This is not an outline for an SF novel, it's an attempt to understand how economic imperialism works, using a science fiction theme as a metaphor. I'm trying to understand the relations between nations in modern times, particularly in the third world, without having to resort to good-guy, bad-guy models. Oh yeah, there are both good and bad guys, but they work for both sides. History deals primarily with economic forces, clashes of cultures, and the sum totals of individual human ambitions and actions. Simplistic models, like Capitalism vs Communism, or Democracy vs Fascism, may have some utility, but how do they help us with the Peleponesian War, or the American Civil War, or the Crusades? Can you think of one war in history where both sides did not believe they were righteous?

Are the aliens good or evil? Or are they just playing a role scripted out for them by the rules of a game they have chosen to play? They are obviously not interested in brutal conquest and genocide, they do have some kind of moral code, but by the end of my sketch it's pretty clear to see things are going to hell in a hurry. THey've got a war AND an insurgency on their hands.

Historians can look back through history and analyze these events abstractly, almost as biological or geological processes, but to the people involved it's about clashes of great personalities and villains and heroes, or even of great ideas. I'm sure the apocryphal participants in the Trojan War saw it as a morality play, but Homer saw it as a pointless tragedy unfolding with a momentum all its own. It is so ludicrous he has to bring the gods of Olympus in as the reason behind it all.

When we look back at conflicts in our recent past, some take on a moral dimension, there is no doubt Stalin and Hitler were monsters. But further back, it's not so clear to a dispassionate observer. When we look back at the First World War, for example, it is really hard to understand why so many people had to die. What the hell was that war about, anyway? The modern "causes" for the conflict, as identified by historians, would have been unknown to the participants. If the leaders of the Central Powers and the Allies could somehow read a modern history of that war and it's causes, they would no doubt think it utter bilge. They fought it for very different reasons, and the winners wrote the histories.

In other words, how can an entire country, or alliance be "right", and their opponents all be "wrong". And how much of the events of international conflict, or even history itself, be just a process unfolding more or less outside human control, sort of like digestion?

No, I'm not saying we should roll over and let people walk all over us. Aggression is real and every nation has a right to defend itself, as does every man. The world is full of bullies and sometimes they have to be taught a lesson, on the beaches of Iwo Jima or on a grade school playground. I'm just asking why is it so clear to us when we're fighting, and in a hundred or a thousand years no one remembers why? Or cares.