My Life As A Writer: Trade In Galactic Christendom

Galactic Christendom is interstellar feudalism. That doesn't mean interstellar trade doesn't happen. It does mean that current global economic norms do not apply. There is no production intended for export. What trade does exist is when production in excess of local economic needs is sent out to other systems. To prevent a recurrence of things like the East India Trade Company and today's mega-corporations, the Church insists upon usury being banned and each nation and kingdom maintaining self-sufficiency. Given the reality of interstellar exploration, colonization, and settlement this is not as hard to push and maintain as one might think.

The other thing that the Church is unbending about is that economic activity not become an idol to itself, but remain a tool used to fulfill Man's duties and nothing more, and as such it is not unheard of for Church officials to put an Interdict on the houses of a concern due to succumbing to greed and avarice in the manner of past examples- and woe to those who attempt to bribe their way around such a sanction. The Church remembers why Luther nailed those thesis, even if most alive do not.

Money in Galactic Christendom is actual real money--gold and silver coin--with local mints stamping local coin for use in local commerce. Interstellar coin usually is accepted for value depending upon purity and weight alone, and most domains make exchanging foreign coin to local coin easy for travelers going through established transit hubs. Interstellar trade, due to the major logistics hurdle involved, deals mostly in Money of Account and settles physical asset transfers on a frequency determined by treaty; annual is most common, but semi-annual or quarterly settlements occur for closer trade partners. Annual account settlements usually go through Earth as a matter of convenience. Resuming their historical role, the Church charges the Templars with the role of safeguarding this financial system's integrity- down to physically guarding the asset shipments.

Piracy in space and on the seas of planets remains a problem, as does banditry on land, inhibiting trade. It remains an issue because unscrupulous rulers and ambitious players use them as deniable assets against their enemies, so there is often covert assistance of some sort for any successful reaver, but these criminal enterprises rarely go beyond a small area of operation due to these outside ties constraining their operations.

That changed with Red Eyes, but that's what the books are for.