United Nations panel discusses extraterrestrial war and peace

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Today a select group of United Nations officials learn about war and peace from the perspective of life on an extraterrestrial mothership with much battle experience. It won’t however be real life extraterrestrial veterans imparting their knowledge of war and peace in space, but the creators and cast members from the popular TV series, Battlestar Galactica. The UN Department of Public Information (DPI) and the Sci Fi channel are co-hosting the event which will be moderated by Whoopi Goldberg. The event will explore “themes of importance to both the United Nations and Battlestar Galactica." These include: human rights; children and armed conflict; terrorism; and “reconciliation and dialogue among civilizations and faiths.” It is hoped that discussing themes in relation to the Sci Fi series which depicts extraterrestrial civilizations experiencing war and peace will give fresh perspectives on contemporary global problems.

Juan Carlos Brandt, Chief of Advocacy and Special Events at the UN explained that the initiative grew out of the Sci Fi channel’s interest in participating in the Secretary-General’s Creative Outreach Initiative. The initiative was launched in July 2008 by Secretary-General Ban Ki Moon and aimed to foster collaboration between the entertainment industry and the UN. “They came to us and explained that there were themes common to both the show and the UN” according to Mr. Brandt, and “that those themes could be discussed here in a serious manner.” He explained that this will be the first time that a TV show has been invited to participate in a UN panel discussion. A webcast and a transcript of the panel discussion is planned to be later released by the Sci Fi channel.

The choice of Battlestar Galactica to cast light on global conflicts is intended to seriously explore the virtues of reconciling cultures with a history of armed conflict. The show depicts human looking extraterrestrials looking for a new world inhabited by a thirteenth tribe of humanity that escaped the genocidal war that destroyed the home worlds of the original twelve human tribes. The 50,000 humans that escaped the carnage are pursued by a group of cybernetic extraterrestrials called Cylons bent on the destruction of all human life. The Cylons begin to replicate with organic bodies and infiltrate the escaping human society. By the end of the fourth season of the show, the humans and Cylons have learned the painful lessons of war. They were finally ready to seriously embark on a new adventure of reconciliation and dialogue, by integrating the two warring extraterrestrial groups into a new species.

I asked Mr Brandt “in what way does the Battlestar Galactica depiction of extraterrestrial life practicing reconciliation and dialogue assist humanity in preparations for a future where extraterrestrial life may be discovered?” He responded with a selection from a speech from Asha-Rose Migiro, Deputy Secretary-General of the United Nations:

Nobody can close their doors to cultural intervention. And if we're talking of peace and security, we have to talk of the different cultures that there are, the different beliefs, and how human beings should learn to live with one another.  So this is one way that also contributes to peace, contributes to stability and, therefore, creates the conditions for development."

Battlestar Galactica takes themes related to past genocidal conflicts and more recent ethnic cleansing campaigns, to the level of a planet wide war of extermination by cybernetic extraterrestrials that have learned to infiltrate human society. This would certainly not be the form of “cultural intervention” envisaged by Ms Migiro. However, is it coincidental that another famous Hollywood actor, President Ronald Reagan, who visited the UN said something eerily similar about the cultural intervention to be expected from extraterrestrial life, and the need for humanity to unite?

The possibility of cultural intervention by extraterrestrials was considered in 1960 by the Brookings Institute that was commissioned by NASA to write a report to the US Congress about the peaceful uses of space. The Brookings Report described the cultural impact of the discovery of extraterrestrial life and the risk of civilizational collapse. The report said:

The consequences for attitudes and values are unpredictable, but would vary profoundly in different cultures and between groups within complex societies; a crucial factor would be the nature of the communication between us and the other beings. Whether or not earth would be inspired to an all-out space effort by such a discovery is moot: societies sure of their own place in the universe have disintegrated when confronted by a superior society, and others have survived even though changed. Clearly, the better we can come to understand the factors involved in responding to such crises the better prepared we may be."

Among the UN officials scheduled to attend the Battlestar Galactic panel discussion is Dr Robert Orr, Assistant Secretary General for Policy Coordination and Strategic Planning. He earlier served at the U.S. National Security Council, where he was in charge of peacekeeping and humanitarian operations. If the United Nations were to ever be seriously confronted with issues of reconciliation and dialogue with extraterrestrial life in conflict with humanity, Dr. Orr would be high on the list of UN officials qualified to lead such an effort.
 
The themes of human rights; children and armed conflict; terrorism; and “reconciliation and dialogue among civilizations and faiths”, are certainly perennial global problems worth considering from a fresh perspective. The UN can benefit greatly from considering these themes from the perspective offered by the creators and cast of the Battlestar Galactica series. The choice of Battlestar Galactica in discussing themes of war and peace from a fictional extraterrestrial perspective, however, does run a risk. The show perpetuates the anthropomorphic idea that genocidal human conflict is as much a part of extraterrestrial behaviors as they are human. While humanity may have much experience with genocidal conflict, it is certainly not something that ought to be automatically projected onto extraterrestrial life. The UN may well consider implementing a 1978 UN General Assembly Decision (33/426) that called for “Member States to take appropriate steps to coordinate on a national level scientific research and investigation into extraterrestrial life.” Perhaps then humanity would not risk mistakenly projecting genocidal human conflict to possible galactic neighbors.