Article Written: 19 February 1453
Revised: 12 November 1453
Between 1310 and 1344, the official currency of the Commonwealth was the Commonwealth Qor. And unlike any other Remikran Union currency that came before and after, the Commonwealth Qor was based on an actual item of value: the Darkfire Floan, the standard tradestone for darkfire.
Early on, darkfire floans were of high value, due to the long-standing prohibition against darkfire in the Remikran Union, which was enforced strictly in the Early Retunian Republic until the 1309 Revolution. Prior to 1309, darkfire floans were traded in the black market and were of extremely high value. All tradestones, both legal and illegal, were traded throughout Remikra with the use of Remikran Credit. And so upon the legalization of darkfire in the Commonwealth in 1309, one darkfire floan was officially found to have the Remikran Credit equivalent value of 17.00 Retunian Qors, which was discontinued in 1309 in favor of the newly-established Commonwealth Qor. With 1.00 Commonwealth Qor being standardized by the Commonwealth government to be in direct exchange with one floan of darkfire, 1.00 Commonwealth Qor was, therefore, the Remikran Credit equivalent of 17.00 Retunian Qors. And such an exchange was possible through the Commonwealth Qor and Darkfire Floan Exchange Program, under its sub-program, the Direct Exchange Program.
Initially, demand for darkfire floans exploded, as Commonwealth citizens were eager to take advantage of its legalization. Investors saw the incredible benefits of darkfire and believed that its output quality was universally non-diminishable. Commercial darkfire crafting was, at the time, an emerging industry that many had yet to learn; so the darkfire floan supply was superseded by its demand. As a result, by 1311, the value of the Commonwealth Qor, exchangeable with the darkfire floan, had risen to the Remikran Credit equivalent of 18.70 Retunian Qors. Such a trend would continue, bringing the value to 22.44 Retunian Qors in 1312, 29.17 Retunian Qors in 1313, 35.01 Retunian Qors in 1314, and 38.51 Retunian Qors in 1315.
By 1314, however, many Commonwealth citizens had seen the emerging darkfire industry as an opportunity to make a living, and opted to invest in darkfire production. Between 1315 and 1317, darkfire supply ran equal to demand, and in 1318, supply began exceeding demand. To make matters worse, overtapping into the darkfire quarries led darkfire potentcy to begin decreasing significantly in 1314, creating even more of a downward pressure on darkfire floan prices. As a result, darkfire floan prices went from the Remikran Credit equivalent of 38.51 down to 35.01 Retunian Qors.
To compensate for the losses, darkfire investors turned toward another sub-program of the Commonwealth Qor and Darkfire Floan Exchange Program: the Floan Production Reimbursement Program. This Program allowed producers to lease their commercial properties to the government, who would then produce darkfire floans and keep them, only to pay out the Commonwealth Qor exchange equivalent until the agreed-upon financial loss was reimbursed. While this temporarily alleviated financial pressures, it created even more downward pressure on the value of the darkfire floan and Commonwealth Qor by adding to the ever-growing supply. This practice gained popularity despite warnings from Peter Umbol, an emerging politician opposed to the Commonwealth Qor and Darkfire Floan Exchange Program. Umbol's testimony had gained ground by 1317, as he won one of the Representative seats in the Basin District on behalf of the Province of Ereatuea (though he died before he could take office in 1318), and his Coalition won a majority of seats in the Ereautean Provincial Legislature. Despite this, the Commonwealth Council continued the Exchange Program as hordes of darkfire investors continued to indulge in it.
In the first week of December 1318, the Commonwealth Council held an emergency budgetary session to address the fall in darkfire floan prices and the Commonwealth Qor value, and approved a measure to implement methods across the darkfire industry to enhance darkfire floan potency in order to stabilize prices. These measures succeeded by the autumn months of 1319, but high hopes had drawn in more people to produce, leading supply to outstrip demand at an even quicker rate. This led to even more darkfire producers turning to the Exchange Program to recuperate from disappointing revenue losses.
In 1320, darkfire floan prices fell to the Remikran Credit equivalent of 22.44 Retunian Qors, the same as they were in 1312. And in 1321, they fell yet again to 14.96 Retunian Qors, the lowest in Remikran history thus far. That year, overproduction led to overtapping in the nationwide darkfire quarries, leading to a sudden drop in darkfire potency, which led the price of a darkfire floan to fall to the Remikran Credit equivalent of 8.80 Retunian Qors in 1322, 4.19 Retunian Qors in 1323, and 1.82 Retunian Qors in 1324.
In 1325, for the first time, the value of one Commonwealth Qor/darkfire floan fell to the Remikran Credit equivalent of 0.67 Retunian Qors, prompting the Commonwealth Council to begin debates to expand the Commonwealth Qor and Darkfire Floan Exchange Program and to raise minimum wage to equal the Remikran Credit equivalent of 15.00 Retunian Qors per hour, while crafting ideas to raise darkfire potency. The Exchange Program expansions and minimum wage increases were implemented accordingly in 1326, with minimum wage increasing from 15.00 Commonwealth Qors to 64.46 Commonwealth Qors per hour and back payments made to workers to compensate for credit fallen short in 1325. But trouble came when attempting to implement the programs to raise darkfire potency, as they were not yielding the results as expected. Meanwhile, the Peter Umbol Coalition, now renamed the Realist Party, publicly condemned the Exchange Program, stating that it was contributing to the decrease in currency value and that it should be terminated to render the Commonwealth Qor a fiat currency. The Realist Party won more than half of Provincial legislatures and more than half of Representative House seats in the 1326 elections; although Finzi retained his office as Prime Minister. In the Ministry Council, the upper chamber of the Commonwealth Council, more than half of the third of seats up for election went to the Realists, but the Realists were able to convince moderate RAD Party incumbents to form a coalition with them and prevent further expansions of the Exchange Program.
Nevertheless, darkfire producers, clinging onto the belief formed in 1309 that darkfire commerce was the ultimate solution to impending economic woes, continued to add to the supply of darkfire floans, which continued to fall in potency as a result of quarry-overtapping. The fall in the Commonwealth Qor currency value prompted the Commonwealth government to raise its minimum wage again to 212.73 Commonwealth Qors per hour in 1327 and up to 829.65 per hour in 1328. In 1329, a pandemic of a variant of Benjamin Arnold Syndrome struck the Commonwealth, throwing the economy into chaos and bringing the markets to a standstill. When the pandemic ended around 1330, even more people invested into darkfire floan production.
It was around this time that leaders of the lightfire industry engaged in the Floan Production Reimbursement Program. Taking advantage of a loophole in a clause of this sub-program, the lightfire industry raised capital to expand their businesses in Ancondria and lure workers to their businesses with the promise of higher pay. This led to a slight downward pressure on darkfire floan supply, but was not enough to overcome the influx of darkfire producers entering the market between 1330 and 1332. As a result, the value of the darkfire floan and Commonwealth Qor fell even more. Another response to this, made by the Federal Reserve, was to create new bank notes to encompass the higher units of measurement in Commonwealth Qors. In 1329, the "Kiloqor" bill began to be printed; and in 1332, the "Megaqor" bill began to be printed.
In the midst of all the chaos, Alexander Schraber of the Realist Party announced his agenda to replace Holz Finzi as Prime Minister in the 1332 elections on the promise that he would strike down the "disastrous" Commonwealth Qor and Darkfire Floan Exchange Program in its entirety. This, along with the other appealing parts of his agenda, led Schraber to winning the 1332 election. And on 2 January 1333, one day after taking office, Prime Minister Schraber followed through with his promise by signing an executive order to end to the Program. By that point, the value of the Commonwealth Qor fell to its lowest point, being worth the Remikran Credit equivalent of 0.000006 Retunian Qors. In terms of matching the Remikran Credit equivalent of 15.00 Retunian Qors per hour, the minimum wage was made to be 2,463,194.14 Commonwealth Qors per hour.
Schraber's policies rendered the Commonwealth Qor a fiat currency and began to have an impact. With limits on the currency similar to that of the Retunian Qor system of the Early Republic, demand for the currency, itself, began to increase. By 1334, the Commonwealth Qor had doubled its value; and by 1338, its value had risen to the Remikran Credit equivalent of 0.0011 Retunian Qors. The lightfire industry saw this as a boon. Although they had taken advantage of the Reimbursement Program during the last term of Finzi, the top seventeen lightfire businesses had supported Schraber and his decision to end this Program in order to make it more difficult for other lightfire businesses to enter the market, especially after the great boost in revenue for the businesses from Ancondria in 1328-29. Also, making the Commonwealth Qor a fiat currency provided less pressure for these businesses to pay higher wages; and so their starting wages and pay scales were lower beginning in Schraber's term.
However, the stoppage of the Commonwealth Qor and Darkfire Floan Exchange Program led the number of darkfire floan producers to drop immediately by 50 percent, raising prices for darkfire floans (and floan prices to become higher than 1.00 Commonwealth Qor). Furthermore, Schraber crafted rash, and even morally questionable, trade and diplomacy policies regarding lightfire and conventional tradestone markets. This led both domestic and international investors to begin avoiding the Commowealth markets and even more Commonwealth employees to begin leaving the industries. Fearing economic collapse, Schraber called enacted policies to boost stimulus funding to the lightfire industry in anticipation for them to draw in successive wins from Silba in Ancondria, just like they did in 1329.
The issue with trade in Silba was that, in the wake of the boom in 1329, Commonwealth lightfire businesses, corrupted by greed by this time, had begun imposing royalty contracts on foreign Ancondrian businesses. This generated abrasion. And by 1341, even the leading figures of Silba were refusing propositions by Commonwealth lightfire businesses to expand in the markets. One of the leading foreign entities, however, known as the Esteagen Council, presented to the yearly Commonwealth lightfire business summit that year of an opportunity to make a gain in 1343. Over the next two years, Prime Minister Schraber led the Commonwealth Council to vote in more funding to the lightfire industry, this time drawing funds from the Federal Reserve. With a rule in place for this Federal Reserve mirroring the rules of the Federal Reserve of the Early Republic, these measures led to more Commonwealth Qors being printed. The expansion of the lightfire industry during this time led to a higher demand for lightfire industry employees and higher wages. It was also during this time that prices for darkfire floans continued to rise.
As a result, the Commonwealth Qor, once again, began losing value. And when lightfire expansion expectations presented during the 1341 Summit humiliatingly fell short in 1343, the fallout sent the Schraber Administration scrambling to cover for the financial losses with more support from the Federal Reserve. This led the Commonwealth Qor value to fall back to the Remikran Credit equivalent of 0.00043 Retunian Qors by 1344. In the ensuing chaos resulting from this along with a plethora of diplomatic and domestic issues, Prime Minister Schraber resigned from Office on 7 March 1344.
Although its value was not as low as it was eleven years earlier, the instability of the Commonwealth Qors led the population to persuade the Commonwealth Council to vote in, as well as Interim Prime Minister George Borwell to sign, the Seventh Constitutional Amendment, re-establishing the Retunian Qor as the official currency of the Commonwealth and to render the Commonwealth Qor obsolete.