A *NEW* Art of Plugging Away

What bothers me with some of the science fiction I grew up on is how naive even advanced alien species are to our ways.

Though my alien protagonist perceives us differently than how we view him, he is in no way unaware to the existence of racism, bigotry, and other systems of oppression. He comes from a galaxy-spanning star-system-traveling alien civilization. They have *seen* slavery before. They understand what bigotry looks like. 

One of the shows that really impressed me and may be time for a binge-watch was the TV series ALIEN NATION. It started with, I think, two TV movies, to give the setup before becoming a 45 min-1 hour per episode series. The show shaped how I thought about aliens, humans, racism, bigotry, and how such hateful tools can be used against an entire group. 

As what is often the purpose of alien-vs-human scifi, the story is to call more attention not so much to the strangeness of the alien, but how utterly strange and dysfunctional human beings can be and are, but, with some help from our star cousins, or their collective efforts to destroy us as a species, we can then have the opportunity to show moments of our highest evolved selves. 

I've gone back to the Edge

Funny how I struggled to write a Dystopia SF story and now with the entire world shut down under the weight of a global pandemic, I find it easier to write these stories now.