It kills them with kindness......

Speaking of money; it's always the economy, stupid. Or is it the stupid economy? Anyway, the machine-biot dynamic is at heart a problem in economics. The machines have way too much stuff, so much that they go to great lengths to get rid of what they can when they can. They twist space-time with the powers they have developed over uncountable eons, sending space freighters hurling between the stars at impossible velocity carrying multiple metric tonnes of surplus goods and commodities, just to get rid of excess production. They have even cultured millions of cyborgs, in a vain attempt to create a consumer class. But that backfired, when the cyborgs decided they would rather be gypsys or hippies than strait-laced time-card-punching middle class. But, back to what I was trying to say: when a political entity like the Insect Empire comes into contact with the machine culture shipping lanes, things will be fine for a while, but sooner or later the biot waste is going to it the air circulation unit, in a big way. Think about it, the insects came way out here to the edge of their space to set up a mining operation on this otherwise useless rocky moon of a gas giant planet. They bulldoze out a spaceport, and get to work. The machines, ever vigilant, see a new spaceport and quick as a wink start sending ships there. The insect mining company asks them how much they want for their goods....like mining machines, hydrocarbons, raw bulk food paste, whatever....and the machines say "Hell, we're giving it away!" So of course the mining company chief gets together with his buddy the Imperial Local Agent, and says "Good buddy, I think we are on to something here, know what I mean....wink, wink, nudge, nudge?" Do I have to explain the rest? OK, the Imperial-industrial powers that be set up an import tariff structure where they get the stuff for free, but sell it for the price after the tariff. It's all still way cheaper than shipping the same stuff out from the Imperial core planets, and everybody in on the deal is making one or two fortunes every day. Of course, that is not enough for really greedy insects: they go hog-wild and start trans-shipping mass quantities of excellent machine made product back into the core realm at totally nuts rock bottom prices, which soon enough leads to the crash of the Imperial economy as old line business goes bankrupt, the banks go bottom up, and the housing market flips upside-down. That's how the machine culture deals with really big aggressive biot infestations on it's frontier...it kills them with kindness.I got lost in an economic digression....I was going to tell you about how things were going at the flea market....I mean Free Market....things were still going great, the local economy was still in the upswing phase, and my churros were selling like hotcakes....Damn....that knocked me sideways again...I mean, how would hotcakes sell? What an idea! I wonder if the food machine can make maple syrup? I bet it can....