As James Renfew stepped out of the lift on the top floor of the building, the only person he saw was a receptionist on the far side of a conservative, but well-decorated reception room.

“Mr. Renfew?” asked the receptionist.

“Ye...yes” he gave a nervous reply.

The fact that he had no idea why he’d been summoned to the office of the Director of Cultural Development had him scared nearly witless. All the way up the lift he worried over what he might have done so wrong, to have been sent to The Boss… Not his unit lead, or department head, but his bosses… bosses… boss.

The receptionist recognizing the man’s nervousness gave him a brief professional smile and said; “They’re waiting for you in the conference room. That’s the door at the end of the hall on you right.”

“Th... thank you.”

James turned and walked down the hall. Just before opening the door to the room, he once again nervously checked his outfit to be sure he was presentable. Then after a few deep breaths, to try to calm his nerves, he opened the door to enter the room.

What he saw on the other side of the door completely undid any effort at trying to be calm. There were three people waiting in the room, the director, a man in an expensive business suit, and a man in a military suit. He had expected to see Candis Reece, the director, and the man in the expensive suit to her left was not surprising, but the third man? His uniform appeared to be Imperial Fleet…

“Mr. Renfew?” asked the director.

“Y..yes” he stammered in reply.

“Please take a seat… Now let me introduce you to Commodore Haskings and Mr. Dwight Arnbok of Intelecom Industries. We’ve asked you here to discuss your project proposal for system H-387.”

“Um... H-387… Oh, you mean the Sol System?” replied James after taking the nearest seat.

“Yes,” the director said, “I believe that is the local name for system H-387. Would you please briefly go over the main points of your proposed project?”

“Yes, Madam Director”, James paused for a second to organize his thoughts. “Well… for the last three hundred years, we’ve been trying to figure out how to deal with systems like Sol, systems that fall under the Imperial Cultural Protection Act. Up until now we’ve just monitored and protected these systems from cultural exploitation. I’m sure I don’t need to go into the history that caused the Senate to pass the act to begin with?”

After a negative response, James continued. “Well, since history demonstrates that open contact and trade with such primitive planets leads to long-term social and economic problems, both for them and for us. The Act requires that we isolate and monitor the systems until we can find a way to safely integrate them into our society.”

“The problem, of course, is the cost of this isolation, both to the Fleet and our Department. The fleet is required to keep ships in what, for all practical purposes, has been a three hundred year blockade. And of course, we have to spend resources monitoring the culture and economics to be sure nothing is slipping past the fleet, which means snooping signals, hacking, and spying.”

“If we could accelerate the cultural, scientific, and economic development of these systems, we could free up resources all around. The Fleet could better use the ships to patrol our borders and trade routes. At the same time, we could apply our resources more toward external threats.”

“The problem has always been, how do we safely accelerate their development without destroying the local cultures, and causing endless problems in the future?”

“I believe the answer is simple….. Let’s ask them to play a game…”