Poll Who Owns a Solar System?

[oberth]

there's a problem here - methings planet names were kinda random in tos (as long as those planets were unimportant) so omega IV and omega VI are most likely not in the same omega system - those guys were just lazy

... and i did vote

i wonder how pissed we'd be if all what we find of our dilithium on pluto is an abandonned ferengi mine (please god don't let that happen under the donald's watch; he'd so gonna sue them

 

[STR]

Natives don't seem to have a claim to anything much. Heck, they can even fail to have a claim to the soil they tread, as per the setup at the start of ST:INS (based as it might be on false information).

It's been a while since I saw Insurrection, but my impression was that displacing the Baku was (at best) a very contorted interpretation of law that probably wouldn't have stood under scrutiny. The project progressed solely because it was under cover. As soon as Picard brought it to light, the project died.

 

[The Old Mixer]

[Pleasedon'tletthisbecomeaboutInsurrectionpleasedon'tletthisbecomeaboutInsurrection...]

 

[Timo]

So let's steer towards the mining thing instead. Our heroes and villains often compete for "mining rights". Does that mean rights to the stuff being mined? That is, does (all? mined?) dilithium on Halka become UFP property with the transferring of those rights, with no further monetary compensation to the Halkans? Would the UFP have owned x% of planet Halka had Kirk been able to get their signatures?

That's basically how it goes around here on Earth: Finnish bedrock for the applicable parts belongs to multinational enterprises rather than to the state or the inhabitants, and they get to keep what they find in that bedrock, for free (the rights came with a fixed price, the taxes don't depend on the yield of the mine much, etc.). Ownership of a planet let alone a star system need not be a binary/boolean thing in order for the riches to be exploited...

Timo Saloniemi

 

[oberth]

as star trek is quite close to a theoretical commie society i see no chance the locals are cheated. they get a fair price* - if it is a rogue operation, though ...

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*not necessarily in money or latinum

 

[ZapBrannigan]

as star trek is quite close to a theoretical commie society i see no chance the locals are cheated. they get a fair price* - if it is a rogue operation, though ...

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*not necessarily in money or latinum

But you're automatically assuming that if some folks live on an inner planet, then they somehow own the whole flippin' solar system. That idea could use a sense of scale for proper consideration. I refer you to my post #19 on page 1, which I recap below:

Maybe it would help to think about how large a solar system is. Light itself takes more than five hours to get from the sun to Pluto. The New Horizons spacecraft took 9 and a half years to reach Pluto, going faster than any previous spacecraft. It's a much longer distance than we can picture in our minds. And that's just the radius. Sweep the radius around to paint a circle, and the area of our solar system's main disc is beyond all comprehension. It's more space than we know what to do with.

If you go to an untouched, lifeless rock, in the midst of a vast, unreached emptiness that is several billion kilometers away from a solar system's "natives," isn't that a case where the real estate is just up for grabs? If you can get there and they can't, isn't that place more yours to claim than theirs?

I'm not crazy about saying aliens could "rightfully" mine our outer reaches, but the more I think about it, the sillier our native-to-the-solar-system claim starts to sound.

So I don't think the miners on Rigel XII are stealing anything from the Kaylar on Rigel VII. And it's fine that Mr. Flint can own a planet in the Omega system that the Yangs on Omega IV know nothing about [as long as Flint has the wherewithal to control a whole planet where nobody else lives]. The space in one solar system is just too big to assign so much ownership to the locals.

 

[oberth]

i do, by means of proximity - they don't need a starship to get there

for two sentient species in one system it get's complicated of course

to me the prime directive prohibits mining dilitium on pluto untill those apes on the 3rd planet managed to anihilate themselves

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

So, the peoples of Asia, Europe and the Americas own Africa?

Well, they do bless the rains down in there...

As for who owns what: Earth 'owns' planets on which it has a physical presence (like a colony) and therefore has a legal claim to it. In Trek, pre-2161, United Earth legally encompassed Earth, Mars, various asteroid colonies, Jupiter Station, and Titan.

However, once the Federation was created, the entire system became Federation territory, so the whole question would be moot. United Earth, as a Federation member, would still consist only of those planets on which it has a presence (except for Mars, which eventually declared independence and joined the Federation on its own) but when the entire system is within the Federation's borders, obviously no one else can claim it.

 

[Kamen Rider Blade]

The entire ST:Insurrection plan was stupid. The Baku lived in one little town, they weren't native, were warp capable. Then the Federation should've been able to build around the town. No need to even move them.

 

[Jedman67]

The entire ST:Insurrection plan was stupid. The Baku lived in one little town, they weren't native, were warp capable. Then the Federation should've been able to build around the town. No need to even move them.

Why should it matter if non-natives settle on an unclaimed, uninhabited planet? It's their home now.

Now in that Native American episode of TNG; the purpose of relocating the residents was a matter of public safety and "national security." The peace treaty with the Cardassians required the Federation to assert its ownership of the colonies, presumably member-nations of the UFP, in order to give them away to the Cardies as part of the new border.
You could call it 'eminent domain' in both cases, really.

 

[Kamen Rider Blade]

You could call it 'eminent domain' in both cases, really.

We didn't need to Eminant Domain the Baku. Just build around them, literally.

A planet is large enough that the Federation could've built colonies literally surrounding the Baku and expanding outwards.

 

[Guy Gardener]

The entire ST:Insurrection plan was stupid. The Baku lived in one little town, they weren't native, were warp capable. Then the Federation should've been able to build around the town. No need to even move them.

The mining method they were going to use, was going to make the planet uninhabitable moments after the mining started. The Baku were being removed to save their lives, not to legalize a claim on the planet.

 

[ZapBrannigan]

The mining method they were going to use, was going to make the planet uninhabitable moments after the mining started. The Baku were being removed to save their lives, not to legalize a claim on the planet.

I guess I wasn't paying such close attention. I thought the Federation wanted to use the planet's properties by having beneficiaries visit it like a health spa.

I haven't seen it in decades, because I thought it was terrible. But that was before I'd seen Nemesis and Into Darkness. By that standard, Insurrection is one of the decent ones.

 

[thribs]

The Federation I assume. Would be odd if it was the Romulans.

 

[Kamen Rider Blade]

The mining method they were going to use, was going to make the planet uninhabitable moments after the mining started. The Baku were being removed to save their lives, not to legalize a claim on the planet.

And they couldn't figure out how to mine the resource without making the planet uninhabitable? StarFleet & UFP's best & brightest should've been able to figure out a solution.

 

[1001001]

The Solar Federation.

They have assumed control.

 

[Herbert]

According to Eddie Izzard, you can justify taking anything through the cunning use of flags.

 

[FormerLurker]

The Solar Federation.

They have assumed control.

Have they? Or was it the returning Elder Race?

 

[Guy Gardener]

I guess I wasn't paying such close attention. I thought the Federation wanted to use the planet's properties by having beneficiaries visit it like a health spa.

I haven't seen it in decades, because I thought it was terrible. But that was before I'd seen Nemesis and Into Darkness. By that standard, Insurrection is one of the decent ones.

You really were not paying attention.

The Federation figured out a way to harvest the metaphasic radiation safely so that the deceptively unprimative Baku wouldn't even notice. However the Baku's exiled children, also know as the evil galactic warlords: The Son'a, were dying at a faster rate than that mining method would deliver life sustaining metaphasic radiation, to be young and beautiful again, so they turned to space frakking.

 

[Jedman67]

What's constantly ignored is that the Baku; by virtue of having been living on that planet since before the Federation existed, have more of a legal claim on the planet (and by extension, the solar system) than the Feds. Shiny. Don't take away my gorram metaphasic particles!!
Also what's missing is if the harvesting would even work to cure the Sonaa; methinks it was just a ploy too.