Grade Lieutenant 1st Class
Team Lieutenant
Cost-Centre Lieutenant
Account-Captain 2nd Class
Account-Captain 1st Class
Ranks of Senior Staff Officers
Executive-Colonel
Executive-General
Executive-Marshal
The larger sovereign clans maintain their own marine corps as personal bodyguards and to secure the most intimate clan secrets, such as treasuries. These forces have ranking systems that very from clan to clan.
Money
For wealthy people, the basic unit of money worldwide in 2106 is the Troy ounce of gold (31.1035 grams). There are 32.1507 Troy ounces in a kilogram. Sub-units of account are the pennyweight (20 to the ounce) and the grain (24 to the pennyweight).
Prices in 2106 are subject to seasonal surges and falls, as well as yearly changes due to good harvests and bad harvests. Because of all this variability, it is hard to convert the future buying power of an ounce of gold into our paper money of today, especially as our money is also subject to inflation, changes in purchasing power parity and so forth. As a very rough guide, it may be taken that a Troy ounce of gold in 2106 is comparable to the buying power of between $25 and $75 today (USD).
This is less than one twentieth of the buying power of an ounce of gold at the time of writing (2020). The large fall in buying power of gold was caused by the collapse of modern industries and consequent dramatic shrinkage of the human population in the Glorious Resolution. Whereas, the amount of gold in human hands stayed constant. With the same amount of gold available but far less people to use it and far fewer things to buy, the purchasing power of gold had to fall (simple economics). This collapse in gold purchasing power is remembered as the Gold Crest.
Silver, copper and aluminium coins are also used as money by so-called slummies (residents of the industrial asylums), or as we would say, working people.
About the Author
Long ago I dived into my writing career by studying aeronautical engineering. I went on to design quite a variety of things, from the turbochargers of racing hydroplanes to industrial plants that process explosive gases at high pressure. Just to expand my literary horizons, I also studied for an MBA at an international business school, from where I joined the masters of the globalised world. Then I bummed around and got another view, this time from below.
Fiction has to sprout from somewhere. In my case, it’s a fascination with power: how it is cast and how it is accepted, how it must be honest enough to endure, yet will be dishonest enough to serve the avarice of its roots.
Humanity faces an impossible situation. No government will face up to that fact. How can it? No power structure can stand before its people and admit ‘We’re up against it and we don’t have a clue’. There’s just about enough energy and resources to give about one tenth of the planet what is known as ‘the affluent lifestyle’. That means a house served by public utilities, a car, holidays far away, and plenty of credit to keep things churning. The consequent pollution is already beyond—well beyond—the capacity of our environment. Yet we’re told ‘debt doesn’t matter’ and renewables will come to the rescue. Sorry people, those who live by lies shall die by lies, or to put it another way, education comes to those who wait.
How nasty will this ‘education’ be? And what will the world be like afterwards? These are questions I explore in my dystopian novels.
When not foretelling our grim prospects, you’ll find me roaming the Lammermuir Hills of Scotland on my vintage Flying Scot bicycle, prowling Edinburgh’s book shops or else swilling beer in good company (before The Bug hit us, at any rate).
Regrettably it looks like The Bug is pushing us into dystopia faster than I can write about it.
Web site: https://www.malcolmjwardlaw.com
