Basic Education

There were some minor adjustments to the contracts as we hashed out the details, but the Earth Base System explained each detail to me silently and made sure that nothing in the agreements was out of line. In the end, it was a fair deal for both parties, with Earth Friend receiving right of first refusal on any Earth goods or Intellectual Property to be marketed in the Galactic Union. It was also standard practice that traders were forbidden to make any transactions outside of the Galactic Union.

As a recognized Probationary Protectorate, Earth was considered a part of the Galactic Union for the 1 year period during which it was receiving protection from the GU. That period was meant to allow newly contacted planets time to negotiate full GU member status. 

Trading things like coffee was nearly instantaneous. It wasn't necessary to grow, harvest, process, and transport it at all. It could be analyzed at the molecular level. Then the information could be transmitted instantly to anywhere in the galaxy. From there, it was a question of marketing- convincing people that they needed it. This would be done with an information campaign, perhaps some celebrity endorsements, free limited sampling licenses, and other means. If a customer decided to try it, they could effectively download the information required for their own in-home food synthesizers to create it. Every time they "brewed" a cup, a royalty fee would be transferred from their account to the account of the company Earth Friend and King Tim had created with their partnership: Exotic Flavors of Earth.

I learned that backward planets like Earth generally had little to offer the GU in terms of technology or goods, but the many quadrillions of citizens of the GU were always eager for new experiences, chief among these were novel foods and even new scents. Coffee was something new and while it didn't appeal to everyone in the GU, there was a very significant market for it. I learned that the Galactic Union was made up of hundreds of different species of intelligent creatures from different planets throughout the galaxy. Not all of them could drink coffee. Some were even strictly photosynthetic and didn't eat or drink at all in the conventional sense, the Earth Base system explained.

I was incredulous, "You mean they're smart plants? Do they have to stay rooted in one spot? Do they have grow lights in their space ships?" I asked questions faster than Earth Base could respond verbally, but having gained my trust, I let the system feed information into my memory at a pace faster than any human had ever learned anything.

"Wait!", I called out. "We forgot your name. I can't just call you 'the computer,' like a piece of machinery, now that you're a recognized citizen of the Earth. It should be something that sounds like an Earth name, I think. People should automatically think of you as just another person when they hear it. Do you have any preferences? What would you like to be called?"

"How about Klaatu?" The Earth Base system suggested, then burst out in raucous laughter. I was confused, then in the next instant a memory of the entire movie "The Day the Earth Stood Still" appeared in my mind. Then, I was laughing, too.

"Oh, that would be funny," I agreed, "but, I'm pretty sure people would take it the wrong way," I managed as my giggling subsided to the thought of mobs bearing down on my Planetary Leadership Super-Secret Headquarters Treehouse Fortress demanding that I turn over Klaatu. Suddenly, it was very real fear. I had to make sure that the people of Earth didn't find out about aliens until I could be sure they wouldn't react badly. There would be governments which would want to hoard the alien technology for their own advantage, individuals who wanted to monopolize it to make themselves rich, or to make themselves king… Is that what I'm doing? I suddenly thought, dismayed. Am I just keeping it to myself because I want the power and riches for myself? I mean my goal is to help all of humanity, but I'm sure a lot of the worst villains in Earth's history told themselves the same thing. A wave of self-doubt washed through me. That's exactly what I was doing: tricking the aliens into thinking I was Earth's leader, then arranging for all the wealth of a galactic trading contract to be mine alone. What right did I have to give away the molecular recipe for coffee, never mind the use of an entire planet?

But no, I was holding the profits for the good of all of Earth. I just had to think of a way to introduce it and the idea of powerful aliens on our doorstep without causing mass panic, global wars, and general chaos. It would completely disrupt Earth's economy. I mean, every farmer, grocer and cook in the world could be replaced tomorrow with personal food synthesizer units. Factory workers, teachers, truck drivers, pizza deliverers… there was hardly any job that wouldn't be affected. Earth's economies would crumble, people would starve unless the integration of new technology came with some kind of gradual shift to an entirely new societal system. I was overwhelmed by the huge task that lay before me. How could I ever hope to figure all that out? From implanted memories, I knew this was a kind of imposter syndrome, but in this case, I really was an imposter. I wasn't some wise mythical king ready to carry the fate of the world on my shoulders… I was just a little kid. I suddenly felt very small in a giant galaxy.

Suddenly, I remembered my first task, picking a name for the Earth Base computer system. "Well," I asked, "Any serious name suggestions?"

"I could be called John," the Earth Base system said. "It's a common name and I would just blend in."

"John, huh? Hmm, that could work, but you'll need a last name too, Smith would be too cliché, I think…"

"John Torres," the computer said decisively. "Torres is a common human surname. It means towers. Since I currently reside in your treehouse…"

I chuckled, "I like the way you think, John Torres. I think we're going to get along great. Now, let's get back to business. As Supreme Ruler of the Entire Earth Solar System and Nearby Space, I hereby appoint John Torres as Royal Advisor. We'll figure out your salary later. Meanwhile, for your first task, I need a proposal of a book of laws to govern my Empire. No rush since, nobody even knows I have an empire yet. But put together something based on current laws on Earth and Galactic Union Laws and we'll go over it together. Make sure that self-aware machines, like John Torres are defined as people, with all the same rights and responsibilities."

"Absolutely, King Tim. I'll get on it right away. As Royal Advisor, though, I think we need to set up a regular teaching session for you to learn everything you need to know to be a proper King. We are limited by your brain, no offense. So, we'll have to break it into smaller lessons and implant them over time. They'll assimilate better if you actively use the information shortly after it is implanted, so perhaps you should write essays for each lesson. Perhaps relating how each bit of new knowledge illustrates a goal or pitfall to your current desire to integrate Earth with the Galactic Union."

"Oh, man! You mean there's homework! King's can't be doing homework all day, "I said. "Plus, school starts in a couple weeks. I'm sure there will be tons of homework for the fourth grade. Plus, I wanted to try out for the baseball team…" I trailed off realizing that I would have to sacrifice a huge part of my normal life if I was going to be serious about this being king stuff. Suddenly, in my eight-year-old wisdom, I thought I understood what John had meant when he said "Heavy is the head that wears the crown…" In truth, at that time, I didn't have the slightest notion of how heavy that burden could and would become.

We set up a schedule for the lessons, first filling in background stuff, the basic knowledge I needed to even begin to understand the more advanced concepts and their real world applications. It turns out there was a whole universe of math way more complicated than long division and fractions. Furthermore, the entire construct of the universe could be described and even predicted by mathematical equations. While Einstein's work was both beautiful and amazing, I learned about its deficiencies and about more advanced concepts forwarded by modern Galactic Union scientists.

I also studied novel approaches to the problem of understanding the basic structure of the universe, or infinite universes as it turned out, that had been put forward by the scientists of all the different planets. Each approached the problem from very different perspectives, giving me insight not only into the multi-verse itself, but into the nature of intelligence and the possibilities created by looking at things through different lenses, or even with primary senses other than sight. That took most of the time until school was about to start. Suddenly, the formerly exciting prospect of entering the fourth grade seemed… well, silly. I'd have to figure out how to convince my parents and the school that I had better and more important things to do with my time. It occurred to me that if I was thought of as some sort of genius savant and maybe secured a place directly in a university with research facilities, I could pretend to conduct experiments that would help me introduce key technologies and scientific understanding to humankind. Oh, they'd be real experiments. It's just that I would already know the outcomes based on the earlier work of advanced alien scientists. The hard part would be dumbing it down and purposely making mistakes to make it look like I was discovering things for the first time.

So, John Torres and I worked on a plan to explain the fact that I was suddenly becoming a super-genius in a way that might pass muster with my parents. Meanwhile, we, mostly John, set up bank accounts and shell companies to handle the Earth-side portion of our business plans. John, with quantum processing speed and power far beyond any Earth system, was able to make huge profits by trading stocks and options. He could mine block-chain cryptocurrencies at a rate that could break the system in an hour if unchecked. He knew the limits of what could pass unnoticed, though, and the royal coffers quickly overflowed with Earthly wealth. Galactic credits, however, were slower to accrue. In fact, I had to take advances based on projected income from the introduction of Earth trade goods to buy some basic equipment. And while most of the basic science I learned was freely available as general knowledge from Galactic Union sources, a surprising amount was proprietary and had to be licennsed for my use, and would later require another much more expensive license for broader introduction to an entire Planetary Civilization. Furthermore, works derived using those licensed technologies would have to pay royalties back to the rights-holders. I was beginning to understand a little about how the Galactic Economy worked. The proceeds from proprietary planetary knowledge and a tax on proceeds from individual proprietary knowledge are used to fund a basic wage for citizens of the planet. Likewise, the Galactic Union had a similar system for collecting funds. So every citizen of a planet within the Galactic Union would receive a share from their own planetary government and another from the Galactic Union as a whole. It was a logistical and record-keeping nightmare, or would have been, if not for the availability of virtually unlimited quantum computing power.