In part 1 I discussed a realistic version of warp technology consistent with General Relativity. In part 2 I discussed the best location (Hyades open cluster), and in this part I will cover alien life in The New Worlds.
I have been ruminating on what kind of plot vehicles to use to further the message of liberty and a futuristic re-enactment of the founding of America, and I came to the conclusion that alien life solves three problems, all with a corresponding equivalent in U.S. history.
1: Trade
Since traveling back and forth to Earth is extremely expensive and takes a significant amount of time, there has to be some credible product that is extremely valuable on Earth, which warrants sending relatively small volumes of them using the Alcubierre warp drive. Since all atoms can be found in large quantities in the Solar system, these are not good candidates. Alien life, however, provides something that is unique and may be something that people on earth are willing to pay a high price for. It should be some kind of plant like alien spice, tea, or even silk.
Such a trade can be used as a plot device mirroring the Boston Tea Party, i.e. a tax revolt.
2: Space Indians
A key conflict in the story is that between the settlers and the tyrannical Old World. But although a perfectly good story can be told with only this conflict, we are not making the settlers into fully real people (flaws and everything). It’s a pure good guys vs bad guys, which is engaging, but at the same time does not flex your moral muscles.
I want to create moral dilemmas that also happen to be historically accurate. Hence, I want to introduce space indians. These are tribes of an alien race on one of the planets. Just like the real indians, they are constantly infighting and many of them are very barbaric. They only occupy a very small percentage of the land, and the settlers therefore feel justified setting up their farms. The space indians are very aggressive and kill many of the settlers.
The purpose here is to allow a modern human in the 21st century to see through the eyes of the first settlers in the 17th or 18th century. When they first encountered the native tribes, they seemed like aliens. They seemed barbaric and bloodthirsty. By having an alien race that we don’t know much about other than that they are hostile and aggressive, we allow the viewer to feel what the original settlers felt.
Later, as the story progresses, the settlers will gradually discover that not all the space indians are violent, and they are sentient and can learn English. This then opens up the moral dilemma of how they fit into society. Should they have reservations? Should the settlers just leave because it is “stolen land”? Should the space indians get an equal citizens to the humans in the federation? Voting rights? Lots of juice dilemmas to work with.
3: Space slaves
Just like we have space indians mirroring the native Americans, it makes sense to also mirror the African slaves. I’ll jut call them space slaves for now. These are a race (other than the indians) who seem to be capable of doing some important labor to transform the land into something useful. Exactly what this is can be fleshed out. They could even be producing some kind of silk, which is part of the valuable silk trade. Although, I think this may be giving this part of the economy a too important role compared to the cotton slaves in America.
Just like with the indians, we allow the 21st century viewer to see some humans do what appears to be some kind of animal farming. From our point of view it initially looks humane, and no-one suspects the space slaves to be sentient and intelligent. Again, an important plot driver could be that one of our heroes gradually discovers the intelligence of these beings and are eventually able to communicate with them. He may even start an abolishment movement because he claims that these creatures must have been created in the image of God.
This allows the modern viewer to see this new knowledge gradually unfolding and what moral dilemmas it entails. Many of the farmers may be in deep debt, and are unable to free the slaves due to financial obligations. You can get to see how people who are genuinely goodhearted struggles with slavery, while other settlers take the attitude that they are just animals, and can be treated as such.
There can of course be more alien lifeforms in the storyverse, but these three serve the historically relevant ones from the United States.
I like adding this moral ambiguity and imperfection to the story, not only because it allows one to tell the story of slavery in a far more tempered and nuanced manner which is so needed today, but also because anyone who would want to criticize the story/series for “whitewashing” America will not have ammunition for that criticism.
2 replies on “The New Worlds part 3: Alien life”
I don’t like the idea of bringing in slaves. Yes, it makes sense if the goal is to be a parallel to history. But if the goal is to sell America to future adults, it is terrible salesmanship. It just reinforces the lies they are told in school that our Republic had to be built on the backs of slaves! “See, my teacher was right! America is a corrupt lie that can only exist by oppressing others!! Smash the system, bruh!!!” What is the end goal?
On the contrary, I think this is great salesmanship. If you actually watch the series from the beginning, you as a viewer will not see anything wrong in society. Slavery is not even an issue. It’s just farming. Only later do people gradually realize that the aliens are sentient. This addresses the issue of slavery in a mature and nuanced way:
1) you can show that the New Worlds were not BUILT on slavery. I.e. some of the planets specialize in a certain type of “farming” but others don’t. Overall, slavery makes up a relatively small part of the economy.
2) you show that slavery was an honest mistake. You allow the viewer to start out with the feeling that farming was ok. Then only after an awakening does it become apparent that it is morally wrong. This is good pacing and leading. Those who think that the United States is “evil” because it is “built on slavery” suddenly find themselves seeing likable, moral people do an honest mistake that the viewer himself. The discovery that slavery is morally wrong was not self-evident and it was not easy.