List of fictional currencies

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Fictional currency is currency in works of fiction. It is often invented, bearing little or no resemblance to any modern or historic currency. This is a necessary plot device, in order to increment the completeness of the environment, and at the same time dissociate it from any known economy on earth. A very common type, especially in science fiction, is credits. This is easily recognizable as money, and different from all earthly currency. The use of credits may serve to prevent the reader from inferring a lot of significance to it, e.g. by maintaining lack of depth that may be inherent to a short story, or simply to prevent it from overshadowing more important themes. However, this term would be inappropriate for a work set in a more technologically primitive environment, such as a medieval fantasy novel. Generic money in this genre is typically constructed from one or more precious or semiprecious metals, such as copper, silver, gold, electrum, or even platinum, followed by coins or pieces.

Contents

[edit] List of fictional currencies

Examples of settings using credits:

  • Credits from the movie Total Recall
  • Credits from the The Foundation Series by Isaac Asimov.
  • Credits (also Galactic credits) from Doctor Who (in one serial the currency symbol is a Ƶ.
  • Credits (dataries) from the Star Wars universe.
  • Credits from the Star Trek universe (though they have not been seen in transactions for any large-value items), Batman Beyond, Babylon 5 and multiple other sources.
  • Credits are seen in the world of F-Zero video games and anime. A space credit, written with a symbol identical to a dollar sign ($) seems to be approximately equal to one Japanese yen, or about 0.8¢ US.
  • Creds from Judge Dredd.
  • Credsticks from the Shadowrun universe.
  • CrImps (Credits Imperial, or "Imperial Credits") from the Traveller role-playing game universe.
  • The currency used in the Galactic civilizations depicted in many Andre Norton books.
  • The worldwide currency used in the space-faring 1964 alternate history timeline of Fredric Brown's "What Mad Universe", abbreviated to "Cr.", with one Credit having the purchasing power of about 10 American cents in out timeline.

On the other hand, currency frequently serves as another vehicle to flesh out a story. Examples include:

  • Air Dollars, used by the international association of pilots and technicians from which a world state develops in H.G. Wells' "The Shape of Things to Come" (1934). "The air-dollar was not a metallic coin at all; it was a series of paper notes, which represented distance, weight, bulk, and speed. Each note was good for so many kilograms in so much space, for so many kilometres at such a pace. The value of an air-dollar had settled down roughly to a cubic metre weighing ten kilograms and travelling two hundred kilometres at a hundred kilometres an hour" (see [1]).
  • Altairian dollars from The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (in the TV series the currency symbol is a lower case "a" with a line through it).
  • Ankh-Morpork dollars (AM$) and pence from Discworld novels.
  • A-sia from Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex.
  • Aurics in the Domination of the Draka.
  • Beri (Berries) from the anime One Piece.
  • Bison Dollars from the movie Street Fighter.
  • Clams from The Flintstones and B.C..
  • C-bills from the BattleTech Sci-Fi Universe.
  • Crowns from the Inheritance Trilogy book series.
  • Crescents in the nation of Calormen in C.S. Lewis' Chronicles of Narnia book series.
  • Cubits from Battlestar Galactica. (Although in Galactica 1980 this same currency were inexplicably called "Aurics")
  • Dollarpounds ($£) and pennycents (p¢) from Red Dwarf.
  • Dolleryen ($¥) from Gunbuster. The currency with the same name is also used in The Most Irresponsible Man in Space light novel series.
  • $$ or Double Dollars from Trigun.
  • Ecu from Zero no Tsukaima.
  • Flanian pobble bead from The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. Not an especially useful currency, as they can only be exchanged for other Flanian pobble beads.
  • Fretzers from Dr Trifulgas: A Fantastic Tale by Jules Verne.
  • The Fuseodollar is the basic currency unit of the Commonwealth in Peter F. Hamilton's Night's Dawn Trilogy.
  • Galleons, sickles, and knuts from the Harry Potter series.
  • Grotzits in the Doctor Who serials "The Mysterious Planet" and "Dragonfire".
  • Hytes and Kules, believed to be the currency of the Riah colonies, from Gundam 0080.
  • Jan-jan from the movie A Good Man in Africa.
  • Jenny, approximately equal to 0.9 Japanese yen, from Hunter × Hunter.
  • Kalganids from Second Foundation by Isaac Asimov.
  • Kan from Bleach.
  • Kongbucks (HKD) in Snow Crash. Also the Hong Kong Luna Dollar, the hard currency used in Luna in The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress by Robert A. Heinlein.
  • Marinera, a currency used in Marinera Kingdom from Patariro! (ja:パタリロ!). Consisted of five subunits, namely Nemarira, Rarinema, Marinera, Maraneri, and Manerari. Preceding units are 100 times more valuable than succeeding units, meaning 1 Nemarira is equal to 100,000,000 Manerari.
  • Marks from Pern. The Mark is also the currency of the planet Barrayar in the Vorkosigan Saga.
  • Latinum, or Gold-Pressed Latinum used by the Ferengi in Star Trek. Given the existence of replication technology in the Star Trek universe, Latinum derives its value from being non-replicable by any known existing or predicted replication technology.[1] It should be noted that, as Quark points out in "Who Mourns for Morn?", the gold in Gold-Pressed Latinum is merely a convenient material in which to suspend standardized quantities of Latinum, which, as Rom points out in reply, is somewhat awkward to use as cash due to being a liquid at room temperature and standard pressure. (Compare with events in Venus Equilateral: in one episode, the crew of the titular space station invent similar replication technology, inadvertently creating a solar-system-wide inflation crisis (suddenly anyone can materialize all the cash they want out of thin air at the push of a button), which they then solve in the next episode by developing a substance which cannot be produced by replicators to be used to create non-replicable currency.)
  • Monies from Invader Zim (on Planet Irk, Irken Empire).
  • Nargs in the Doctor Who serial "The Two Doctors", including a 20-narg note, which "can be changed in any of the nine planets".
  • New Yen from William Gibson's Sprawl stories.
  • Nick, from the Left Behind series, named after the antagonist, Nicolae Carpathia.
  • Ningi, a triangular rubber coin six thousand eight hundred miles along each side, from The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. It is valued at the rate of eight Ningis to one Triganic Pu, but thanks to the Ningi's immense size (almost twice as wide as the Earth's equatorial radius), it is more-or-less impossible to collect enough to own one pu. The inspiration for this may have been the Rai stones of the island of Yap.
  • Ool, from The Dance of Gods series by Mayer Alan Brenner.
  • Ozol from the Alastor series by Jack Vance - see SVU below.
  • Pi virtual currency from the Double T Teds Cartoon Characters as used on TVWorlds Forums*
  • Piastras were used in many of the comics of Spanish Editorial Bruguera during the Franco era. Using an undetermined foreign currency instead of pesetas allowed more leeway against the censorship.
  • Professorland Funbucks from an Anthology of Interest II episode of Futurama
  • Quatloos from Star Trek (see The Gamesters of Triskelion)
  • Rasbukniks, currency of Lower Slobbovia in Li'l Abner, had literally no value.
  • Sens in Fullmetal Alchemist (technically not fictional, the sen being a former subdivision of the yen)
  • Sequins are the Martian unit of currency in Kim Stanley Robinson's Red/Green/Blue Mars series.
  • Simoleons from The Sims computer game.
  • Solari from the Dune universe.
  • Space bucks in Spaceballs.
  • Stellars and minims from Citizen of the Galaxy.
  • The actually-existing Swiss Franc has a great fictional future in the loosely-linked stories included in Jerry Pournelle's "High Justice" (1974). The Swiss curency becomes a world-wide, and afterwards a Solar System-wide, medium of excange (especially in the Asteroid Belt, where much of the action takes place).
  • SVUs (Standard Value Units) from The Demon Princes by Jack Vance (Unusual in that it was a labor-based rather than a commodity-based currency).
  • Tik (iron), agol (bronze), smerduk (silver), and rilk (gold) are the coins of Lankhmar. A diamond-in-amber glulditch is also mentioned.
  • Whuffie, a reputation-based currency from Cory Doctorow's novel Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom.
  • Widgets, from Lego's Bionicle franchise by the Matoran of Metru Nui/Mata Nui though introduced relatively recently in the timeline.
  • Wong, basic currency in the universe of the anime series Outlaw Star.
  • Woolongs (₩) used in the anime Cowboy Bebop.
  • Yen-Euro-Dollars (¥€$), pronounced as "yes", from Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex.
  • Zeni, currency in the Dragon Ball universe.
  • Zenith, divided into Minims, the currency in the universe of Walter Jon Williams' "Dread Empire's Fall" series. A single Zenith has a considerable purchasing power, comparable to a 19th Century British Pound. Five Zeniths are enough to settle a moderate debt incurred in a card game, a hundred Zeniths are half a year's earnings of an ordinary person, a skilled artist giving personalised service to an aristocrat earns 15 to 20 Zeniths a month, gangsters showing off their money can spend hundreds of Zeniths in a single evening, the freedom of a detainee can be procured from corrupt police for 35 to 200 Zeniths (depending of the prisoner's importance), 3000 Zeniths is a tempting reward for a the head of a wanted criminal or rebel, a samll estate could be bought for 9,000 Zeniths, the entire property of a minor noblewoman amounts to about 30,000 Zeniths, 14,000 Zeniths is a bargain price for a ju yao porcelain pot of the Song Dynasty, 80,000 is the price of a surviving Rembrandt painting, 200,000 Zeniths can assure a person of a comfortable liftime livelihood (though the truly rich big aristocrats have much more). There is no paper money, the Zenith is either a metallic coin even in the high denominations or virtual elecronic money in banks.

[edit] Exchange media

These are not currency as such, but rather nonstandard media of exchange used in certain works of fiction.

[edit] Fictional currency in games

[edit] See also

[edit] References

  1. ^ Drexler, Doug; & Sternbach, Rick; & Zimmerman, Herman (1998). Star Trek: Deep Space Nine Technical Manual. Pocket Books. ISBN 0-671-01563-X. p. 63
ja:架空の通貨一覧

ru:Вымышленная валюта

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