Kesa objects but not out loud when her pocket everything is taken from her. "I see."

    "And some of the powers she has let her tell, directly, whether someone is a person, and reds are."

"...seems like a question for a philosopher, not an economist."

    "It's not a question at all, from her perspective; the only question is what to do about it. We've been working with the blues on that, and they've come up with a few ideas that seemed like they'd solve the right problem - we want things actually improved, for reds - but figuring out how to implement them is harder, and economics isn't Deskyl's specialty at all."

"Can't exactly turn the hose of free trade on them, transaction costs are ludicrous and mostly too psychological to offset."

(Oh, she likes this one.)

    "We could get closer, though. For example -" she explains the debt collection idea, and what happened in practice.

"- so, the principle you're missing here is that the market, especially financial instruments like the concept of selling debt, rely very heavily on trust in the state or whatever's serving the function thereof to operate by consistent, stable rules that change only in limited ways. The companies that bowed out sensed that that was not the case - in fact the case is that the government will do whatever you tell it to because it's overwhelmingly important we get into space. The one that remains is taking a gamble which is substantially more appealing because you spooked its competition. If the rules look like they might be 'whatever the alien says', then the only people who can confidently act are the ones who think they know what you'll say. While you're all secret that's almost nobody, only very risky people, and even after that you're an alien, might do anything."

Nod.

    "It seems obvious to us that what Deskyl wanted was a deal that's fair to the reds - both because they deserve it, and because we need to build trust with them so you can make the transition to giving them their own planet and having robots instead without them rioting. We don't actually want to be making policy by hand; it would be better for everyone if the blues could handle the details and she could focus on reinventing the hyperdrive. But they seem to be having trouble even understanding the concept of being fair to the reds, so here we are."

"There aren't thirty-year-old debts floating around in other industries. I'm astonished they even still had those records. So there isn't an objective standard of 'fair' and the subjective standard that matters is yours, until and unless you manage to abdicate it. Which you can't do by telling them 'no, try again' every time they make an attempt."

    "So what would work better?"

"Bearing in mind that we've gotten suggestions like 'cut their credits' and 'kill them instead of letting them go to prison' - we really can't trust them to handle it on their own."

(This is apparently news to Deskyl.)

"At that point I'm not sure it's an econ question. But from a relatively lay perspective - you clearly don't speak the language, metaphorically, and they're not making up the gap. Maybe try to find a native who agrees with you on key points - they'd be fringe but might exist, people come up with all sorts of loony ideas - and back them."

Nod.

    "That might take a while, since we're cooperating with being kept secret. Do you think it's worth trying any economic proposals that come up in the meantime, with you to consult with, or no?"

"I could use the retainer they're offering but the range on that is 'nothing' to 'you decide you object to credit auctions, Pigouvian taxation, and fiat currency', so I can't be very informed in saying how worthwhile it'd be."

"We have a few other proposals that are waiting on funds, you and Deskyl could go over one of those to get an idea."

"All right. Funds?"

"They're spending most of the discretionary budget on physics experiments right now, so anything that won't immediately pay for itself needs to wait."

"Aha. Well, what've you got?"

"One of the ideas they came up with was building new, modern red districts, and paying for them by selling the land the current ones are on - except the red districts are owned by the reds, so it's not as straightforward as that. We're also concerned that they might skip installing some amenities in the new districts, or try to force a district that's happy where it is to move, but those don't seem like economic issues."

"Sure they are. Or could be, anyway, I don't know how well reds approximate rational actors, probably poorly."

"Say that again more plainly?"

"Economics absolutely discusses problems like 'one agent makes decisions on behalf of another agent who can't closely supervise and this introduces problems with ensuring quality from their perspective' and 'compensating agents for losses'."

"Huh." She signs to Deskyl, who nods and goes back to the other room.

"That sounds fascinating. Tell me more?"

"The first concept is called the principal-agent problem and the second has various work around it - do you want me to just explain or refer you to searchable keywords -"