A Zoo full of humans (RAR!)

Zor · Post by **Zor** » 2017-02-01 10:58pm

Based off the recent Steven Universe episode.

Our scenario begins some time in the 1960s when a soviet spacecraft detects something unexpected at Earth's L-3 Lagrange Point. A second dedicated mission confirms this, it is a large toroidal shape of metal about a hundred and twenty KM in diameter with mirrors attached and shares the information with the scientific community of the world. The US confirms the Soviet's findings on their own, which leads to a race to examine this, causes both powers to poor more money into space technology and eventually in the 1970s a joint manned mission between the two powers is planned. A spacecraft is built in orbit by both nations, a joint team of four astronauts and four cosmonauts is assembled and it is sent off around 1980 to investigate this artifact.

After traveling to the station they find their ship picked up by a set of robots which guide it in to a docking station at the central hub, which locks onto their airlock allowing the crew to leave and get onto the station. Once through they find a pressurized environment with a breathable atmosphere as well as a robot that's basically a small pod with a botanical design and a small circular touch screen. It talks at them in an alien language and leads them into a car which takes them to a smaller faster rotating second ring (about 15 km in diameter) with 0.9 g spin gravity and with the same naturalistic design, though it has seen better days and there are a fair number of robots scurrying around fixing things. In general the place has the appearance of a Hotel. There are Hotel Suites, terminals which print out food, observation lounges, common rooms and so forth. But there are also two things which seem odd, even though most of the rooms were designed for 2.5 meter tall aliens with four arms and tails, alien script and all that. Namely that there were images of various animals from earth including wooly mammoths, moas, elephant birds, ground sloths and thylacines, but also images of humans. There is also an architectural inclination which leads to an area with a set of spherical rooms which one can enter sit down in a chair and control a small remote control probe which hovers around the main ring, which shows a complex environment in which the listed creatures exist, including humans. Basically the station is a big zoo where humans are an exhibit.

In total there are about 40,000 humans living on the ring clustered in villages of about 500 to 1,000 with ancestry from around the world in several predator free zones, Said villages are composed of basic shelters against the rain with latrines built around a central dispenser staation and a washing pool. Every day at regular intervals food is dispensed, they are to wash themselves and cleaned do various things to entertain themselves. Medicine is dispensed in case of infection or injury. All of them wear colored tunics and shoes which are dispensed every six months, as are other tools. Some of them make artwork while others engage in more physical activities with toys such as balls. There is a daily routine that they are expected to follow, which a small necklace tells them to follow. Violence is rare as hostile individuals as there are a set of zookeeper robots which break up fights and put those which cause trouble are either (depending on the situation and the severity) put into isolation for a few hours to a month, drugged or put down via captive bolt gun. They dispose of their dead by putting them down a special chute to the station's recyclers. They also enforce a few basic rules such as "don't try to kill the wildlife" and "don't take a shit in the washing pool" and so forth, though violators of those rules generally only get a few hours to a few weeks in an isolation cell. Population growth is kept stable thanks to a set of implanted contraceptives and a matchmaker program which selects mates based on a variety of criteria, among which is non aggression. The humans have been here for several thousand years and have something of a religion about the builders, which they see as benevolent all powerful beings who made the world. A few groups have some writing that resemble cuneiform, indus script and early Chinese writing. A couple of them have vague legends of a world of pain, fear and violence which the builders took them from long ago in the distant past.

The station was built about 6,000 years ago, but the last visitor who came there around the time of Confucius. Since then it's central computer has been maintaining things as normal. The station has some security drones that will defend it against humans wrecking up the place, though they are armed only with riot gear.

What happens and what would you feel should be done in this situation?

Zor

Simon_Jester · Post by **Simon_Jester** » 2017-02-02 12:05am

What should happen?

Try to convert the station into a space colony and an anchor point for orbital industry. Given its huge size, there's probably physical room for a lot more than 40000 people to live there.

The former inhabitants of the 'zoo' are going to need to be given an opportunity to re-integrate into mainstream human society, which is going to be very difficult since they're effectively Stone Age tribes. It probably won't go very well, but such is life.

The first step in this overall process, and even the first step could well take a long time, is to learn a lot about the space station's control systems, so that we can either figure out how to issue orders to the computer ourselves, or figure out how to disconnect it and run the thing ourselves "on manual." That could easily take decades. especially if... uh...

Actually, Zor, could you clarify one important point? You said this station was at the "L3 point." Is it at the L3 point of the Earth-Sun system (that is, on the opposite side of the sun from the Earth)? Or at the L3 point of the Earth-Moon system, on the opposite side of the Earth from the moon.

...

The most interesting question is how the Soviets and Americans argue about who gets to administer the station.

Zor · Post by **Zor** » 2017-02-02 12:24am

Simon_Jester wrote: Actually, Zor, could you clarify one important point? You said this station was at the "L3 point." Is it at the L3 point of the Earth-Sun system (that is, on the opposite side of the sun from the Earth)? Or at the L3 point of the Earth-Moon system, on the opposite side of the Earth from the moon.

Sun Earth System.

Zor

Simon_Jester · Post by **Simon_Jester** » 2017-02-02 12:48am

The Soviets aren't going to be visiting that place by 1980, then. You might be able to gin up something that would work and make the journey possible using the Apollo Applications Project. But you need a spacecraft capable of attaining escape velocity from Earth, carrying a very large supply of consumables for what will inevitably be a very long journey. The Soviets never built anything like that.

If you want it to be reasonably accessible from Earth using contemporary technology, it needs to be at one of the Earth-Moon Lagrange points. Of course, in that case it is likely to be discovered well before the days of the space program (given its size), and will significantly butterfly the space race as a whole.

SpottedKitty · Post by **SpottedKitty** » 2017-02-02 01:33am

Simon_Jester wrote:If you want it to be reasonably accessible from Earth using contemporary technology, it needs to be at one of the Earth-Moon Lagrange points. Of course, in that case it is likely to be discovered well before the days of the space program (given its size), and will significantly butterfly the space race as a whole.

One possibility — the Earth-Moon L2 point is on the other side of the Moon, so it's never seen from the Earth. Anything at this point will not be visible until someone manages to put a spacecraft with a camera into an Earth orbit high enough to look around the Moon.

Although... the L1, L2 and L3 points in any Lagrange system are unstable; unlike the L4 and L5 points, if when there's the least little perturbation (from the Sun, or one of the other planets) anything at L2 will be pushed further away from the point until it goes into an unpredictable orbit, maybe even into solar orbit.

It's possible to get round this by using a "halo orbit" around the L2 point, which many satellites do today, but again you're losing the hidden-behind-the-moon aspect. I'm not sure if it's possible to use a halo orbit, which involves active stationkeeping, small enough to keep hidden. Especially not for an object that big.

Simon_Jester · Post by **Simon_Jester** » 2017-02-02 02:42am

Anyone who could build this station in another star system could presumably outfit it with stationkeeping thrusters, and an automated system to refuel the stationkeeping thrusters (say, with propellant extracted from the Earth's moon). So the instability of the Lagrange point it occupies isn't that big of a problem.

A bigger problem would be the collision hazards associated with all the dust and random crap that might bump into the station, given that cosmic dust bunnies tend to accumulate at the Lagrange points due to their stable or quasistable status. The L1/L2/L3 points are actually probably a lot less bad for this, because a fleck of space dust that finds its way to the point won't be staying for the next million years, the way it would at the L4/L5 points.

Joun_Lord · Post by **Joun_Lord** » 2017-02-02 06:40am

Would all the Zoo humans want to even return to Earth? Presumably with their religion of leaving a world of pain and violence they would think going to Earth would be like akin to Christians going to hell, with the people trying to entice them to leave the comfort of the world they are used to being demons.

Non-aggression might be something they have been breed for but trying to remove a group of people from their land, their homes, from a place built by their gods to a place that sounds scary might get some violence. Hard to even deal with violence or moving them until enough spacecraft are built to bring up researchers and soldiers and remove 40,000 people.

And I doubt most would be okay with leaving them there. Just from a logical standpoint this station represents a massive amount to technological progress, exploration, and colonization. Having 40,000 people mucking about even in their "cage" (which I doubt anybody would be okay with doing) while thousands of people are trying to reverse engineer and study the station would not be ideal. This is especially true because of the religious significance, this isn't just a place they live but a place holy because it was built by the gods. Pulling it apart might be to them like pulling apart the Kaaba would be to Muslims.

From a more human perspective, these are a group of people that were removed from their homes, enslaved for the entertainment of some aliens, and have been that way for thousands of years. Trying to free them would be the only correct thing to do, maybe trying to resettle them in areas their ancestors came from but at the very least bringing them back to Earth to be reintegrated into the rest of humanity.

I'm sure anthropologists and zoologists are going to love to study the humans and the animals especially if they've been bred to be as close as possible to what they were when they were taken. Living artifacts of early humans and extinct (well formerly extinct animals). It probably wouldn't be long before someone tries to build a spaceship big enough to bring back the wooly mammoth.

A couple questions, why would the station treat the human astronauts differently from the human zoo animals?

What became of the builders?

Zixinus · Post by **Zixinus** » 2017-02-02 12:54pm

The thing is, that these people have been practically artificially bred to be not only be docile but also to be happily dependent on the system that supplies them.

We are looking at a new sub-species of humans here, somewhat radically different from probably any group on Earth. They are not going to enter mainstream Earth society. At all.

I would also be wary of trying to just take over the place and convert it. Aside issues of the possible original builders showing up, you want to preserve the technology to study it. A living specimen always tells you more than a dead one, the same of which is true for machines.

Presumably with their religion of leaving a world of pain and violence they would think going to Earth would be like akin to Christians going to hell, with the people trying to entice them to leave the comfort of the world they are used to being demons.

Non-aggression might be something they have been breed for but trying to remove a group of people from their land, their homes, from a place built by their gods to a place that sounds scary might get some violence. Hard to even deal with violence or moving them until enough spacecraft are built to bring up researchers and soldiers and remove 40,000 people.

They might put up some kind of fight, but the real fight would be the stationkeeping robots and systems who probably would not appreciate invaders coming in and messing everything up.

The humans have no warrior-culture, not even something roughly resembling martial arts or even have much of an idea of war. It is up to see whether these people would be able to put up a fight intellectually, let alone physically. A trained military force would effortlessly be able to cow them into submission.

Trying to free them would be the only correct thing to do, maybe trying to resettle them in areas their ancestors came from but at the very least bringing them back to Earth to be reintegrated into the rest of humanity.

No, it would not be.

The areas their ancestors originally would be from would likely either be already settled, owned and used or uninhabitable desert, under water or otherwise useless. These people will not be able to stand up to the stresses modern people are exposed to, modern humans are barely able to do that.

Yes, they have been living in cages but its the same issue with chickens or other overly-domesticated animals: release them into the wild and most of them will die quickly and the survivors die slowly.

Joun_Lord · Post by **Joun_Lord** » 2017-02-02 02:29pm

Zixinus wrote:They might put up some kind of fight, but the real fight would be the stationkeeping robots and systems who probably would not appreciate invaders coming in and messing everything up.

The humans have no warrior-culture, not even something roughly resembling martial arts or even have much of an idea of war. It is up to see whether these people would be able to put up a fight intellectually, let alone physically. A trained military force would effortlessly be able to cow them into submission.

In some ways yes, some ways no. Both the robits and the cow humans are going to be a threat just on number alone. Our spaceships at most could move a couple dozen people if we really pack them in like clown car style. Even once larger spaceships start being built there is probably going to be a few dozen, maybe multiple launches to get low hundreds.

Any force that tries to take the station is going to overwhelmed by numbers alone.

However the humans add an extra wrinkle. The robots can be smashed without much worry. They apparently aren't sapient and aren't going to be hard to destroy based on what they are armed to fight and the fact smashing a machine is much easier to do then killing a person. Even harder to kill people that are victims, that you are sent to rescue, that are only fighting you because of some stupid misunderstanding.

Zixinus wrote:No, it would not be.

The areas their ancestors originally would be from would likely either be already settled, owned and used or uninhabitable desert, under water or otherwise useless. These people will not be able to stand up to the stresses modern people are exposed to, modern humans are barely able to do that.

Yes, they have been living in cages but its the same issue with chickens or other overly-domesticated animals: release them into the wild and most of them will die quickly and the survivors die slowly.

It was 6,000 years ago that the station was built, the environment probably won't have changed that much save in some areas that have turned to desert. But either way I doubt people are just going to plop them down in some wild uninhabitable tract of land with just the clothes on their back. No matter where they are resettled its probably going to be as part of a government initiative that has aid workers and psychologists helping them out, helping them adapt. They are probably going to be in some ways another cage for awhile until they can fully adapt, comfortable and with all their needs met while they learn to take care of themselves.

Save primitive areas, any area the cow humans came from originally is probably not going to be unduly affected by a few hundred people joining the populace especially with government cheese rolling in to help support the people.

Like everyone else most of the cow people would adapt, form their own cultures and communities or integrate into existing ones, conservatives would bitch how the cow people are taking all our jobs, and unfortunately some would wind up in a bad way using drug or alcohol or even taking their own live but a majority would adapt.

Zixinus · Post by **Zixinus** » 2017-02-02 02:53pm

Its a bit sad that everyone's first response seems to be the classic imperialistic idea of "take the land and valuables, deport the natives already there to someplace else".

Yes, these people are in a human zoo but have been for longer than pretty much all civilization. They're comfortable there. They would not survive in modern civilization. Unless the robots are drastically braking down and everyone inside will die rapidly, it is best to leave them alone. Hell, don't even just let an explorer party in anything but hermetically sealed suits. Consider that diseases have been in an isolated environment for 6000 years, diseases that if still existing, would have built up medicine immunity. Or diseases brought in.

There is also no way that they are going to be able to send spacecrafts able to transfer 40k humans in 1980s tech.

In some ways yes, some ways no. Both the robits and the cow humans are going to be a threat just on number alone. Our spaceships at most could move a couple dozen people if we really pack them in like clown car style. Even once larger spaceships start being built there is probably going to be a few dozen, maybe multiple launches to get low hundreds.

Any force that tries to take the station is going to overwhelmed by numbers alone.

Except that the cow-humans have little experience of pain and desperation, and have been bred to obey. Remember, they don't even have to brake up fights, robots do that for them. A zerg rush would be more unthinkable to them.
Experienced soldiers would be demons to them in ability as well intent. Because the soldiers would have machine guns, claymores and other technology that the cow-humans would be unfamiliar with and have no defense against. Naked natives with spears against people with machine guns did not go well for the natives. Plus, the soldiers would operate in areas that the cow-humans would not be permitted in.

Most likely, most of the cow-humans would try begging and other tactics they usually are used to working with each other. Violence would for a long time be restricted to a few gutsy individuals trying their best. An organized, mass charge would only happen after extensive experience with warfare.

It was 6,000 years ago that the station was built, the environment probably won't have changed that much save in some areas that have turned to desert.

We have desertified a lot of the Earth in the last thousand years and even good bits of it beforehand. You are also ignoring the fact that the world population has drastically increased in the last few hundred years too.

But really, any area these people would even vaguely be found to be from would be already owned by humans who have far superior claim to that land.

No matter where they are resettled its probably going to be as part of a government initiative that has aid workers and psychologists helping them out, helping them adapt. They are probably going to be in some ways another cage for awhile until they can fully adapt, comfortable and with all their needs met while they learn to take care of themselves.

I may be feeling cynical, but do you seriously expect that people will care enough for that to happen? Because the historical record of trying to do this is very, very, very bad for humanity.

Ralin · Post by **Ralin** » 2017-02-04 03:52am

Simon_Jester wrote: The former inhabitants of the 'zoo' are going to need to be given an opportunity to re-integrate into mainstream human society, which is going to be very difficult since they're effectively Stone Age tribes. It probably won't go very well, but such is life.

Yeah, I'm with Zixinus on this one. Why are we jumping to "We TOTALLY need to help these poor people by fucking up their society and lifestyle where they are probably really happy and comfortable?" Large chunks of the human race would think this sounds like paradise. Why the hell should we ruin it for them?

jwl · Post by **jwl** » 2017-02-04 05:57am

This is during the cold war, so both the US and USSR are going to want to cannibalise the alien tech to make better weapons, first and foremost. They'd probably start worrying about the occupants afterwards.

Joun_Lord · Post by **Joun_Lord** » 2017-02-04 11:29am

Zixinus wrote:Its a bit sad that everyone's first response seems to be the classic imperialistic idea of "take the land and valuables, deport the natives already there to someplace else".

Yes, these people are in a human zoo but have been for longer than pretty much all civilization. They're comfortable there. They would not survive in modern civilization. Unless the robots are drastically braking down and everyone inside will die rapidly, it is best to leave them alone. Hell, don't even just let an explorer party in anything but hermetically sealed suits. Consider that diseases have been in an isolated environment for 6000 years, diseases that if still existing, would have built up medicine immunity. Or diseases brought in.

There is also no way that they are going to be able to send spacecrafts able to transfer 40k humans in 1980s tech.

Normally I'd say leave them alone but several problems with that. One, they are only there as the result of imperialistic bullshit done by another species. They are not there naturally, not natives by any stretch of the word, and are only comfortable because they aren't being treated like intelligent creatures that they presumably are. They are as comfortable as a cat or a dog, a pet. Even if we for some reason didn't force ably remove them they still need set free, need their chains of servitude and reliance on being hand fed to be broken. They need treated like human beings again.

Two, the valuables they are on aren't even theirs, they just live on it. They are like cows in a pasture, they don't own the pasture or the barn or anything, they are just there because others let them stay there. Yeah its a bit of imperialistic bullshit to want to remove them because they are unable and unwilling to use the land and valuables but for once with a good reason....

Three, the station was built by an advanced alien civilization that at the very least doesn't have much respect for human life. The station represents technology that can be used to defend ourselves should the aliens come back to take some more people to stuff in exhibits. The technology can also massively improve lives here on Earth. They are like the Ba'ku, a small group of people not native to something that if removed could potentially save millions, won't have their lives unduly effected beyond not being as comfortable, and probably aren't as comfortable as people think in their rural simplicity. Even if we wanted to leave them just the fact we need the advanced technology there to defend ourselves and improve our own lives means thats impossible.

Yes, spaceships wouldn't exist yet to carry them off rapidly but I'm sure especially with the stations advanced tech it wouldn't be an insurmountable problem even if it takes a few years. Gives people a few years to try to get the cow humans to be more human before stuffing them in an apartment and making them run the drive through at McDonalds.

Zixinus wrote:Except that the cow-humans have little experience of pain and desperation, and have been bred to obey. Remember, they don't even have to brake up fights, robots do that for them. A zerg rush would be more unthinkable to them.
Experienced soldiers would be demons to them in ability as well intent. Because the soldiers would have machine guns, claymores and other technology that the cow-humans would be unfamiliar with and have no defense against. Naked natives with spears against people with machine guns did not go well for the natives. Plus, the soldiers would operate in areas that the cow-humans would not be permitted in.

Most likely, most of the cow-humans would try begging and other tactics they usually are used to working with each other. Violence would for a long time be restricted to a few gutsy individuals trying their best. An organized, mass charge would only happen after extensive experience with warfare.

They also have no concepts of pain and little fear in their docile caged lives. They only really have fear of Earth. They apparently are docile to the robots but not to other people. If people show up with instruments they don't recognize and don't understand make people dead but are saying that they are from what their version of hell is. Even without saying they are going to take the cow people from their comfortable caged lives to hell, the gutsy individuals or their religious leaders could drive them to do a massed attack to prevent the demons from invading their paradise. Fear, especially for those who know it very little, can make people do some crazy shit and it could make these cow people charge into machine gun fire.

Zixinus wrote:We have desertified a lot of the Earth in the last thousand years and even good bits of it beforehand. You are also ignoring the fact that the world population has drastically increased in the last few hundred years too.

But really, any area these people would even vaguely be found to be from would be already owned by humans who have far superior claim to that land.

We haven't desertified the planet to the point there is really a crowding problem (yet) even despite now 7 billion people farting and fucking about. The world population has drastically increased by even so 40,000 people isn't going to hurt to be resettled. Thats like the size of a small city, my own town of Charleston has like 10,000 more people and its by no means a big city. 40,000 people is going to be a drop in the bucket especially when spread out. They US has up to a million legal immigrants a year and plenty of illegal ones too. Far smaller Germany in a few short years has taken in around a million refugees from Syria, Iraq, and other places. There is room for these people.

Yeah people already are on land the cow people are from originally but its not going to really badly affect the area to have a hundred or so new people be settled there and areas that would be unduly affect will have their people settled elsewhere. The worst that will happen from the people being resettled is some towns might grow a bit larger, not a big deal, and idiots will bitch about immigrants.

Zixinus wrote:I may be feeling cynical, but do you seriously expect that people will care enough for that to happen? Because the historical record of trying to do this is very, very, very bad for humanity.

I don't know honestly. Nowadays sure, especially with images of the slack jawed simple shits being broadcast all over the interwebs and people caring about unfortunate people and zoo animals. During the 80s? I don't know. Maybe but with the Cold War still being on and now the threat of alien zoo keepers looming there might not be enough attention paid to helping the cow people. I think people would care, the 80s were famous for various causes, but just the reality of the rapidly expanding world would mean that such causes might be pushed aside.

Either way the cow people would be removed to get to the technology because there is no way anyone is going to leave it be because of 40,000 people being comfortable but I'd hope the transition is done humanely.

Ralin · Post by **Ralin** » 2017-02-04 02:08pm

Joun_Lord wrote: One, they are only there as the result of imperialistic bullshit done by another species.

Subtract the 'other species' part and that's how many of us ended up wherever we live if you go back far enough

They are not there naturally, not natives by any stretch of the word,

They are absolutely natives. They are more native to that place than any of us can collectively claim to be to our homes.

and are only comfortable because they aren't being treated like intelligent creatures that they presumably are.

Why, because they're forced to deal with horrific burdens like "not killing each other" and "not shitting in the water supply?"

They are as comfortable as a cat or a dog, a pet. Even if we for some reason didn't force ably remove them they still need set free, need their chains of servitude and reliance on being hand fed to be broken. They need treated like human beings again.

They're as comfortable as people who are secure, healthy and guaranteed food and medical care for the rest of the their lives. Notice how the OP didn't say anything about them being prevented from developing arts, literature, technology, etc?

Two, the valuables they are on aren't even theirs, they just live on it. They are like cows in a pasture, they don't own the pasture or the barn or anything, they are just there because others let them stay there.

Yeah, that's just straight up bullshit. They have more right to the land they live on and the technology contained in it than anyone else in this scenario. Where the hell do you get off saying that they don't own the place they've lived in their entire lives and their parents and grandparents before them for longer than any nation on Earth has existed?

Yeah its a bit of imperialistic bullshit to want to remove them because they are unable and unwilling to use the land and valuables but for once with a good reason....

No, it's the exact same reason as imperialism everywhere. I want this place and the stuff in it and I don't think the people who have it now can stop me from taking it.

Seriously, this is European colonization: IN SPACE.

Three, the station was built by an advanced alien civilization that at the very least doesn't have much respect for human life. The station represents technology that can be used to defend ourselves should the aliens come back to take some more people to stuff in exhibits.

That's pure speculation.

The technology can also massively improve lives here on Earth. They are like the Ba'ku, a small group of people not native to something that if removed could potentially save millions, won't have their lives unduly effected beyond not being as comfortable, and probably aren't as comfortable as people think in their rural simplicity.

I like how at no point does "Ask the people who own that technology if they're willing to let you study it?" occur to you.

Even if we wanted to leave them just the fact we need the advanced technology there to defend ourselves and improve our own lives means thats impossible.

It's very possible. Fuckheads like you just wouldn't want to.

Yes, spaceships wouldn't exist yet to carry them off rapidly but I'm sure especially with the stations advanced tech it wouldn't be an insurmountable problem even if it takes a few years.

Yeah, I'm SURE that within a few years we can build the capacity to move 40,000 people from space to Earth using 1980s technology!

Gives people a few years to try to get the cow humans to be more human before stuffing them in an apartment and making them run the drive through at McDonalds.

Okay, fuck you. Who died and made you God? Where do you get off deciding that your way of being human is more valid than theirs?

Simon_Jester · Post by **Simon_Jester** » 2017-02-04 03:58pm

Joun_Lord wrote:Would all the Zoo humans want to even return to Earth?

Probably not, but we should at least try to figure out a way to offer the option to them. Also, there will be Earth-humans moving into their space station anyway, so there's going to be interaction, so it'd be only reasonable if we at least try to... interface with them. Make sure there's some degree of understanding so they don't become convinced we really ARE demons trying to destroy them.

They should have an opportunity to integrate with the larger Earth civilization, if they want. Not have that choice made paternalistically for them. Then we'd be no better than the aliens who locked sentient beings up in a zoo.

Think of them as like the Amish. Amish people are free to decide to leave Amish country and live like regular people instead. Most of them don't, but they have that right. And it would be wrong to deny them that right.

A couple questions, why would the station treat the human astronauts differently from the human zoo animals?

Dunno. Maybe because they're not in the system catalogue? Depending on how the builders treated other humans, maybe they'll view the astronauts as human 'slaves' who have somehow gotten separated from builder 'masters' and try to corral them. Dunno.

Zixinus wrote:Its a bit sad that everyone's first response seems to be the classic imperialistic idea of "take the land and valuables, deport the natives already there to someplace else".

Yes, these people are in a human zoo but have been for longer than pretty much all civilization. They're comfortable there. They would not survive in modern civilization. Unless the robots are drastically braking down and everyone inside will die rapidly, it is best to leave them alone. Hell, don't even just let an explorer party in anything but hermetically sealed suits. Consider that diseases have been in an isolated environment for 6000 years, diseases that if still existing, would have built up medicine immunity. Or diseases brought in.

There is also no way that they are going to be able to send spacecrafts able to transfer 40k humans in 1980s tech.

True. Fortunately, disease is likely to not be much of a problem because of the long space voyage to get to this place (on the opposite side of the Sun, isn't it?) Astronauts are screened for disease, and even if they do get sick in space, they're up there so long that there's plenty of time for them to recover and purge the disease from the small population of astronauts.

Me, I DON'T favor deporting the inhabitants of the zoo (I refuse to call them 'cow-humans,' it's abominable). But I do think we need to at least engage with them openly, present ourselves positively, and be prepared to work out a way for some of them (or their descendants) to leave the station if they so choose. It's not our place to force them to leave, but it's also not our place to force them to stay. Especially if we start disrupting the operational functions of the station and creating chaos in their habitat.

Joun_Lord wrote:Two, the valuables they are on aren't even theirs, they just live on it. They are like cows in a pasture, they don't own the pasture or the barn or anything, they are just there because others let them stay there. Yeah its a bit of imperialistic bullshit to want to remove them because they are unable and unwilling to use the land and valuables but for once with a good reason...

Nonsense. Their claim to the station is excellent; they're the sole inhabitants of the place for the last several hundred years.

Granted, they didn't build it- but you didn't build the planet you live on and I bet you didn't build the structure you live IN, either. Granted, they can't fix it if it breaks- but most Americans can't fix the buildings they live in, and they certainly can't fix the land they live ON when it gets polluted or globally warmed or whatever. Their claim is much stronger than that of, say, white people in the US, because their ancestors didn't steal the station. The station originally had a set of owners, but those owners abandoned it centuries ago. By any Earthly standard of law, it'd be terra nullius... EXCEPT THAT PEOPLE LIVE THERE, so it belongs to them.

And retroactively making up new rules to justify claiming that they don't own a place they've lived in for centuries is exactly the kind of evil stupidity that leads to the worst parts of the age of imperialism.

Three, the station was built by an advanced alien civilization that at the very least doesn't have much respect for human life. The station represents technology that can be used to defend ourselves should the aliens come back to take some more people to stuff in exhibits. The technology can also massively improve lives here on Earth. They are like the Ba'ku, a small group of people not native to something that if removed could potentially save millions, won't have their lives unduly effected beyond not being as comfortable, and probably aren't as comfortable as people think in their rural simplicity. Even if we wanted to leave them just the fact we need the advanced technology there to defend ourselves and improve our own lives means thats impossible.

Exactly why do you think we have to destroy their ability to continue to live on the station in order to learn from its technology.

Zixinus · Post by **Zixinus** » 2017-02-04 04:19pm

The ideal thing to do would be to slowly educate the cow-humans about what actually has happened to them and the universe at large. This is going to be difficult but the moral thing to do. Tech them, bring them knowledge and enlighten them of their situation.

Preferably, give control of the station over to them so they can chose to do what they want with it. The best thing they can do is selectively allow teams in to slowly and carefully study what is possible to study and reverse engineer things very carefully, while shipping in replacements for anything lost. The place where broken machines are taken for robots to fix is a good place to start for example.

One, they are only there as the result of imperialistic bullshit done by another species.

Basic morals: Two wrongs do not make a right.

Just because it was wrong to put them there, forcefully evicting them and shoving them back to Earth isn't automatically the right thing to do. Not after 6000 years. Maybe with the original kidnap victims, but not now.

Even if we for some reason didn't force ably remove them they still need set free, need their chains of servitude and reliance on being hand fed to be broken. They need treated like human beings again.

What chains of servitude? They are not forced to do anything but live in a world more comfortable than any other place on Earth.

Two, the valuables they are on aren't even theirs, they just live on it.

Native americans often spoke about not owning the land they lived on either. Yet when settlers forcefulyl evicted and/or exterminated them for the land, it was still theft.

Your reasoning is bullshit for the exact same reason. The natives have more right to the station than any other human being.

Three, the station was built by an advanced alien civilization that at the very least doesn't have much respect for human life.

No, they don't have much respect for human's intelligence and self-determination. They clearly have great deal of respect for their lives. They have clearly gone to great lengths to ensure that the humans in the zoo survive and thrive.

The station represents technology that can be used to defend ourselves should the aliens come back to take some more people to stuff in exhibits. The technology can also massively improve lives here on Earth.

Excuses. The first assumption is silly. If they wanted harm to humanity, they would have just sent an astredoid killer or a series of designed plaques that could wipe humans off Earth without damanign anything else. They clearly have the technological means to do so. Instead, they have taken small samples of them and otherwise left the original wild species alone.

The second assumption is a big maybe. You are assuming that the station's technology can be easily reverse-engineered. Technology isn't just a bunch of blueprints that once you have, you know like getting points of tech-tree in a video game.

To start off with, you'd have to learn the completely alien language, culture and whatnot of the zoo-keepers. You cannot hope to understand and interact with their technology without that. Then there are the physics, chemistry and whatnot behind the technology alone may be unknown and thus cannot be reverse-engineered until they are learned. This means that it can easily can take centuries to truly make any progress in gaining the technology, if it is possible at all.

Meanwhile, the lives on board the station have to be decided on from the start, with their human rights and their own choices accounted for.
Failure to do anything else is morally bankrupt. If you are going to slaughter the humans to loot the station, then say so and don't pretend to be on any moral highground.

Also, here's another possibility for you: the zoo-keepers could return at any time. They will definitely take account of what humans have done to the station and the brethen therein.

What do you want to find? That the humans from Earth have enlightened their brethen and have begun to work together to attain new technological heights? Or that the humans of Earth have ruthleswsly slaughtered those on the station in order to find better weapons to kill each other back on Earth?

Hell, for all we know, this could be a test from the zoo-keepers to gauge the morality and friendliness of modern humans.

They are like the Ba'ku, a small group of people not native to something that if removed could potentially save millions, won't have their lives unduly effected beyond not being as comfortable, and probably aren't as comfortable as people think in their rural simplicity. Even if we wanted to leave them just the fact we need the advanced technology there to defend ourselves and improve our own lives means thats impossible.

You are still using excuses and assumptions to justify the forced deportation (if not the accidental or deliberate extermination) of an otherwise self-sufficient people. All because they are in the way.

Yes, spaceships wouldn't exist yet to carry them off rapidly but I'm sure especially with the stations advanced tech it wouldn't be an insurmountable problem even if it takes a few years.

An incredibly naive assumption. Even if we somehow learn the tech quickly, it would takes decades to create the infrastructure to transport so many people. Not to mention the problem of actually placing them anywhere.

[qoute]Gives people a few years to try to get the cow humans to be more human before stuffing them in an apartment and making them run the drive through at McDonalds. [/quote]

You clearly have not paid any attention to my previous posts: these people CANNOT integrate into modern human society, even civilized ones. They are a seperate sub-species from whom certain capabilities have been, accidentally or intentionally, bred out. Any life on Earth would be inferior to the one they have been bred to accustume for 6000 years.

Besides, what makes you think that if they knew and understood everything, that they would WANT this kind of life?

You are making their choices for them. You are dicating their lives and how they should live. You are doing the exact same thing that the zoo-keepers have done to them.

The only difference between them is that you are doing it because they would be in the way of getting the technology.

The zoo-keepers done it to present the wonder of Earth humans to their own kind without having to necessarily interfere with human life in its own habitat. At the least. This speaks of higher intentions than yours.

They also have no concepts of pain and little fear in their docile caged lives.

OP said nothign about removing pain or even fear from them. What they have is that most of their pain is managable and that they would have relatively little to fear trough their lives compared to say, rainforest bushmen.

They apparently are docile to the robots but not to other people.

That's like saying that schoolchildren are killers because they have fights from time to time.

If people show up with instruments they don't recognize and don't understand make people dead but are saying that they are from what their version of hell is.

The problem is that you assume that they will instantly try to murder the demons.

They will not because they have been conditioned against such behaviour. Their far more likely first response will be either to invoke the zoo-keepers or somehow try to pacify the demons.

Even without saying they are going to take the cow people from their comfortable caged lives to hell, the gutsy individuals or their religious leaders could drive them to do a massed attack to prevent the demons from invading their paradise. Fear, especially for those who know it very little, can make people do some crazy shit and it could make these cow people charge into machine gun fire.

The problem is you assuming that this is going to be their first response. It is far morel ikely that such things will occur to them after they have learned it the hard way, ie, when soldiers come in and slaughter them so scientists can access some technological gadget. Most likely, it will happen after this happens many, many times.

You do not get my point that these people have NO knowledge of warfare. The only fighting to them would be on the level of schoolyard fights between individuals who lost self-control. Nothing higher.

Again, it is more likely that they would attempt to bribe the incoming demons or do other actions that they can do with each other.

And the thing is, charging into machine gun fire is still going to get them killed. In case you didn't know: marching into machine gun fire is suicidal and you will lose. Especially when you have no concept of warfare or any weapons comparable to the enemy's.

Even a relatively small force of soldiers can easily pacify a 40k population (of which, remember, a substantial number are children and eldery).

Yeah people already are on land the cow people are from originally but its not going to really badly affect the area to have a hundred or so new people be settled there and areas that would be unduly affect will have their people settled elsewhere. The worst that will happen from the people being resettled is some towns might grow a bit larger, not a big deal, and idiots will bitch about immigrants.

See my points about how these people CANNOT integrate back to life on Earth. Standard human capabilities have been bred out from them. Their bodies have been acclimatized to one, select environment. They grew up in an environment that does not place stresses on them that they would on Eath, even under good conditions.

I don't know honestly. Nowadays sure, especially with images of the slack jawed simple shits being broadcast all over the interwebs and people caring about unfortunate people and zoo animals. During the 80s? I don't know. Maybe but with the Cold War still being on and now the threat of alien zoo keepers looming there might not be enough attention paid to helping the cow people. I think people would care, the 80s were famous for various causes, but just the reality of the rapidly expanding world would mean that such causes might be pushed aside.

Let me reposit the question: Do you honestly think that either superpower will worry about exterminating the humans on the stations and keeping their once-existence a secret, all in desperate order to gain advantage over the other?

Fortunately, disease is likely to not be much of a problem because of the long space voyage to get to this place (on the opposite side of the Sun, isn't it?) Astronauts are screened for disease, and even if they do get sick in space, they're up there so long that there's plenty of time for them to recover and purge the disease from the small population of astronauts.

Unless you can get the astronaut's bodies to be mostly sterile, it doesn't matter. "Getting sick" just means that there is one type of pathogen that has temporarily overwhelmed their immune system somewhat. It does not mean that the millions of other carry-on bacteria and other micro-life present in an average human body will have no effect on the natives.

Zor · Post by **Zor** » 2017-02-04 05:18pm

About the Security Robots. There are a few hundred of them and there are three general models. The first one is a 40cm long pod shaped hovering affair with an siren, frontal display screen, electrostatic stun beam gun and a set of small manipulator arm. The second is a 2.5 meter tall unit that weighs about 500 kilos with armored plating, has four legs (each with a wheel on the bottom) and four powerful arms packing stun guns and sonic emitters used for riot control (a modified version of which is used for game handling in the zoo itself) and a pod shaped unit that's basically a 3 meter long robotic spaceship with maneuvering thrusters, a set of four robotic arms and a set of grapplers to keep people from damaging the surface of the station. The station's is fully capable of building new Security Bots to replace losses. They'll remain dormant until people start messing up the place. Violators are put into holding cells.

Zor

Joun_Lord · Post by **Joun_Lord** » 2017-02-04 05:29pm

Ralin wrote:Subtract the 'other species' part and that's how many of us ended up wherever we live if you go back far enough

So? Because its happened to us we should be okay when it happens to others?

Ralin wrote:They are absolutely natives. They are more native to that place than any of us can collectively claim to be to our homes.

They aren't from the space station, they were forced to live there and are still forced to live there, the only roots they have are generations of servitude to their robot overlords. They are no more native then generations of elephants that grew up in zoos are.

Ralin wrote:Why, because they're forced to deal with horrific burdens like "not killing each other" and "not shitting in the water supply?"

Because they are literally zoo animals put there for the entertainment of others and with their lives, their very reproductive rights dictated to them.

Ralin wrote:They're as comfortable as people who are secure, healthy and guaranteed food and medical care for the rest of the their lives. Notice how the OP didn't say anything about them being prevented from developing arts, literature, technology, etc?

They are intelligent beings forced to be in a zoo, just because they are comfortable doesn't mean its right. Would you be okay if someone kidnapped you, forced you to do what they want for their entertainment, controlled your reproductive rights, but gave you regular food and medical check ups and let you finger paint?

Ralin wrote:Yeah, that's just straight up bullshit. They have more right to the land they live on and the technology contained in it than anyone else in this scenario. Where the hell do you get off saying that they don't own the place they've lived in their entire lives and their parents and grandparents before them for longer than any nation on Earth has existed?

They don't live on the land, they live in an enclosure. They don't have access to any of the tech or most of the land. They have no more right to it then an elephant at a zoo has a right to the zoo. The elephant does not own his cage, nothing. Its there because humans allow it to be there.

Ralin wrote:No, it's the exact same reason as imperialism everywhere. I want this place and the stuff in it and I don't think the people who have it now can stop me from taking it.

Seriously, this is European colonization: IN SPACE.

Imperialism was done to protect lives and defend against hostile invaders? Yeah no, I don't think so. I'm pretty sure the Euro colonists were the hostile invaders and invaded purely for profit. Again, they don't own the stuff anymore then a elephant in a zoo owns the zoo. We want the stuff because there is a potentially hostile race of aliens with advanced tech and a disregard for personal freedom.

Ralin wrote:That's pure speculation.

Thats pure facts. They abducted clearly intelligent beings. They put them in a Human Park. They are more advanced as they built something even in the far off future year of 2017 with our massively shitty not really hoverboards hoverboards and Tupac holograms cannot even come close to.

Sure they might returns and say "our bad, sorry" but its equally likely they will return and want to create Human World. We don't know, hence we need to prepare should the aliens return with hostile intentions.

Ralin wrote:I like how at no point does "Ask the people who own that technology if they're willing to let you study it?" occur to you.

It did but they are very simple people with no understanding of science and technology who probably treat the station as a religious artifact. They have no understanding of want or need, don't know that people are starving, dying and their lives could be improved and saved with the tech on the station. Kinda hard to explain to them you want to pull off panels to examine the alien hard drives and circuits to defend ourselves because they think the people who we want to stop are gods and have no concept of a need to defend themselves. The only thing they see when we pull of the panels is us demons profaning some holy thing.

Ralin wrote:It's very possible. Fuckheads like you just wouldn't want to.

Yes, I don't want to leave 40,000 enslaved people on a station while we pull it apart to learn all its secrets and risk dying if we pull the wrong lever or something. I don't want to leave the human race vulnerable to being abducted and turned into zoo animals. I don't want 40,000 people to remain zoo animals.

Why would fuckheads like you want to put 40,000 people at risk of dying if we try to obtain tech to defend ourselves and improve all of humanity, why would you be okay with leaving our asses to be probed by potentially hostile alien lifeforms, why are you okay with 40,000 people still being kept in a zoo with no freedom or anything?

Ralin wrote:Yeah, I'm SURE that within a few years we can build the capacity to move 40,000 people from space to Earth using 1980s technology!

Yeah I'm sure too, glad we could agree on that. Its not just 1980s technology, its 1980s technology given a massive boost from alien technology. Plus the aliens had to get the humans off the planet in the first place, its entirely possible whatever ships or transporters that got the initial abductees on the station still exist to get them off.

Ralin wrote:Okay, fuck you. Who died and made you God? Where do you get off deciding that your way of being human is more valid than theirs?

The fact I have freedom, free will to go and makes some babies, I can move, I can feed myself, dress myself, and generally be a human means my way of being human is more valid. Their way of being human is not being human, its being a zoo animal, a pet.

Tell me that being a zoo animal with no freedoms or control of their own lives is any valid form of being human?

Simon_Jester wrote:Probably not, but we should at least try to figure out a way to offer the option to them. Also, there will be Earth-humans moving into their space station anyway, so there's going to be interaction, so it'd be only reasonable if we at least try to... interface with them. Make sure there's some degree of understanding so they don't become convinced we really ARE demons trying to destroy them.

They should have an opportunity to integrate with the larger Earth civilization, if they want. Not have that choice made paternalistically for them. Then we'd be no better than the aliens who locked sentient beings up in a zoo.

Think of them as like the Amish. Amish people are free to decide to leave Amish country and live like regular people instead. Most of them don't, but they have that right. And it would be wrong to deny them that right.

The Amish understand technology and the modern world, haven't been zoo animals for thousands of years even if they probably feel like a zoo animal anytime some asshole tourist comes to their areas and gawks at them. The people on the station are so damn removed from humanity it will probably take years for them to start to understand what they hell we are talking about. Its not insurmountable though.

The real problem is they think Earth is hell. Would you want to go to some place your people's legend say is nothing but pain and misery even if the nice people in the funny animal skins say its actually a pretty decent place except New Jersey? I doubt anyone would leave.

But even if we wanted to leave them in their comfortable cages that might be dangerous as we study the station. To really study it we are going to have to do more then Chakotay's passive scans, we're actually going to have to take shit apart and go where we aren't supposed to. We're probably going to have to destroy the robot force guarding and maintaining the station to even try to interact with the zoo humans and to study shit. So they are going to be on a station with no one keeping it maintained and with people poking and prodding and pulling levers and pushing buttons on a completely alien piece of technology. The robots that kept order and kept their cages clean are gone. Any fuck-up on the explorers part could suck all the air out or let in direct sunlight or make it rain acid.

I think it'd be better to get them out of harms way while we do our thing so they don't all die.

Simon_Jester wrote:Dunno. Maybe because they're not in the system catalogue? Depending on how the builders treated other humans, maybe they'll view the astronauts as human 'slaves' who have somehow gotten separated from builder 'masters' and try to corral them. Dunno.

I get the mental image of them trying to take the first astronauts that land and stick them into the zoo after chipping them. Probably wind up the US and USSR having to send the Marines/Spetnaz on some rescue mission.

Simon_Jester wrote:Nonsense. Their claim to the station is excellent; they're the sole inhabitants of the place for the last several hundred years.

Granted, they didn't build it- but you didn't build the planet you live on and I bet you didn't build the structure you live IN, either. Granted, they can't fix it if it breaks- but most Americans can't fix the buildings they live in, and they certainly can't fix the land they live ON when it gets polluted or globally warmed or whatever. Their claim is much stronger than that of, say, white people in the US, because their ancestors didn't steal the station. The station originally had a set of owners, but those owners abandoned it centuries ago. By any Earthly standard of law, it'd be terra nullius... EXCEPT THAT PEOPLE LIVE THERE, so it belongs to them.

And retroactively making up new rules to justify claiming that they don't own a place they've lived in for centuries is exactly the kind of evil stupidity that leads to the worst parts of the age of imperialism.

The robots have been the beings inhabiting the station, the humans have been in more or less cages. Yeah they'd probably have more claim the Earth humans but its a bit different then most land problems. These are primitive people abducted and forced onto an artificial construct kept repaired by machines that keep them enslaved, their entire lives are infantile with no understand of how to take care of themselves or any way of doing so. If we break the machines we break their entire way of live and possibly the entire station. If we don't break the machines they are still going to be enslaved and we might follow if the aliens return.

Simon_Jester wrote:Exactly why do you think we have to destroy their ability to continue to live on the station in order to learn from its technology.

The robots will try to stop us from liberating the humans and probably even examining the technology. We are going to have to stop them if we want to do those things and with no robots the station will eventually start degrading but before that the zoo humans entire way of life will be disrupted with no robots changing their diapers and breaking up their fights. They cannot survive without the station meeting their every need.

We are going to also want to examine deeply the technology that the station is made up, intrusively and sometimes even destructively. People learn things by taking them apart and taking apart the guts of a space station in the super deadly void of space can have very bad effects on the people living on the station.

I doubt anyone would be content with just passive examination, we would be tearing it apart atleast partially. And again, can have bad effects on the inhabitants. If we don't remove them we might be sentencing them to a death sentence either through the destruction of their support system or just killing them outright through some tech failure from people poking at shit.

Joun_Lord · Post by **Joun_Lord** » 2017-02-04 07:03pm

Zixinus wrote:Basic morals: Two wrongs do not make a right.

Just because it was wrong to put them there, forcefully evicting them and shoving them back to Earth isn't automatically the right thing to do. Not after 6000 years. Maybe with the original kidnap victims, but not now.

No its not automatically the right thing to do but neither is leaving them in bondage. They are on a group of enslaved individuals on station that might wind up being rendered uninhabitable. Just leaving them alone is out of the question even if for some reason we left them on the station, any way it goes their lives are going to change.

Zixinus wrote:What chains of servitude? They are not forced to do anything but live in a world more comfortable than any other place on Earth.

They are forced to be in a zoo. They are forced to have babies only when their overseers say. Yeah they live a comfortable life but one without even the slightest freedom. A comfortable cage is still a cage.

Zixinus wrote:Native americans often spoke about not owning the land they lived on either. Yet when settlers forcefulyl evicted and/or exterminated them for the land, it was still theft.

Your reasoning is bullshit for the exact same reason. The natives have more right to the station than any other human being.

Native Americans actually worked and used their land, actually were free individuals who were not forced to America and could take care of themselves. The people on the station are not like the Native Americans in any sort of way beyond being there first.

Zixinus wrote:No, they don't have much respect for human's intelligence and self-determination. They clearly have great deal of respect for their lives. They have clearly gone to great lengths to ensure that the humans in the zoo survive and thrive.

A life of without freedom is no life at all. Slave masters in the South went to great lengths to ensure their slaves survived and thrived but they didn't do so for any noble reasons or because of any respect for human life. They did so because strong healthy slaves suited their purposes. The aliens have strong healthy humans for all the alien kids to gawk at behind to safety glass.

Zixinus wrote:Excuses. The first assumption is silly. If they wanted harm to humanity, they would have just sent an astredoid killer or a series of designed plaques that could wipe humans off Earth without damanign anything else. They clearly have the technological means to do so. Instead, they have taken small samples of them and otherwise left the original wild species alone.

I think taking thousands of people against their will was harming humanity. They didn't want to wipe out humanity, they wanted animals for exhibits. Kinda hard to get exhibit animals dropping asteroids on the planet. Thinking they didn't mean harm just because they didn't wipe us out is like thinking slavers in Africa didn't mean the Africans harm because they didn't kill all of the natives and only took small samples of them while letting everyone else live.

Zixinus wrote:The second assumption is a big maybe. You are assuming that the station's technology can be easily reverse-engineered. Technology isn't just a bunch of blueprints that once you have, you know like getting points of tech-tree in a video game.

To start off with, you'd have to learn the completely alien language, culture and whatnot of the zoo-keepers. You cannot hope to understand and interact with their technology without that. Then there are the physics, chemistry and whatnot behind the technology alone may be unknown and thus cannot be reverse-engineered until they are learned. This means that it can easily can take centuries to truly make any progress in gaining the technology, if it is possible at all.

I'm not assuming its easy, hence why I said the people on the station could be put in danger while we try to reverse engineer the tech. We would have to tear alot of stuff apart including stuff that might be keeping the stations exhibits alive to learn how stuff works. As you said, we have to learn the language to interact with the technology meaning even if there are blueprints we couldn't read them or access them. The way to learn the tech is through destructive reverse engineering, taking things apart, stuff liek that.

Zixinus wrote:Meanwhile, the lives on board the station have to be decided on from the start, with their human rights and their own choices accounted for.
Failure to do anything else is morally bankrupt. If you are going to slaughter the humans to loot the station, then say so and don't pretend to be on any moral highground.

To have human rights they need to be given them, they need to be given the ability to choose. To do so is going to change their way of life massively even if we never take them off the station or try to exploit its tech.

The fact is we ARE going to exploit its tech for good or bad reasons and doing so while they are still reliant of the tech will slaughter them. I'd like that not to happen, hence why I wanted to remove them. To use the Ba'ku example from Trek, using the magic plot radiation of the rings would kill the space elves thus removing them saves their lives. To try to use the magic fountain of youth radiation while still having a Ba'ku on the planet means they all die which is probably a bad thing.

Zixinus wrote:Also, here's another possibility for you: the zoo-keepers could return at any time. They will definitely take account of what humans have done to the station and the brethen therein.

What do you want to find? That the humans from Earth have enlightened their brethen and have begun to work together to attain new technological heights? Or that the humans of Earth have ruthleswsly slaughtered those on the station in order to find better weapons to kill each other back on Earth?

Hell, for all we know, this could be a test from the zoo-keepers to gauge the morality and friendliness of modern humans.

The fact that the zoo keepers don't care enough about humans to treat them like other intelligent beings show they probably don't care enough for any tests of morality. They'd probably wouldn't care that their zoo animals are dead or gone beyond the fact they have to replace them.

And if it was a test of morality they did it in a very immoral way, abducting and enslaving countless generations of intelligent beings. Thats the equivalent of actually doing that abortion morality test for realisies, setting on fire a building with a living baby and 50 embryos and seeing which one some abortion freak would save. Kinda lose the moral high ground by endangering a baby.

Zixinus wrote:You are still using excuses and assumptions to justify the forced deportation (if not the accidental or deliberate extermination) of an otherwise self-sufficient people. All because they are in the way.

Self sufficient my pimply behind. They are self sufficient as my lazy ass cat trapped in my house. The fact I give him kitty food and water and take him to the vet when he's hurt doesn't mean he's self sufficient, means he's entirely reliant on me to keep him alive. And they'd wind up the same as my cat if I died suddenly, they die too. Nobody to feed them, clothe them, heal them, they die. If the technology keeping them alive in the deadly vacuum of space (which sounds like an epic blowjob nickname) stops working they die. If anything changes in their caged lives they die without outside help.

Zixinus wrote:An incredibly naive assumption. Even if we somehow learn the tech quickly, it would takes decades to create the infrastructure to transport so many people. Not to mention the problem of actually placing them anywhere.

I'm not saying it would be easy but its not an insurmountable problem and one that would definitely need solved if we are exploiting the stations tech. Kinda give people a kick in the pants if its the choice between letting a shitton of people die or not getting new toys to play with. Plus as I said in another post whatever technology got them off Earth might still be available to return them

Placing them is again easy, 40,000 people is nothing.

Zixinus wrote:You clearly have not paid any attention to my previous posts: these people CANNOT integrate into modern human society, even civilized ones. They are a seperate sub-species from whom certain capabilities have been, accidentally or intentionally, bred out. Any life on Earth would be inferior to the one they have been bred to accustume for 6000 years.

Besides, what makes you think that if they knew and understood everything, that they would WANT this kind of life?

You are making their choices for them. You are dicating their lives and how they should live. You are doing the exact same thing that the zoo-keepers have done to them.

The only difference between them is that you are doing it because they would be in the way of getting the technology.

I paid attention and do respect you opinion on it but I disagree completely. People here on Earth from incredibly primitive tribes thousands of years removed from civilization managed to integrate into completely alien societies. The main problem for the zoo humans is teaching them how to take care of themselves.

Any life, even a less comfortable one, would be superior because they'd actually be living, they'd be free. Yeah they might want a life of being zoo animals, of being slaves, but even modern society with its emphasis on self determination draws the line on people selling themselves into slavery or being owned by someone else. Slavery, even nice slavery, is something we should never be cool with.

We have to make a choice for them because they have no ability to do so their own. We have to choose for them to set them free even if we do nothing else. Yeah its shitty forcing someone to do something but I don't see any other choice save allowing them to remain zoo animals and thats a choice that should not be on the table. We have to do set them free to determine their own lives, to be people again.

Zixinus wrote:The zoo-keepers done it to present the wonder of Earth humans to their own kind without having to necessarily interfere with human life in its own habitat. At the least. This speaks of higher intentions than yours.

They took intelligent beings, stuck them in cages, controlled every aspect of their lives, bred them for servitude and you think they have higher intentions? Even if I was wanting to kill all of them to greedily plunder all the gold......I mean technology under their feets like you think I do I'd still have higher intentions because I'd just want to kill them rather then force them, the children you forced them to have, their children and so on for thousands of years into a life of slavery for my entertainment. Thats about the lowest intention you can get.

But I don't want to kill them, I want to give them back their lives that were stolen.

Zixinus wrote:OP said nothign about removing pain or even fear from them. What they have is that most of their pain is managable and that they would have relatively little to fear trough their lives compared to say, rainforest bushmen.

They have no pain, it wasn't removed biologically but through their environment. They are like some really sheltered person who had never experienced pain or fear because their entire they live in a bubble free of those things. Or like a really young child around a hot stove, he doesn;t understand that the stove cause pain and has no fear of it because he's never experience a red hot burner.

Zixinus wrote:That's like saying that schoolchildren are killers because they have fights from time to time.

Schoolchildren do kill each other on occasion. But thats beside the point, the zoo humans are not going to have the same taboo against fighting that they do against the robots as they do to other people. If they feel threatened or are driven to fear they will lash out against other people as they already do even with the robots around.

Zixinus wrote:The problem is that you assume that they will instantly try to murder the demons.

They will not because they have been conditioned against such behaviour. Their far more likely first response will be either to invoke the zoo-keepers or somehow try to pacify the demons.

I didn't assume that. But I think they might be driven to violence by several factors including people from hell, people from hell poking around stuff built by their gods, and people from hell that might be asking or trying to force them to go back to hell. They might respond with violence.

Zixinus wrote:The problem is you assuming that this is going to be their first response. It is far morel ikely that such things will occur to them after they have learned it the hard way, ie, when soldiers come in and slaughter them so scientists can access some technological gadget. Most likely, it will happen after this happens many, many times.

You do not get my point that these people have NO knowledge of warfare. The only fighting to them would be on the level of schoolyard fights between individuals who lost self-control. Nothing higher.

Again, it is more likely that they would attempt to bribe the incoming demons or do other actions that they can do with each other.

And the thing is, charging into machine gun fire is still going to get them killed. In case you didn't know: marching into machine gun fire is suicidal and you will lose. Especially when you have no concept of warfare or any weapons comparable to the enemy's.

Even a relatively small force of soldiers can easily pacify a 40k population (of which, remember, a substantial number are children and eldery).

I don't think that would be their first response but it still might happen especially with the right triggers. I'd assume they'd be initially welcoming though weary. They might go to violence later on if given reasons, if they don't lie scientists accessing gadgets or something else.

Lack of knowledge of warfare doesn't mean jack, an angry mob is still an angry mob no matter what. And angry mob that could hurt or kill people, even far more technologically advanced people, when they have a massive numbers advantage. They will have numbers. The same technological problems that prevent the zoo humans from being removed means that the number of Earth humans would be low for some time.

Why would the zoo humans have any knowledge of bribery, they have not concept of need so have no concept of attempting to obtain things. Considering their masters are robots they more then likely have no concept of trying to bribe people in power either

The fact they have no knowledge of warfare, no understanding of pain or death by fighting, and massive numbers means even though the soldiers have machine guns (which most soldiers don't, most soldiers have assault rifles with limited ammo pools that can't really slaughter people quite as well as a belt fed machine gun can) the zoo humans might still charge them and even kill some. They won't win, not in the long run even if they wipe out all the demons by drowning them in bodies. But doesn't mean they won't fight back if they feel threatened.

Zixinus wrote:Let me reposit the question: Do you honestly think that either superpower will worry about exterminating the humans on the stations and keeping their once-existence a secret, all in desperate order to gain advantage over the other?

If its a secret? Yeah, they're dead. The US and USSR would be pissing themselves at the tech they just got their hands on and probably be drooling they got another common enemy to massively boost military spending. One thing that brought the Americans and the Soviets together is mutual hatred and evil space aliens would be even better then the Nazis. The station would eventually become public knowledge, the humans onboard would only become public knowledge to sell the evil space aliens angle and they'd probably be talked about solely in the past tense.

If its public knowledge the station is out there and civilian radio telescopes should probably be able to find it so I see no reason why it should be a secret then I'd hope the public would be bleeding hearts and rally around the "star people" or whatever they wind up being called, a bunch of Mtv artists would have some "Star Aid" to raise money to help the poor space people, there would be bumper stickers showing support, Dan Rather or Walter Cronkite would have a live broadcast from the station, and some shady 80s businessman with a massive cocaine habit would make a killing on merchandising.

Simon_Jester · Post by **Simon_Jester** » 2017-02-04 09:02pm

Joun_Lord wrote:
Simon_Jester wrote:Probably not, but we should at least try to figure out a way to offer the option to them. Also, there will be Earth-humans moving into their space station anyway, so there's going to be interaction, so it'd be only reasonable if we at least try to... interface with them. Make sure there's some degree of understanding so they don't become convinced we really ARE demons trying to destroy them.

They should have an opportunity to integrate with the larger Earth civilization, if they want. Not have that choice made paternalistically for them. Then we'd be no better than the aliens who locked sentient beings up in a zoo.

Think of them as like the Amish. Amish people are free to decide to leave Amish country and live like regular people instead. Most of them don't, but they have that right. And it would be wrong to deny them that right.
The Amish understand technology and the modern world, haven't been zoo animals for thousands of years even if they probably feel like a zoo animal anytime some asshole tourist comes to their areas and gawks at them. The people on the station are so damn removed from humanity it will probably take years for them to start to understand what they hell we are talking about. Its not insurmountable though.

The real problem is they think Earth is hell. Would you want to go to some place your people's legend say is nothing but pain and misery even if the nice people in the funny animal skins say its actually a pretty decent place except New Jersey? I doubt anyone would leave.

I wouldn't be surprised if there's at least enough curiosity for a few people out of the forty thousand to want to come check it out- which is realistically all we could manage anyway, for decades. The point is that while the vast bulk of the population there is clearly going to want to live on the station, some may want to leave, and they should at least get the chance to do so. Conversely, those who want to stay should not be prevented from staying, nor should we gratuitously wreck their space station so that it becomes unlivable for them.

But even if we wanted to leave them in their comfortable cages that might be dangerous as we study the station. To really study it we are going to have to do more then Chakotay's passive scans, we're actually going to have to take shit apart and go where we aren't supposed to. We're probably going to have to destroy the robot force guarding and maintaining the station to even try to interact with the zoo humans and to study shit. So they are going to be on a station with no one keeping it maintained and with people poking and prodding and pulling levers and pushing buttons on a completely alien piece of technology. The robots that kept order and kept their cages clean are gone. Any fuck-up on the explorers part could suck all the air out or let in direct sunlight or make it rain acid.

If we have to go that far, bluntly, we should delay serious poking of the station, until such time as we have the means to evacuate the inhabitants. Which may take decades, or even a century. It's an atrocity to screw around with the life support systems of people we can't rescue if said life support systems break.

And don't even bother telling me "well, it's the Cold War, so Hard Men will make Hard Choices while Hard" or whatever. I'm not interested in talking about what 'realistically' gets done in a completely imaginary situation right now.

Simon_Jester wrote:Nonsense. Their claim to the station is excellent; they're the sole inhabitants of the place for the last several hundred years.

Granted, they didn't build it- but you didn't build the planet you live on and I bet you didn't build the structure you live IN, either. Granted, they can't fix it if it breaks- but most Americans can't fix the buildings they live in, and they certainly can't fix the land they live ON when it gets polluted or globally warmed or whatever. Their claim is much stronger than that of, say, white people in the US, because their ancestors didn't steal the station. The station originally had a set of owners, but those owners abandoned it centuries ago. By any Earthly standard of law, it'd be terra nullius... EXCEPT THAT PEOPLE LIVE THERE, so it belongs to them.

And retroactively making up new rules to justify claiming that they don't own a place they've lived in for centuries is exactly the kind of evil stupidity that leads to the worst parts of the age of imperialism.
The robots have been the beings inhabiting the station, the humans have been in more or less cages.

If you grew up on an island, where your parents were sent as prisoners, you still live on the island. You are one of the inhabitants. It doesn't matter if you can't "operate" the island or couldn't have built the island for yourself. It's still the place you live, and if someone wants to talk about destroying the island, they should damn well consult you first.

These aren't pet birds in cages who are too stupid to be talked about as having 'rights' other than 'don't torture them.' They are self-aware beings who have their own culture and writing. They're people.

Yeah they'd probably have more claim the Earth humans...

It's not just that they have more claim to their space station than you have to their home. It's that they have more claim to their space station than you have to your home. You are, unless I'm much mistaken, the descendant of people who stole the continent they live on from other people by killing off most of the inhabitants and taking their land. So am I. But the space station people? They never stole anything from anyone. They just plain live there. The only other 'inhabitants' are non-sentient machines who are no different from wild animals for legal purposes.

Joun_Lord · Post by **Joun_Lord** » 2017-02-04 10:11pm

Simon_Jester wrote:I wouldn't be surprised if there's at least enough curiosity for a few people out of the forty thousand to want to come check it out- which is realistically all we could manage anyway, for decades. The point is that while the vast bulk of the population there is clearly going to want to live on the station, some may want to leave, and they should at least get the chance to do so. Conversely, those who want to stay should not be prevented from staying, nor should we gratuitously wreck their space station so that it becomes unlivable for them.

If they get over the notion that we are the demons (then John was a zombie) and that Earth is hell, maybe. The biggest barrier is education and whether they'd even be open to learning or willing to teach us their own language or languages (which might make things even harder if there is multiple languages all of which are based on dialects from 6,000 years ago including possibly some extinct ones).

Simon_Jester wrote:If we have to go that far, bluntly, we should delay serious poking of the station, until such time as we have the means to evacuate the inhabitants. Which may take decades, or even a century. It's an atrocity to screw around with the life support systems of people we can't rescue if said life support systems break.

And don't even bother telling me "well, it's the Cold War, so Hard Men will make Hard Choices while Hard" or whatever. I'm not interested in talking about what 'realistically' gets done in a completely imaginary situation right now.

Realistically, and you have to be realistic about this, all but the most bleeding heart is not going to want to wait a century to get the benefits of whatever the station can offer the whole of humanity. And with aliens being real and potentially dickbags of dicks even today far removed from the Cold War despite Obama and Putin's best efforts people are going to want to be protected from being turned into a zoo animal.

Even getting the carrying capacity to move the zoo people should they want to leave or should they need to leave or should people be dicks and force them to leave will involve trying to figure out the alien tech, possibly whatever ship or system transported the original zoo animals. It could be decades or longer before we develop spacecraft able to move enough people to have any realistic chance of evacing the station.

Simon_Jester wrote:If you grew up on an island, where your parents were sent as prisoners, you still live on the island. You are one of the inhabitants. It doesn't matter if you can't "operate" the island or couldn't have built the island for yourself. It's still the place you live, and if someone wants to talk about destroying the island, they should damn well consult you first.

These aren't pet birds in cages who are too stupid to be talked about as having 'rights' other than 'don't torture them.' They are self-aware beings who have their own culture and writing. They're people.

It would be like if I grew up on some pirate island where I was the descendant of prisoners and was a prisoner myself because while the pirates are long gone their pet monkey's rule me. I am still there against my will and unable to leave if I so choose and completely reliant on the monkey's feeding me. Also in a quite unlikely turn of events the island contains the fountain of youth and even more improbably a working form of US health care reform (clearly this is some fantasy island where impossible things happen).

My claim to the island is stronger then most but still, I'm not from the island really, I was forced to be there as was my ancestors. And while I live there now the island can do more good for more people then just being a place where I crap and hang my Linkin Park posters.

I'm not saying it would be exactly right to kick my ass out but its also not right to put my comfort above the lives of potentially millions.

Simon_Jester wrote:It's not just that they have more claim to their space station than you have to their home. It's that they have more claim to their space station than you have to your home. You are, unless I'm much mistaken, the descendant of people who stole the continent they live on from other people by killing off most of the inhabitants and taking their land. So am I. But the space station people? They never stole anything from anyone. They just plain live there. The only other 'inhabitants' are non-sentient machines who are no different from wild animals for legal purposes.

As far as I know the majority of my family is relatively recent immigrants but my family is also such massive whores that I'm sure some of my ancestors are older colonists who did shitty things to the Natives, the Natives themselves, and probably a few farm animals if that were possible.

But anyway, my family mostly came here by choice. The zoo people were forced to be where they are and put into a very limited hamster wheel existence in cages. Even if they don't need repatriated to Earth they still hold a very tenuous claim on the station. Much of it they do not have access to, they cannot maintain or repair it, they cannot even maintain themselves. If they had a life beyond being a zoo animal they'd probably have more of a claim but as it stands they don't.

If the station stops working they die. They are completely reliant on alien technology and the whims of some long unseen alien master who kidnapped their ancestors to survive. The aliens who kidnapped them own the station, they just left it unattended for awhile.

We, the people of Earth and the zoo humans, both have claim to the station despite it being owned because its our people stolen and put on it to be someones dancing monkey. Slavery of sapient life I think gives a pretty good argument for impounding someones property.

So even if they the zoo people have a claim to the station for like reparations or something, they need to be set free first before they could exercise a claim. And the people of Earth have some claim too considering the zoo people were our people stolen.

Simon_Jester · Post by **Simon_Jester** » 2017-02-05 02:11am

Being kidnapped and forced to live in a place against their will does not give your descendants less of a claim to it. Or do the descendants of the early US's slaves have less right to live in America than the descendants of its slaveowners? How the hell does that make sense?

And I already pointed this out- the inhabitants' inability to repair or maintain the station is irrelevant to whether they have a right to it. You probably didn't build the structure you live in. And you certainly didn't build the continent you live on. If that continent it suddenly started sinking into the sea or undergoing an Ice Age, you'd be pretty helpless to do anything about it except run for your life, now wouldn't you? Does that mean you don't really have a right to a say in what happens to that continent? Could some random aliens with super planet-engineering powers just roll up to the Earth and say "lol, these people have no idea how to maintain or repair their planet, they don't have any real claim to it, they just happened to evolve here?"

If anything, the zoo inhabitants' inability to control the zoo makes the imperative to not fuck up their home without permission even stronger, because they are totally helpless and we are just straight-up murdering them in that case.

Ralin · Post by **Ralin** » 2017-02-05 07:53am

Simon_Jester wrote:Could some random aliens with super planet-engineering powers just roll up to the Earth and say "lol, these people have no idea how to maintain or repair their planet, they don't have any real claim to it, they just happened to evolve here?"

That would be not unlike how the original humans ended up on the zoo to begin with, if you think about it.

Simon_Jester · Post by **Simon_Jester** » 2017-02-05 05:11pm

Exactly.

It's absurd to claim that people don't have a right to possession of a territory, purely because they lack the ability to recreate that territory or fix it when it breaks.

Ralin · Post by **Ralin** » 2017-02-05 08:13pm

Simon_Jester wrote:Exactly.

It's absurd to claim that people don't have a right to possession of a territory, purely because they lack the ability to recreate that territory or fix it when it breaks.

Hell, worse really, since we don't know how badly off those original humans were or even if they actually agreed to go in the first place. As oppression goes, having to follow rules like "Don't kill each other" and "Don't shit in the water" are pretty damned mild ones.

Note how there's nothing stopping them from having whatever literature and arts they please.

I also like how Joun has also spontaneously generated what amounts to a new racial epithet for these hypothetical people and jumped right ahead to the "We have to civilize them and teach them how to act like real people!" part of imperialism without a trace of irony or self-awareness.

StarDestroyer.Net BBS

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