Concerning Currency (Solus)

“Hey Cat” you say as you enter Cattleya’s office.

“Father!” the girl exclaimed, putting down her pen and leaping out of her chair to wrap her arms around you. You chuckle as you return the hug. “I thought you went to war?” the girl asked, still hugging you.

“I did, but I can be anywhere at once” You reply.

“Oh right, forgot about that” Cattleya said with a giggle. You smile and run your hand through her hair. She was wearing it down today for some reason instead of in her usual braid.

“I like what you’ve done with your hair” You tell the girl who sighs with enjoyment as you play with her hair.

“Yeah, it’s a lot more effort ‘cause I gotta brush it all the time” she tells you “And when it’s windy it goes everywhere” she adds “But I think I like it like this” she finishes, still not making any moves to end the hug.

“So, got time to talk about money and coinage?” You ask. Cattleya gave a heavy sigh, hugged you harder for a moment, and then pulled away from you and went back to her desk. She sat down and began clearing it while you conjured a chair and sat at her desk with her.

“You only ever visit when you want something” Cat told you with a pout.

“That is not true!” you reply “The last time I was here was to visit and give gifts!” you say.

“That was my birthday! And that was aaaaaaaaaaages ago!” She returned, pouting again before sighing. “What did you have in mine?” she asked with a sigh.

“I was thinking of making the currency system a decimal one, with gold coins being 100 Denari, silver coins being 10, and copper coins being 1” You told your genius daughter. Cattleya sat there for a moment and you could see the gears of her mind turning behind her eyes before she refocused onto you.

“Won’t work” was her simple answer “Not divisible by three” she explained with a blink. You got the feeling she just ran a whole lot of advanced mathematical equations through her head before coming to that answer.

“So?” you ask with a frown and Cat sighed. She then went fishing around her office before pulling out a sack filled with little pebbles that all had a smooth, round side to them, and started laying them out. She organised them into three groups, one of 100 pebbles, one of 10 pebbles and a single pebble on it’s own.

“You have one gold coin,” she said, pointing at the pebble on it’s own. “Ten silver coins” she said, pointing at the group of ten “and one hundred copper coins” she said, pointing at the last group. “None of these groups can be divided by three equally” she told you. “If you try to break a gold coin between three people, they all end up with three silver pieces each and then they have to have a **** match over who gets the last copper” she explained. Now that the problem has been presented to you, you suddenly realise just how big of a problem this is and wonder why the decimal system ever became a thing in the first place. Even with dollars and cents, you can only get three groups of 33.33 which still left a random cent laying around unclaimed.

“. . . The hell do you solve that?” you ask, shocked at how massive the problem is.

“Best way I can think of is that we base it off of gold” Cat told you “Instead of the gold coin being worth 100 denari or anything else you decide, instead make 100 copper coins worth one gold” she explained.

“How does that solve the problem?” You ask.

“Simple, since the gold doesn’t have a value, the number of coins that are used to make up a single gold piece can be completely arbitrary” She replied “Add in an Electrum coin for one third of the value of the gold coin and it suddenly becomes divisible by three” she tells you. “Somehow make a coin that is one part silver and two parts copper, or valued at that, and you can now divide silver by three” she added

“That’s a lot of coins” you muse. You had wanted something simple and easy to manage. A three coin system would have done that, at least in your mind. Cattleya simply shrugged in response before packing away the pebbles she had used as counters.

“It’s the only way I can think of to make a currency that values gold at one hundred divisible by three” she told you.

“It’s times like these that make it hard to remember you’re only fifteen” you comment with a smile.

“Hey!” Cattleya pouted “I’m one year away from majority!” she informed you. You chuckle in response to that.

“Yes you are, little cat, yes you are” you say in reply. “So what do you want to do now?” You ask. Cattleya thought about it for a moment.

“Can I nap on you while you play with my hair?” she asked and you let out a snort which turned into full laughter.

“Why not” you say with amusement “I can be in two places at once” you add, turning your chair into a lounger. Cattleya let out a cheerful whoop as she bounced out of her seat.