# Cards as currency *The Whorl list — 3 messages, 2 voices, 12 Jul 1998* > Exported from an unofficial mirror of a public mailing list. Copyright > in each message remains with the person who wrote it. > Email addresses are obscured as `user at host`, the form the original > archive published. This file was rebuilt from parsed fields rather than > retained headers, so it is faithful in content but not byte-exact. --- ### Brownes3 *12 Jul 1998, 14:29* >> If they're not interchangable, then the whole idea that Pas set them up as >> currency weakens anyway--although I suppose if one Card holds an entire >> personality--"Majordomo Fred", say--then just bringing along a good set of >> them would give you enough personalities to make the system functional. 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 --- ### Brownes3 *12 Jul 1998, 14:48 · follows Brownes3* >> However, I don't think that's what is going on. I suspect the Cards became >> a unit of currency for the reason that gold did on Earth: they're scarce, >> measurable, almost indestructable, pretty, and portable. 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 --- ### mary whalen *20 Jul 1998, 00:08 · follows Brownes3* 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 ---