LJ Idol - To Boldly Go...

[aggienaut]

   This expedition would be the first ever to this particular planet. The Corporation (and its competitors) had already made contact with alien civilizations in several other systems. This one was a bit further away, but the Corporation had high hopes for it. From what astronomers back home could discern, it was mostly solid, and within the optimum distance from its star -- what you'd call an "Earth-like" planet. The Corporation was eager to get there before its competitors.

   First Mate Running Moon was in command as the first contact came in from the rapidly approaching planet. He immediately sent Ensign Smith to go fetch the captain and called for the communications expert. Captain Turning Rock and First Mate Running Moon eagerly awaited the communications expert's opinion.
   "Well it's definitely a radio signal composed and sent out by a sentient species" reported Communications Specialist Daring Possum excitedly. The whole bridge crew held their breaths for more. When Daring Possum displayed it on the view screen, however, it was an incomprehensible jumble.
   "You, uh, certain that's an intelligent message?" asked the captain.
   "Yes certainly. That message is full of mathematical patterns. They're just trying to be clever."
   "How quaint."

   Weeks passed, and as the planet got closer more communications were received and studied by the communications team. At first it was just the random incomprehensible message that had been purposefully transmitted deep into space by the alien civilization, but presently they started to pick up the aliens' own broadcasts to themselves, which the research team carefully analyzed. Once in range of live (well, with significant delays at first) communication with the alien creatures, research could really proceed.
   The planet had one sentient species, whose bodies consisted of a central body mass with four clumsy tentacles and a pod held above it which contained most of its sensory organs.
   "A peculiar creature indeed!" concluded the Chief Biologist Metal Cloud after presenting his findings, waving an eyestalk to indicate amusement.


   After months in orbit around the planet, studying its inhabitants, the officers meet in the conference room to discuss their findings and move into the next state of the mission:

   Captain Turning Rock - "So do they have anything of value?"
   Chief Geologist Soaring Buffalo - "Sir, they're using it up fast, but I'm pleased to report that they still have fossil fuels!"
   Supercargo Shifting Comet - "Yes, that appears to be their most valuable commodity to us, I believe we should arrange to purchase all their remaining fossil fuels before they squander them."
   Captain Turning Rock - "What do we have that's of value to them?"
   Supercargo Shifting Comet - "As you know, their technology is extremely primitive, and most of them spend a large amount of their time labouring at things which could easily be done by simple robotic trinkets we have. Our onboard manufacturing facilities can easily stamp out enough robotic units to replace millions of their laborers, and they will place a great value on each one as they do not currently have the technology to make a single robot that's effective for anything more than the most simple tasks"
   Captain Turning Rock - "Excellent. Trade them only a small handful at first so they give us the highest price per unit."
   Supercargo Shifting Comet - "However the great chiefs of the nations that control the largest oil deposits already have enough monetary power that their people will be unimpressed with manual labour saving machines. However they have expressed an extreme interest in weapons technology, as they currently do not have parity with the greatest chiefs of this world. It appears we could easily secure contracts for all their oil simply by providing them with weapons which are ancient to us but will make them pre-eminent military powers on their planet."
   Captain Turning Rock - "Excellent. Lest the bigger nation try to also demand weapons, get the robotic-trinkets-for-coal contract with them first"


   Several months later, Chief Biologist Metal Cloud updates the officers: "Well, we've successfully eliminated the need for most of the humans to work, but they don't seem to know what to do now! They're all sitting around doing nothing, and no one is distributing food to them. Peculiar, peculiar creatures!" He waves his eyestalk to indicate amusement.

¹ All nouns translated from Ixblehtiquian to analogous English equivalents*
² Most Ixblehtiquian names follow an "adjective noun" naming convention. Names are passed down through generations and sometimes reflect ancient occupations, such as "Smith" or "Wayne."
³ While Ixblehtiquians don't have possums or buffaloes, the actual creatures mentioned in the names there is no English name for, so in this translation similar Earth bound animals were used in their place.
⁴ While the Ixblehtequians have long ago developed more efficient energy sources than fossil fuels, they still have many uses for this extremely finite and hard to find resource.

*Yes these are fake footnotes not linked in-line, because they're only meant to be read after the rest.

   When I originally posited the idea of "what if an advanced race of aliens make contact with us and don't want to kill us but TRADE with us... and thus ruin our economy," a whole slew of people commented back with "no, the prime directive!!"
   I think it's pretty silly to assume that for some reason advanced aliens are going to adhere to a guideline from one of our fictional television shows. I think a better guide for how they might behave would probably be to look back at what happened in analogous situations in human history. One doesn't need to go far to see that no "prime directive" seemed to occur to anyone, and discovery of less technologically advanced peoples by explorers invariably resulted in questions of "how can I best exploit these people?" or at best "how can I profit from them?"


See Also: Last Year's First Contact

Comments

[shadowwolf13]

Very interesting!

[emo-snal.livejournal.com]

Aah it went almost an hour without a comment! I'm dying to know how it's going to be received, it's kind of odd. d:

[shadowwolf13]

*laugh* I got here as soon as I could. ;) Commenting seems to be quieter this year.

[emo-snal.livejournal.com]

Boo, Gatekeeper round! I don't think people read as much when they realize they don't get to vote

[shadowwolf13]

Quite probably. I don't know that I would have been reading all week had I known ... It's been a rough week.

[gildedage.livejournal.com]

This is one of those that I would want to see more of- and would humans really accept robots that could do all that work? But it's interesting how they play to the bad sides of humans (wanting weapons and money). Also, I like how wiggling you stalk is a sign of amusement.

[emo-snal.livejournal.com]

This is one of those that I would want to see more of-

I feel like this story actually ought to have been much longer. I felt like I was kind of rushing it along keeping it as short as I did.

and would humans really accept robots that could do all that work?

Oh I think they readily would. I mean, the decision would be made by the business owners who would not hesitate to replace people with robots ... and then people would be out of work. And the irony I tried to point out here is that while people in theory would then be better off, theoretically just as much is being produced but now people don't have to work for it, but in practice people would be unemployed and wallowing in destitution probably. And for someone not familiar with our economic system this would seem very peculiar indeed. It's like if an ant colony somehow had an economic depression and you looked at it and for no discernable reason the ants were simply not working.

[alycewilson.livejournal.com]

Great mental exercise! I like the use of humor to make some serious points about imperialism.

[emo-snal.livejournal.com]

Thanks (:

[imafarmgirl.livejournal.com]

None of this surprised me. If they had brought hords of diseases it would be like explorers.

[emo-snal.livejournal.com]

Lol! I hadn't even thought of that!

[imafarmgirl.livejournal.com]

Come on! We need diseases and infected blankets, or infected space suits! Get with the program! lol. Grins.

[emo-snal.livejournal.com]

LOL! :D

[magsmom.livejournal.com]

My birthday is next month. A robotic trinket would be lovely.

And HEY! I can see my house - it's right by GOlden Gate Park, about 4 blocks above the "y" in the word Greenway at the bottom of the picture

It's foggy today so I can't see the ship.

[emo-snal.livejournal.com]

Lol (:

[(Anonymous)]

So if you got super rich and lived on a boat for the rest of your life, you'd write about aliens and our lazzzy human butts? interesting. What was your inspiration for their names?

What's in a Name?

[emo-snal.livejournal.com]

Yes. (:


As to the names, names usually can be translated to mean something. Even English names we think of as "just a name" can usually be traced back to describing something (often a profession). So I wanted names that could be explained, rather than just alien jibberish I made up. And then it occurred to me to give them native american sounding names to sort of reverse the imperialism and add another dimension to the whole thing.

[technophobe1975.livejournal.com]

Nice one!
Although, the Prime Directive seemed to be ignored by the writers whenever it was inconvenient.
Also, would everyone accept a robot handed out by aliens? Surely there are enough of us who watched the Terminator films while taking notes to be very suspicious of the whole thing.
Loved the footnotes as well!

[joeymichaels.livejournal.com]

I've always held that an alien race would try to achieve economic domination instead of military domination. I'm pleased to learn I'm not the only one. Awesome!

[emo-snal.livejournal.com]

I don't invision them even caring about domination over us in any sense. They just want to trade, regard us as amusingly backwards, and only really care about doing better than their competition back home.

[teaberryblue.livejournal.com]

I read this when you posted it and then started wiki-ing Trek stuff and completely forgot to come back and comment! I enjoyed it a lot and I think you're completely right. It was also interesting enough that I was thinking about it again when I was at the Newseum this weekend-- the Westphalian idea of not interfering with a less-"advanced" society is something that pretty much ONLY happens when journalists go to write about a place-- sometimes to such an extreme that it creeps me out.

Anyway! I enjoyed this and you are right. However I think people are really more influenced by television than they would like to admit. I think a lot of the modern technology we have today that was originally envisioned on TV shows in the 1950s and 60s is stuff we have because those people watching that show were inspired to make it work, and I don't know if they would have had the idea on their own.

[emo-snal.livejournal.com]

Thanks (:

But of course the Peace of Westphalia wasn't really about imperialism. In fact it was in the middle of and or even preceded the most frenzied colonialism, imperialism, and exploitation. What it did is in theory establish that European countries wouldn't try to fight about who was in charge of OTHER (European) countries. This too was of course largely ignored whenever convenient. It's in theory still in place today (and theoretically expanded to countries which aren't European), but for example I felt it was being largely ignored when Honduras tried to replace their renegade president (and the world community put all the pressure they could to force them to retain the bastard as their leader).

Glad you liked it, thanks for the comment! (: