You need our experience, our markets, our protection, protection from what, Alina asked, from yourselves, J-Own replied smoothly. The economic shockwave hit quickly, species that depended on human trade through the council suddenly found themselves cut off. Within one year, forty systems had abandoned the council to join humanity's new network, called the Terran Commonwealth. Free from the council's bureaucracy, corruption, and arrogance, they built something different, not a government, but a true partnership of equals. Five years after Alina walked out of that meeting, the once mighty Galactic Trade Council was a shadow of its former self.
