HRogge Wrote:It comes down to the point how far Fenspace dares to interfere with Earth.There's a strong undercurrent in the SMOFs (read: Mal and I push the agenda) that Earth should be left to its own devices unless they ask for help or they do something that affects a large segment of Fenspace. The Trekkies call it the Prime Directive.
HRogge Wrote:The meta question is: can we do this without derailing the story towards a bad end?I suspect not. While cultural imperialism may be better than the other kind, the 'Danelaw is very good at the other kind...
HRogge Wrote:Maybe we should decide (from a Meta point of view) if the 2013 US presidential election was won by the Anti-Fen-hardliners or not. The fact that the TSAB still goes strong in 2014 suggests that the Hardliners won, which might make 2017 the date when the US finally begins to cool down.TSAB still going strong could simply be bureaucratic inertia. Government agencies take longer to react to change than private-sector agencies do, and military agencies (with their strong military traditions) take longer to react to change than other government agencies do.
Besides, the TSAB remit includes reverse-engineering handwaved devices and making hardtech equivalents - that isn't going to go away simply because Artemis is competing with TSAB on the space-exploration front, and that means TSAB isn't going to go away any time soon.
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Rob Kelk
"Governments have no right to question the loyalty of those who oppose
them. Adversaries remain citizens of the same state, common subjects of
the same sovereign, servants of the same law."
- Michael Ignatieff, addressing Stanford University in 2012