Hi Dark, Sure, that makes a lot of sense. There is no saying our group of space explorers have to come from a galactic federation at all, nor that the motivation of our space explorers is necessarily nobel. All we have to do is look into our own history to see exploration has always been about the acquisition of wealth rather than the desire to explore the unknown.
When Columbus set sail in 1492 he and his fleet were looking for a shortcut from Spain to India by sailing west instead of east. The entire motivation of that exploration wasn't to explore the frontiers of the new world but were solely based on saving money on trade between Spain and India, China, and other countries in Asia. Otherwise they wouldn't have bothered sending the expedition west to North and South America. Those who followed Columbus had even less nobel intentions. As we know the Spanish conquistadors raided South America and slaughtered millions of natives while looting them of their gold, their lands, and just about anything else they could get their bloody hands on. The French settled in Canada mainly to capture furs and ship them back to France for clothing while the English settled in places like Virginia to grow tobacco and cotton and have it shipped back to England. No matter how you look at it what we think of as North and South America today were simply there to be plundered by whatever country happened to mount an expedition into the new world. There were no idealistic or nobel ideas of exploring these undiscovered continents for the sake of exploring them. They were simply a way for this or that kingdom to make more wealth. Nothing more and nothing less. I think when we look at the problems confronting today's societies the motivation for people to colonize Mars or any other planet will be based on looking for more natural resources of some kind or another. We now have something like 6.5 billion people living on the earth and land is becoming scarce in some countries. Here in the U.S.A. While the great planes is still largely unsettled traditional farmland like in Ohio is rapidly shrinking as farms are sold off to expand the cities, towns, and build new residential areas. Sooner or later humanity is going to run out of space and natural resources. We will either have to kill off each other fighting for what resources remain, or will have to mount some kind of space exploration to find another planet to use. It may begin as a scientific expedition mounted by NASA or some other scientific agency, but make no mistake the pioneers will probably be no different from those who settled Canada, the United States, and South America. As far as Lost in Space it actually didn't start out as a story of exploration. It was suppose to be a journey from Earth to Alpha Sentori. However, thanks to sabotage from Dr. Smith the Jupiter II was flown off course and the Robinson family were lost in space. Unfortunately, more than half the series was spent grounded on one planet or another rather than out exploring space or trying to find a way home. If we have to use a sci-fi series as a model I think Space 1999 is the best option. According to the pilot a nuclear war causes the moon to be knocked out in space and of course it ends up having a Star Trek feel with the crew of Moon Base Alpha exploring space as though they were on a deep space exploration mission on a ship rather than the moon set adrift. In one way it was like Star Trek with the crew exploring space week after week. In another it was totally different because it was set in more contemporary times, their exploration began by accident, and they had no way home. Their only option was to find a world to settle on that was close enough to Earth to be their new home. Something else that made the story work from a sci-fi point of view is the aliens they encountered had more advanced technology. While the crew of Moon Base Alpha cared guns, flew around in rocket ships,and were using 1999 technology the aliens had UFOs, laser weapons, and were hundreds of years ahead of us in technology. it really gave it a more unique feel than some high tech group of humans exploring space and discovering Klingons, Romulans, Vulcans, etc at the same level of evolution and technology we were. Cheers! On 8/13/12, dark <[email protected]> wrote: > Hi Tom. > > To me, the simple idea of a ship flying through space on an exploration > mission is not directly startrek related, provided the ship, universe, > characters and aliens are different ones. > > For example, the series lost in space involved a family of humans on a > spaceship flying through unknown sectors of space trying to get home, > exploring as they went. Yet, this is an entirely different setting, > universe, set of characters and set of aliens to startrek, sinse the simple > > exploration idea, like a ship with laser weapons and faster than light > travel, is more a general sf concept that could be taken in a different > direction. > > Susan Cooper's dark is rising series (actually written before harry potter), > > could be said to have some paralells, sinse it's about a young boy who meets > > an eldily wizard, learns magic, and is involved in a prophecied battle > against evil magicians called the dark. > > Yet, the series has an entirely different tone and setting to harry potter. > > There is for instance no school of magic, and though will can! use magic, > there is a strict code and set of lores under which he can use it, indeed > throughout the book will the old one, aka servent of the light and magician > > is distinguished quite successively from will the boy. > > The prophecy is much more vague and never explored, jsut providing the > inevitability for the magic battle, and ultimately it's the characters that > > matter most in the series, indeed most of the attacks by the dark revolve > around characters rather than overt magic, though ther is cetanly no > shortage of magic throughout the books. > > Even the real world setting differs hugely from harry potter, sinse the > books are entirely themed around wild places in Britain with keltic > significance, such as the mountain in wales, kade idris, or the seat of > arthur, in fact Will himself is the son of a large farming family, and not > an only child or a child living with a single parent in a modern city. > > > This is why so many fans of susan cooper's books were extremely angry when > hollywood turned it into a blatant harry potter knockoff film, and you had > will chucking fireballs and learning magic, not to mention changing will's > nationality to american for some reason even though the film was still set > in Britain. > > thus, I do think there is a difference betwene actual copying of ideas and > simply using general concepts. > > For instance, suppose you had a ship exploring new life etc, but the > "federation" they were from wasn't the goody goody one of startrek, but > quite a different body. perhaps unlike the ship's of startrek, the ship is > much smaller, perhaps with only a few crew members, none of whome are alien > > in origin, and maybe the crew's technology is actually less! sophisticated > than aliens they meet. > > Then of course, there is no reason for the aliens to look human, or behave > like klingons, romulans, vulcans etc, they could be entirely and completely > > different. > > Beware the Grue! > > Dark. > --- Gamers mailing list __ [email protected] If you want to leave the list, send E-mail to [email protected]. 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