Star Trek: Corps of Engineers: Fables of the Prime Directive by Cory Rushton

Author:Cory Rushton
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Tags: Science Fiction, Star Trek, Fiction
ISBN: 9780743496834
Publisher: Pocket Books
Published: 2005-01-02T08:00:00+00:00

Personal log, Lieutenant Michael

Theivamanoharan, Stardate 7822.4

Sometimes I get the distinct feeling that Starfleet’s cultural specialists have spent the last twenty years following James Kirk around. True, this particular mess isn’t really his fault, but his solution left something to be desired. He’s turned the Federation into a protection racket, collecting a cut of the profits gathered by the planet’s mob bosses.

Granted, the profits have been steered into creating a more democratic and open society, with free elections and a growing planetary consensus. The Iotians might even be ready for an official first contact within fifty years, and Federation membership soon after that. But that’s only because the Federation Council threw so many of us at the problem after Enterprise left; call it collective guilt over the damage wrought by the Horizon’s unintended gift of a single book, Chicago Mobs of the Twenties. The Iotians were quick to emulate the culture they found in the book (why couldn’t the Horizon have left Pride and Prejudice , I ask?), but once adopted, some of these cultural patterns have proven to be lasting. Speech patterns, for instance; talk to any Iotian and it’s like being in a twentieth-century Mafia film.

Much of the progress made has been from encouraging a small subculture, which has found its model in Eliot Ness and other so-called “untouchables.” Iotians like Kall Porakan have worked to form honest police forces that bridge the gaps between the mob-controlled territories. These police forces have formed the basis for a rudimentary planetwide government, kept honest by their allegiance to the ideal they found reading between the lines of Chicago Mobs .

All in all, I can report that from an unpromising beginning, the Iotians are making this work. A word of caution is always necessary, however: we still don’t entirely understand the mechanisms by which the Iotians filled in the sociocultural gaps in their book. How much was guesswork, how much was precontact? It might be decades before we understand everything. Despite my cautious optimism, I can’t recommend expanded contact at this time.

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