Cards as currency

They aren't interchangable. Look at the conversation between between Silk and Malmeta. He has lots of cards, but they are the wrong kind. She can't use all the ones he has and needs the right kind. Further, if memory serves, the cards are shaped differently and that's how Malmeta tells them apart. I do agree with the notion of Pas' plan to keep everyone onboard. It's also likely that he distributed the different cards throughout the ship so no one faction could control the landers and therefore the colonies on the short sun world. I'm glad someone else has just finished TBotLS, too. I've a few questions and observations to make also. Rich Browne

Sensible, but not likely because of what it doesn't explain: what happened to the original currency, then? There's no mention of other currency, even by "good ole days" types of characters. Cards had to have been the only currency know in the Whorl. Rich Browne

This is Sean Whalen (prion). It seems unlikely that the cards would have been adopted by the cargo after the voyage for use as currency. They would have no reason to accept as valuable things stolen from the "sacred" machines. They wouldn't really need to use anything as money. Who would have begun to steal them, for what reason, and why would others accept it? prion