MrMustang1965 wrote:ThadFilms wrote:You ever get the feeling that there's a galactic/intergalactic "Survival International" protecting the rights of indigenous people to their planet(s) (Earth, etc.)? You know, folks arguing that we shouldn't be interfered with, but at the same time, big business wants to mine our planet and put us to work in their factories? Plausible.
Thanks NickSMU17 .... you just gave me a great idea for a short story.
That's the 'Prime Directive' and Starfleet, Thad. It's already been done.
Incorrect.
The Prime Directive is a product of Gene Roddenberry's idealized version of the future (and what a beautiful future that is, especially in TNG). The Prime directive assumes that humans, and other sentient beings, have come together and settled there differences and decided to and have, for the most part, succeeded in doing just that.
If some company wants to go in and strip mine the region that these natives live in, there will be (a) government action against it, and (b) this "Survival International" group attempting to block it, for varying reasons. Whereas, the Prime Directive is a fundamental law protecting such things.
What I am talking about is not The Big Chill, i.e. the aftermath of the Costner character's suicide. I'm talking about a story about the Costner character's suicide.
The story, yes, would bare some resemblance on it's face to some sort of "Prime Directive" like struggle, but the similarity would end there. The future I would imagine would be much like our own life today, fractured. Where big companies rule the roost, and big government doesn't always stop them, they aid, compromise, and - rarely - thwart their interests.
Thus leaving little know civil liberties groups to fight the good fights that many of us don't even think about. If this thread dies, how many of us will be thinking about this tribe or this particular civil liberties group in two weeks. Likely none.
So the story would revolve around, not a major issue in this future landscape - where as the Prime Directive is just that, Prime, at the forefront. I would assume utopia for my story. Even if we would all love to live in it.