Where do Widgets come from?

[Toa Of Anarchy]

So where do widgets come from? BS1 says they were implemented into Matoran life after the Bohrok-Kal attack, so that might imply that they came from the bohrok, but does anybody have a GregF quote?

[fishers64]

22) In MNOLGII, the Matoran use currency called "widgets". Do you know anything about this?

No, that is something new with MNOLG2.

 

Basically, I take it as an innovation for MNOLG 2 that Greg just went with. MNOLG 2 starts roughly after the Bohrok-Kal attack, so it makes sense.

 

Just to clarify, though, in case this isn't clear, that's only true of the Mata Nui Matoran post-memory wipe. Widgets was the standard currency throughout the universe - it was just reintroduced to the Mata Nui Matoran after the Kal attack.

Edited February 12, 2014 by fishers64

[NuvaTube]

Where the currency came from?

 

Almost certainly from the Turaga, since it shares the same name as the MU currency. After 1000 years of a barter system they apparently thought they would try and advance the Mata Nui economy. There's no evidence to say that the values involved are meant to be the same as the ones from the MU, but it is likely.

 

Say you've been living in a post apocalyptic land. Money now becomes near worthless, since there's virtually nothing you can practically do with it. Hence a barter system works much better, where individuals or groups of individuals trade in objects they consider valuable. Say, I want some sheep and you want some firewood. We haggle over it until we come to an exchange where we get as much as we can whilst giving as little as we can, but enough that the other party is willing to trade. If you try to pay in paper cash or coins, it would only really be useful as toilet paper, fuel, raw metal or jewelry. However, the economy is really quite simple and in some ways limited until you get currencies. But, this needs a certain stability to really work. Apparently the Turaga decided to give it a shot. (We never know, perhaps one of the Matoran suggested the idea and the Turaga agreed).

 

Where did the material for the currency come from?

 

Probably from the extra metallic Protodermis made available from the recent conflicts (yes, like the Bohrok). No certain answer that I'm aware of, though :/

 

 

EDIT: Now that we know Bohrok are basically dead/evolved Av-Matoran, the thought is pretty awkward,,,

Edited February 12, 2014 by NuvaTube

[FallenCor]

"Hey, I'd like to buy a fish with this widget that was probably part of an Av-Matoran's braaaaain~" *brick'd*

Naw, in all seriousness, I'd say it's possible the Turaga had some from back in the day, even just a handful, and thought it was time to start re-implementing stuff from everyone's time on Metru Nui. They could have used what little they had as a model for the Ta-Matoran to work from, which would actually be useful in getting them prepped for metalworking again.

[bonesiii]

Yeah, Whenua probably had some. Being an Archivist and all. Or at least probably knew the measurements needed for the MU version.

 

Just to be clear, the main reason they reintroduced it is almost certainly that they had decided the Toa Nuva were living up to what the prophecies had said. They were skeptical of that before then, but after the Kal, decided to trust them and reveal the truth of their past. The new money was probably meant to go along with that. But they decided to wait for the storytelling part until after the Kolhii Tournament, and we all know what went wrong then.

 

I agree Bohrok are one likely source, or rather indirect source, as the Boxor (made from Bohrok) became unneeded. They probably kept some around just to play it safe, but once the Bohrok War was over, the Boxor would be more of a source of metal for re-use. And some Bohrok had probably been disabled by the war battles without having yet been turned into Boxor. They had other metals, but they were used in machinery already integrated into the villages for a thousand years. The Turaga might have sanctioned the deconstruction of some of those things (and maybe some were already damaged by the Bohrok anyways), but I doubt that point is early enough. If anything they were for all appearances building more things like the stadium. Plus they needed metal for rebuilding the Matoran themselves. So, Bohrok primarily.

 

And if you think that's creepy, keep in mind that probably every atom you have ever eaten was once inside some living thing or another that died. (And same for the atoms making up our paper or even most metal money... or the electronics storing our digital money etc.) The Matoran life is actually far less creepy than ours in that light, as most dead bodies just disappeared.

Edited February 12, 2014 by bonesiii

[Katuko]

And if you think that's creepy, keep in mind that probably every atom you have ever eaten was once inside some living thing or another that died. (And same for the atoms making up our paper or even most metal money... or the electronics storing our digital money etc.) The Matoran life is actually far less creepy than ours in that light, as most dead bodies just disappeared.

Here in real life we have a lot of animal products, too, which could easily be substituted with more "creepy" human parts if needed. It actually speaks quite well of the Matoran that they take their parts from Bohrok - which are entirely mechanical no matter where they came from - rather than mass-slaughtering Rahi and taking their parts. I suppose it could still be called corpse looting, but I think that if the being died on its own and the organics vanished thousands of years ago, it shouldn't be a problem if someone decides to dismantle the resultant robot and build something else.

 

The Kal were a bt more iffy, since they seemed to contain unique personalities regardless of which Krana was seated as the "processor". Then again, they doomed themselves and vanished from the face of the island, soI doubt the Matoran took any parts from their remains.

 

Where they got all the widgets is still a good question, though. They were mostly cogwheels as far as I could see, and though Matoran robots like the Vahki run on clockwork I'm not sure if the Bohrok did. Were they really filled with hundreds of cogs each? Maybe the Matoran melted down scrap parts and made widgets out of those, that sounds likely to me.

[Kopekemaster]

But also, what makes them currency? The definition of currency is (just copied off a Google search):

"A generally accepted form of money, including coins and paper notes, which is issued by a government and circulated within an economy. Used as a medium of exchange for goods and services, currency is the basis for trade."

Another part of this is the fact that it has to be something that is either worth something in itself, represent something of actual worth, or there be a limited supply of it (or, of course, a mixture of some or all of those).

Theoretically, what could stop a Matoran from digging out a chunk of protodermis and carving a widget?

[Katuko]

The same thing that stops us from just printing money, I imagine. If you print money whenever, it loses its value. People have to agree that something is worth "money" and that "money" is a thing. If you break the system, "money" is not worth anything. People have used things like paper bills, metal pieces, sea shells, etc. as currency. As long as everyone agrees that a certain thing is money, it doesn't matter what the money itself is.

 

Look at the bottle caps of the Fallout universe, for example, or the Rupee gems in Legend of Zelda. In Fallout our old paper money is also worth just about nothing, because that system of currency vanished after the nuclear war that laid the foundation for the setting. If you want to use paper money, you have to use the New Californian Republic or Legion bills; and they exist only because the NCR/Legion wants to re-instate the old economy. Furthermore, NCR money is worth just about nothing to Legion members, and outside of Vegas neither currency is accepted.

 

Matoran have an advantage in that they usually manage to agree and work together towards a common end. Thus a Ta-Matoran can probably trade fairly with a Ko-Matoran, no matter what currency they have agreed upon. If they cared too much about personal profit, the balance of their society would falter, and Mata Nui would suffer for it. If you look to other species like the Vortixx, however, I am fairly certain that Xian society would view money (or at least wealth, however you choose to describe it) as a much more important aspect of life than the Matoran do. If a species happen to use something else than widgets for money, that would also mean that they'd need a good reason to trade for widgets. After all, if they can't use the widgets, then the widgets are useless.

 

We see this in real life economies too, and it is the reason why we have international currency trade prices etc. Maybe you can buy a bar of chocolate for 10 Norwegian Kroner herein my country, or a similar bar of chocolate for £1 in the United Kingdom. Now, it so happens that £1 is pretty much equal to 10 NOK, but that does not mean that my money will be accepted by a clerk in the UK; because he has no use for it. Nobody else uses NOK in the UK, and exchanging it in the bank will force the salesman to pay a small compensation for the work the bank is doing. So to the UK salesman, 10 NOK is not worth the same as £1, because he will be forced to pay extra to use it - either by converting it first, or by traveling to Norway to buy something.

 

So I suppose the bottom line is that if the MU at large has agreed to use widgets, then they just need to have some regulation on how many are produced and distributed in order to keep their worth. This could very well work like standard RPG economics, though: No matter if you grind monster battles for infinite money and then buy 5000 mana potions in your starting town, you will never change anything about that shopkeeper's business. This is because introducing serious economics to a fantasy setting usually makes for a boring subject.

Edited February 13, 2014 by Katuko

[fishers64]

It maybe that widgets have to be a certain level of protodermis purity before they can be exchanged, and that less pure proto widgets are not acceptable for trade.

 

If my memory works right, I recall that counterfeiting was a crime of sorts in Metru Nui...

[Katuko]

If my memory works right, I recall that counterfeiting was a crime of sorts in Metru Nui...

Forgery is listed as a crime on BS01's page about MU society, but it mentions that it's a rare crime, and that it was often Kanoka that was created without powers and then sold to others as if they were powered. No mention of forgery related to currency, and theft seemed to be mostly about bigger items.

 

The whole Matoran crime scene seems a bit strange, too, given that all of the Metru Nui inhabitants ended up on Mata Nui. It should seem as if those with a criminal nature would keep trying (albeit to a lesser extent) on Mata Nui. We never saw much else than a very tightly-wound (and named) village population until Mask of Light, though, so I guess it's hard to say if anyone stayed criminal.

Edited February 13, 2014 by Katuko

[Toa Of Anarchy]

Yes, Economics applied to fantasy doesn't work (believe me, I've tried)

So about Katuko's point about Matoran stealing. I have a feeling that the way the Turaga ran there Koro's contribited hugely to the reduction of crime. There were no Vahki, to dreadful punishments imposed (that we know of) that prevented the Matoran from stealing. But the Mata-Nui culture seems to me anyways to value honor (there are no penalty shots if someone violates a rule, only that they dishonored there Koro), and the virtues (think of the Shrines, etc) far more than Metru-Nui.

[Just A Dot]

 

Basically, I take it as an innovation for MNOLG 2

 

"Innovation"

 

Because that game at least tried.

 

Were Widgets ever confirmed as canon?

[fishers64]

The whole Matoran crime scene seems a bit strange, too, given that all of the Metru Nui inhabitants ended up on Mata Nui. It should seem as if those with a criminal nature would keep trying (albeit to a lesser extent) on Mata Nui. We never saw much else than a very tightly-wound (and named) village population until Mask of Light, though, so I guess it's hard to say if anyone stayed criminal.

 

Er, if I were stuck alone in a village that was often beset by dangerous Rahi attacks, the last thing I would want to do is act against the people who are trying to protect me.

 

Further, nobody really had anything worth stealing on Mata Nui (if you wanted a throwing disk, it's easier to make your own than steal it), and also "everyone knows everybody else" in the tight-knit village community. Different from an urban setting, where anonymity prevents thieves from being caught.

 

Were Widgets ever confirmed as canon?

 

There are numerous Greg answers which confirm it, this one is probably the best:

 

 

 

4) Is there a type of universal cunrency?

 

 

4) Matoran use widgets, but that is not necessarily accepted in non-Matoran lands

[JacobLazer]

wow I've never actually thought about any of this, but now my brain's really cranking. I think i remember thinking that widgets came from dead Matoran...

[Katuko]

wow I've never actually thought about any of this, but now my brain's really cranking. I think i remember thinking that widgets came from dead Matoran...

When a Matoran's brain cranks too much, some of their clockwork pops out. This is where widgets come from. It is a good way of keeping them valuable, but unfortunately less morally inclined beings - such as Dark Hunters - therefore make sport of hunting down Matoran for their valuable brain cogs.

 

 

 

This is, of course, a joke.

Edited February 13, 2014 by Katuko

[fishers64]

Actually, Vahki have more clockwork gears in their brains, but they tend to be better at defending themselves from would-be widget thieves.

[Master Inika]

On the topic of counterfeiting, maybe there's made out of a rare synthetic form of protodermis (just speculating). If Matoran were generally too good-natural to counterfeit, other MU races definitely weren't. More speculation, there could have been Matoran islands dedicated to creating/extracting the special protodermis and making widgets out of it. Similar to how we make a point to make counterfeit-proof currency, the protodermis probably has some sort of unique property.