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[Taken from a number of sources including Paula Wilson’s and Slindo Merofort’s notes and video. RBB]
The Ronoi settled back down onto the baseball diamond in Central Park. All of the leaders were given shuttle transport back to their countries, apart from the permanent Security Council members and Secretary General. They were attending a meeting with the Ambassador in the ship’s conference room.
Once again, we were all in the comfortable floating chairs and I was privileged to be asked by Perfect to sit in for notetaking.
The Ambassador had a lot to say; this was the laying down of the plan if we were to become Federation members. From what I’d seen of the planets we’d visited, we’d have been mad not to take part, but even I wasn’t naïve enough to assume it wouldn’t have a lot of problems attached to it.
‘I thought this would be a good time to talk to you about how membership would be implemented if you decided to join,’ said the Ambassador.
All eyes were now on her. ‘You have seen how some of the economy operates and it’ll be obvious that without automatic production methods, our populations wouldn’t be able to enjoy their ability to live a life of free choice. Artificial intelligence is the key to the Federation’s success.
‘My inspectors have looked at the Earth and found many areas which need immediate attention. As a first stage, we would want to get supplies in to every area which is suffering from extreme poverty, hunger and famine. This is easily achieved. We would call in all of our disaster relief squads from all over the galaxy. Yol Merofort tells me that comprises over thirty thousand rapid-reaction ships. Although many will likely get called away during the relief aid, the remainder would use it as a training exercise. Simultaneously we will provide a basic income for the same people so that they can then buy food in their local market places.
‘This won’t work if the people operating the businesses in those countries see our support as a way to enrich themselves, so the Federation will be looking for your permission to ensure there are Federation Enforcement Units on hand to prevent profiteering.
‘Simultaneous with the relief project, teams of Federation engineers, most of whom would be automatons, will visit every manufacturing and food producer to discover which machines can be provided or adapted from existing types and which will need to be specially designed. During this process, the existing business operators will pay their staff even where machines are doing the work. We envisage this taking up to eighteen months, but it could be a very much shorter time.
‘Once all production is automated, we would implement the equality payment regime. All currencies will revert to afeds. We appreciate that this will be seen as unwelcome by the wealthy and director classes, so the system would be introduced gradually. At the beginning all people will receive the usual Federation income. Those who normally earned more than the average would find their income halved each year until it came down to the standard income. It’s this aspect to the Federation which might be the most challenging for your governments. The wealthiest are also often the most powerful. At the end of that first year, although we’ll pay them more than the average, they’ll be stripped of their wealth under the normal Federation taxation system which allows only a set sum to be retained each year.
‘Once the standard Federation income level is reached, all military and police will become volunteers. Using Federation techniques and equipment you’ll be surprised that there will be no shortage, particularly given that crimes will fall to zero quite rapidly. Our FEU forces will train yours in Federation methods.
‘That is a brief outline of how the Federation would help you join, but you have to make that commitment first. We need you to form a new committee of leaders to negotiate with us and to help us understand things about humankind’s activities and desires which might not be clear to us.
‘When I look at the five leaders here, some of the distribution is equitable, but there are huge omissions and over-provisions. This is our suggestion – the position currently occupied by Yol Spence should take in Canada and Mexico, unless you think Mexico should be part of the South American bloc, Yol Hood and Ya Meunier need to speak to the other European nations and have a single representative for the whole of Europe, Yol Ivanov’s position should encompass the Middle-East, the east of the Mediterranean including all the Stan countries, India, Sri Lanka and as far east as Bangladesh including Mongolia, Nepal and Bhutan, Da Cheung’s position should encompass everything east of that central Asian territory including Japan, all the islands known as the Far East plus everywhere in the Pacific except Hawaii. A new member will be needed to represent Africa, another for South America, Central America and the Caribbean Islands. You could have a member for Australia, New Zealand and Antarctica, but the population doesn’t really warrant one. My inspectors, however, think they’d be difficult to combine with any of the other groups.
‘That would give you a Security Council of seven or eight, which is workable. Those eight will need to elect a person to act as World Leader, which, until that is done, we will treat as being Ya Okafor.
‘That’s the rudiments of the plan. With Ya Mistorn and Yol Merofort, I’ll now leave this meeting and let you discuss the concept between yourselves,’ said the Ambassador, and she left with her staff.
Wow, I wasn’t expecting to be here to hear all of this. It would be a massive change to the world order. How would the billionaires handle it? Can the wealthy go on strike? I chuckled silently to myself as I envisioned them carrying placards through the streets of Washington, chanting, “WE WANT TO STAY MILLIONAIRES, WHEN DO WE WANT IT? FOREVER!”
Things were getting interesting.