UNSC/Covenant Trade Crisis

The Unsc/Covenant Trade Crisis was an incident that occured from 2554 to 2569, where language and social barriers between the two alien alliances led to a drastic miscommunication, resulting in galactic bankruptcy. Stemmed entirely froma cultural difference in counting systems, it has since become known as one of the most important events signaling the troubles of alien communication.

Origins
During the creation the Writ of Union at the end of the San'Shyuum/Sangheili War, one of the most important facets to be decided was the commerce and trade system, as the two races had agreed to share their wealth and inique products. The most basic of these to be established was their counting sytem.

Prior to the arrival of the Prophets, the Elites had used a counting sytem based on the number 8, as this was the total number of their fingers. The Prophets, having one less finger, used a counting system based on the number 6. As a compromise, a concilitory math system was created, this time based on the number 7. All races inducted into the Covenant had to adopt this new format, regardless of previous cultural norms. This was confusing for races like the Unggoy, whose counting system was based on the number 3, and to the Huragok it was a constant technical annoyance, as their massive intellect allowed them to forgoe counting systems all together.

By contrast, humanity and the UNSC with it had traditionally had a counting system based on the number 10, a grouping which exceeded that of any of the known Covenant races. As a result, this ambiguety in translation would result in havoc in mutual trade and barterdom.