“…Rura Penthe was said to be an ‘asteroid archipelago’ in the script for Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country, though the same screenplay otherwise treated it as a single asteroid (with two references to things being ‘on Rura Penthe’) and dialogue in the film also established Rura Penthe as a single asteroid.”
George Zebrowski: “It is the twenty-first century. Convicts are sentenced to asteroids that move in ever-widening solar orbits, timed to return when their terms run out. But a few ambitious administrators discover that small ‘errors’ in velocity can rid them of selected groups altogether: the hardcore violent, the mentally defective, and especially the political dissidents. Enduring the black vise of interstellar space-time, these human rejects--men and women mixed together--create their own Darwinian societies, struggling to survive. Back on Earth, a handful of sympathetic and curious scientists have not forgotten these lost citizens. When a technological breakthrough makes it possible to overtake these scattered asteroids, a courageous team sets out to go where none has willingly gone before. What they discover in these ‘brute orbits’ is both provocative and moving--a startling vision of humanity you will never forget.
So, my idea for making prisons out of asteroids isn’t new; but then, in the Bible, it’s written in Ecclesiastes 1:9 “What has been, it is what will be, And what has been done, it is what will be done. So there is nothing new under the sun.”
What am I bringing new to the concept in my short story, “Rez Ex of the Space Drones vs the Brigands of Space”?
Couple things: My prisoners are trained (one might say “brutally”) with the intent of creating a team who will not JUST serve their time, but create something of value for (supposedly “all of Humanity”, but in reality, some corporation that has invested in the infrastructure of an asteroid with the ability to house the prisoners, mine identified minerals, and make a profit – while offering anyone who survives and behaves themselves WHILE making money for the company, will receive a pardon, as well as the opportunity to work-for-pay for the company and leave behind a crowded Earth and become among the first citizens of Sol…)
Of COURSE not everything goes as planned – either with the prisoners OR the mining; and the possibilities of wealth for the plucking without having to WORK for it is too much for some.
Now – notice I called the villains of my story “brigands” rather than “pirates” – which seems to be a normal way of naming the individuals who plunder the loot from others who came by the valuables at LEAST in an approved, criminal-prisoners-sort-of-way…
But why the change? Because of the definitions:
Pirate:
1) “a person who attacks and robs ships at sea.”
2) “a person who appropriates or reproduces the work of another for profit without permission, usually in contravention of patent or copyright.”
3) “rob or plunder (a ship).”
Brigand:
1) “a member of a gang that ambushes and robs people in forests and mountains.”
While neither one of the definitions is really accurate, brigand is the one that fits most of the facts best: “a gang”, and “mountains”. As far as pirates, there is no “sea (implying liquid water)” in space, the second isn’t appropriate (usually and certainly not in this story) because intellectual property isn’t part of the story at all, and again, while they might technically be plundering a “ship”, ships are generally understood to be on liquid water somewhere (though the argument could be made that a vehicle carrying people and their equipment in space COULD be called a “ship”, though just as easily, it could be called a wagon train or a dump truck, or even a “mobile mine”…
I’ve decided to call my erstwhile and stereotypical “pirates”, BRIGANDS instead.
Of COURSE, to keep the story moving, my “bad guys” act like stereotypical “pirates” who lived and worked in the Caribbean. However, Wikipedia notes: “Brigandage is the life and practice of highway (the orbit of an asteroid could certainly correctly be described as being on a “highway” around the Sun) robbery and plunder. It is practiced by a brigand, a person who is typically part of a gang and lives by pillage and robbery. (my bad guys/gals are CERTAINLY a gang who are attempting to create a new job by pillaging and robbing orbiting asteroid mines).
“The word brigand entered English as brigant via French from Italian as early as 1400. Under the laws of war, soldiers acting on their own recognizance without operating in chain of command are brigands, liable to be tried under civilian laws as common criminals. However, on occasions brigands are not mere malefactors, but may be rebels against a state or union perceived as the enemy.”
I find that this is enough for today; but NOT all I have to say!
Today’s Source:
Foundational Resource: (A general Wikipedia post detailing what the authors currently know about asteroid mining: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asteroid_mining)
Noted Resources: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_asteroid_close_approaches_to_Earth, https://www.pharostribune.com/news/local_news/article_7fcd3ea5-3c14-533f-a8d5-9bf629922f34.html, https://www.fool.com/investing/2022/04/29/like-asteroid-mining-be-careful-what-you-wish-for/, https://www.nps.gov/wrbr/learn/historyculture/theroadtothefirstflight.htm, https://hackaday.com/2019/03/27/extraterrestrial-excavation-digging-holes-on-other-worlds/, https://www.planetary.org/space-missions/every-small-worlds-mission
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