Thread:Zillafire101/@comment-5496489-20151108071955/@comment-25309944-20160314062411

If I remember correctly, your thinking at the time was that the UPD had no use for that space. They would glass those planets anyway, so they might as well gain something out of it. Compensation, in this case, comes in a much more valuable form of currency: French technology such as replicators, unfettered cooperation with French universities, think tanks, non-governmental organizations, trade and communication with the French economy, and so on.