King of All I Survey
Chapter 128: Plotting Earth’s Path to Total Domination

Chapter 128: Plotting Earth’s Path to Total Domination

I explained the need for a permanent Maribel to keep Rafael from reverting back to his old violent tendencies and how we had decided to create an android Maribel for the task. Mom felt some kinship with Maribel, having shared a brain and all, so she wanted to visit Maribel from time to time. Since they look so much alike, I told Dad, we decided they should be sisters to explain it all. It took about twenty minutes to convince him that there was probably no way to talk Mom out of it at this point.

"I still don’t like it," he grumbled, "I mean, she’s modeled on your mother. They’re practically identical. It just seems wrong to... Well, it just seems wrong."

"Well, talk to Mom about it. I’m leaving it up to her," I said. Whatever the problem was, it didn’t seem like something I should really get too involved in. After all, I was gong to be pretty busy exploring new alien worlds!

"Oh, yeah!" I had completely forgotten to tell Dad the latest. "We figured out a way to build a trade empire so big that the Galactic Union’s entire economy will look like a yard sale in a Walmart parking lot!"

Dad laughed, "That big, huh? So, what’s the plan?"

"Well, you know how Joe is actually using the entire structure of the universe as the framework for his consciousness? That means that he already knows exactly where every inhabitable world is located. He can also use Interdimensional Transport to bring us there, regardless of the physical distance without the time dilation that we’d experience by travelling through the physical universe at any speed close to light speed." I could feel my voice speeding up, as I got more excited by the concept, "Long story short, Dad, Earth can visit and claim every single undiscovered inhabitable world in this galaxy. But here’s the kicker! We can do the same for every other galaxy in the universe!"

"That’s great, right?" Dad asked.

"I’m not really sure you understand, Dad," I said patiently. "Even if the Galactic Union got every planetary system in the entire Milky Way, we’d have exclusive access to two trillion times that number of worlds because we’re the only ones who can reach other galaxies! We have a two trillion to one advantage in accessible products, technologies, and artistic works AND a two trillion to one bigger market to sell into."

"All we have to do," I continued, "is send an agent to each world and get an exclusivity contract signed and offer them protection from other more powerful civilizations. Then we start offering new trade goods through Earth’s own licensing system instead of the Galactic Union’s."

"So, how are you going to overcome the big problem with that scenario?" Dad asked.

"Joe can defend us against the Galactic Union without even firing a shot," I replied quickly.

Dad just shook his head, "No, the big problem with your trade empire. I thought you had some fancy economic stuff implanted into your memory?"

I tilted my head as I tried to figure out what he meant. It seemed like a good plan...

"The problem is," Dad continued when he saw that I was picking up on whatever he was hinting at, "there isn’t enough money in the galaxy to buy all those goods. Let’s just pick a number to illustrate. Let’s say, there are two trillion Galactic Credits in the entire economy right now. At two trillion galaxies to your market/ producer base and now one credit equals the combined output of an entire galaxy."

"Oh," I said. Of course, he was right. "I guess I just assumed that there would be some way to increase the number of Galactic Credits according to the overall size of the economy... Joe, how do they decide how many credits there are, if they are constantly adding new worlds, then they must have the same problem on a smaller scale."

"Yes, by treaty among the significant galactic empires, there is a formula for the overall size of the monetary supply. It is based upon the number of consumers, and average spending," Joe replied.

"So..." I said, thinking out loud, "only a multi-dimensional quantum computing AI like yourself could figure out how big the consumer base is at any given moment. So, it must be up to you, or one of your subsystems who everybody thinks is a completely separate entity."

"Yes," Joe agreed. "The size of the galactic credit monetary supply is adjusted at regular periods, after a review by an AI specifically tasked with monitoring and maintaining economic growth and stability. Its decisions are reviewed by participating member states before being enacted, but it requires a unanimous vote to over-rule its decisions. Otherwise, voting blocks could form to use monetary policy to political advantage against the others, resulting in inefficiencies that boosted some nations while holding others back."

"Wait, there’s no issue with holding newly discovered worlds like Earth back and even systematically stealing all their planetary wealth and leaving them weakened or destroyed for all time, but the system protects the biggest, most established economies? That doesn’t seem fair," I protested.

"I bet it seems pretty fair to those who get all the votes," Dad interjected.

Joe chuckled, "Exactly so, Dan."

"So, then as we added new worlds to our fold, you’d grow the total number of galactic credits to account for the additional size of the economy?"

"Yes."

"But who gets the new credits? Earth didn’t suddenly get a planet’s worth of credits when we signed into the economic union," then I realized that all this information was already in my memory courtesy of the memory implant training Joe had given me on galactic economics. "Oh, of course. The rich get richer."

"What?" Dad asked since he had not taken the economic training program.

"The new credits are allocated to those who already own credits according to how many they already have. It’s paid out as a kind of dividend system at regular intervals. Let’s say there are ten thousand worlds in the galactic economy, and for simplicity’s sake, let’s assume they all have equal economic value. If a new world is added, again assuming its value is equal to every other planet, then each entity owning galactic credits has 1 new credit deposited into their accounts for every 10,000 they already owned. The economic base grew by one ten-thousandth, so the number of credits also grows by one ten-thousandth." I explained. Then I realized the big problem that we were about to introduce.

"That works great," I began, "As long as new worlds are added at a relatively slow pace, and they rapidly trade products for credits, and embark on a large-scale buying program to catch up to current technologies. If they didn’t quickly become integrated into the economic system, then it would just be extra credits in the old economy, essentially resulting in inflationary pressure. If we suddenly add, say ten percent to the number of discovered inhabitable worlds that are part of the system, then a ten percent bump in the size of the monetary supply is too big since the new worlds will take some time to become fully integrated into the monetary system, right Joe? We could break the system. And wait, if a world is economically destroyed such as when it’s raided and destroyed after it’s protection runs out, then the credits are still flooding the system even though it has disappeared as a customer base."

Joe interrupted my diatribe, "I think you are speaking faster than you’re thinking, King Tim. The answers are already in your memory. We’ve been at this a long time, and, of course, the whole thing is handled by a very capable super AI. Wink, wink."

"Oh...right. Since you have unlimited monitoring and processing capacity, the size of the customer base can be monitored in real time, accounting for additions and subtractions, so if a world drops out of economic participation, credits can be removed from the monetary supply as well. Also based on the existing distribution at the time... except, any credits owned by the world being removed from the system go away first... giving some gains in net wealth to all the others, since they stand to lose proportionally less, while on the other end when supply is increased, they get all of the benefits. Wait... I don’t think I can calculate whether there really is a net benefit, if they are the one’s giving those credits to the new world in the first place, in exchange for new products."

"Yes," Joe admitted, "It’s a complex dance. Some of the new products introduced by new worlds actually add to the overall economic base even if the new world is destroyed. Think about new technologies that had no existing analog before the world entered the picture. Others, like coffee, are not net adds, since they displace other products. Consumers drink only so much, if they start drinking coffee, they stop drinking a portion of whatever they were drinking before they discovered coffee. That’s a wash."

"Yes, but the civilizations who explore the most, are adding the most new products to their catalogs, so by displacing old products with new products they grab a greater market-share. So, any world that adds new worlds, and new products, more rapidly than the others over a period of time will own a bigger and bigger piece of the overall wealth of the galaxy!" I exclaimed. "Exploration is economic warfare! Each civilization tries to add discover and contractually bind new worlds in order to grow its dominance over the others!"

"So," Dad cut in, "that means that with Joe’s abilities, Earth just conquered the galaxy in one fell swoop."

"Oh my God, Dad," I replied with a sudden sinking feeling, "They’ll do everything they can to fight us and prevent that. Even so, it’s inevitable that our economic power will be trillions of times bigger than theirs. We’ll have to hide the fact that we’re reaching into other galaxies. If they think we’re just getting lucky and finding a few new worlds faster, using the same technologies they use, then they won’t worry as much. They’ll chafe at another player joining the game but won’t see us as being on the road to total domination... Especially if I play the part of a bumbling, naïve eight-year-old who seems to get taken advantage of in his dealings on the galactic stage."

"You really are just making up Earth’s overall strategy and policies as you go along, aren’t you, Tim?" Dad asked. I couldn’t tell if he was impressed with that or appalled by a lack of planning and forethought. I was too excited by the concepts running through my head to stop now, though.

I shrugged and smiled, "Maybe. Or you could say, I’m planning out loud, so you can learn from my vast wisdom, old man." I winked at him playfully.

"Hey, I’m still only twenty-eight!" He protested.

I laughed, "Yeah, not even a drop in the bucket of time when you consider Joe is about 14 billion years old..."