Interplanetary Patrol and Terran Space Administration seem to have slightly different philosophies.
You know, in 1993, when I first started drawing those notepads, it was cool futuristic technology. Times sure have changed. And while I’m on the topic of the gadgets… I was, naturally, a big fan of Babylon 5 when it was on the air. Imagine my surprise when, in the third season of the show, Marcus suddenly pulls out a Minbari Fighting Pike (at about 4:29 on the vid). Hey, isn’t that just like…? Well, the Contact Team’s tools are all about science instead of fighting, which makes them instantly more awesome.
I have a new title to add to the list of reader-recommended books, submitted by long-time fan and custom Lego minifig painter extraordinaire, Norbert Black. Thanks, Norbert! For easy reference I’m blowing the dust off my blog and putting the list up there. Feel free to mention any good books you’ve been reading recently that you want to tell us about!
There she goes, forgetting first contact rules again! See p. 92, p. 141…
There’s been, what, one survey mission which has ever discovered sentient life? Seems like a lot of rules being extrapolated from one data point.
I appreciate this tension—between what Zandarin and the others believe a survey mission should be, and Scavina’s responsibility that demands she be more careful.
Ooooooh so THATS why so many survey team people die!
I can’t tell, are they wearing red shirts?
Do the “first contactees” follow the same rules?
Hum… No weapons on a survey mission? So if the local planet’s fauna decides you smell like lunhc, you just go down quietly and get devored? That would be quite some recruitment ad there: “Come to our outfit! Feed wild animals on distant worlds! Must have red shirt.”
Tara, that doesn’t make any sense. You need to revisit that dialog.
If you read the dialouge, most survey missions are on barren moons and the like. The most exciting life they can expect is lichen.
She’s right. Scavina is absolutely right. This is an uninhabited planet with clearly – if, so far, unexplicably – hostile denizens who have already attacked an unharmed team member.
At this point, going in again unharmed is plain foolish. Its not even a military mindset at this point, its common sense.
The team’s reaction, in itself, shows either a lack of training – which I do not believe – or a flaw in their training.
And Zan’s reaction shows a total lack of even basic common sense. As others here have stated, it seems like there’s a ‘no weapons under ANY circumstances’ rule written somewhere… and I wonder who was crazy enough to come up with that.
My opinion of the survey team’s – and especially of Zan’s – has lowered. They sound plain stupid here. Or incredibly naive. Take your pick.
Or just saying that this isn’t their job. They’re not soldiers, they a survey contact team. Giving them weapons to start shooting people isn’t what they signed up for and isn’t what the job is about. It’s about making peaceful first contact. Maybe that’s what Zan is trying to say, who isn’t a great communicator and also has only one panel’s worth to speak in.
Besides, think about it. How good an idea is it to give an untrained civilian a gun, even a non-lethal one? If your answer is anything other than “bad”, then you yourself may be naive.
Yes, Nelson is right, they need to come armed and armored back here. But she should bring actual IP soldiers in here and not corporate surveyors.
Can anyone say “Earth-Minbari War”? Or what about the aliens in “Ender’s Game” and “Speaker for the Dead”?
Is everyone confident that they would recognize a sentient species from a strange planet’s local fauna? And that there is no possibility of misinterpreting innocent displays as hostile. Even here on Earth, our innocent smiles would be misinterpreted as hostile displays (baring of teeth) by many species. Imagine a species with sensitive sensory apparatus in the hands for whom a firm handshake would be interpreted as a serious attack.
It seems to me that there are a lot of reasons for avoiding any possibility of shooting in a first contact situation, even if it means that the first contact team is “expendable”. And it seems to me that there are plenty of humans willing to take huge risks of death for the possibility of glamour and fame (and there would be plenty in a first contact with a new sentient species).
@Prestwick: Since this is only the second sentient species contacted (and we have no knowledge of deaths when the Myradi were contacted) I don’t think the lack of weapons is why survey team members die. I suspect it is because of hostile planetary environments (think Venus).
@Malazura: This is in no way an uninhabited planet. It is teeming with life. The fact that Earth-style cities seem destroyed doesn’t mean that there aren’t other collections of sentient life that we don’t easily recognize. Sure, it looks like Earth. But it is not Earth. Saying the planet, teeming with life, is uninhabited is jumping to conclusions way too soon.
IMESHO
All right, first of all… These weren’t little green men or floating cephalopods or even hyperintelligent shades of the color blue – these were, for all intents and purposes, human beings. Maybe not Earthlings, or least Galaxion’s Earthlings, but men all the same. These same men attempted to, without warning or obvious provocation, open up Patty’s head with a rake to get to the soft chewy center. TerSA training must involve a lot of practice performing auto-cranial-rectal inversions if these points escape them so readily.
You’ve had First Contact already. That was the Hiawatha. You’ve now had Second Contact, and that was unmitigated violence instigated by the natives. You still have the Moral High Ground, crew of the Galaxion. It wasn’t your fault that the natives appear to hate your guts. But at this point I think carrying a couple tasers or a man-portable LRAD is not provocative. It is prudent. I’d much rather eulogize the Extensible Probe than one or more of the crew.
Oh, hey, I just thought of something. Perhaps the TerSA has taken a page from the French Foreign Legion:
Vous, légionnaires, vous êtes soldats pour mourir, et je vous envoie où l’on meurt!
Or, loosely translated for English and service with the TerSA:
Crew, you became Contact Surveyors in order to die, and I’m taking you to a place where one dies!
As Tara points out in her initial commentary, this illustrates the difference between IP and TerSA. The Survey Contact Team members, employed by TerSA, have been trained for Survey and, possibly, hopefully (in their eyes) First Contact with another species. This is still a Survey mission in their eyes. General Nelson is a member of IP, whose primary purpose is search and rescue, not survey. Her thought process shows that she is NOT thinking of this as a Survey mission any more. She’s rescuing her own team, and plans to come back better prepared to do the search for what happened to the Hiawatha’s crew.
Is TerSA’s training inadeqate? Possibly. But I think the situation is so unlike what the SCT trained for, and what they’ve experienced before, that their perceived naivete is understandable. As for local fauna (or flora, for that matter) deciding the SCT looks good for lunch, that is what their proximity alarm/deep scanner is for, and is supposed to give them warning enough to get to safety. And, in this case, is the exact instrument that was destroyed in the native’s attack on page 136.
Well, it’s your universe/story, you created it, it’s your baby, you lay down the rules and set the conditions. For myself, I’ve been hooked on SF for as long as I have been able to read (don’t ask looong time). So it’s second nature to suspend my ‘sense of disbelief’ when it comes to a lot material inspite of my background in the sciences and the footing of reality. However, there are times when my enjoyment of whatever media is jerked out of the storyline and into reality. Avatar was rife with those moments (ex.: the aircraft of Avatar makes whop-whop-whop helicopeter noise despite the fact that they are ducted fans and CAN”T make that kind of sound). Sending a survey/scout team into the environment of an unexplored planet, unarmed, is another. Someone mentioned the concept of ‘expendability’ of such personnel. *Sigh* Why do civilians use that concept in such a cavalier fashion? As a 20 year Army vet I didn’t consider myself ‘expendable’ and NEVER thought of my troops that way. Nor in my entire career did I ever meet a senior NCO or Officer who thought in those terms. Oh, we all knew the risks and dangers involved in combat and realized that we walked with death and injury but ‘expendable’ was a term applied to the enemy if at all. Weapons are tools of professionals no less than a scapel is for a surgeon or wrench for a mechanic.
Wow! This just goes to show, there’s no predicting what will spark a great debate.
I’m mostly going to keep my peace over this one at least until a few more pages get posted.
I’m trying to remember if there were weapons on board Apollo 11. I vaguely remember that one of the astronauts might have secretly stowed away something, but that might be apocryphal. I also vaguely remember that the astronauts were unofficially given suicide pills, for whatever reason you can imagine. I’m going to have to look this stuff up.
Ga’tor: It’s clear you come from a military background. Certainly, weapons are the tools of members of the military the same way scalpels are the tools for surgeons or wrenches for mechanics.
I’m just not sure where you got the impression that the Contact Team is military. If they’re not, then weapons are not necessarily any more their tools then they’d be for a surgeon or mechanic.
Armed military are great people to send in if you are in a war situation, or prepared to put yourself into a war situation. If you want to avoid that at all costs (at least until you fully understand the situation) you are much more likely to do so if you go in unarmed.
J.Wilde: TerSA wasn’t knowingly sending them into a Second Contact situation unarmed after the First Contact had gone hostile. As far as TerSA knew, the Hiawatha had blown up. So they’d be prepared for ordinary First Contact Protocols, I expect.
Sure they look human. As many SF shows can attest, it doesn’t mean they *are* human.
I’d expect that the proper protocols at this point would be for the First Contact team to bugger off ASAP and not come back (with or without weapons) until they’ve got marching orders from the top government people. They just aren’t at a level to be the people to be authorized to start a war.
That may or may not be the case. And even if it is the case, they may not follow the protocols. Clearly, they are already bending them. And buggering off and getting instructions from the government may be difficult in their current circumstances.
David: Sorry about the ‘uninhabited’ part. I meant ‘inhabited’, which suits my point far better. I wrote too fast, had little time.
I’m not worried much about whether the TerSa is used to weapons or not, although I’d think anyone who’d have to brave the space frontier and go down on unknown worlds would have some kind of training. That’s not what bothers me.
What bothers me is the reaction they had to the mere IDEA of harming themselves, especially as the general quickly pointed out that they’d use nonlethal weaponry, which is a more civilized approach than the one the natives have taken so far.
Pacifism is fine, but the ‘avoid hostile actions at all costs’ should not include ‘even at the cost of getting your team killed’ These guys attacked. Whatever the reason, they attacked. First, and with no provocation as far as we know. Until the reason – if applicable – is somewhat clarified, subsequent forays should at least have enough for self-defense. Not to wage war, mind you. Enough to be able to do their job without being jumped so easily.
The Earth-Minbari War? In that case, the humans opened fire first. They weren’t physically attacked. In this case, its like the Minbari OPENED FIRE. Whatever the reason, if the Minbari fired first, then the humans would have been entitled to defending themselves.
David, are you saying that the next team should go into a potentially hostile place without any sort of means of defending themselves? I’n in NO way a military man, but I can tell you, I’d at least bring a good, sturdy baseball bat the next time I’d go down there. I don’t see why you’re so… extremely… against them having a means of defending themselves.
I believe that, military or not, this is a good solution. Nonlethal weaponry is reasonable. Indeed, its likely that or never going back down at all.
David: They can’t get anything from the government. In fact, right now, the head of the mission – General Nelson, who’s shown to be highly reasonable so far – makes the command decisions. The only person on the ship who might counter her orders for armement would be the ship’s captain. And given the circumstances, I don’t see how she’d not INSIST upon some kind of protection for those who’d go back down there. Not after one of her crew was clearly attacked.
Weapons and dangerous places. Inhabited, noninhabited it makes no difference. The problem is an unknown, alien environment and being prepared for things which may think your alien protean would make a good meal (unlikely). I have a variety of weapons which I do not carry around in a cavalier manner about town. However, when in the nearby wilderness area I am NEVER unarmed. I have been stalked by wolves and on several occasions have been confronted by bear and mountain lions. Note, that while I have had to fire a warning shot I have forunately never had to kill which suited me just fine. My point is that on our own planet there are extremely dangerous places where it is foolish not to go armed and the issue here is a totaly unkown alien planet. What is also critical is training in the use of weapons. I would imagine that survey team personnel would not only be well trained in the use of weapons but also in situations when NOT to use them. Training training training. You can’t really over train which is one of the greatest gripes amongst the troops that hate training.
On another note, yes weapons have been carried into space. In addition to various hand guns, the Soviets had a 22mm cannon on thier MIR (Mir = meaning peace. Heh) space station at one time. Go figure, I have no idea what they thought they’d use it for. Hostile boarding party by evil imperialistic Amercans? I always wondered about the recoil effect if they ever fired it.
Correction. I had a memory check and went back an looked it up. It was the Salyut 3 space station and it was a 23mm recoiless autocannon. Hrrr TANSTAAFL. I remember having a discussion on exactly how ‘recoiless’ that thing would actually be.
The Russians carried (and still do) carry a shotgun in their Soyuz capsules. The reason being, they sometimes over or undershoot their landing zones on reentry and end up being hours or days from the recovery team in the middle of the steppes or the Siberian wilderness. The initial impetus for this policy was that a capsule that missed its landing zone ended up having the crew stalked by wolves with no way to protect themselves. In recent times there has been concern that an ISS crew member might flip out and go for the shotgun stowed on board the Soyuz used as a lifeboat, which could be catastrophic even if any shots fired miss.
Tara – Setting aside the argument of first or second contact, the idea that the landing party, after having just been attacked with lethal force and without any obvious provocation can still manage to be shocked at and to protest the idea of a second landing party being armed with non-lethal force for self-defense is simply incredible. Yes, I know they’ve all been weaned on the exploits of the great Jax Augustus and were trained to do things by the numbers the way he did it. That said, does the TerSA want unthinking robots for its survey/contact teams? I doubt that very much, but that is what you appear to be asking us to believe. Things aren’t going by the book, as Aria has already observed, but they insist on clinging to a set of rules that have just been chucked out the window anyway? Even if it kills them?
I have a hard time believing that a crew of their caliber is this foolish/naive.
Please don’t take this as a personal attack on you or your work, Tara. If I did not thoroughly enjoy Galaxion and its characters, I would not be offering up such passionate responses.
I’m not so sure I’d classify the SCT as “naive”, for holding onto the rules. In an alien environment, the rules are sometimes the only thing keeping you alive – winging it may look good on TV (or whatever the equivilent is in the Galaxioverse) but people that don’t follow the rules have a tendancy of endangering their teammates – and may find themselves kicked off the team shortly thereafter. Witness Vessa’s growing exhasperation with Zan.
This exists (or existed) in real space exploration as well – for example the near-disaster of Apollo 13. When the rules went out the window, the crew just didn’t “wing it” – they followed what procedures they knew for the situation and had to depend on Mission Control drawing up new procedures to guide them once they knew the extent of their new circumstances.
Plus, the condition of the Galaxioverse as we’ve come to understand it is that planets with full-blown ecosystems are rarer than hen’s teeth. Until this mission, there were exactly two: Earth and Myrad. Everywhere else, the greatest threats came from hostile (or complete lack of) atmosphere or from bacteria that might happen to find you tasty. Not exactly things that a gun can fix. Combine this with the fact there has been only one actual first contact on record and you get rules that were created more from principle and less from experience. Should the Galaxion make it back home, I’d expect there will be some heated discussions on what amendments should be made.
Right now, the SCT is just recovering from the attack – for us it might have occured a month ago in updates but for them it’s barely minutes. They’re still getting used to the idea that first contact just went sour – give them time to process it fully (which necessates them getting back to the ship – good call, Scavina) and they may be more open to the idea of nonlethal armaments – provided someone draws up clear rules on when to use them. But right now their reaction is, in my opinion, entirely believeable, even if it’s not entirely rational.
Well, I just hope Scavina will tell them, politely and ably as usual, that their viewpoint, while great in theory, simply doesn’t work in this kind of situation.
And I agree. Given the situation… their shock is unusually great. I can understand them not liking it, but they’re just acting like Scavina has been spouting a string of profanities, instead of what was, given the situation and the mission, simple common sense.
Especially since she assured them the weapons brought the next time would be nonlethal, thus solely self-defense.
One of their own just got attacked and wounded – and might have gotten worse, who knows, if the others hadn’t intervened – and they’re shocked at someone outlining how to make sure to greatly reduce the odds of that. Its weird.
Andrew: The Apollo 13 analogy doesn’t work. Apollo 13 was a mechanical problem. The ship wasn’t attacking them. Following the rules made sense on Apollo 13. Here, one needs to be able to think on one’s feet.
If they follow procedure the way Apollo 13 did, it would mean that they should have tried to talk to the natives even while one of their own was being assaulted. The way they’re reacting to the mere suggestion of weapons, thats what it sounds like they should be doing.
Did they do that? No. They ‘winged it’. They adapted. They defended themselves.
If they can’t understand that there is a basic need to defend themselves right at this moment, well, they are being both naive and unreasonable.
I’m perfectly fine with the storyline and the universe that Tara has laid out. Thus, I’m in the Scavina camp: if a local decides to attack you out of nowhere with a rake without first confronting you or even attempting dialogue thats usually grounds to be a bit more cautious the next time you go planetside and if that means tooling up with tasers and other non-lethal weapons then so be it.
It would be wise to point out that there is precedent for arming and protecting explorers. Captain Cook and his ship, HMS Endeavour, was armed and had a detachment of Marines to protect him and his survey crew when they were exploring the Pacific.
Which didn’t exactly help James Cook in the end.
Cook got cocky and decided to play up the Hawaiians’ belief that he was a god, and left his detachment on the ship when they got wise to his mortality and decided to introduce him to it. The only reason why the British got anything left of him to bury was because they started shooting the ship’s cannons at the Hawaiians after the fact.
I like the Cook example. It’s a classic case of how attitudes have changed in dealing with indigenous/native/primitive (as applicable) peoples. Possibly Tara is going to extrapolate as to how we will deal with other peoples/aliens in the future. From my point of view Cook was a primitive and dealt with other peoples/races in a very unenlightened manner. But that is my 21st century perspective speaking as well as having the example of ST’s Prime Directive. In his own era Cook was considered to be a very forward thinking and tolerant individual who dealt with native populations in an exceptionally light handed manner. Contrary to J.Wilde’s comments it is doubtful that the Hawaiians considered Cook to be a god nor is there much evidence that he ever claimed that status. He was nevertheless, held in high esteem by the Hawaiian elders and rulers who returned what was left of his body (after being rendered down in their then appropriate funerary rites) to his crew after they requested it and NOT demanded at gunpoint. The point here I think is that one does not interact with an unknown culture until you know what you’re doing (re STNG ‘Who Watches the Watchers’). Note however that Cook’s incident did not result from weapons but from a lack of understanding between the two cultures. Indeed, the British had overwhelming firepower and could have razed the Hawaiian islands causing much death an d destruction. It is also important to note that one of the reasons the Hawaiians (being in part a warrior culture) held Cook in such high regard was because of his weapons.
IP vs TerSA. I dunno, I recall a lot of military type ranks being tossed around so I see a definite military structure in both organizations. On the other hand, the Love Boat had its “Captain” Stubing…
In any case Tara, don’t let my comments put you off your stride or think I don’t appreciate your creation, I LIKE Galaxion. I’m looking forward to see where you are taking us.
I think a exploration-team should have smokebombs, glueguns and cammoflage.
If they cant make it out with those, sorry bad luck.
Killing natives simply shouldnt be an option, there is to much to loose.
I think that something we may have missed here is that the ‘hostile natives’ have been attacking with *garden implements*.
Not guns.
Rakes.
Not exactly the weapons of determined warriors or even brigands. Against a guy with a wooden pole, I would hope that even a modern cop would think at least three times before breaking out the guns. And this is an unknown world where you might very well be causing a galactic-level diplomatic incident merely by being there.
I feel a little badly not contributing to this conversation, but I know this is one of those times when if I don’t let the work speak for itself, I will regret it.
In all seriousness, though, I really appreciate all this debate on the subject, and don’t worry about offending me– I am touched that you all care this much! And it is definitely helpful, particularly in determining the kinds of things that are going through Scavina’s head.
Also, I’ve got some cool news to share next week, so stay tuned!
Wow! Is this a new record for comments?
@Tara: Aw, do we really have to wait 5 more days?
Only a fool goes into the bush with no means to prevent from being food. And only a greater fool assumes that sentient life will automatically be friendly. Just cause they are united enough to not fight themselves, don’t mean they wont view everyone else as varelse, for you Enders Game comment. After all, the buggers shot first as a means of saying hello.
Nate: A rake can easily smash a skull. Nonlethal weapons are fully warranted.
Maiazuru: If it comes to that I’m sure a naked fist can do a lot of skull trauma too. And given that there’s only been one sentient alien contact so far, I don’t entirely understand why there’s such a taboo about even nonlethals.
Unless the Myradi Thing involved a barely-averted galactic-level war and Jax Augustus is a folk hero precisely _because_ of his lack of using weapons, and that everyone’s now running ultra-scared of accidentally starting some kind of huge incident, so there’s big political pressure to be seen as ‘coming in peace’ for the next one. TerSA seem to be sort of the Space Greenpeace, so I can see them self-selecting for determined eco-pacifists. But their no-weapons policy must be pretty controversial at high levels for the reasons you cite, and since TerSA aren’t the only space outfit, maybe IP have an ‘alternate’ first-contact protocol in place and might be maneuvering to take charge of any ‘real’ contact missions with the chance of in the future?
It does seem odd that a Survey Team, even one cut off from the ship, wouldn’t bring any survey-related sensor gear with them which might spot the locals or set up a perimeter.
But I’m still hung up on there existing recognisable unmodified 20th century tech level manufactured personal garden tools on this alternate Earth. It suggests that this Earth history hasn’t diverged significantly from ours until recent years. We must be on a continent which has been fairly happy and industrialised – even suburbanised – until recently. It’s depopulated, so let’s assume Something Real Bad happened, like nuclear war or Stephen King’s The Stand or a zombie apocalypse. In that case, it’s likely that the survivors have lost the manufacturing infrastructure. But they’re still using manufactured tools as improvised weapons, which means stocks still exist, and they’ve left them in their original state rather than jury-rigging them into more effective weapons like spears – which suggests that we’re either very early into total civilisation breakdown – not multi-generational yet, not even at the really organised gang or tribe stage – or whatever happened, it wasn’t an abrupt crash.
We’re certainly not in an active war zone, we’re not in an overtly smouldering ruin, the people seem unhappy to meet us but not unhappy in an organised and tactically effective way. Certainly not a good situation to be in, and some forethought should have prevented being blindsided like this, but whatever’s going on, it still doesn’t seem as scary as it could be.
At least that’s what I’m inferring so far. It might be that the civilisation crash was bad enough and long enough ago that all the guns have exhausted their ammo and so people are reduced to hitting each other with rakes… but still, how hard would it be to whip a spike on the end if you were really in a hitting-people-regularly situation? That there’s no blades suggests we’re not even in knife fight territory yet.
Of course the laws of drama suggest that there _must_ be some kind of huge planet-destroying disaster afoot because otherwise, what’s the story about?
The Soyuz shotgun thing is something I did not know. It suggests an awesome orbital-zombie story. Or do the Russians ALREADY have experience with space-zombieism?
Nate: Its not the reasoning which bothers me, its the ‘no-weapons-at-any-costs’ reaction which I find appalling. This goes right into extreme pacifism. And extreme pacifists just don’t work as explorers. Explorers do tend to have a more practical view of things.
And I still say Scavina is right, and I still say their reaction was naive at best.
Just a quick info: pacifism =/= death-wish. Not fighting does not mean allowing yourself to die to the first violent person. It does not mean not defending yourself by other means. Extreme pacifists try peaceful solutions even if violent ones seem more useful. It can work. It worked for Gandhi.
Nate: A fist, unless coming from a well-trained and rather strong person with good combat skills, cannot hope to deter someone to the level even a club can.
There is a simple solution for this: come in power armor. Unarmed, but in power armor. No need to worry about pitchforks or rakes or anything in those. Or even small arms fire.
Or just go all in on Zan’s “enhanced” probe ideas. “Weapons? Oh no, no weapons here. What, this? No, this isn’t a club, this is an all-terrain utility/survival pole.” Or “Laser rifle? Goodness, no, that’s an emergency surface-to-orbit tight-beam transmitter.” Or “Of course we don’t carry grenades, those are mining charges for emergency shelter.” They could probably throw in a nice set of axes and picks just as basic survival / building / climbing equipment.