Aluiris - a galactic merchant nation

The Aluiris are absolutely the best traders in the nearby galaxy. Their entire evolution has been crystallized by the barter economy since the primitive stage, when even guided by their atavistic primitive instincts, they began to save organic particles in order to exchange them for better or more suitable ones. From this arose the biological ability of the aluirs to change shape. 

In the early days of their evolution, they realized that they were best able to exchange by reminding their "customers" - in the pre-civilization stages, for example, grazing Hipposcrams, whose secretions were a nutrient-dense delicacy for the Aluiris. In return, the Aluiris carried the best possible Kratsuul, sometimes even from the longest distances. The hiproscrams did not understand why. 

The moral of the Aluiris are high, albeit in a purely capitalistic way. In their world of thought, no other means of acquiring property than exchange is simply possible. Not finding. Not stealing. Not robbery. Not even producing. There were no predators or prey animals on the planet, due to which their development was slow. As a counterweight, compared to human civilization, they had 12 times the time to develop in a non-violent environment. When they reached the pre-industrial age, the Aluiris never did anything for themselves. Even in the worst times of shortage, they looked for another aluiri, and exchanged the food they produced or collected, for example, for an identical portion with the other.

Added value spurred them into industrial production, and then - then, development happened in leaps and bounds. Eventually they reached a stage where they can go out and find markets in their galaxy. After a few culturally unsuccessful encounters, they decided to only deal with beings that exhibited epsilon waves. So they equipped their ships with creptene, a mineral quite common on their planet, which reacts strongly to the waves in question.

The Aluiris found signs of civilization in a spiral branch of the galaxy, and headed there. They didn't understand anything they saw. These creatures clearly had an advanced civilization – but they had just destroyed it and their own inhabitants with what seemed like insane fury and efficiency. The Aluirs even managed to detect the destructive use of fission power in a few places on Earth. However, they concluded that it was an exceptional event. If this had been the normal life of this nation, it would have destroyed itself ages ago. 

They stayed to see if the planet was - or would become - a potential business partner target. Above all, would it have something to offer worth contacting? And there was! They found a very promising, quite new, attractive article. An invention called plastic. 

Plastic was particularly attractive to Aluiris. There was no oil on their planet, and such a wonderful, malleable, elastic, versatile substance was to them a wonder of wonders, like a lifeless version of their own biological adaptability. They had to get it, but making the deal required another condition to be met. Were there people with epsilon waves in the civilization? 

The Aluiris chose a investigator from among themselves, whose task was to transform into human form - the transformations took it's own time. However, they were little bit too impatient, and sent a still-developing humanoid to the planet with a creptene sphere to probe. Trusting was both a great success and a colossal disaster. The officer found epsilon waves almost immediately upon landing in the planet's atmosphere. Enthusiastically reporting on the matter, but at the same time still unaccustomed to his humanoid form, the alien scientist managed to smash his ship to pieces near the small town of Roswell in the United States. 

The trading expedition decided to get down to business, and some of them started to transform themselves into human-like bodies, both physically and socially. They studied human languages, behavior patterns and clichés. Wise up from the accident and with their more careful studies, they discovered that epsilon waves were indeed extremely rare in the planet's population. The first discovery turned out to be a lucky one. However, the Aluiris eventually found a perfect match for them, a potential business partner, Rahul S. A. Bhattacharya, an enterprising young Indian businessman who was a close consultant in establishing India's plastics industry in its dawn - and who possessed epsilon brainwaves. 

They sent their best prepared partner to contact Bhattacharya. It didn't take long for the two enthusiastic and similar businessmen to find a common note, a partnership, a common spirit - you could even say a friendship. So they also found out each other's backgrounds very easily. Bhattacharya belonged to a very rare section of humanity, the metants, and his special ability was a form of mental molding. He unmistakably sensed the right solutions vibrating in some kind of universal energy field, always the right people to make them, the right methods of action, the best partnerships, veiled but genuine desires, lusts and wishes. He was able to bring everything into the most wonderful possible whole by expanding his consciousness into the past, the present and some distance into the future.

The Canadian businessman who introduced himself as Philippe Lionshead, on the other hand, was Aluiri, an alien from another planet,who wanted to do business with Earthlings. Rahul had plastic to offer in such a way that trading even large quantities of it never raised any questions from the sellers. Lionshead had special metal alloys unknown on Earth to offer – as well as a mineral whose practical possibilities Bhattachaya understood very quickly.