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In my book, an alien race conquers the earth and kidnaps the most intelligent or prominent people in certain branches of science where they consider that humans are more advanced.

Shortly after, a woman who is one of the best economists manages to buy her own freedom in this empire (becoming the first free human). The empire, however, is so gigantic that no one cares, as long as it follows the laws.

The economy of this empire is based on the control of a single substance that allows interstellar jumps, in addition to the use of weapons that make their bearers practically invulnerable. But above all, and most importantly, this substance also allows rejuvenation of its wearers.

On the other hand, apart from this type of material. The second generator of wealth is related to services such as: interplanetary communications, exploration of new worlds, and exchanges of raw materials.

Other important details of the setting:

  • this empire has reasons to prohibit the study of Genetics
  • only the empire's ships can fly into space, so no one can produce new routes of space travel
  • communications between planets are made thanks to a species, also conquered and controlled, which communicates telepathically regardless of distances.

What economic weakness could this human take advantage of to buy her manumission, and then that of many other humans?

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  • $\begingroup$ Sounds a bit like (sort of) The Saga of Seven Suns (by Kevin J. Anderson), but with your Alien overlords having total control of the world forest and all of the green priests and all stardrive fuel production and your stardrive fuel stand-in vital to some sort of specialist weaponry as well as stardrives. $\endgroup$
    – Pelinore
    Commented Mar 12 at 17:20
  • $\begingroup$ That OT observation aside, this is a story based question, that's for you to decide, and you haven't given us enough information to provide an answer without first inventing whole chunks of random potential economic structure for you anyway. $\endgroup$
    – Pelinore
    Commented Mar 12 at 17:31
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    $\begingroup$ VTC as hopelessly story-based. How could anyone possibly know how a character in your story achived a story-specific goal in story-specific conditions? For example, taking the question seriously at what it says, she could have bought her freedom and achived tremendous wealth by introducing any of the countless goods and services which this utterly barbarian empire seems to lack. Services such as hospitality (= hotels and restaurants), entertainment (= show, actors, gambling, prostitutes), consulting, banking, insurance, etc. Goods such as fine wine and brandy, fashion clothes and shoes, ... $\endgroup$
    – AlexP
    Commented Mar 12 at 18:12
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    $\begingroup$ @Pelinore - I was going to go with a slightly higher-brow author and say that this sounds like Dune. An incredibly valuable substance that permits safe FTL travel (spice) and also rejuvenates the user (spice)? An empire that controls all access to space (the Spacing Guild)? $\endgroup$
    – jdunlop
    Commented Mar 12 at 18:22
  • $\begingroup$ Have you considered blackmail? Accountants can access economic information. $\endgroup$
    – Zautech
    Commented Mar 12 at 18:26

2 Answers 2

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Slaves whose best work is substantially more valuable than the work that can be efficiently compelled using the threat of violence get compensated for their work. If you need a top economist to know when to whip the top economist for not doing economics appropriately, and the whole reason you enslaved a top economist is because you didn't have one, you need a different incentive.

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She shorts a stock.

While being transported she notes who is going with her and notes certain individuals who are extremely good at certain scientific pursuits. She recognizes that there's a chance here. She finds an information broker and sells some of this information and uses the money from that to short businesses that will go bankrupt from the scientific changes, and to buy stock in businesses that will increase in money.

This allows her to quickly improve in wealth using insider knowledge, enough to get her freedom.

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  • $\begingroup$ Shorting a stock would necessitate an economic environment that either permitted unsecured shorts or a lot more capital than she was likely to start with, even from selling information. I'd assume a truly developed economy would not permit unsecured shorts. $\endgroup$
    – jdunlop
    Commented Mar 12 at 18:23
  • $\begingroup$ It's an alien world that is dumb enough that they need to enslave random earthlings to function- I wouldn't assume their development is well structured. $\endgroup$
    – Nepene Nep
    Commented Mar 12 at 18:25
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    $\begingroup$ :-) I gotta admit... an alien world that is dumb enough that they need to enslave random earthlings, but have the ability to cross the vast depths of space to enslave those earthlings, is a bit of a technology dichotomy. $\endgroup$
    – JBH
    Commented Mar 12 at 20:49

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