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Description
"All the credits in the Galaxy aren't worth a damn. A real economy trades and competes for power. The power to leave your own mark on history. One much greater than any President, any tyrant, any upstart terrorist or warlord. I ask not for any payment you could give me, except for your understanding that what we do here has to be done, and enough patience to let me prove I'm right."- The Man

Credits- Abbreviated as “cR”, UN Credits are the standard currency of the Unified Earth Government, and whilst many independent human governments also have adopted the UN Credit or recognise it as a currency, some colonies and unions have abandoned the UN Credit for entirely new currencies themselves. Credits can be spent in the form of "credit chips," which are similar to a credit card, but even by the 26th Century, cash is still widely accepted. This is as a result of the Great Waypoint Bank Account Crash of 2472, in which the renowned hacker and cyber criminal known only as “The Bogeyman” stole billions of credits from millions of different accounts across human space and their tampering with the Extra Planetary Wide Web left many accounts months after the initial crash still losing money to The Bogeyman. This was met by a huge crash in financial stability, grinding almost all further space exploration to a halt. To restore a sense of normality, governments and corporations revived physical cash payments which had been thought all but gone by the 22nd Century. Needless to say, the few people who had saved a lot of physical cash for years before the crash found themselves well prepared for it and ahead of others who were yet to receive physical cash in compensation. By the 2490s, stability was restored to the economy, but now that cash had been given the breath of life, many started to accept cash in the same way that it was accepted in the early 21st century as fears still lingered over the safety and security of Waypoint-based payments and data entry, and because it had quite simply become normal again. Nonetheless, the chaos created by the crash ended up being the catalyst for completing the UEG’s turn from fuelling space exploration and colonisation to fuelling the military industrial complex through waging war on Insurrection and insurgency, harkening back to the extensive use of war and war profiteering in the late 20th and 21st Centuries as a source of keeping money flowing through the economy to keep it stable. Humans sometimes casually refer to credits as “creds” or “credaroos," analogous to the way 20th and 21st century Americans would refer to dollars as “bucks” or “buckaroos." Possibly due to the remarkable (and storytelling-wise convenient) persistence of 20th and 21st Century culture and idioms well into the 26th Century, many humans will refer to Credits as if they were dollars or the currency most aligned with their national/ancestral identity, despite these archaic currencies becoming redundant and pegged to the value of the UN Credit purely to sustain their cultural significance. Though Credits do have an official symbol, due to the symbol not being on most keyboards at the time the credit was introduced for many years (partly because of wide social protest against the homogenisation of currency at the time), most people tended to prefix anything priced with credits with the abbreviation cR, a practice which has continued into the modern day even with the symbol present on all keyboards and learned to be written by all children in school.

Trade Alliance- The Trade Alliance is a union between colonies of the Unified Earth Government, that sets regulations that allow colonies to trade amongst each other. The "fine print" of the Trade Alliance prevents a colonial government from disallowing personnel of the UEG's UNSC to enter a colony's planetary "borders" and allows them to claim executive autonomy. Article 3.75 of the Trade Alliance allows the UNSC to take control of a colony's planetary border security.

Food and Drink- All creatures require sustenance to survive. While some are content with directly consuming what nature provides, sapient beings have the limitless capacity to turn raw foods into complex concoctions ranging the gamut from tasty and nutritious to body chemistry-incompatible. Humans have, by the 26th Century, excelled in making one of the most wide-ranging and varied collections of different cuisines in the galaxy. Earth’s less mainstream cultural cuisines, coupled with new ones developed across different colonies with new animals and methods of preparing food have experienced a great upturn both as a result of the Historical and Cultural Renaissance and Revival experienced during the Domus Diaspora, as more people have gotten in touch with their heritage and have brought previously unknown and marginalised cultures, including food, to the mainstream. Now, you are just as likely to find a Nigerian Restaurant down the street as you are an Italian. Why settle for the Chinese takeaway that you, as an early 21st Century reader somehow getting all this knowledge on the future, have undoubtedly ordered a hundred times when you could try the Peruvian Takeout that’s much closer to your house? Of course, old habits die hard, and the most popular dishes from the most popular cultures are still quite dominant, though they are certainly being contested by foods ranging from different backgrounds, especially now with the entry of alien cuisines from the Covenant into the human palette. Turns out, humans think Sangheili Colo meat is straight up delicious, and Jiralhanae Thorn Beast is, whilst very difficult to finish a portion of, also very popular. By the late 22nd Century, the atmosphere, soil and natural groundwater of much of Earth had been tainted and choked out of their nutrients as a result of over-farming, mass burials and biological warfare during the Interplanetary War and conflicts beforehand. Thus, most fresh food had to be grown in indoor hydroponic gardens, largely located in Sweden and Switzerland, which skyrocketed its prices. The majority of fresh food consumed was imported from the Germanic and Scandinavian nations along with the Solar System colonies- the new breadbaskets of the human race. Due to high prices making real, fresh food scarce, synthetic alternatives grown in vats and gene-spliced from their natural sources saw a huge boom. However, there were clear differences- whilst a poor child born during this time may not have experienced anything but these synthetic foods, an adult who had lived their life eating natural foods suddenly having to convert to these synthetic alternatives previously only favoured by vegetarians and animal rights supporters led many to becoming miserable and losing their appetites- synthetic food, clothing material, and alot of cosmetic products, no matter how high in quality and no matter just how much they tried, could never be as good as the real thing. With efforts to re-stabilise the atmosphere, soil and groundwater on Earth being slower than expected, many moved to the solar colonies in the hopes of being closer to fresh food. Upon the beginning of the Domus Diaspora as a result of the slipspace drive’s invention, Earth’s agricultural industry suffered even more and by the 23rd Century, this resulted in entire states and polities seceding from their nations due to not believing that they cared enough about their problems. Losing their jobs to off-world farming which drove down prices of real, fresh food which did not have to be grown in specialised environments like on Earth, Earth’s farmers lost business because quite simply, nobody was buying. Their goods were now far too expensive and this even resulted in the United States fracturing and the start of a short-lived North American Conflict and then the formation of the United Republic of North America. Thankfully, the introduction of the North American Agricultural Regeneration Scheme successfully completed its goal of restoring farming viability to the continent and would become a model for similar schemes in other countries across the planet. By the 26th Century, synthetic foods have returned mainly to the realm of being favoured by those who do not wish to eat from actual animals and the poorest of the poor with natural food having come back in full force. However, this does not mean synthetic foods do not have their advantages- previously impossible, new and exciting, if weird and sometimes downright crazy, culinary innovations can be achieved easily with the use of vat-grown food production. Ever tried a Cumberland Sausage-flavoured Cucumber or a White Chocolate-flavoured Sharkfin Soup? Perhaps you’d enjoy caviar that tastes like pineapple along with goat’s cheese ginger biscuits or vodka-flavoured nacho cheese on your sushi with toffee-infused rice?….Trust us, you don’t want this. Any of it, not unless you’re…that kind of weird.

Cryptocurrency- Chances are if you’re in your late 20s or early 30s, have a short boxed beard, bleach your hair, were extremely spoilt as a child and work as a mid-level executive for a big Corp, you’re probably a crypto bro. In the 26th Century Cryptocurrency has evolved from an enigmatic cloud of imaginary money that nobody really understands and everyone who says they do is only pretending to into…oh wait, nevermind. It’s exactly the same. Only bigger. Greater fool theory has had a hell of a lot to do with the rise of cryptocurrency- with almost every investor in the numerous blockchains who takes themselves seriously being aware that the amount of money they are putting into the thing is downright stupid, but believing wholeheartedly that there’s someone who’s even stupider out there willing to buy their investment off of them for way more. Naturally, this has done little to reassure people of the safety of Cryptocurrency as a concept. Whilst the ability to digitally transact large amounts of money without being easily traced has certainly caught the attention and fancy of numerous criminal empires, intelligence agencies and society-manipulating deep state organisations (of which the three are likely the most common users of cryptocurrency and know how to manipulate it for the own ends), most regular people tend to avoid it. Others however have found that it is an ideal way to dodge income tax, as well as get a sense of privacy. Since there is no centralised, regulating party such as a bank involved in cryptocurrency (at least, in the most popular ones), transactions can be made anonymously without having to deliver physical cash discreetly or route illicit payments through several different banks and shell companies and off-world accounts and whatever the hell the trillionaires are using to avoid being caught embezzling these days. Overall, the social trend following-nerds, the spoilt rich kids and annoying Waypoint memers will tell you that crypto is their way of liberating themselves from control by the government and other institutions, of returning to a world where you got paid for a thing you did, then bought another thing and no third party had to know about it, that crypto represents freedom from the oligopolies of central banks and a true expression of the free market, but in reality, the majority of these guys are probably faking it- because just yesterday, Moacoin took a dive so deep that they had to sell their houses and cars and got admitted to a mental ward for nearly committing suicide afterwards.

(A much shorter one this time. Mainly cause is about economics and...well, there's not much that's different in Human society economically, at least not much that's interesting to write and worth explaining. In hindsight I suppose this could've all just gone in the Society/Culture section of my 26th Century Humanity notes, especially the Food and Drink part, but whatever. I actually kinda wanted to put the note I had written about Corporations in the 26th Century in here, but I decided to keep them in the Society/Culture section since I feel it belongs there more. Also, the symbol pictured in the image is intended to be the symbol for Credits. I actually took it from the symbol on the credits you have to buy in Halo Infinite, but since I couldn't find the symbol itself on its own I had to cut it out of a png of it from an image of the credit coins themselves, then edit it to work with this background. Figured I'd make something good come out of that microtranssction system lol. Anyway, next up in this series will be the section I've written the most about- technology in 26th Century Human society, and my oh my, I'm not even sure if that one's gonna fit deviantart's description limit. But until then, have a great time folks!)

(P.S: If you couldn't tell, I don't like the idea of cryptocurrency. Maybe I'm just old fashioned and don't really understand it, but there's something very wrong about it to me, and I don't think even 500 years is gonna change that)

Description
"All the credits in the Galaxy aren't worth a damn. A real economy trades and competes for power. The power to leave your own mark on history. One much greater than any President, any tyrant, any upstart terrorist or warlord. I ask not for any payment you could give me, except for your understanding that what we do here has to be done, and enough patience to let me prove I'm right."- The Man

Credits- Abbreviated as “cR”, UN Credits are the standard currency of the Unified Earth Government, and whilst many independent human governments also have adopted the UN Credit or recognise it as a currency, some colonies and unions have abandoned the UN Credit for entirely new currencies themselves. Credits can be spent in the form of "credit chips," which are similar to a credit card, but even by the 26th Century, cash is still widely accepted. This is as a result of the Great Waypoint Bank Account Crash of 2472, in which the renowned hacker and cyber criminal known only as “The Bogeyman” stole billions of credits from millions of different accounts across human space and their tampering with the Extra Planetary Wide Web left many accounts months after the initial crash still losing money to The Bogeyman. This was met by a huge crash in financial stability, grinding almost all further space exploration to a halt. To restore a sense of normality, governments and corporations revived physical cash payments which had been thought all but gone by the 22nd Century. Needless to say, the few people who had saved a lot of physical cash for years before the crash found themselves well prepared for it and ahead of others who were yet to receive physical cash in compensation. By the 2490s, stability was restored to the economy, but now that cash had been given the breath of life, many started to accept cash in the same way that it was accepted in the early 21st century as fears still lingered over the safety and security of Waypoint-based payments and data entry, and because it had quite simply become normal again. Nonetheless, the chaos created by the crash ended up being the catalyst for completing the UEG’s turn from fuelling space exploration and colonisation to fuelling the military industrial complex through waging war on Insurrection and insurgency, harkening back to the extensive use of war and war profiteering in the late 20th and 21st Centuries as a source of keeping money flowing through the economy to keep it stable. Humans sometimes casually refer to credits as “creds” or “credaroos," analogous to the way 20th and 21st century Americans would refer to dollars as “bucks” or “buckaroos." Possibly due to the remarkable (and storytelling-wise convenient) persistence of 20th and 21st Century culture and idioms well into the 26th Century, many humans will refer to Credits as if they were dollars or the currency most aligned with their national/ancestral identity, despite these archaic currencies becoming redundant and pegged to the value of the UN Credit purely to sustain their cultural significance. Though Credits do have an official symbol, due to the symbol not being on most keyboards at the time the credit was introduced for many years (partly because of wide social protest against the homogenisation of currency at the time), most people tended to prefix anything priced with credits with the abbreviation cR, a practice which has continued into the modern day even with the symbol present on all keyboards and learned to be written by all children in school.

Trade Alliance- The Trade Alliance is a union between colonies of the Unified Earth Government, that sets regulations that allow colonies to trade amongst each other. The "fine print" of the Trade Alliance prevents a colonial government from disallowing personnel of the UEG's UNSC to enter a colony's planetary "borders" and allows them to claim executive autonomy. Article 3.75 of the Trade Alliance allows the UNSC to take control of a colony's planetary border security.

Food and Drink- All creatures require sustenance to survive. While some are content with directly consuming what nature provides, sapient beings have the limitless capacity to turn raw foods into complex concoctions ranging the gamut from tasty and nutritious to body chemistry-incompatible. Humans have, by the 26th Century, excelled in making one of the most wide-ranging and varied collections of different cuisines in the galaxy. Earth’s less mainstream cultural cuisines, coupled with new ones developed across different colonies with new animals and methods of preparing food have experienced a great upturn both as a result of the Historical and Cultural Renaissance and Revival experienced during the Domus Diaspora, as more people have gotten in touch with their heritage and have brought previously unknown and marginalised cultures, including food, to the mainstream. Now, you are just as likely to find a Nigerian Restaurant down the street as you are an Italian. Why settle for the Chinese takeaway that you, as an early 21st Century reader somehow getting all this knowledge on the future, have undoubtedly ordered a hundred times when you could try the Peruvian Takeout that’s much closer to your house? Of course, old habits die hard, and the most popular dishes from the most popular cultures are still quite dominant, though they are certainly being contested by foods ranging from different backgrounds, especially now with the entry of alien cuisines from the Covenant into the human palette. Turns out, humans think Sangheili Colo meat is straight up delicious, and Jiralhanae Thorn Beast is, whilst very difficult to finish a portion of, also very popular. By the late 22nd Century, the atmosphere, soil and natural groundwater of much of Earth had been tainted and choked out of their nutrients as a result of over-farming, mass burials and biological warfare during the Interplanetary War and conflicts beforehand. Thus, most fresh food had to be grown in indoor hydroponic gardens, largely located in Sweden and Switzerland, which skyrocketed its prices. The majority of fresh food consumed was imported from the Germanic and Scandinavian nations along with the Solar System colonies- the new breadbaskets of the human race. Due to high prices making real, fresh food scarce, synthetic alternatives grown in vats and gene-spliced from their natural sources saw a huge boom. However, there were clear differences- whilst a poor child born during this time may not have experienced anything but these synthetic foods, an adult who had lived their life eating natural foods suddenly having to convert to these synthetic alternatives previously only favoured by vegetarians and animal rights supporters led many to becoming miserable and losing their appetites- synthetic food, clothing material, and alot of cosmetic products, no matter how high in quality and no matter just how much they tried, could never be as good as the real thing. With efforts to re-stabilise the atmosphere, soil and groundwater on Earth being slower than expected, many moved to the solar colonies in the hopes of being closer to fresh food. Upon the beginning of the Domus Diaspora as a result of the slipspace drive’s invention, Earth’s agricultural industry suffered even more and by the 23rd Century, this resulted in entire states and polities seceding from their nations due to not believing that they cared enough about their problems. Losing their jobs to off-world farming which drove down prices of real, fresh food which did not have to be grown in specialised environments like on Earth, Earth’s farmers lost business because quite simply, nobody was buying. Their goods were now far too expensive and this even resulted in the United States fracturing and the start of a short-lived North American Conflict and then the formation of the United Republic of North America. Thankfully, the introduction of the North American Agricultural Regeneration Scheme successfully completed its goal of restoring farming viability to the continent and would become a model for similar schemes in other countries across the planet. By the 26th Century, synthetic foods have returned mainly to the realm of being favoured by those who do not wish to eat from actual animals and the poorest of the poor with natural food having come back in full force. However, this does not mean synthetic foods do not have their advantages- previously impossible, new and exciting, if weird and sometimes downright crazy, culinary innovations can be achieved easily with the use of vat-grown food production. Ever tried a Cumberland Sausage-flavoured Cucumber or a White Chocolate-flavoured Sharkfin Soup? Perhaps you’d enjoy caviar that tastes like pineapple along with goat’s cheese ginger biscuits or vodka-flavoured nacho cheese on your sushi with toffee-infused rice?….Trust us, you don’t want this. Any of it, not unless you’re…that kind of weird.

Cryptocurrency- Chances are if you’re in your late 20s or early 30s, have a short boxed beard, bleach your hair, were extremely spoilt as a child and work as a mid-level executive for a big Corp, you’re probably a crypto bro. In the 26th Century Cryptocurrency has evolved from an enigmatic cloud of imaginary money that nobody really understands and everyone who says they do is only pretending to into…oh wait, nevermind. It’s exactly the same. Only bigger. Greater fool theory has had a hell of a lot to do with the rise of cryptocurrency- with almost every investor in the numerous blockchains who takes themselves seriously being aware that the amount of money they are putting into the thing is downright stupid, but believing wholeheartedly that there’s someone who’s even stupider out there willing to buy their investment off of them for way more. Naturally, this has done little to reassure people of the safety of Cryptocurrency as a concept. Whilst the ability to digitally transact large amounts of money without being easily traced has certainly caught the attention and fancy of numerous criminal empires, intelligence agencies and society-manipulating deep state organisations (of which the three are likely the most common users of cryptocurrency and know how to manipulate it for the own ends), most regular people tend to avoid it. Others however have found that it is an ideal way to dodge income tax, as well as get a sense of privacy. Since there is no centralised, regulating party such as a bank involved in cryptocurrency (at least, in the most popular ones), transactions can be made anonymously without having to deliver physical cash discreetly or route illicit payments through several different banks and shell companies and off-world accounts and whatever the hell the trillionaires are using to avoid being caught embezzling these days. Overall, the social trend following-nerds, the spoilt rich kids and annoying Waypoint memers will tell you that crypto is their way of liberating themselves from control by the government and other institutions, of returning to a world where you got paid for a thing you did, then bought another thing and no third party had to know about it, that crypto represents freedom from the oligopolies of central banks and a true expression of the free market, but in reality, the majority of these guys are probably faking it- because just yesterday, Moacoin took a dive so deep that they had to sell their houses and cars and got admitted to a mental ward for nearly committing suicide afterwards.

(A much shorter one this time. Mainly cause is about economics and...well, there's not much that's different in Human society economically, at least not much that's interesting to write and worth explaining. In hindsight I suppose this could've all just gone in the Society/Culture section of my 26th Century Humanity notes, especially the Food and Drink part, but whatever. I actually kinda wanted to put the note I had written about Corporations in the 26th Century in here, but I decided to keep them in the Society/Culture section since I feel it belongs there more. Also, the symbol pictured in the image is intended to be the symbol for Credits. I actually took it from the symbol on the credits you have to buy in Halo Infinite, but since I couldn't find the symbol itself on its own I had to cut it out of a png of it from an image of the credit coins themselves, then edit it to work with this background. Figured I'd make something good come out of that microtranssction system lol. Anyway, next up in this series will be the section I've written the most about- technology in 26th Century Human society, and my oh my, I'm not even sure if that one's gonna fit deviantart's description limit. But until then, have a great time folks!)

(P.S: If you couldn't tell, I don't like the idea of cryptocurrency. Maybe I'm just old fashioned and don't really understand it, but there's something very wrong about it to me, and I don't think even 500 years is gonna change that)