Following my last two posts regarding the political situation in Arizona, I thought that this week I’d move back to looking at creativity, but still manage to link it in with politics. Science fiction/fantasy writers are presented with a unique opportunity/challenge; that of creating a brand new world(s)/society for the story to unfold in. We are no longer bound by Earth’s history and regional prejudices and we can invent whatever we want. For me, this was perhaps the trickiest part of the overall story. I didn’t want to just translate an Earth-based society into the rest of the galaxy and, as my galactic empire hadn’t any contact with Earth prior to fourteen years before the story begins, it wouldn’t make any sense either. And so my first job was to try to create something distinct. Obviously the advanced technology of the empire would have an impact, as would its star travelling ability but then what? I began by deciding that the empire was monolithic and they start off by being the only known intelligence in the galaxy until they find Earth. So no separate countries warring with each other. So far, so good. I decided to eschew using aliens, but left the door open for their possible inclusion in future stories and finally I decreed that there would be no religion in the empire.

I would like to state at this point that I am not necessarily anti-religion. I am most certainly against how people use and twist religion to fulfill their own desires, beliefs and prejudices. Please refer to my previous posts on events in Arizona for more on this.

So, having laid the ground rules for the empire, I then started to figure out how this might translate into laws and social etiquette. Most of the basic laws we have on Earth are fairly universal; don’t kill, don’t steal, etc. These all make sense and to me they are all the same thing; someone imposing their will on others. You forcibly deprive someone of their life, goods, liberty, whatever. So this became the core principle of law in my empire and everything else stems from it. Then I sat and started to consider some of the laws we have on Earth that don’t fall under this principle. Not surprisingly, I found most of them to be religious in origin.  Things such as what you can eat or drink, what clothes you can wear, who you can marry… the list goes on and obviously varies from country to country. And so I ended up scrapping these in my empire. Marriage is completely social in nature and open. Same sex marriages are perfectly normal and although unusual, polygamous marriages are also acceptable. The only thing I retained was a law against incest because of the genetic issue. So people are free to maintain whatever relationships they want. They are codified in a contract between the partners so everyone understands what the limits of the relationship are. Seems pretty obvious. Clothing becomes a matter of convenience with the only stipulation being that genitals should be covered unless in a designated nudity area. This doesn’t mean that my empire is chock full of nudists… far from it. My thinking on this came from observing the people in my home state, Arizona. For those who aren’t aware of the climate here, it starts at hot and goes upwards. But most people don’t walk around in bikinis or swim trunks. They cover up to avoid being crisped by the sun. Let’s not discount the usefulness of things like pockets to store stuff, And let’s face it, no one is going nude in places like Alaska in the winter either, not unless they want to risk some delicate body parts falling off. So clothing becomes more about protection from the elements where required, and fashion after that. Modesty comes way down the list. Even so, I speculate that most people would choose a certain minimum of clothing out of sheer comfort. And so on. People in the empire are free to live how they want and believe whatever they want to believe, they just aren’t allowed to insist that others have to follow them.

This, then, is the philosophy of the empire; Equality for all, regardless of gender, sexual preference, planetary origin or beliefs and a commitment to live and let live. With all the paraphernalia of various prejudices stripped from the law, this, to me, seems to be a rational philosophy. Is it too simplistic and naive? Maybe, but with examples such as the attempts to pass the so-called religious freedom laws in various states of the US and numerous other restrictive laws in place around the world, maybe it wouldn’t be such a bad legal system to live under. I welcome all comments and thoughts as usual