It all started with an online store.
Well, that’s not entirely true. The actual start of this whole thing didn’t even involve Neo-Mart or Mr. Bartholomew Raggs. It involved the destabilization of the economy due to rapid inflation, a drought, and the loss of the major oil fields that the Government had been using to continue trade with other countries. But the real beginning to all of this, as far as any ordinary people are concerned, is when suddenly the Standard Credit wasn’t a stable option anymore, and prices began changing every day.
Neo-Mart was a small online store specializing in selling novelty T-Shirts of popular cartoon characters. Twenty years ago, we would have looked at the small website and appreciated how the owner was working to build a name for himself in his little niche. However, soon Mr. Raggs would make his name far outside the box a customer would try to put him in.
Frustrated with trying to control his shop with the fluctuating prices and combating the people who would try to cheat him when the coin’s value dropped. Neo-Mart hired a coder and created the first unit of a program that would change the world, Neo-Coin. Overnight, Neo-Mart separated itself almost entirely from the Standard Credit, offering Neo-Coins that could be used to purchase his items. A brilliant strategy, as the only thing affected by the constantly changing value of the Standard Credit, was the price of the coin itself, effectively locking Neo-Mart in a safe bubble, away from the financial woes that had been plaguing other companies and granting it stability.
And that stability was loved by its customers.
Within the first month, Neo-Mart had driven out all its market competition, expanding its storefront tenfold, beginning to make its way into physical locations and warehouses, and creating more and more servers to run its coin system. Suddenly, if you wanted a T-Shirt of the Famous bounty hunter Jay Rellud, the only option would be to shell out to open a little Neo-Coin account on Neo-Mart.
That’s where it started, but if it ended at T-Shirts, we wouldn’t be telling this story to you now. Mr. Raggs tasted Neo-Coin’s power when the last competitor shut its store down for good. Neo-Coin accounts had granted him enough money to live quite comfortably no matter how low the value of the Standard Credit swung. But he knew that he could get more. And if there was anything Mr. Raggs wanted, it was more.
The Servers that ran Neo-Coin went on sale the next day. Companies could purchase a server and make Neo-Coin an acceptable currency in their shop, spreading its stability nationwide. Business owners the country over jumped at the bait and began implementing Neo-Coin Servers into every storefront, from Video Game Retailers to Grocery Stores. However, every owner looked over one critical detail.
Neo-Coins could only be bought and sold on Neo-Mart.
The Servers that Mr. Raggs sold were unconnected to the ones he used on his storefront, but each and every transaction made could be tracked by the company. Neo-Mart could see precisely where each account was spending the coins and see who transferred Standard Credits into Neo-Coins and vice versa, providing the company terabytes of data for each account owner. And to only a slightly smaller degree of importance, put a large portion of each company’s profit in their power.
Three months later, Neo-Mart used its data collection to find each category’s weakest and smallest stores. The small shops barely kept their doors open and, as a result, leaned the most heavily on the Neo-Coin Server they owned. Mr. Raggs reached out to each of these companies and offered them a place in his new business venture, The Neo-Group. A group of sellers that used Neo-Coin exclusively assisted the other group members when times were hard and received the benefits of Neo-Marts vast advertisement infrastructure, giving them a place and an audience to use to raise their profits. The country now had a union of small businesses, supported by the Financial Giant Neo-Mart.
The Neo-Group had grown one hundred members strong when Mr. Raggs renamed his company Neo. Stepping away from the Novelty Shirt Store that he had started in, Neo-Mart became Shirt-City as the CEO of Neo focused on his primary targets, Neo-Coins and the small army of Stores that relied solely on them.
A year after getting the Neo-Coin Servers, storefronts not a part of the Neo-Group found that they had slowed down considerably. Massive bottlenecks occurred as the Neo-Coin transactions took nearly twice the time to complete transactions as they used to. After a year of Neo-Coin, virtually nobody had Standard Credits on hand for something other than taxes or Government work. Funnily enough, however, the servers of the Neo-Group Stores were running fine, probably because they were connected directly to Neo’s Central Servers. Customers began flocking towards the faster stores as the lucky few began changing their names to reflect their position in the group. Neo-Games, Neo-Books, Neo-Fashion, Neo-Groceries, these stores took off in popularity as the others saw a sharp decline in revenue and began scrambling to join the group that would save them. The Neo-Group nearly tripled its members overnight, and Neo was suddenly the dominant company in everything from shopping to security to construction.
At this time, the Government stepped in. Neo was put on trial to determine whether it was a monopoly. However, it is hard to judge the corporation that has you in its pocket. At the same time as the trial, Neo-Coin Servers for large architecture groups like Neo-Construction, Neo Gas and Electric, and Neo-Demolition suddenly struggled to accept the Neo-Coin accounts of the Government. And it seemed almost more expensive for the Government to convert Neo-Coin into Standard Credits or vice versa. Government transactions ground to a halt, and workers began protesting being paid in Standard Credits instead of the more widely accepted currencies. The Government turned to Neo-Finance and Neo-Banking for help, making a deal. The problems Governmental Neo-Coin accounts faced would be resolved if the trial on Neo was dropped and Neo-Coins were accepted as legal tender. Some claimed that Mr. Raggs caused these problems to get the Government off his back and under his thumb, but those are the people who can’t see the inherent need for stability that would have been threatened if Neo broke apart.
Around this time, Mr. Raggs began using his famous signature “President Bartholomew Raggs, Of the country of Neo” as he signed his letters and documents. The Government hated it, but with the production of Standard Credits no longer considered a profitable activity and the ability for Neo to act above the law, with the entire country’s finances able to act as its shield, they couldn’t do anything to stop it. The Neo-Group picked up the last few stores that had evaded working under it, and the final form of Neo began to take shape. The Neo-Group’s members were split off into Neo’s Ministry of economics, agriculture, architecture, and finance; with the now store less Neo-Group looking beyond the countries borders as their neighbors began setting up Neo-Coin servers in stores around their borders. Neo’s Ministry of Defense was launched, protecting the company’s assets with military strength the “Government” couldn’t shake a stick at. Mr. Raggs officially renamed his position from CEO to President and began issuing laws that the employees, now known as the Citizens, of Neo had to follow to keep their job. The “senators” of the “Government” stopped showing up to meetings and votes, each stating that they were wasting their time. The “Government’s” employees found better jobs elsewhere in the country of Neo, and the ones that remained were forced to start selling land and buildings to keep the doors of the empty Senate Building open. Eventually, President Raggs bought the building and made it the meeting place for his Board of Directors. Neighboring countries attempted to reestablish the Old Government, only to back off when the Neo-Coin servers they had begun to rely on mysteriously began acting up, shaking their economies to the core. President Raggs took office ten years after Neo-Mart introduced their new currency.
And what happened to Shirt City, President Raggs’ original storefront? Word got out that it was considering leaving the Neo-Group to gain more financial freedom when it was suddenly bought out by Neo-Fashion after President Raggs’ replacement CEO suddenly disappeared. Weird how the tables can randomly turn like that, huh?
All Hail President Raggs
Fei Nagil, History Professor of the Neo Ministry of Education
Will Fall Writings 