Poll Who Owns a Solar System?

[ZapBrannigan]

Suppose there were dilithium crystals on Pluto that we didn't know about, and anyway we don't have the technology to go out and mine Pluto. Does that mean that an alien superpower can come to our solar system, set up operations, and take what they want?

In "Mudd's Women" there are humans working a stake on Rigel XII. But in other episodes we learn there are people on Rigel II (Shore Leave), Rigel IV (Wolf in the Fold), Rigel V (Journey to Babel), and Rigel VII (The Cage). So it appears that humans from the Federation surveyed and prospected the outer reaches of the Rigel system and found something they wanted. And they're taking it.

On the one hand, you'd think that a solar system belongs to whoever evolved there.

But on the other hand, if native people have no way of reaching a natural resource, they can't make or defend a claim. And the people from elsewhere who do reach the untouched wilderness of a solar system, must do so by expending considerable resources of their own. They have to invest and risk a lot of capital to travel across the stars, build mines, and transport the minerals back to "civilization" where they are worth something and add to the wealth of the galaxy.

Out where no one has ever gone in a solar system, and no property lines have been drawn, doesn't nature belong to everybody, and thus mineral rights should go to those who can develop them and make something productive out of them? Or do natives have an eternal first claim that stretches as far as their sun's gravity can hold the lands, even if they never develop space travel?

 

[F. King Daniel]

ADMIRAL MARCUS: Looks like the natives of Blorblox III, which we've just discovered is rich in Dilithium, need some Federation FREEDOM from potential Klingon agressors!

 

[Timo]

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).

As for Rigel, "Doomsday Machine" brings up Rigel colonies. Just like there can be Earth Colony 2, there might be Rigel 12 and Rigel 5, homes away from home for the Rigelians.

Vulcans, those sticklers to rules that so often later became the Federation's, had no qualms about considering Sol their own to play with back when humans couldn't see them trespassing. A mining op or a listening outpost at Ganymede probably wouldn't have felt out of place for them.

Ultimately, the reverse would be of great concern. If a Federation-level player inhabits and exploits parts of a system, it ought to make every effort to lay claim to the whole system and lots of empty space around it, to keep competition away even from places they don't really have immediate use for. I don't see the Federation giving one cubic meter of space away to wildlife refuges, free transit paths or indigenous population preserves unless they absolutely have to.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[dahj]

Whoever plants their flag on the surface of the sun.

 

[Delta Vega]

Alien superpowers would just come in and take what they need, and more
Its the way of things
The little guy, the less technologically developed guy will get shat on from a great height.

 

[ZapBrannigan]

Come on, guys, you should be voting.

 

[Guy Gardener]

Glass Beads.

They will have something that has no value to them, that we will determine as invaluable.

Pluto isn't even a planet anyways,

 

[ZapBrannigan]

Pluto isn't even a planet anyways,

But it still exists, and in theory it could have a valuable mineral to be mined.

 

[urbandefault]

Who owns the mineral rights to untouched, uninhabited outer planets?

I do.

Get off my lawn.

 

[JirinPanthosa]

It's not clear whether the planetary sovereignty afforded by Federation rules extends only to the planet or to the whole solar system. In effect the rule is probably "Depends how badly we need it". But if the planet is capable of observing space they need to make sure not to do anything that would be visible.

Outside the Federation it's whoever plants their flag first.

 

[The Old Mixer]

Those three miners don't necessarily represent the Federation in any official manner. They're likely just private citizens who staked a claim in accordance with whatever local laws and customs may be at play.

 

[johnnybear]

As soon as those 'primitives' develop space flight and phaser weaponry it's time to leave and give the rights back to them I'd say!
JB

 

[Nerys Myk]

I can sell you one cheap.

 

[Vger23]

There should be a third option: The giant group of assholes with an invasion fleet and horrific war machines who will destroy every ounce of pathetic resistance in their path and use the resources for their own cause.

I'd vote for that one.

 

[Tenacity]

On the one hand, you'd think that a solar system belongs to whoever evolved there.

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

We heard of people in the Trek-verse owning moons and planets, owning a star system should be possible.

 

[Kamen Rider Blade]

If you have the man power & fire power to be able to defend it and have a Governmental Regime willing to back your claim along with the force to keep it from others.

 

[Delta Vega]

Glass Beads.

They will have something that has no value to them, that we will determine as invaluable.

Pluto isn't even a planet anyways,

Poor Pluto
An absolute travesty that Pluto was downgraded

 

[USS Triumphant]

Admittedly, I don't have much in the way of screen canon to back me up, but the way I think of it, companies (such as those mining operations) and people owning planets and such was a bit Wild West in TOS times, but by the time of TNG with the increase in the fleet size and other resources, and also with the seemingly "evolved" attitude they embraced, the Federation probably claimed the star system and contents thereof of every Prime-Directive-applicable civilization they encompassed and a lot of the ones they came across as some manner of trust for the inhabitants until they're ready to claim it for themselves. If there was a critically needed resource for the Federation, then they probably *would* go ahead in an take it if they could do so without violating the PD, but they would put some sort of fair market value for the resource in holding for the inhabitants. That might have been the real problem everyone had with what Admiral Dougherty was doing in Insurrection: not that he was trying to relocate the inhabitants or claim their important resource, but that he was also trying to rip them off of a fair value for it. (Or even determine a fair value. How could you, though, for what they had?)

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

Wouldn't it be the other way around, since it seems like we evolved (and blessed the rains) down in Africa?

Poor Pluto
An absolute travesty that Pluto was downgraded

 

[ZapBrannigan]

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.

 

[The Wormhole]

ADMIRAL MARCUS: Looks like the natives of Blorblox III, which we've just discovered is rich in Dilithium, need some Federation FREEDOM from potential Klingon agressors!

Let's build a wall, to protect Blorlox from the Klingons. And make the Blorbloxians pay for it, because, you know, we ain't got money.