"Well, we must have a few planets tagged by now. How about sending off to explore one of them and find new products to start our Earth licensing system with?" I asked.
"We could do that," Joe said, "I just wonder how you’ll recognize so plant or animal as tasting good to a significant portion of the civilized galaxy?"
Dad chuckled. "Too bad we can’t send Euell Gibbons."
"What?" I asked, "You want to send primates from Borneo?"
"Not gibbons, Tim. Euell Gibbons is a person. He was famous for foraging wild plants and eating pine trees and stuff back in the 1960’s and 70’s. I was making a joke."
"Oh. It was probably funny back in the 1970’s," I suggested.
Dad scowled playfully, "Anyway, Joe has a point. Imagine landing here on Earth and finding a coffee bush. Ok, nice red fruits, maybe those would be good. You taste one, not so good and it’s got a huge seed inside so not really much fruit anyway. You would never think that you should throw away the fruit, dry out the seeds, and roast them until they’re thoroughly charred. Then, you have to grind them up, pour boiling water through the grounds, and drink that."
"Plus," I added, "even then it tastes horrible. I see what you an."
"It’s an acquired taste," Dad replied. "Joe, can you have the drones do so sort of chemical analysis?"
"Yes, I can analyze plant or animal matter to see if it’s edible by any of the sapient species of the galaxy. To use your example of coffee, however, I can’t run every plant and every part of every plant through dozens of possible preparations to find so way where it might taste good to one or more of those species. The best I can do, and this is standard practice for planetary surveys, is to do a complete bio-survey, and compare the molecular structures against known foods to identify similarities. Inhabited planets are much easier, because you can just ask the people who live there what’s good to eat."
I wrinkled my brow and frowned, "I don’t think doing a bunch of chemistry tests sounds like fun. But wait. Joe, you can already see the molecular structure of everything that lives everywhere, can’t you? I an, part of your consciousness actually resides in the atoms and particles that make up everything in the universe. Can’t you just give us a list of the items we have available to us on each world?"
"Sure, or I could just hand you all the Galactic Credits and save you the trouble of trading at all. You have the potential to beco a good leader and unite not just Earth, but a large portion of the galaxy, maybe even multiple galaxies in a peaceful union. Or the imperfect but tenable situation that exists in this galaxy now could erupt into chaos and war. Massive economic disruptions like flooding the market with trillions of new offerings doesn’t seem like the best choice for stability."
"I thought you were on our side, working for us..." If Joe was an actual employee, he should just do what I ask, I thought.
"I am. Chaos and war isn’t helpful for Earth in the long run."
"So, how about selling these uninhabited worlds? How much are they worth if I just sold them outright?"
"It depends on whether the world can be colonized easily and on the richness of native flora and fauna. If it looks like one of the major species could set up a viable colony and live there, it would be worth more to them. That helps them eventually maximize its value as the people living there gradually find out the highest value items, learning the things that can be processed into marketable commodities, like our coffee example. It also helps increase the overall size of the galactic economy as the inhabitants tend to expand their population more quickly than established worlds."
"So, I’m thinking it would be a good idea to establish human colonies on so of these worlds. It’s kind of like an insurance policy if things go wrong here, at least humanity survives," I said. "How many undiscovered habitable worlds are there?"
"Well, in the Milky Way, there are 316.412,642 undiscovered worlds capable of supporting life. Of those, 34,874,111 have rich biospheres. 113,633 could support humans without terraforming."
"Yikes!" I said excitedly, "Dad, that’s huge! But wait, if there are that many undiscovered, the galactic empires can’t be very big..."
"Absolutely right, King Tim," Joe agreed, "In total, the empires of the Milky Way have discovered 2,382,412 inhabitable worlds. Of these, 4,213 have intelligent life."
"That’s it? 4,213?" I asked, "How many of those are colonies? I an who many different intelligent species are there?"
"With the latest addition, humans, there are 642 different intelligent species known to the Galactic Union and other empires in this cluster."
"And how many undiscovered worlds in the Milky Way also have intelligent life?"
"92,114 worlds unknown to this civilization group have intelligent species. Many have multiple intelligent species, like Earth."
"Like Earth!? Joe, what... Chimpanzees? Are you counting them as intelligent species?" I asked.
"Yes, Chimpanzees are one example, along with Bonobos, Gorillas, Orangutans, Dogs, Dolphins, Killer Whales, Elephants and others with similar social structures."
The implications of this sent my head spinning. What if the Galactic Union had contacted Killer Whales instead of humans when they landed here. "Wait, does that an you could talk to them? I an like translate between them and us? And do they get a share of the planet under galactic law? How does that even work?"
"I can translate, but the reference fras may cause so difficulties. It can take so practice to see things from different perspectives to realize the full aning of such communications. Under galactic law, the dominant species controls all rights to their ho planet. Sotis, though, there are multiple species that could each be considered co-equal."
"That hardly seems fair." I comnted.
"Maybe, but humans lucked out, killer whales would have demanded a substantial tribute of humans being dropped into the sea as edible toys."
"You’re kidding, right?" I thought of the way I had seen killer whales on TV slapping seals up into the air with their powerful tails over and over, seemingly enjoying the suffering and fear of their prey. Suddenly, I was very afraid. What if there were advanced space-faring species with a similar ntality, terrorizing whole planets for fun... Suddenly, the universe seed like a much more dangerous place."
"So, here’s an idea," I said, "I’m just thinking out loud, now. What if we chose suitable worlds and let each of those species colonize them. I an we could speak with them through your translations and help them to build viable civilizations, however they wanted." I shivered, "Except for maybe killer whales..."
Joe’s avatar smiled. "That’s a kingly idea, King Tim."
I imagined a technological advanced world built around the needs and desires of dogs. Would they want pet humans, how would we even do sothing like that...
"Joe, you’re getting us off topic again," I chided. "We need to set up a eting with Earth Friend to modify our contract with the Galactic Union. Can you write up sothing like we talked about and let see it? And maybe get an appointnt set up, let him know I heard about preferred trading partner status, and I think it would be cool if Earth had that."
"Yes, of course, King Tim." A small tray floated into the Status Room and hovered in front of . It held a small stack of papers. "Here is the contract proposal. Do you want to et Earth Friend in person, or will a simulation conference be adequate?"
"Hmmm, where is he now?" I asked.
"He is currently on his ship, travelling to another world that has been discovered but not yet contacted. He is alternating between accelerating in real space and making jumps. There would be so ti dilation issues with an actual visit."
"What do you an?"
"If you were to board his ship as it is approaching relativistic speeds, you would experience ti at a different rate than Earth. A significant amount of additional ti would have elapsed here when you returned. Because his acceleration is rapid and of short duration, it would be manageable, your parents would still be alive when you returned, for example, but would be noticeably older than when you left."
"Um, nope. Simulation conference please."
"Acknowledged."
"Can you make it for tomorrow/. I want a chance to think about this contract and work out what else I want to hide in it. Definitely sothing about Earth-species colonies without specifically ntioning non-human colonies..."
My head was awash with random ideas from our discussions. How would we even find the right gorilla to negotiate for his whole species, anyway? Maybe a council of silverbacks from the largest family groups? There so much to do, it’d be so much easier if I could be in more than one place at the sa ti, the way Joe can parallel process... What if I started practicing running an android and my real body at the sa ti? Was it sothing I could learn?
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