Did the MBS corner the market on trade?

Actually, I always wondered if one, if not all, of the Transtellars were MAlign operations. The MA could have been funneling huge sums of money into their coffers. That would have explained where they got a lot of the huge sums of money needed to fund their operations.

I never understood who was bankrolling the MA. Their operations required huge sums of money. Yet they were pretty much isolated from humanity, though one would think they had to have at least traded with humanity. But that would have been extremely dangerous. What gives, they could clone people, but not money.

So who or what funded them. Mesa? All by itself?

And where are they keeping this money? Inside Daddy Det's family vaults, under mattresses, where? They certainly can't be utilizing the banking systems. If so, that is a paper trail.

cthia wrote:Actually, I always wondered if one, if not all, of the Transtellars were MAlign operations. The MA could have been funneling huge sums of money into their coffers. That would have explained where they got a lot of the huge sums of money needed to fund their operations.

I never understood who was bankrolling the MA. Their operations required huge sums of money. Yet they were pretty much isolated from humanity, though one would think they had to have at least traded with humanity. But that would have been extremely dangerous. What gives, they could clone people, but not money.

So who or what funded them. Mesa? All by itself?

And where are they keeping this money? Inside Daddy Det's family vaults, under mattresses, where? They certainly can't be utilizing the banking systems. If so, that is a paper trail.

I believe that all the transtellar corporations that headquartered on Mesa were Malign controlled and used to fund their operations. They were not isolated from humanity before Houdini, they exerted control from the boardrooms. Since they also controlled the banking system on Mesa, perhaps there are traces to be found; despite the destruction that included banking records.

tlb wrote:

cthia wrote:Actually, I always wondered if one, if not all, of the Transtellars were MAlign operations. The MA could have been funneling huge sums of money into their coffers. That would have explained where they got a lot of the huge sums of money needed to fund their operations.

I never understood who was bankrolling the MA. Their operations required huge sums of money. Yet they were pretty much isolated from humanity, though one would think they had to have at least traded with humanity. But that would have been extremely dangerous. What gives, they could clone people, but not money.

So who or what funded them. Mesa? All by itself?

And where are they keeping this money? Inside Daddy Det's family vaults, under mattresses, where? They certainly can't be utilizing the banking systems. If so, that is a paper trail.

I believe that all the transtellar corporations that headquartered on Mesa were Malign controlled and used to fund their operations. They were not isolated from humanity before Houdini, they exerted control from the boardrooms. Since they also controlled the banking system on Mesa, perhaps there are traces to be found; despite the destruction that included banking records.

Banking systems beget paper trails strewn out all across the galaxy. Huge sums of money either were abandoned in the banking system as a result of Houdini or huge withdrawals should have been the result. "I'll take that in the equivalent of cash please."

cthia wrote:Actually, I always wondered if one, if not all, of the Transtellars were MAlign operations. The MA could have been funneling huge sums of money into their coffers. That would have explained where they got a lot of the huge sums of money needed to fund their operations.

I never understood who was bankrolling the MA. Their operations required huge sums of money. Yet they were pretty much isolated from humanity, though one would think they had to have at least traded with humanity. But that would have been extremely dangerous. What gives, they could clone people, but not money.

So who or what funded them. Mesa? All by itself?

And where are they keeping this money? Inside Daddy Det's family vaults, under mattresses, where? They certainly can't be utilizing the banking systems. If so, that is a paper trail.

tlb wrote:I believe that all the transtellar corporations that headquartered on Mesa were Malign controlled and used to fund their operations. They were not isolated from humanity before Houdini, they exerted control from the boardrooms. Since they also controlled the banking system on Mesa, perhaps there are traces to be found; despite the destruction that included banking records.

cthia wrote:Banking systems beget paper trails strewn out all across the galaxy. Huge sums of money either were abandoned in the banking system as a result of Houdini or huge withdrawals should have been the result. "I'll take that in the equivalent of cash please."

As we have discussed before, there are paperless equivalents to cash that do not leave a trail; so the only evidence might be in the destroyed computer systems on Mesa.

tlb wrote:

cthia wrote:Actually, I always wondered if one, if not all, of the Transtellars were MAlign operations. The MA could have been funneling huge sums of money into their coffers. That would have explained where they got a lot of the huge sums of money needed to fund their operations.

I never understood who was bankrolling the MA. Their operations required huge sums of money. Yet they were pretty much isolated from humanity, though one would think they had to have at least traded with humanity. But that would have been extremely dangerous. What gives, they could clone people, but not money.

So who or what funded them. Mesa? All by itself?

And where are they keeping this money? Inside Daddy Det's family vaults, under mattresses, where? They certainly can't be utilizing the banking systems. If so, that is a paper trail.

tlb wrote:I believe that all the transtellar corporations that headquartered on Mesa were Malign controlled and used to fund their operations. They were not isolated from humanity before Houdini, they exerted control from the boardrooms. Since they also controlled the banking system on Mesa, perhaps there are traces to be found; despite the destruction that included banking records.

cthia wrote:Banking systems beget paper trails strewn out all across the galaxy. Huge sums of money either were abandoned in the banking system as a result of Houdini or huge withdrawals should have been the result. "I'll take that in the equivalent of cash please."

As we have discussed before, there are paperless equivalents to cash that do not leave a trail; so the only evidence might be in the destroyed computer systems on Mesa.

True, but I was talking about the banks on Mesa that held the cash which have to go through the motions of becoming a bank. And remaining a bank. And, they have to exchange data with other banks.

cthia wrote:Actually, I always wondered if one, if not all, of the Transtellars were MAlign operations. The MA could have been funneling huge sums of money into their coffers. That would have explained where they got a lot of the huge sums of money needed to fund their operations.

I never understood who was bankrolling the MA. Their operations required huge sums of money. Yet they were pretty much isolated from humanity, though one would think they had to have at least traded with humanity. But that would have been extremely dangerous. What gives, they could clone people, but not money.

So who or what funded them. Mesa? All by itself?

And where are they keeping this money? Inside Daddy Det's family vaults, under mattresses, where? They certainly can't be utilizing the banking systems. If so, that is a paper trail.

At least some of them. Hell, Manpower is a transtellar headquartered on Mesa and is almost entirely a puppet of the MAlign. (An ultimately disposable puppet; but a MAlign puppet none the less)

And Technodyne seems pretty under their control as well - using them to divert "scrapped" ex-SLN BCs to Monica and using them as the public face of the Cataphract the MAlign slipped the SLN.


But the MAlign also have the entire economic output of their hidden Darius system. They don't need a galactically tradeable currency for anything it can produce.

Jonathan_S wrote:

cthia wrote:Actually, I always wondered if one, if not all, of the Transtellars were MAlign operations. The MA could have been funneling huge sums of money into their coffers. That would have explained where they got a lot of the huge sums of money needed to fund their operations.

I never understood who was bankrolling the MA. Their operations required huge sums of money. Yet they were pretty much isolated from humanity, though one would think they had to have at least traded with humanity. But that would have been extremely dangerous. What gives, they could clone people, but not money.

So who or what funded them. Mesa? All by itself?

And where are they keeping this money? Inside Daddy Det's family vaults, under mattresses, where? They certainly can't be utilizing the banking systems. If so, that is a paper trail.

At least some of them. Hell, Manpower is a transtellar headquartered on Mesa and is almost entirely a puppet of the MAlign. (An ultimately disposable puppet; but a MAlign puppet none the less)

And Technodyne seems pretty under their control as well - using them to divert "scrapped" ex-SLN BCs to Monica and using them as the public face of the Cataphract the MAlign slipped the SLN.


But the MAlign also have the entire economic output of their hidden Darius system. They don't need a galactically tradeable currency for anything it can produce.

With Darius lay my qualms. I can accept the system eventually became self-sustaining but that should have required enormous freighter loads of cash, first. Bolthole required enormous loads of cash, and a workforce, and it is no where on the scale of Darius. Darius eventually grew a workforce but daddy couldn't have "worked the fields" on his own in the beginning.

.

cthia wrote:With Darius lay my qualms. I can accept the system eventually became self-sustaining but that should have taken freighter loads of cash, first. Bolthole required enormous loads of cash and it is no where on the level of Darius.

?? I would have guessed that they were roughly equivalent in industrial capacity.

As for the shiploads of cash for Bolthole, there was already a planetary population to train and employ. They need training equipment and start up machinery, but already have the raw materials in abundance. After training they could build the infrastructure themselves. I admit the books say that Manticore saw a budgetary enigma, but the only off-the-book items that I can imagine are the naval personnel involved in training and transportation. More of a question in the budget to me would be those ships appearing that seemingly were never constructed.

tlb wrote:

cthia wrote:With Darius lay my qualms. I can accept the system eventually became self-sustaining but that should have taken freighter loads of cash, first. Bolthole required enormous loads of cash and it is no where on the level of Darius.

?? I would have guessed that they were roughly equivalent in industrial capacity.

As for the shiploads of cash for Bolthole, there was already a planetary population to train and employ. They need training equipment and start up machinery, but already have the raw materials in abundance. After training they could build the infrastructure themselves. I admit the books say that Manticore saw a budgetary enigma, but the only off-the-book items that I can imagine are the naval personnel involved in training and transportation. More of a question in the budget to me would be those ships appearing that seemingly were never constructed.

Darius and Bolthole equivalent in industrial capacity? The Peeps had cash, though they had to launder it first to use it for Bolthole, which as you stated, was detected by Manticore as a oddity.

But equivalent? When initially I can't see where the cash came for the amount of starting capital, and other miscellaneous resources it would have taken to produce an entire system. They eventually grew the help, but what about in the beginning?

You caught me editing. My apologies.

cthia wrote:Darius and Bolthole equivalent in industrial capacity? The Peeps had cash, though they had to launder it first to use it for Bolthole, which as you stated, was detected by Manticore as a oddity.

But equivalent? When initially I can't see where the cash came for the amount of starting capital, and other miscellaneous resources it would have taken to produce an entire system. They eventually grew the help, but what about in the beginning?

You caught me editing. My apologies.

On the other hand Bolthole has been spun up in only a few decades - requiring a pretty large jumpstart to get so quickly to where it is now. The MAlign however has been on Darius for almost two centuries! (wiki says settled in early 18th century)

That means Darius has had far longer for compound growth in population and economics to apply; so it'd need a smaller initial investment to reach an equivalent industrial capacity by now. And the MAlign conspiracy has been running for almost 500 years; so they've had lots of time to create hidden sources of funding and wealth that could be quietly tapped all over known space and them funneled to Darius once it was founded.