Alien Non-Interference Clause: Difference between revisions

* Much of the [[Strugatsky Brothers]]' [[Noon Universe]] novels revolve around various aspects of an [[Alien Non-Interference Clause]] and its plausibility:

** ''[[Hard to Be A God]]'' investigates how would a human observer fare on a planet stuck in [[The Dung Ages]], while allowed limited intervention at best (for example, he may save a promising scientist deemed heretical by the Inquisition but has no authority to stop the planet from sliding into even further barbarism after a corrupt church gains power).

* Amy Thomson's ''The Color of Distance'' and ''Through Alien Eyes'' have humanity making first contact with a technologically primitive society of froglike aliens called the Tendu. They have little technology, but they do have impressive medical abilities; they can physically modify creatures, including themselves and humans, and heal just about anything. Humanity has to make reparations for burning down an important chunk of rainforest before they knew the Tendu were there, but they can't violate the protocols in doing so, to the Tendu's frustration; they know what humans have and are fascinated by it. When one of the Tendu decides to come to Earth, he responds to some of the doubts by saying that he, too, will abide by the protocols, and not teach humanity anything that it's not ready for.

* Also in ''[[Darkover]]'' by [[Marion Zimmer Bradley]]: The humans have a directive never to interfere in the business of aliens, not even if the conflict seems as meaningless as the question [[Gulliver's Travels|how to open an egg]]. One really wonders who makes such stupid decisions.

== Webcomics ==

* In ''[[Spacetrawler]]'' "Dark Planets" home to sapient life with no significant space presence are not supposed to be contacted. The system is still ripe for exploitation: species can be declared non-sapient for spurious reasons like ''bad fashion sense'', and species who do achieve space travel immediately become fair game for any other species to conquer.

* Defeated in ''[[Schlock Mercenary]]'' [http://www.schlockmercenary.com/2002-02-05 here].