I also don't like the PT, but as far as QG not having the credits, individual Jedi are not rich, don't believe in personal possessions (could have credits for missions), was on Tatooine (a backwater, outer rim planet), and it was around 20 years prior to where the "basis" of EotE is "supposed" to be set.

A lot can happen in 20 years as far as tech is concerned.

I don't disagree but we are talking about the Outer Rim, and most probably the Colonies as well, so even if QG did have access to a Jedi slush fund (which is likely) a transfer of Cr just may not have been possible to do securely. If the PCs are in the Core I would go with electronic transfers, at least for above board transactions, but in the Rim and most of the Colonies I'd stick with cash or local banking establishments with electronic transfer being possible between world but time consuming because of the necessary verification, sort of like how bank transfers work now (if you've never sent money from one country to another from your bank it usually takes a few days for the banks to verify, which can be a pain,). It may also be impractical because it's nearly impossible to remain ahead of the curve when it comes to potential electronic theft, especially with potentially billions of technologically savvy cyber criminals and organizations trying to hack the systems. This would necessitate a hard currency system to ensure security.

As for advances in technology this is kind of a false comparison. Most of the tech in the SW universe is thousands of years old and is relatively stagnant, sort of like China before Western colonialism. They had had periods of great advancements then settled into a very long period of stagnation (at least technologically). Why this happened is a longer discussion but it's not important other than it being an example. So even though our technological development has grow exponentially that is no guarantee of future development.

I prefer to think that the Republic and later the Empire are in an equivalent stage of advancement but on a galactic scale, sort of a technological Dark Age where new developments are slow to emerge because old tech works well enough, if a bit inconvenient at times.

I also don't like the PT, but as far as QG not having the credits, individual Jedi are not rich, don't believe in personal possessions (could have credits for missions), was on Tatooine (a backwater, outer rim planet), and it was around 20 years prior to where the "basis" of EotE is "supposed" to be set.

A lot can happen in 20 years as far as tech is concerned.

I don't disagree but we are talking about the Outer Rim, and most probably the Colonies as well, so even if QG did have access to a Jedi slush fund (which is likely) a transfer of Cr just may not have been possible to do securely. If the PCs are in the Core I would go with electronic transfers, at least for above board transactions, but in the Rim and most of the Colonies I'd stick with cash or local banking establishments with electronic transfer being possible between world but time consuming because of the necessary verification, sort of like how bank transfers work now (if you've never sent money from one country to another from your bank it usually takes a few days for the banks to verify, which can be a pain,). It may also be impractical because it's nearly impossible to remain ahead of the curve when it comes to potential electronic theft, especially with potentially billions of technologically savvy cyber criminals and organizations trying to hack the systems. This would necessitate a hard currency system to ensure security.

If your referring to the Colonies region of the SW Galaxy, you're going to be incorrect. The Colonies region is the next region out from the Core Worlds. They would be just as technologically secure as the Core Worlds.

From the center of the galaxy it goes, Deep Core, Core Worlds, Colonies, Inner Rim, Expansion Region, Mid Rim, Outer Rim, Wild Space/Unknown Regions.

If you're referring to colonies in general, you're probably right.

Well, according to Far Horizons, credits can be transferred to the bank closest to you, does that mean the Outer Rim? Depends on how built up the planet on the Outer Rim is.

As far as saying that there are no technological advances and that everything is thousands of years old, well, I guess that the difference between the Clone Armor and Storm Trooper Armor, Venator-class Star Destroyer, Imperial-class Star Destroyer, Imperial Interdictor and the Death Star were not technological advances (all canon, and if they were around for 1000s of years where were they?). It doesn't mean that the newer items were totally better, It just means, some things were better. That's like saying that the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter can do the job of the older A-10 Warthog with close ground supprt.

There is another reason I like the idea of a tangible currency. Pulling a heist. Would the setup for Maverick (movie) be as memorable with just a credstick? I don't think so. The same goes for Ocean's Eleven.

Regardless how you feel, above all - do what is right for the story you are trying to tell. Be consistent with what you write.

I don't think anyone is arguing that there isn't hard currency in the galaxy any more than Ocean's Eleven proves credit and debit cards don't exist in the real world. The question is if, and to what extent, does electronic banking exist. We know it exists to some level thanks to the clearly named "Banking Clan" who according to the cross sections at least used "Banking Clan Frigates" which included special hyperwave transceivers so they could perform electronic transfers between their member worlds/branches without going through the public/governmental holonet. But that's in the Old Republic period. Some of the infrastructure is likely to still exist, for the use of large companies even if they found some reason to block private individuals from it.

I also don't like the PT, but as far as QG not having the credits, individual Jedi are not rich, don't believe in personal possessions (could have credits for missions), was on Tatooine (a backwater, outer rim planet), and it was around 20 years prior to where the "basis" of EotE is "supposed" to be set.

A lot can happen in 20 years as far as tech is concerned.

I don't disagree but we are talking about the Outer Rim, and most probably the Colonies as well, so even if QG did have access to a Jedi slush fund (which is likely) a transfer of Cr just may not have been possible to do securely. If the PCs are in the Core I would go with electronic transfers, at least for above board transactions, but in the Rim and most of the Colonies I'd stick with cash or local banking establishments with electronic transfer being possible between world but time consuming because of the necessary verification, sort of like how bank transfers work now (if you've never sent money from one country to another from your bank it usually takes a few days for the banks to verify, which can be a pain,). It may also be impractical because it's nearly impossible to remain ahead of the curve when it comes to potential electronic theft, especially with potentially billions of technologically savvy cyber criminals and organizations trying to hack the systems. This would necessitate a hard currency system to ensure security.

As for advances in technology this is kind of a false comparison. Most of the tech in the SW universe is thousands of years old and is relatively stagnant, sort of like China before Western colonialism. They had had periods of great advancements then settled into a very long period of stagnation (at least technologically). Why this happened is a longer discussion but it's not important other than it being an example. So even though our technological development has grow exponentially that is no guarantee of future development.

I prefer to think that the Republic and later the Empire are in an equivalent stage of advancement but on a galactic scale, sort of a technological Dark Age where new developments are slow to emerge because old tech works well enough, if a bit inconvenient at times.

Qui-gon could have done it securely then. But they had holonet access at that time. With the holonet shut down to most traffic less likely

Actually the credstick wouldn't need any outside comms to verify the data on it. Depending on the level of built-in hardware/software encryption and control the transaction could be completed right there. The credstick would record the new balance and then encrypt the data again and the other end would see the deposit of money. So, the credsticks are really a repository of digital cash. No banks, no names, no association of the money to a person. Hand the stick to someone and they have the money just as if you'd handed them cash directly. Works great for backwater worlds or ones outside the normal channels that might not even have a Holocomm unit on the planet, let alone in that particular city.

I don't understand this approach. Without any kind of external verification, what is to prevent a slicer from hacking the credstick, adding a trillion or so credits, and then retiring to the nearest pleasure planet?

Actually the credstick wouldn't need any outside comms to verify the data on it. Depending on the level of built-in hardware/software encryption and control the transaction could be completed right there. The credstick would record the new balance and then encrypt the data again and the other end would see the deposit of money. So, the credsticks are really a repository of digital cash. No banks, no names, no association of the money to a person. Hand the stick to someone and they have the money just as if you'd handed them cash directly. Works great for backwater worlds or ones outside the normal channels that might not even have a Holocomm unit on the planet, let alone in that particular city.

I don't understand this approach. Without any kind of external verification, what is to prevent a slicer from hacking the credstick, adding a trillion or so credits, and then retiring to the nearest pleasure planet?

The cred stick is supposed to be ultra secure against that kind of thing but you're right, you'd need at least some periodic external verification to make sure everything is kosher.

The cred stick is supposed to be ultra secure against that kind of thing but you're right, you'd need at least some periodic external verification to make sure everything is kosher.

Exactly - I think the difficulty for this is in Fly Casual (it's in the daunting range) - but in a galaxy of quadrillions, it would happen. if you want a scenario with hard currency, I think you'd need hard currency.

Actually the credstick wouldn't need any outside comms to verify the data on it. Depending on the level of built-in hardware/software encryption and control the transaction could be completed right there. The credstick would record the new balance and then encrypt the data again and the other end would see the deposit of money. So, the credsticks are really a repository of digital cash. No banks, no names, no association of the money to a person. Hand the stick to someone and they have the money just as if you'd handed them cash directly. Works great for backwater worlds or ones outside the normal channels that might not even have a Holocomm unit on the planet, let alone in that particular city.

I don't understand this approach. Without any kind of external verification, what is to prevent a slicer from hacking the credstick, adding a trillion or so credits, and then retiring to the nearest pleasure planet?

A slicer could, but at what cost when he can't modify the equipment that is going to be used to make the transfer from one stick to another or to a bank when on a world with access (since I'm sure the recipient would rather use their own transfer box between sticks). Remember, I said this was a combination of hardware and software. Given the level of sophistication shown in the droids, I could see a device with a dozen or more physical and software security layers, each with its own checks against the data moving on or off the device to prevent exactly what you are talking about.

A slicer could, but at what cost when he can't modify the equipment that is going to be used to make the transfer from one stick to another or to a bank when on a world with access (since I'm sure the recipient would rather use their own transfer box between sticks). Remember, I said this was a combination of hardware and software. Given the level of sophistication shown in the droids, I could see a device with a dozen or more physical and software security layers, each with its own checks against the data moving on or off the device to prevent exactly what you are talking about.

The slicer has an unlimited time frame, no risk of failure, and untold riches if successful. This doesn't have to be limited to a single 'bad actor' either - entire crime syndicates (or the Rebel Alliance, for example) could dedicate mountains of money/teams of slicers/etc to essentially printing their own money.

It would only take a single instance of someone to be successful; and just like in the real world once the secret is out, it's shared - and there are trillions of vulnerable credsticks now floating around the space lanes. The Imperial economy crashes and burns.

Consider how quickly technology is reverse engineered in the real world (such as pirating satellite TV boxes, decoding DVD keys, or whatever) - those attacks are essentially done for fun.

A slicer could, but at what cost when he can't modify the equipment that is going to be used to make the transfer from one stick to another or to a bank when on a world with access (since I'm sure the recipient would rather use their own transfer box between sticks). Remember, I said this was a combination of hardware and software. Given the level of sophistication shown in the droids, I could see a device with a dozen or more physical and software security layers, each with its own checks against the data moving on or off the device to prevent exactly what you are talking about.

The slicer has an unlimited time frame, no risk of failure, and untold riches if successful. This doesn't have to be limited to a single 'bad actor' either - entire crime syndicates (or the Rebel Alliance, for example) could dedicate mountains of money/teams of slicers/etc to essentially printing their own money.

It would only take a single instance of someone to be successful; and just like in the real world once the secret is out, it's shared - and there are trillions of vulnerable credsticks now floating around the space lanes. The Imperial economy crashes and burns.

Consider how quickly technology is reverse engineered in the real world (such as pirating satellite TV boxes, decoding DVD keys, or whatever) - those attacks are essentially done for fun.

There is the capability to do that with phones or the credit cards that the companies are going to with the chips embedded with them in RL, it has been on the news a few times, and shown to be easy for a thief to gain that access. The thief has a scanner and bam has your info. If you want to not use the card with the chip in RL, or the cred-stick, and use hard cash that's up to you. The only reason I mentioned cred-sticks is that the only Si-Fi movies or show that I recall is BG with hard credits and that to me can get noisy and fill your pockets fast, and considering that most money in the past has been backed up by precious metals and even made with those precious, credits can also be pretty heavy.

All in all what, fits the way you and the GM comes up with is best.

A slicer could, but at what cost when he can't modify the equipment that is going to be used to make the transfer from one stick to another or to a bank when on a world with access (since I'm sure the recipient would rather use their own transfer box between sticks). Remember, I said this was a combination of hardware and software. Given the level of sophistication shown in the droids, I could see a device with a dozen or more physical and software security layers, each with its own checks against the data moving on or off the device to prevent exactly what you are talking about.

The slicer has an unlimited time frame, no risk of failure, and untold riches if successful. This doesn't have to be limited to a single 'bad actor' either - entire crime syndicates (or the Rebel Alliance, for example) could dedicate mountains of money/teams of slicers/etc to essentially printing their own money.

It would only take a single instance of someone to be successful; and just like in the real world once the secret is out, it's shared - and there are trillions of vulnerable credsticks now floating around the space lanes. The Imperial economy crashes and burns.

Consider how quickly technology is reverse engineered in the real world (such as pirating satellite TV boxes, decoding DVD keys, or whatever) - those attacks are essentially done for fun.

Technically, this isn't any different than counterfeiting physical money, nor really any more or less difficult given the technology level.

Consider how quickly technology is reverse engineered in the real world (such as pirating satellite TV boxes, decoding DVD keys, or whatever) - those attacks are essentially done for fun.

Each of these examples are on a non-critical system that had vulnerabilities introduced by 3rd parties. Satellites used to broadcast in the clear, then they add a level of encryption, yes, just one, because the signal needs to be able to decode in near real-time which places limits on the system for how tough the encryption can be and not cause problems in playback. DVDs were broken because a 3rd party program did the dumb thing of storing the key in the clear in memory on the computer and the programmer found it that way, which allowed him to backtrack the keys for various publishers (as it was one key per publisher). None of these have stopped people from buying satellite TV, or buying DVDs/Blurays. The markets kept going.

Banks on the other hand can afford to have lag in the data due to more layers of more complicated encryption because a transaction is a much smaller amount of data going through. It isn't GB/minute that HD video/audio is, more like KB/hour for a single transaction. So, more layers can be added to secure the data in transit and on the device itself.

And as someone else pointed out, counterfeiting and fraud happens with physical currency. There are places right now that will sell counterfeit dollars for pennies on the dollar and that hasn't crashed the US economy (at least not in any directly measurable way in comparison to all the other financial transactions going on). So, unless the slicer controls both credsticks and the machine doing the transaction between them, then it will be far, far harder to do what you suggest someone could do. And if caught, even once, I'm not sure a criminal would like spending time in the spice mines of Kessel... heheh.

Our game's take on the holonet sticks fairly close to canon; Imperial broadcasts, mainly locked down. Non-governmental media events are generally filmed and then shipped around the galaxy. However, you can still have a robust banking system in this type of universe. I wanted to give some ideas for potential heists/scams that could be done using the more "analog" feel of Star Wars.

Check fraud: This one has a lower payoff, but could work as an adventure hook or a possible source of Obligation. For decades, checks were handled manually and routed from one end of the country to another by the Federal Reserve Banks. Cash a payroll check in Maine, and it could be routed all the way back to the home office in California. Before electronic transfers became standard, it could take weeks to actually have a check clear the process. By forging checks, you could trade on the good name of someone or an institution and grab some quick cash. Trade checks for something like "credit chits" or "payment orders" and this could work in EotE. Larger institutions could have specialized courier services plying the hyperlanes from Coruscant to the Outer Rim, moving payment orders from one sector to the next.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Check_fraud

Financial Communication Intercepts AKA Wire Fraud: This scam is effectively an industrial scale version of check fraud. Since the late '70s banks across our world have had a private network dedicated to communicating with each other. This network doesn't handle any cash, simply messages from one bank or corporation to another authorizing funds to be transferred. For example, Seinar Corporation wants to make a payment to the Bank of Coruscant. Instead of sending a cruiser full of credits, Seinar sends a message authorizing BoC to transfer funds between accounts. These networks are highly secure and would make for a potentially huge payday if a slicer were to gain access to the system and "authorize" a payment to an account under their control. The risks would be equally large as the payment networks are closely monitored by government authorities. In the present day, this is one of the ways used to track terrorists. I could also see an Age of Rebellion mission to help the Rebels launder funds. I'm grossly oversimplifying things, but some quick research can flesh this out more.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Society_for_Worldwide_Interbank_Financial_Telecommunication

Our game's take on the holonet sticks fairly close to canon; Imperial broadcasts, mainly locked down. Non-governmental media events are generally filmed and then shipped around the galaxy. However, you can still have a robust banking system in this type of universe. I wanted to give some ideas for potential heists/scams that could be done using the more "analog" feel of Star Wars.

Check fraud: This one has a lower payoff, but could work as an adventure hook or a possible source of Obligation. For decades, checks were handled manually and routed from one end of the country to another by the Federal Reserve Banks. Cash a payroll check in Maine, and it could be routed all the way back to the home office in California. Before electronic transfers became standard, it could take weeks to actually have a check clear the process. By forging checks, you could trade on the good name of someone or an institution and grab some quick cash. Trade checks for something like "credit chits" or "payment orders" and this could work in EotE. Larger institutions could have specialized courier services plying the hyperlanes from Coruscant to the Outer Rim, moving payment orders from one sector to the next.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Check_fraud

Financial Communication Intercepts AKA Wire Fraud: This scam is effectively an industrial scale version of check fraud. Since the late '70s banks across our world have had a private network dedicated to communicating with each other. This network doesn't handle any cash, simply messages from one bank or corporation to another authorizing funds to be transferred. For example, Seinar Corporation wants to make a payment to the Bank of Coruscant. Instead of sending a cruiser full of credits, Seinar sends a message authorizing BoC to transfer funds between accounts. These networks are highly secure and would make for a potentially huge payday if a slicer were to gain access to the system and "authorize" a payment to an account under their control. The risks would be equally large as the payment networks are closely monitored by government authorities. In the present day, this is one of the ways used to track terrorists. I could also see an Age of Rebellion mission to help the Rebels launder funds. I'm grossly oversimplifying things, but some quick research can flesh this out more.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Society_for_Worldwide_Interbank_Financial_Telecommunication

ATM Fraud would be the analog to credstick hacking. Specifically Chip and pin atm cards.

As I recall, the Jewell of Yavin required the crew to set up a bank account to obtain money from the heist

Technically, this isn't any different than counterfeiting physical money, nor really any more or less difficult given the technology level.

Counterfeiting currency requires equipment (printing equipment if paper, some kind of press if coin). It requires the particular materials (special paper, special ink, holograms, etc). These are by design difficult to replicate.

http://www.moneyfactory.gov/anticounterfeiting/securityfeatures.html (and this is just what they make public)

Then you need to consider the issue of scale. If i wanted to fabricate 1 trillion Palpatine Bucks I'd need at least a trillion of special pieces of paper.

If it's all digital in the SW equivalent of a USB drive (with no external verification) - I need none of that.

If the PCs are in the Core I would go with electronic transfers, at least for above board transactions, but in the Rim and most of the Colonies I'd stick with cash or local banking establishments with electronic transfer being possible between world but time consuming because of the necessary verification, sort of like how bank transfers work now (if you've never sent money from one country to another from your bank it usually takes a few days for the banks to verify, which can be a pain,).

My wife is a certified Anti-Money Laundering specialist, among other things. And we lived in Europe for a number of years, when she was working for Euroclear Bank, which handles the majority of the back-end clearing and settlement for European stocks and bonds.

Directly or indirectly, I learned way more about SWIFT and other ways to transfer money internationally, than I ever wanted to know.

My mind just completely boggles at the concept of trying to translate all those problems and that technology to a galactic scale.

The cred stick is supposed to be ultra secure against that kind of thing but you're right, you'd need at least some periodic external verification to make sure everything is kosher.

I would imagine that cred sticks also have limitations placed on them with regards to how much currency you’re allowed to load. This could be a result of them not having the amount of space necessary to hold the types of electronics and devices required for the secure transfer of larger sums.

So, maybe a secure datapad could store a larger amount of money as electronic crypto “cash”, and then also have account numbers and transfer information for various other accounts in other banks in other places, but wouldn’t be able to store all of that money locally as “cash”.

Just some thoughts. YMMV.