestrial cattle on Merovin, imported along with humans, but the term also includes native animals down to some the size and habits (but not the taste) of swine. There is no refrigeration except such amenities as rootcellars and springhouses, ice in the southlands being a very rare commodity. Most meat is smoked, dried, or preserved in brine or by canning. A city like Merovingen, with abundant fish, imports little meat, except for the palates of the rich; a few small towns to the north supply Merovingen with the little amount of fresh meat it gets. The fact that both Nev Hettek and Soghon are cattle-raising areas which supply most of their own needs combined with the problems in refrigeration and Mero vingen's own reliance on local beef, tend paradoxically to discourage the development of any major cattle industry in the north of Megon. Ifrefrigeration were common it would be a different matter. As it is, the only animal product which does come downriver from that industry in any great abundance is leather; but again, scarcity, relatively high price, and the very mundane realities of a city on canals dictate that the majority of Merovingians who live on the canalsides go in wooden clogs for work, even though they will keep a pair of leather shoes for going off thepremises or otherwise go barefoot more acceptably than wearing clogs onto the noisy bridges and balconies of Merovingen-above. Canalers on the other hand go barefoot in all but the coldest weather, simply because footgear is more often soaked than not: the worst weather usually sees an amazing variety of footgear, which varies from leather boots to (more commonly) ropesoled canvas. The only leather item a canaler will generally possess is a belt. Middletowners wear practical, heavy leather articles which are expected to last for years; and only the very rich remain to keep the cobblers well-to-do. But the rich as a class are not enough against other difficulties, to encourage a vast meat and leather industry to the north—all of which serves as a very small example of the intricacies of economics, trade, and Merovingian style.