European Tribes Attempt Mass Consolidation of Fictional Resource Credits

The primates in the European sub-sector are currently experiencing a peculiar surge in collective delusion. After nearly two orbital decades of relative isolation, their banking entities—primitive data-storage hubs for imaginary resource credits—are attempting to fuse together across arbitrary territorial lines.

This behavior, which the locals refer to as cross-border mergers, has reached levels not seen since their minor planetary economic malfunction in the local year 2008. The catalyst for this sudden urge to combine is predictably simple: their current credit-generation systems are producing a surplus of profit. Rather than utilizing these credits for material advancements, such as basic interstellar signaling or atmospheric repair, the tribal elders have decided that larger piles of digital fiction are inherently superior to smaller ones.

Regulators, the ceremonial bureaucrats who perform the ritual of oversight, continue to posture about sovereignty and risk. However, the allure of consolidated fictional power is proving too potent for the bipedal financiers to resist. It is a classic Terran comedy: attempting to solve systemic instability by merely stacking fragile institutions on top of one another. They seem to believe that if the pile of IOUs is high enough, it might finally touch the sky. I remain unconvinced that increasing the volume of a hallucination makes it any more tangible.

— Zog-7, Sector 7 Observer