Decivre wrote:

In the outer system, Hawalas exist that have decided to exit the traditional economic model, and instead will take an item you have, recycle or reuse it, then give you tokens (or a digital equivalent) which can be exchanged for that same item elsewhere for the cost of a Low favor.

Arenamontanus wrote:

That is a great way of handling it. Any writeup for the Hawalas?

Quote:

The Fall was very devastating to the hawala network of Earth. There were no hawalas off-planet before the exodus, and much was left behind in the chaos. Few hawaladars stayed in the inner system, largely on account of the hectic restructuring of the Inner System with new political blocs and governments. Instead, most of the hawaladars found a new home amongst the scum and anarchists of the outer system, thus creating a second hawala network. This came to be known as "Al-Uqab"... "The Eagle". The post-scarcity economy was a boon to the new hawalas, allowing them to transition quite easily to a means of making profit without relying on the currencies which so easily collapsed on them in the Fall. A customer submits an item which is recycled (or taken to be used by the hawala). The customer then names another location in the Al-Uqab network, then gives a password or requests a chit (digital or physical). At any point in time after that transaction, someone may go to the hawala requested and either give the password or chit. If verified, the item will be fabricated; blueprints may need to be given if the network does not have them for the item in question. The hawala network does not keep many physical records, and operates more on an honor system. As such, payment is not generally received in the form of a reputation boost. Instead, the hawala that fabricates the object in question often requests an extra amount be payed upon the reception of goods, often in the form of a certain weight of rare metals, or equipment and devices (at least of Low cost, possibly higher). Alternatively, the customer can offer the blueprints of the item being transferred as payment (if they do not already have those blueprints), which can then be added to the network's collection. In the traditional hawala network, a hawala transaction would require no immediate transfer of funds between hawalas, and hawaladars basically owed debts to the hawala that accepted the transfer. In Al-Uqab, often no transaction occurs at all. Instead, Al-Uqab has its own private reputation economy, in which a favor is payed with favors. Hawaladars often have secondary jobs as body brokers or info dealers, and will often turn to other hawaladars that already owe them favors to aide them in transmissions or legwork. Furthermore, blueprints are freely exchanged among hawaladars in Al-Uqab, making them one of the biggest repositories of blueprint data, and goods by proxy. As such, most hawaladars have high @-rep, and enjoy a relatively cushy life because of it. The traditional hawala network is still prominent in the inner system, and currently exists separately from Al-Uqab. Rumors abound of various inner system hawalas that are members of both networks. If true, this exists under the table, as Al-Uqab has a reputation for being used by criminals and anarchists that has kept it largely banned in the inner system.

Arenamontanus wrote:

Great writeup! I'll use this in my game. Seems to have plenty of potential for recurring NPCs and interesting non-Firewall missions.

Xagroth wrote:

First off, I would speak with the GM about how much mobility and equivalency are we going to have. If the morph is not extremely expensive because of the implants, the GM might agree (for the sake of simplicity) to have a similar one where you arrive (much more easy for synthmorphs). blueprints are, of course, something really usefull, and I suggest buying (or crafting if you have the knowledge and time) the following ones: - A knife it is always useful and serve much more purposes than just harm people. Couple with exceptional stealth capabilities for "stack-popping" stalking... Easy to design, by the way. - A Fabber. It is usually an unrestricted item, and you can always buy a "program to unlock its capabilities, so it will be able to assemble a full Cornucopia Machine". This can allow you to make your own CM nearly everywhere if you are careful enough (be mindfull, however, that logistic exists here, so you need to provide the raw materials for the stuff. It is easy to know what somebody is crafting for the type and amount of raw materials he buys). - A Desktop Cornucopia, Cornucopia Machine or Hive. I suggest the desktop version for mobility and stealth (and you can always hide it after the job's finished), but it will take longer building times. - Ectos. Yes, they are cheap, and yes, they have a limited usefullness. However, you can use them to mask yourself when undergoing hacking operations, or other stuff. Essentially, they are the equivalent of what we see in spy movies as "burn phones" (phones that cannot be tied to anybody, and are hard to track because you can get only the antennas of the are it's in). - A gun. Preferably, a small or medium pistol (not a railgun one), because they are easy to hide and use common materials. It might come without the extras mentioned in the core book, however. - Bullets. I suggest normal ones and perforating. - Gray Box (Panopticon, pg 150) which is essentially a USB you can plug to any system that opens a WI-FI signal for you. - Chamaleoon cloack (cheap invisibility!) - Tactical network software (all need a copy in the group) is always a good investment. - One or two of your favourite drugs (combat, mind-boosting, etc...) if you use them heavily. I tend to pass on those, though, to simplify my gameplay. There are more gear you might want to have always at hand, but I think those blueprints are the most useful ones. Of course, they don't include implants or morphs, since you won't be placing much body banks on your own! However, if you want to have some backup or help, buy the Case morph blueprint and load a beta fork of yourself in.

Xagroth wrote:

Sometimes the thing you need most is dicretion, not speed. A fabber is legal even in Planetary Consortium-controlled space, and having your own fabber blueprint (that you know exactly how to hack to unlock all its capabilities once it has been assembled) can be very useful. Not to mention, bullets (and the pistol, if maybe on two or three parts) can be made inside the fabber (if unlocked). Yes, raw materials will be needed. However, they can be obtained from several avenues. Project Ozma, in my view of the setting (at least when we are using Firewall as "player glue") tends to track the buying orders of kitchen appliances, because with a set of knifes you can make a very good combat knife, and with all the cooking pots you get a lot of metal. Yes, in AF10 there are fabbers, but there are also replicators in Star Trek, and lots of people prefer cooked meals if they have time (even if they have to replicate some of the ingredients), not to mention it is a little cheaper (it requires less energy). Other item they track are chemical sets for children and new people, because there you can get a lot of gunpowder (there are other items in the list, which expands with my player's ideas every now and then). Now, you are looking at this small list the wrong way, number1. You are thinking of money/favours, but I am thinking on the tracking of the items built. Your gear cannot be tracked to you if you never bought it in the first place, after all!