Epha

Like most other planets in the galaxy that support sapient life, Epha had water, an atmosphere, and seasonal weather. Unlike the other planets, it was a tiny planet with a low gravity, similar to Earth's moon. The majority of its atmosphere was a much heavier xenon, or they would have suffered the same issue as Luna, which did not have enough gravity to support a breathable atmosphere of mostly nitrogen.

For the friendly, bipedal deer people who lived there, the Ephars, the low gravity was good news for their early space development. Their journey from flight into space took a mere few hundred thousand years. Still a relatively young species, they did not have many spacecraft of their own, but they did build a lot of spaceports.

Traders loved Epha. The fuel it took to land and launch from there was basically non-existent. Despite the gravity being just one fifth of a regular sized planet like Earth, because of what is known as the tyranny of the rocket equation, the actual fuel required to land on Epha was less than one thousandth of what it took to take off and land on Earth.

The Ephars had many planetary factions, like Earth's nation states, but the mixing between each faction caused distinct cultural identities and languages to mix and eventually merge many millennia ago. These factions granted intergalactic diplomatic powers to a king or queen, and that diplomatic power eventually grew itself into stronger economic control from the "crown".

When humanity's money spread into the stars, the Ephars reaped the benefits. Much of their trading activity was space based to begin with. Every town and village had at least a spaceport landing pad, if not an entire spaceport. Most of the travel between them was done via cargo rockets. The introduction of a unified currency made such activity much more economically efficient.

King Epharoni-16 immediately saw the value in currency. He wondered how the Ephars hadn't thought of it first. It was, after all, a logical and perfectly reasonable invention for any species with abstract thought. Leveraging his growing credit balance, Epharoni quickly commissioned a group of philosophers and traders to study the concept and how it could affect the Ephar people.

On Earth, this is called a think tank.

The first product of this think tank was a long article compiling hundreds of pieces of evidence from Earth's history, a detailed explanation for why they were important, and a recommendation for how Epha should proceed with regards to the new challenges and opportunities posed by money. They gave it an unoriginal name: Currency Paper Number One.

On Earth, this is called a white paper.

The white paper was sent to the King's office, but he was busy hosting the ambassador of Bhak that day. One of the increasing number of bureaucrats that the king had hired thanks to human influence saw the paper as it was delegated to her. The subject was dense, and the title was boring. She tossed it out.

The think tank saw that none of their recommendations were being implemented, and they were not consulted on their prized paper. So they did what academics at think tanks usually did when they were ignored: write another paper saying almost the same thing but in slightly different words. They did this multiple times, and the people at the King's office repeatedly ignored them.

By the time they got to Currency Paper Number Fourteen, they were concerned. Their salary period was coming to an end, and they were getting worried that they might have to find another job soon if the King wasn't interested. After some discussion, they looked around the local village for a solution. They pooled together their resources and hired a pretty young doe named Mevuth.

Mevuth was well educated, from a wealthy family, and most importantly, she looked like the right type of doe that they knew the King liked to socialize with. They paid her to try to directly get the King's attention onto their paper and their increasingly urgent suggestions.

On Earth, this is called lobbying.

Palace, Epha

King Epharoni looked at the beautifully-adorned young doe standing before his throne and tried not to drool. That would be impolite.

"My name is Mevuth," she spoke confidently. "It is my great pleasure to be summoned to the palace today for my report."

Epharoni looked at his throne agenda for today and frowned. It didn't include any social events. On closer examination, there did appear to be a diplomatic dinner with the local ambassador of Earth, which would be an important occasion, but the creature standing before him didn't look like she was here for that.

"Uh… excuse me, which agenda item are you here for?" he asked, slightly embarrassed.

Before she could answer, the king's close adviser, an old deer named Yuphen bowed her head and stated, "Mevuth is here to report the result of the economics group you commissioned a few months ago."

Ah, that study, the king thought. He'd forgotten about that despite the initial excitement he had for the project. Now that she mentioned it though, and looking at Mevuth in front of him, he was suddenly much more interested in the topic of monetary economics.

"Ah, Mevuth, thank you for coming," Epharoni said. "The work that your group does is incredibly important, and I can't wait to hear your report."

"Thank you, Your Highness," Mevuth chortled, using a strange address she dug out of her human readings. Epharoni liked the sound of it and made a mental note that he wanted to be addressed that way from now on.

She started her report, "the credits used by Earth creates a massive opportunity for Ephars while presenting relatively few issues. The infrastructure for trade and exchange has already mostly been built by the Galactic Credits corporation. It is vital to our growing economy, and we believe that we should continue to hold credits in our important government institutions and for our purchase of offworld goods"

The king didn't get to his position by being imperceptive. He immediately understood the underlying implication. The fact that Mevuth specified offworld trade told him that she must have a different idea for something else. Looking into her dark brown eyes, he waited for her to continue.

"Internal trade and exports, however, presents an opportunity for control for us. Earth's various nation states have different currencies. Galactic Credits are directly convertible to one of them, the US Dollar. Other nation states use different ones, usually convertible using free floating exchange rates."

At this point Epharoni was starting to get lost. He wasn't sure if it was the difficult subject or if it was because his attention was focused on her revealing neckline. As he thought this, he shook himself mentally. You are the sovereign of an entire planet! Stop getting distracted and do your job!

"Hey, Mevuth, some of those terms aren't familiar to me. Can you explain?"

"Sure!" Mevuth smiled as she answered the question. "A floating exchange rate just means that the different currencies on Earth don't have a set exchange rate. It's all determined by the markets. The issuers of those currencies all have ways of influencing the rate, but there's no agreement that one Dollar is equal to a certain amount of another currency."

"That makes sense."

"Your highness, I'm going to jump to the conclusion of the whole report, if you don't mind?" she asked, unsubtly batting her eyelashes at him.

He nodded.

"Because control of a currency allows control over an economy, we think that the Ephars should have our own currency, similar to credits. We propose that these be called Epharins. Having our own money will allow us to make monetary policy, which will give us a better control of our own economy as it grows without depending on credits."

"What's the benefit in that?" Epharoni puzzled. "Why should we make our own monetary policy?"

"It's because of what could possibly happen for human economies when things aren't going well," Mevuth answered, "it's called a business cycle bust." The only bust Epharoni could think about at the moment was hers, but he quickly cast that thought out of his head.

She continued seemingly unaware of his lecherous thoughts, "when things go bad in the US economy, the Federal Reserve may use some tricks to cushion the downturn and speed up a recovery. When that happens, that may be good or bad for our own economy depending on whether we're facing a similar situation. And when we get into trouble, we want the ability to do that as well without begging for them to alter their own currencies."

"Ah, that makes sense. And we should use that free floating exchange rate thing?"

Mevuth frowned at this point, scrunching her face. He thought that was the cutest thing ever and swallowed hard again to avoid his drool coming out of his lips. After thinking a while, she replied, "not necessarily. There are several currencies on Earth that are not floating, and less developed economies tend to use those. Some of them used pegged or fixed floating rates as well."

"So which one should we use?"

"We think Epha should start with a fixed exchange rate, and back our money using a commodity," Mevuth proposed. "There appears to be limitations to those types of currencies in Earth's history, but our economy is small enough to not have to deal with those yet, and they do appear to be less risky for us given that we don't have any real economists yet."

Epharoni really wanted to pay attention, but Melvuth had started rubbing her velvety antlers with her fingers absentmindedly. There was no mistaking that deliberately sensual signal she was giving off. All he could do was nod, agree, and hope he could take a quick break after this…

"Besides, from what we found on Earth, it appears that we can always transition to a different kind if it doesn't work out anyway."

Human Embassy, Epha

It was often said that the Epha embassy was an assignment for the lazy and unambitious. The Ephars were an agreeable and friendly people, so there were no difficult diplomatic discussions to be had with them. Of all the species in the galaxy, they didn't rank high up on the GU in terms of influence or threat to humanity. And their comfortably low gravity made it a comfortable place for humans to live once they got used to its effects.

The current ambassador, Farzeen, was an exception. She was a low level personnel supervisor at the human embassy on Bohor when Bohor Orbital was hit, and her exemplary conduct in the ensuing events led some very important people in Earth governments to sit up and pay attention.

She was given the choice between a promotion to full ambassadorship at a boring position like Epha or a much more exciting but less senior deputy chief of mission role at Bohor. Farzeen chose the option that paid her son's college tuition. It wasn't glamorous, but it was honest work.

Today, GU headquarters sent her some new marching orders for humanity's interests on Epha. She checked to make sure they were correct. She double checked. Then, she called to make sure that they didn't make a mistake.

They did not.

Palace, Epha

"Ah, Ambassador, it's so nice to see you here!" Farzeen stared back at the big buck leering at her. From her limited experience with him, he was a reasonable if not easily distractible creature.

And she had her orders. Which was why she was at this social event of high class Ephars and ambassadors from other species. Drinking cheap alcohol imported from Earth.

Farzeen disarmed him with a genuine smile, "likewise, Your Highness."

"Ah, even you humans have started using that address with me!" he mockingly scolded her.

"Actually, I think we invented that one," Farzeen pointed out. Then boldly, she asked, "do you think there's a room where we can discuss something in private?"

She could almost see his eyes pop out of their sockets as he excitedly asked, "is this business or pleasure?"

"Business, I'm afraid," she answered almost apologetically. The King's appetite for female creatures apparently extended well beyond his own race.

Disappointed, he led them both into a secluded back room and closed the door.

"Alright, Farzeen. What is this about?"

Farzeen set down the wine glass she'd been holding and polished her glasses for a second. "Have you heard about the problem with Species-39?"

"Yes. The situation is awful. Those poor creatures!"

"My people want me to ask you and your planet to host their refugees here on Epha."

His sympathetic demeanor instantly changed. This was not what he expected her to talk about. He thought maybe she was going to talk about their proposal to ban venison at the GU cafeteria or something…

Farzeen decided to press on before he recovers, "we've calculated the cost and speed of such a monumental task of relocating up to a billion creatures, and the cheapest one we came up with was your planet."

"But… there's so many other planets out there!" he yelped. And it was true. There are thousands of planets with sapient species, and plenty of livable planets that weren't even occupied by sapience yet.

"Yes, but Epha is really in a unique position to help," she explained. Farzeen reached her hand over his arm and looked into his eyes. "It has low fuel requirements to transit. You have a lot of spaceports to handle the traffic. And all the infrastructure is already built. That's the problem with the uninhabited planets. Sure, we can plop them all down into a new home, but having to build a bunch of new spaceports will slow us down. Planet-39 doesn't have time."

His brain was flooded with hormones, and he couldn't argue with her logic. This seemed like something that was already decided by the humans, and he knew that they would make life very difficult for him if he didn't agree. He didn't want to become another Popptaw. He wasn't incompetent like that bird was, but he wasn't exactly an elected leader either.

But not being able to stop it didn't mean he couldn't get his people something out of it.

"We will consider this proposal," he said, snatching his arm back from Farzeen. "But the GU will have to foot the cost of everything, including the lost trades for when the refugees come in."

"There won't be lost trades," Farzeen replied automatically as per her orders. She saw this as a good sign. He was negotiating.

"Species-39 will add to your total trade volume, and we encourage you to start seeing them as more or less permanent residents of Epha after they arrive. We believe they would start working, purchase goods and services from your people, and contribute to your economy. This is a massive opportunity for your planet!"

"Nonetheless," Epharoni insisted, "we shall be compensated. If this is merely an opportunity, then any one of the thousands of other planets would have agreed by now."

"I'll see what I can do," Farzeen nodded. She was given a lot of leeway here. The discussions on Earth were not going well. There were even some threats of conflict if the issue went through.

If he wanted a back massage from her, Farzeen would agree to it in a heartbeat. It wouldn't be the worst thing in the world… she thought. But that wasn't the kind of buck he was.

"There's a few things we want. We have an open proposal waiting in front of the GU for exchange students between Earth and Epha universities. That should be fast tracked. Our Spaceport four-forty-five is bidding for the next site for a donut shop from a Canadian company. We want serious consideration for our planet to host the third Galactic Olympics… You might want to write these down."

Farzeen sipped on her wine as she listened and didn't even bother to weigh the choices before her.

Yeah, she thought, the athletes are gonna get pissed about their records getting broken in the low gravity here, but hey, they can complain if they want to be responsible for taking care of a billion refugees.