Editing Quest:Hive Queen Quest (section)

===== A delicate balance of debt =====
To the Valen the concept of government as humans have devised is an alien concept. The concept of long term titles, elections, and especially nationalism or patriotism are all unheard of concepts in Valen philosophy prior to their first contact with backwater colonists fleeing the rule of the Earth Confederation. Instead, the Valen live essentially on an elaborate honor system of endlessly circling debt, with hierarchies assembling and evaporating based on how much is owed to any other individual. The closest thing to a formal government that the Valen poses would be the individual clans and houses built on the collective wealth of like-minded individuals, which each operate a portion of territory and natural resources within not just Valen space, but also Union space in the form of privately owned banking firms and mining corporations. The difference between public and private resources are as simple as the difference between claimed and unclaimed resources, and the concept of government owned land seems as ridiculous as the concept of taxes.

Each faction among the Valen function along the same concepts of debt, but the concept of debt is far removed from the human definition. Everything is an asset, and all things must be replayed in kind, be they gifts of resources, loans of credits, mating arrangements, favors, and even insults or hostile actions. Valen society is a complex menagerie of hidden jabs and overt gestures of goodwill moving back and forth in a kind of hostile war of philanthropy as each person attempts to place the other in their debt while actually expending as few resources as possible. Credits hold no value, nor titles or territory, but any single person who is owed a favor is seen as wealthy, with credits and currency often seen as little more than dressed-up and interchangeable I.O.U.s, and as such credits will often be spend just as fast as they are earned. This, along with their incredibly social and competitive nature, has lead them to all but dominate most aspects of investment banking and speculative finance within the Union.