The Benten Economic Union at one of its quarterly board meetings was discussing the logistics of rolling out affordable ship upgrades to fledgling CEOs. Benten Barons OptimizedFunction and CptColeslaw had already been restructuring their respective corporate empires to develop the necessary industrial capacities to accommodate such a project. The noticeable influx of new startups on Katoa has left the BEU board wondering how this development will impact demand for the ship upgrade kits in question.

Benten Economic Union’s logo, proudly flying at their meetings.¹

“I know we could sell it cheaper, but I’m worried that if we undercut the kits being offered by Schtair or ADI we might struggle to keep up with demand,” spoke CptColeslaw as the Baron leaned forward in their seat.

OptimizedFunction stands and starts pacing the room. “We could have discriminatory pricing for companies based in the Benten Region to reduce the pool of interested companies.”

The board members all sit back in their chairs considering the ramifications to being so blatantly prejudiced, even though not a one at the table disagreed. One could always tell an Antarian apart by the way they carried around with them the distinct odor of slag from the endless rows of smelters on Deimos. And Morians? - Well none of them even know what the inside of a food processor looks like, relying instead on their bloated IT sector on Malahat to fund their sustenance; endlessly inflating prices on CI1. Without a word spoken, all the Barons agreed unanimously that this would be the best course of action with the highest chances of success.

SilentReaper, characteristically silent until now, spoke up to start discussions on how exactly the board would go about distributing these kits. “Negotiator and his shipping business is an asset to the region and well connected to our target customers as well. We would be remiss in not including him in the process.”

Additionally, while the Baron didn’t say this out loud, it was clear that by outsourcing marketing and distribution, should the exclusionary underpinning of the initiative be uncovered, it would be primarily Inch-Centimeter that would end up taking the heat for it, not any of the Barons.

OptimizedFunction chimes in - “We could have him promote the kits. We could even give IC shippers a slight discount directly as well.” Once again, the board silently and unanimously approved the plan.

“Onto the question of pricing,” Reaper exclaimed as he gently banged the table with his palm. “So then sell these kids for 850k on a public listing, and hand them out to Negotiator to sell to his shippers at like 800k.”

Confused, the Barons look at the fashionably annoyed RPI CEO, waiting for him to clarify.

SilentReaper bellows “I DON’T WANT TO HEAR IT, this is the price we’re going with for these kids and we’ll adjust as needed! If IC has an issue with the price, they can source their kids from the overpopulated rotting shipyards on Hephaestus or Kallista!”

Still confused, the other Barons decide to let RPI handle things knowing they were all talking about the same thing earlier, that this kid business must have just been a slip of the tongue. RPI’s executives, stumbling in just as their CEO was having his little temper tantrum and thus having missed most of the meeting, sent out the purchase order for 20 million CIS worth of kids to middle level management in PC7 and STLA.

“Now unless there are any more things you all want to endlessly debate over, this meeting is over,” SilentReaper said glibly. His fake smile clearly meant to communicate his annoyance at these board meetings.

Months go by, and the Barons are eagerly awaiting the arrival of the first ship kits on Benten Station to hand over to Negotiator and his team of shippers. The massive hauler, RPI’s very own SRV Snack-Mobile 9000 comes in through the atmosphere, bringing shockwaves in its wake powerful enough to flatten most buildings you’d find anywhere outside of Benten space. Luckily, Bentonians didn’t rely on the cheap aluminum coming out of Deimos or the malformed iron out of Vallis, and in their wisdom looked instead to the highest grade Benten sourced metals out of Giedi Prime and Arrakis to develop Benten infrastructure.

As the cargo ship lands, clearing the deck of any particulates gathered there since the last ship took off, the Barons get ready to hand off the new ship kits to Inch-Centimeter, composed of lightweight hull-plates that no Baron would ever admit were in fact assembled in Hull-Welding Plants on Nike. At least that was the expectation. The doors to the cargo-bay swing open, and to the absolute horror and dismay of everyone gathered, a horde of baby goats flood the landing pad, clearly terrified out of their minds from their experience aboard the SRV Snack-Mobile 9000. Thousands of them tumble over the edge to their deaths, their chilling cries echoing through the vast depths of the Benten Station Commodity Exchange. But to every failure there is a silver lining.

Goats flooding off the RPI ship.

While the intention was to make Benten a competitive space in the shipbuilding industry, what the Benten Economic Union and her Barons accomplished in reality was making Goat Cheese a staple in the Benten Breakfast Ration for the foreseeable future. Eminence32, a stoic and markedly reserved individual and Baron himself, seemingly undisturbed by the market shattering number of goats swarming the loading bay, broke the silence among the crowd and calmly uttered, “Well at least the goats aren’t from the Hephaestus shipyards.” Perhaps Benten really was just meant to be farms, food processors, and fuel refineries for the rest of the universe to consume.

One of the definitions for ‘kid’ ²