Chapter 11 #6
My mind reeling, I muted the volume again as she shifted to a different topic.
The Galactic Alliance was indeed becoming a problem.
At the time of its inception in the Western Quadrant, the alliance had been a force of good.
It mainly aimed at fostering interplanetary trade.
It established a series of rules to keep all transactions equitable, prevented less advanced planets from being exploited by the more high-tech ones, organized forums to help new trade partners come together, and provided various benefits that discouraged shadier planets from partaking in questionable practices.
The peacekeeping forces such as the Sentinels were one such benefit to protect merchant ships against pirates. The Galactic Alliance also imposed embargos against planets such as Guldar, who openly and proudly derived a large portion of their GDP from the slave trade.
This last restriction had always been one of the main points of contention as far as the Alliance being welcomed in the Eastern Quadrant where I grew up.
The two sectors significantly differed on many points.
Where most planets of the Western Quadrant still observed some form of religion, mainly worshiping the Goddess, a majority of the worlds in the Eastern Quadrant were atheist. That in itself wasn’t much of an issue, but the slave culture was broadly accepted and dominant in the East.
However, it wasn’t like with the Guldan taking people against their will and forcing them into a life of servitude.
The Eastern Quadrant imposed very strict rules defining ‘slavery’ as indentured servitude that one could enter into via a very detailed contract.
All parties entered willingly into the agreement with set terms and duration.
It was how my mother and father came together with her as his indentured servant for six months in exchange for repaying her debts.
This system worked well for many people, but not so much for others.
Either way, it was a choice that people made for themselves.
And most planets in the region had zero intention or desire to abolish this practice.
The Galactic Alliance refused to soften its stance on slavery, even in a consensually entered contract as we practiced in my home Sector.
Therefore, too few worlds chose to join them.
Zerien often criticized the Alliance, describing them as bullies and even implied that they were attempting a hostile takeover that would place the alliance as a tyrannical ruler over every planet from both quadrants.
For the longest time, I rejected that opinion, thinking that he was just bitter over the poor treatment his people—the Sarenians—received due to their nasty reputation abroad.
Except that nasty reputation had been mostly slander propagated by the Korletheans to hide their own horrible secret of harming so many unsuspecting worlds, including Sarenia.
But over the last few years, I’d started seeing the merit of his claims.
It relentlessly pursued Morenor, knowing that it was a core trade hub for countless planets.
Then, the Alliance forbade Morenor from continuing business with its former clients until they themselves became members and abided by its rules.
This effectively forced those planets to either join or starve.
Many of those former clients who refused to submit for various reasons started threatening to blockade all trade ships to and from Morenor until the old deals were restored and honored.
That prompted the Alliance to make its own threat of retaliation in order to ‘protect’ its members.
But to everyone, this came across as a manufactured conflict to justify the Alliance attacking and subjugating all the worlds who declined its invitation.
This would negatively affect several of my investments, not that I overly worried about it.
Even if most of the markets crashed, I had enough money in safe investments and various assets that even if I didn’t work a day in my life, I would still be financially comfortable until I died, and even until my great-grandchildren died.
However, this would hurt many less wealthy planets, including Braxia.
Under Ravik, the Braxians had agreed to many societal changes to qualify to join the alliance.
With the planet on the verge of bankruptcy at the time, those concessions had been a matter of survival.
As they had also been the morally right decisions to make, this had been a positive turnaround for our people.
But with the growing control tactics exerted by the alliance, even Keran had started talking about pulling out of the Alliance.
That some attacks had already begun indicated that we were quickly reaching a tipping point. Starve a people, and they would call for blood. The Alliance was starving a lot of people with its pressure tactics. And the Eastern Quadrant was not to be trifled with.
This did not bode well…