Typhon Pact..Do tell?

[captcalhoun]

Trent: you should read A Call to Arms by Alan Dean Foster. humanity's aggression is actually found to be rare in the universe and quite handy by the aliens who make contact.

snaploud: nobody except PAD could. it doesn't make a lot of sense and so far, he's never clarified it.

 

[Trent Roman]

Trent: you should read A Call to Arms by Alan Dean Foster. humanity's aggression is actually found to be rare in the universe and quite handy by the aliens who make contact.

I think I have (at least the description sounds familiar). If we're thinking of the same book, though, humanity is simultaneously distrusted by its allies for that very aggression and enthusiam for destruction even as they are necessary to counter the threat that the more 'enlightened' species cannot bear to face themselves. It's a mixed bag.

Fictitiously yours, Trent Roman

 

[Christopher]

Whether it's a refusal to accept centuries-old scientific realities, infantile in-group thinking or good old fashion killing the guy the next river/border over because he/she looks/talks/acts different, I think we're a long way from being ready to accept the idea of aliens.

Whole generations have grown up inundated with images of aliens in fiction. I think most people would have no trouble accepting the idea. And neither would people throughout history. For most cultures in history, the majority of the world was a bizarre and unknown place, just as space is to us today, and they often imagined it populated by exotic types of people or creatures. European travellers' tales told of encountering exotic tribes of people who hopped on one gigantic foot or had their faces in their chests. More recently, once the Earth had been girdled by the British Empire, people took it for granted that the Empire would expand to the Moon, Mars, and beyond and would find other types of primitive tribes to bring the Civilising Mission to. Countless people were taken in by a newspaper hoax about winged people on the Moon, and later by Orson Welles' War of the Worlds broadcast about a Martian invasion, because they had no reason to doubt that there was life on other planets. Percival Lowell sincerely believed he saw canals on Mars, made by an ancient and advanced civilization. It's only in the past 40-45 years, with space probes revealing the barren, hostile conditions on other planets in the Solar system, that people have stopped expecting there to be aliens in uncharted worlds.

 

[Sci]

I always find it interesting when people are willing to condemn whole swaths of civilizations as being immature or primitive or stupid for whatever the reason may be, even though there is, in fact, not a single civilization in history that hasn't engaged in most of the things people condemn a given civilization or set of civilizations for.

To put it another way: What are you measuring civilizations by, an imaginary civilization that's never done anything wrong? That's a bit like saying that everyone you've ever met is short because none of them were 40 feet tall, isn't it?

 

[Trent Roman]

For most cultures in history, the majority of the world was a bizarre and unknown place, just as space is to us today, and they often imagined it populated by exotic types of people or creatures. European travellers' tales told of encountering exotic tribes of people who hopped on one gigantic foot or had their faces in their chests. More recently, once the Earth had been girdled by the British Empire, people took it for granted that the Empire would expand to the Moon, Mars, and beyond and would find other types of primitive tribes to bring the Civilising Mission to. Countless people were taken in by a newspaper hoax about winged people on the Moon, and later by Orson Welles' War of the Worlds broadcast about a Martian invasion, because they had no reason to doubt that there was life on other planets.

Reactions of belligerance, racism and xenophobia. Either you're making my argument for me or I didn't properly express myself. The existence of aliens, if sufficient proof was offered (such as landings in public places) would be accepted by a majority of people. It's in the idea, the conceptualization, of these aliens that I become skeptical of our response.

I always find it interesting when people are willing to condemn whole swaths of civilizations as being immature or primitive or stupid for whatever the reason may be, even though there is, in fact, not a single civilization in history that hasn't engaged in most of the things people condemn a given civilization or set of civilizations for.

So this is as good as it will ever get? That's Panglossian optimism, don't you think? Why must there be a better example available to admit the failures of our civilizations? Indeed, wouldn't such a requirement kill progress entirely, because it presupposes a better civilization which can never arise without the example of another better civilization which itself cannot arise, etc., an evident impossibility. I daresay most of the progress we have made has come about from internal dissent, from imagined better communities.

Fictitiously yours, Trent Roman

 

[Man of Steel]

I like your selection of MWB. Do you think the TP will stretch so far back into TOS territory?

I don't know, perhaps MWB could do a prequel to the Typhon Pact arc which sets everything up for the others to do.

Just to clarify, are you guys talking about Margaret Wander Bonanno or Mike W. Barr? And either way, why assume said author can only do TOS? Mike has written a TNG annual for DC Comics, and Margaret wrote the 24th-century tale Catalyst of Sorrows.

Margaret.

And I know about her LE book Christopher but she's mostly written books in the TOS time frame.

 

[Sci]

I always find it interesting when people are willing to condemn whole swaths of civilizations as being immature or primitive or stupid for whatever the reason may be, even though there is, in fact, not a single civilization in history that hasn't engaged in most of the things people condemn a given civilization or set of civilizations for.

So this is as good as it will ever get? That's Panglossian optimism, don't you think? Why must there be a better example available to admit the failures of our civilizations? Indeed, wouldn't such a requirement kill progress entirely, because it presupposes a better civilization which can never arise without the example of another better civilization which itself cannot arise, etc., an evident impossibility. I daresay most of the progress we have made has come about from internal dissent, from imagined better communities.

Fictitiously yours, Trent Roman

I'm not saying that -- I'm just saying I think you're taking things too far and being too harsh in judging humanity.

It's that same humanity you're so skeptical of that has generated the idea that murder, genocide, and xenophobia are bad things, after all. To say nothing of the fact that true liberal democracy and egalitarianism is an idea that's very, very new -- really, up until the mid-20th Century, there was no such thing as a society dedicated to the idea of equality between races, sexes, and cultures. We're still growing and we're still trying to make it work, and we're doing it with no real historical precedent. So -- not to say that the things in humanity that are patently immoral and irrational shouldn't be condemned, but that same condemnation should be tempered by mercy and understanding, too.

 

[BrotherBenny]

I can't be bothered to make multiple quotes here, so I'll just make points.

Christopher: Margaret writes more in TOS and so has been I guess typecast for want of a better word. DRGIII could also do a damn good Typhon prequel (the size of two books) judging by the quality of the Crucible trilogy (Dave, I'm not seeing flaws in that so you need glasses).

I think having the PD is a good idea, in theory, but it needs to be more flexible. In Kirk's time, the galaxy was still large and he often did not have contact with Starfleet, so he could play around with it. By Picard's time, Starfleet was only a comm away, seemingly wherever you were in the alpha/beta quadrant and so he was mor likely to call for options/permission than to act first and deal with the consequences later, though he did do so on occasion.

Perhaps a new directive should be constructed, which treats first contacts like membership to the Federation, full of criteria which have to be looked at on a case by case basis.

And yeah, humanity has shown itself to be quite dumb collectively. When we stop killing ourselves over religious grounds or self-defined international borders; when we accept everyone for who/what they are; when we all work for the benefit of each other and not for material gain, then we might be worthy of contact.

Although I'd like to get paid for what I write, in a different culture, I would happily write because people enjoy reading what I write. We all have our place in the world, and the sooner everybody realises that, the better the world will be.

 

[justcorbly]

I don't doubt that if a Federation-like culture were to make contact, within a dozen years our children would be making warp-scale calculations.

I think that would depend on how much tech transfer that culture care to indulge in. A demonstration that FTL flight is possible, by itself, really would be of little help in figuring out how to do it.

...the majority of the species is, to put it bluntly, fucking stupid....
Fictitiously yours, Trent Roman

The intelligence level of the species is what it has always been, and always will be. We may know more than a Cro-Magnon guy tromping around Europe 40,000 years ago, but he was just as smart as we are. More to the point, he was us. We benefit from millennia of accumulated knowledge and experience, not from any increase in brain power.

If we need to wait for human nature to change before we build our warp drives, we will be waiting forever. I doubt any other technologically inclined intelligent species will differ.

 

[justcorbly]

It occurs to me that the Trek universe is populated by any number of warp-capable civilizations who have obviously not abandoned war, bigotry and oppression. If, for example, resolving such issues is a prerequisite of warp travel, how did the Ferengi pull it off while treating females as naked playthings? All kinds of strife seems to go on with the Klingons, who don't seem to have settled on a successful leadership transition strategy. Romulans had that whole thing with Remus, and the Vulcans were in space before they all became zen masters.

We have only one civilization to study, but evidence shows that strife and conflict spur technological development. The arrival of a warp-drive starship on Earth wouldn't necessarily make it easier for humans to go warp, but I'm betting it would launch a bunch of well-funded research efforts, just in case the new guys lied when they said they were friendly.

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

It's that same humanity you're so skeptical of that has generated the idea that murder, genocide, and xenophobia are bad things, after all.

Some *parts* of humanity have done that. Others have...not.

 

[Sci]

It's that same humanity you're so skeptical of that has generated the idea that murder, genocide, and xenophobia are bad things, after all.

Some *parts* of humanity have done that. Others have...not.

If we're going to attribute the bad excesses of some parts of humanity to the species as a whole, then we also have to attribute the accomplishments and enlightenments of parts of humanity to the species as a whole. Not fair dissing us as one without complimenting us as one, too.

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

Not fair dissing us as one without complimenting us as one, too.

Humanity as a whole is not, and has never been, fair.

Have you ever read this Bedouin proverb?

I against my brother;
I and my brother against our cousin;
I, my brother and our cousin against our neighbor;
All of us against the foreigner.

Aliens would be just another line in the poem, as it were.

 

[Sci]

Not fair dissing us as one without complimenting us as one, too.

Humanity as a whole is not, and has never been, fair.

Which doesn't mean you get to insult us because of the actions of a few while refusing to compliment us because of the actions of a few without me calling you on it.

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

^ I think you underestimate the ability of humans to totally and utterly panic.

I mean, imagine Welles' War of the Worlds on a planetary scale - and for real.

 

[DGCatAniSiri]

Have you ever read this Bedouin proverb?

I against my brother;
I and my brother against our cousin;
I, my brother and our cousin against our neighbor;
All of us against the foreigner.

Aliens would be just another line in the poem, as it were.

Or the aliens could be considered the foreigner - wouldn't need to add another line at all.

 

[Sci]

^ I think you underestimate the ability of humans to totally and utterly panic.

I mean, imagine Welles' War of the Worlds on a planetary scale - and for real.

That's a completely different topic.

Again, my point was, if we're going to damn humanity for the actions of a segment of the population, then we also have to praise it for the actions of a segment. It is logically inconsistent to be willing to ascribe only negative traits to the entire species whilst withholding positive traits from the entire species when both positive and negative traits appear in roughly equal numbers.

 

[RikerLover]

I've got a question about this series that may have been answered in posts when the series was announced but must be in the archives. Is this a mini-series with very little, if any, crossover or a series like Destiny where the various crews work together?

 

[justcorbly]

Have you ever read this Bedouin proverb?

I against my brother;
I and my brother against our cousin;
I, my brother and our cousin against our neighbor;
All of us against the foreigner.

Aliens would be just another line in the poem, as it were.

Or the aliens could be considered the foreigner - wouldn't need to add another line at all.

One proverb does not a reality make.

Earth provides examples of cultures that reacted calmly to the unexpected arrival of aliens. Native Americans, for example, did not freak and run for the hills when the first Europeans arrived.

The notion that humans should not meet our galactic neighbors until we have achieved a state of utopian beatitude is specious. No other technological advances were ever postponed because someone thought we lacked the maturity to deal with it. Nor should they have been.

We humans are what we are, and our nature will not change. But, unlike any other creatures, we have our history to learn from. If we shed the arrogance that says we are better than our ancestors, we can study their use of tools and use our new tools accordingly.

We will move into space as our tools and our will and our means permit, and when we find our neighbors, or they find us, we will learn that they followed the same path.

 

[Christopher]

Earth provides examples of cultures that reacted calmly to the unexpected arrival of aliens. Native Americans, for example, did not freak and run for the hills when the first Europeans arrived.

Although they would've been better off if they had. It might've slowed the spread of the European diseases that killed off most of the indigenous population of the Americas.


Of course there are humans who would react to alien contact with panic or violence or sinister motives, but there are also humans who would react with reason and hope and curiosity and a sensible but not excessive degree of caution. The only valid generalization you can make about human nature is that it rules nothing out. A species that includes everything from Hitler to Gandhi cannot possibly be said to have a single uniform nature.