MALAHAT, RC-040 - In what observers are calling the largest gathering since the Great Electronics Embargo of 2289, dozens of corporate executives assembled in the Malahat Administrative Complex yesterday, demanding the right to pay their planetary taxes in “honest AIC” rather than what protesters termed “oppressive CIS credits.”

CEOs protesting the current taxation currency. What a great turnout, and those signs really show off their knowledge! Who knew that some CEOs lack literacy and comprehension, like teenagers! ¹

“They tell us CIS is stable, they tell us CIS is universal,” declared MalaTech Solutions CEO Jaryn Blackwood, addressing fellow executives from atop a stack of aluminum ingots. “But I ask you - who among us has ever seen a CIS credit that wasn’t first converted from our hard-earned AIC at whatever rate the exchange algorithms decree?”

The protest reached its emotional peak when Blackwood, dramatically displaying a CIS transaction buffer, delivered what’s already being called the “Cross of CIS” speech: “Having behind us the manufacturing interests and the refining interests and all the pioneering industrialists, we shall answer their demands for a just currency. You shall not press down upon the brow of industry this crown of thorns. You shall not crucify commerce upon a cross of CIS!”

Planetary Administrator Lin Chen responded to the protests by releasing a statement through their PR drone, which malfunctioned halfway through and began dispensing expired protein paste instead of the prepared remarks. “The stability of our taxation system depends on standardization,” the statement began, before being interrupted by jets of gelatinous nutrient sludge. “Any suggestion that we would accept payment in AIC, aluminum bars, or - pfzzt - electronic component futures is simply - splort - unthinkable.”

The protesting executives have proposed several alternative taxation schemes, each more outlandish than the last. The “Aluminum Standard” suggested by RefineCorp’s board would require the planetary government to accept tax payments in precisely measured ingots, stored in a massive vault that would reportedly occupy “only” 40% of Malahat’s habitable surface area. While it’s been fraught with many disagreements over details, many are backing the scheme as it has a beautifully designed spreadsheet to determine the amount based on 58 input fields². Meanwhile, the “Electronic Equilibrium” proposal from CircuitSpace Industries advocated for a complex system where tax rates would fluctuate based on the current conductivity of the planet’s mineral deposits.

“Look, it’s very simple,” explained Chief Financial Officer Mira Patel of OmegaTronics, while attempting to diagram the Electronic Equilibrium system on the back of a thousand CIS credit statement. “When planetary conductivity rises above 7.3 gigasiemens per square kilometer, taxpayers should be allowed to submit their obligations in the form of raw computing power, calculated against the mean orbital velocity of passing cargo ships, divided by the square root of the current market price of galerite.” Patel was then spotted trying to bribe a tax collection terminal with a handful of microprocessors.

At press time, sources reported that several executives had begun construction on a giant aluminum statue of themselves, which they plan to offer to the planetary government as “payment in kind” for the next fiscal quarter.