Implacable Justice: Arguing Politics and Theories of Law Via the Encounter with Powerful Alien Species (Critical Essay‪)‬

Although the dystopia continues to beckon as the most obvious vehicle for authors wanting to argue their politics in science fiction, the human encounter with aliens is also employed for that purpose and enjoys one important competitive advantage over the dystopia. While both storylines permit authors to make claims about human nature and comment on the sorts of anxieties and grievances animating contemporary politics, the alien encounter allows authors to do so in a manner that is perhaps less obvious. This is because the reader's attention is drawn to the salient physical and behavioral differences of the alien Other rather than to behavioral differences among humans. Simple misdirection makes the political philosophical arguments made by the author more persuasive for mass audiences because the assumptions underlying them are less immediately available to critical examination by readers. Comparison of two recent series of novels in which primary characters are police officers on the frontlines of encounters with powerful alien species with non-human conceptions of justice--Kristine Kathryn Rusch's Retrieval Artist series and Karen Traviss's unfinished Wess'har Wars series--illustrate the sophistication with which such political argument may be smuggled into dramatic and effective science fiction story telling. Rusch and Traviss excel at telling riveting, internally consistent serial yarns while also arguing politics. They simultaneously make political philosophical claims about human nature and argue theories of law. Although they share similar views of human nature, they differ in the theories of law they advocate. Interrogating the claims they make about justice necessitates following the intended misdirection, focusing attention first on the aliens, and then on the human interaction with them.