EVE Fiction

https://community.eveonline.com/news/news-channels/eve-online-news/kaalakiota-corporate-bank-may-devalue-scrip/

Yes, from this news article, 'corporate scrip' is an actual currency used inside the Megas. I personally read of corporate scrips in Eve Source, or so I think. I will need to get back from work and refer to the book to confirm exactly which page 'scrips' are mentioned and/or elaborated upon.

As for how scrips work, consider that each Mega is essentially a nation unto itself, while the State organisations would be akin to world organisation. For example, the CEP can be considered to be the equivalent of the UN and the Caldari Funds Unlimited would be their equivalent of World Bank. Therefore the scrips would be the equivalent of pounds and dollars, except much more regulated compared to what we have IRL. Where it differs is the government and the megacorp are the same entity and every citizen is, effectively, a civil servant.

Now you are making a little mistake in how the Caldari think. The ordinary Caldari person is indoctrinated from a very young age to live for the Mega and for the State and to basically treat Stoicism as the Holy Word. So what they consider living a 'good life' is very different from how we define a 'good life'. For them, a 'good' living standard is one where they don't have to worry about starvation, the future of their children, their livelihood and be able to concentrate entirely on their work and their place in the Mega.

Of course, not every Mega fulfils the responsibility of ensuring that their citizen do get a 'good life' as envisioned by their citizens, so that they can remain acceptably productive. There's plenty of Chronicle stories detailing abuses heaped upon their more lower-rung citizens and of how small-scale rebellions are frequently plotted right under the noses of the foremen and managers.

Also, market *inside* the State is not free. Your typical Ishukone citizen will purchase Ishukone-brand toiletries, live in Ishukone houses, cook Ishukone-brand bacon from an Ishukone farm on an Ishukone skillet on prices that are completely determined by Ishukone. The prices of all these Ishukone goods are determined by Ishukone. However, sometimes the citizen needs to buy something else. Something like, say, a Kaalikiota-brand kitchen knife, because for whatever reason, he figured that the Ishukone-brand kitchen knife isn't sharp enough to cut the Ishukone steak. When this happens, the Ishukone scrip has to be exchanged into the Kaalikiota one. Conversion rate is determined by the Caldari Funds Unlimited, and they base the value of Ishukone to Kaalikiota on, presumably, how much Isk is currently floating around inside the Caldari State itself and the proportion of Isk that is currently possessed by Ishukone vs Kaalikiota. As for where they get the Isk, well, they export goods and services to the interstellar market to get Isk into the State and divvied up amongst the Megas actually providing the specific goods and services.

Just remember that the interstellar market is free but the market inside the Caldari State is the very, very tightly regulated.

It's a very similar situation to China's relation to the global market. The Chinese Yuan is regulated, while every other currency is subjected to the whims of the global market. Yes, it will be easier to do away with the additional recalculations, but eh, that's how the State works and they aren't feeling too much pressure to change.

As for goods sold by State to the interstellar market, it goes this way:

Employee produces goods, which are considered the property of the Mega. Mega sells goods for an asking price, which fluctuates based on supply and demand of the interstellar market, through an intermediary (not sure who. Probably the CFU). Goods sold for the asking price in the value of ISK. Intermediary takes a cut of the profit, rest goes into Mega. Mega then does some kind of calculation and issues corporate scrips to ensure that the scrip to isk value remains consistent. Employee gets paid with the scrip proportionally to the contribution he gave to the production of the goods, after blah blah blah calculation. Mega will perform all kinds of calculations to ensure that the scrip value remains consistent so that the employee can keep buying Mega-brand toilet paper at the consistent price.

As for how they can keep doing this every time there's an import or export, well, the Megacorp accounting division is a government agency. Probably have a fancy name like Ishukone/Kaalikiota/WhateverMega Accounting Department or something. Since they could keep doing it from since the time of antiquity, they will keep on doing it. After all, the Caldari State is, at the social level, very, very conservative and tradition-bound. All the advances they made thus far was to facilitate the ability to keep living in such a conservative and traditional manner.

I also doubt that the term 'Free Press' has a native equivalent inside the State.

Here's how it will work for a Megacorp-controlled station. A bar that is run by a State citizen is not the property of the citizen, but the property of the State. As such, earnings in Isk or whatever currency is basically considered State earnings. Bar itself is governed in the same way any corporate department is governed. Isk is claimed by State, employee paid in scrips. Employee will buy consumer goods that will also be priced in scips inside shops that are within citizen zones. For most parts, the State employee will receive the same goods and services the outsiders will also get from their part of the station, except priced in corporate scrips.

Yes. I totally brought in segregation. And yes, the regular State citizen sees nothing wrong with this. Their opinions of the outsiders is kind of but not entirely similar to what easterners thought of foreigners way back in the day (foreign devils, etc etc etc).

If the State citizen seeks to go work elsewhere, there is that option but they will have to relinquish their State citizenship. ALONG with all the retirement fund, ties with their family members, etc etc etc. Considering that the regular State citizen, unless they happen to be working for very ****** Mega, is guaranteed housing, free quality and very competitive education for children, retraining programmes, social mobility and etc, there is usually very little incentive for them to actually find work elsewhere. Those who take issues with how the State is run (you know, rigid regime and all), well, there's a reason the Guristas exist, and why there are Federation citizens with Caldari lineage.

What about bars inside State station run by outsiders? Bar is considered rented or leashed to the outsider owners, and the price is paid in Isk to the State.

I'd wager normal people on planets probably don't buy their groceries on the capsuleer-markets. The prices we pay are all horribly inflated. Considering how far removed we are from common baseline people, we're all paying premiums on everything.

Think about it, how many capsule pilots would try walking into some random normal people shop in a space station, risking his or her immortal life for a bottle of Quafe? Quafe isn't that refreshing.

So I'd guess we're paying at least a hundred times more then normal people for stuff like water or Quafe. Then take into account the costs of shipping that stuff up into space in the first place. In the end, people in space probably pay at least ten times as much to account for the trouble of shipping around stuff produced on planets. Or at least in a far away orbital Quafe-factory. Even normal space cargo shipping costs something, and corporations are greedy.

Let's take a bottle of Quafe (1l) for example. We pay 2,24 ISK with the current market prices. A normal, but space travelling human would pay 0,0224 ISK for the same bottle. A baseline human living on a planet would pay even less: 0,00224 ISK per bottle. Converted into local prices, that makes sense when taken together with the lore description of capsuleers being filthy, filthy rich.

On the capsuleer market simple commodities like your example of Quafe are inflated, but the prices we pay for things like Battle Cruisers are deflated.

Well yeah, because capsule pilots are building battlecruisers and other stuff like mad, while no-one bothers with brewing their own Quafe.