Editing Nobledark Imperium Notes (section)

==The Throne==
The introduction of the Imperial Throne as a single interstellar currency probably started as the coinage of the Void Born that was used in Sol that then worked it's way out along with the Expeditionary Forces of the Great Crusade.

Originally it was Req. Almost certainly derived from Requisition tokens used by the Quartermaster Supreme of Luna used to allocate resources during the Age of Strife. 1 Req is just a Req, 10 Req was a DecReq, 10 DecReq (100 Req) was a CetuReq. Fraction and decimal Req only existed as hypothetical inside a bank account and had no real world counter part.

Thrones are Reqs in all but name, presumably Horus had something to do with this or at least someone in his employ.

Availability, acceptability and value of local currency varies greatly in the imperium even down to the scale of nation-states but every world in the Imperium, by law, accepts the Throne and accepts it at the value dictated by the Administrtum.

The Throne (coin) and it's worth is seen to an extent as the glue that holds interstellar trade together. Debasing the coinage is officially treason and is one of the few things that will have the Arbiters kicking down your door.

It doesn't matter if you're the head of a vast trader dynasty, a sector governor or an ambitious idiot in a back room making counterfeits. If you fuck with the thrones you fuck with the Throne and the Throne will fuck back.

Eldar typically prefer to barter goods for goods and seldom accept local currencies. Some times they will use Throne Coin if they can't find an alternative. Big exception being Sreta Ulthran's branch of the Ulthran clan.

Fucking with thrones would be an especially heinous offense, because the more you think about it, the more that a reputation-based currency (like banknotes and paper money) is the only way to go in a galactic economy. 

Human cultures in the past have mostly used gold and silver for their currency because they were one of the few elements that were rare enough to buffer inflation and counterfeiting but yet not rare enough that minting a currency was impractical. Most other elements either did not fulfill these criteria or were radioactive.

But in space that is meaningless. There is enough gold and precious metals in asteroids to make gold coins effectively worthless. Gold becomes more valuable for its conducting ability than its power to represent a unit of demand. What becomes more valuable is whatever a system doesn’t have, whether that’s food or metals that aren’t common in the system for whatever reason. So we’re back to the barter system.

Unless you have a strong central government able to impose its will and say “we say this token is worth so much and we will back this with our financial reputation”. If the central government is stable and not liable to collapse, this makes the currency a stable medium of exchange. Counterfeiting thrones is now a direct act of undermining the government’s reputation.

Thrones are still probably metal in some way because gold is harder to counterfeit than paper. And since civilization as a whole is rolling in gold and other precious metals (particularly ones that are not in high demand like adamantium), why not put that metal to use?