The Ceti Files- An episodic tale- Epilogue

In this article, I describe the work that led to the crafting of three different stories. If you’re interested in reading them before proceeding, click on the links:

1. Cantara
2. Akarinas
3. Nakkas

In Star Trek, the Prime Directive is the principle for Starfleet members when it comes to interacting with other cultures in the time-space continuum.

No identification of self or mission;
No interference with the social development of said planet;
No reference to space, other worlds, or advanced civilizations

In the real world of Anthropological fieldwork here on Earth, interacting with other cultures is a necessary and sometimes difficult endeavor. We don't have the luxury of cloaking technology to infiltrate a culture unnoticed. To better understand the workings of a socio-cultural system, the anthropologist sometimes has to deeply immerse himself/herself in the culture under study. These cultures vary in size, location, language, beliefs, behaviors, and so forth. Describing them, as well as comparing and contrasting between them is key to have a comprehensive understanding of a people’s social and cultural organization (Angeloni, 1995).

The problem arises because at the cultural level, one cannot separate the different elements of culture. One cannot study the biologics of nutrition, for example, without also understanding basic matters of subsistence such as commerce and resource exchange. Thus, the narrow biological analysis is intricately interrelated with the higher level patterns of behavior and thought (Angeloni, 1995)

Thankfully, human beings are predictable in the sense that we interact with each other in patterned and repetitive ways. If you live in a society that uses currency to get business done, then there is a specific pattern by which commercial transactions and interchanges are conducted. The same goes for a society in which reciprocity is the rule.

The topic of reciprocity was studied by David Counts of McMaster University in Papa New Guinea. He stayed there with his family for several years conducting field work for his research. In his article, Too Many Bananas, Not Enough Pineapples, and No Watermelon at all: Three Object Lessons in Living with Reciprocity, Counts describes in detail three stories about his stay in the island to study a local culture. This is not his actual research on reciprocity but a set of stories that put his research and role as “participant observer” into the wider cultural context in which it took place.

I used these stories as the basis for the three sci-fi tales mentioned in the introduction. I altered very little from the original stories as told by Counts because I think they’re simply brilliant and hilarious. I took some liberties with various aspects of the stories and went overboard with the AI art, but I sought to keep the seed message in the tales. So, my role here is more of an artist, or jester, who simplifies, magnifies, and adds colorful splashes to the underlying work.

In his account of events, David Counts (1990) indicates that there are three key lessons that can be drawn from each story.

1. In a society where food is shared or gifted as part of social life, you may not buy it with money. (Cantara)
2. Never refuse a gift, and never fail to return a gift. If you cannot use it, you can always give it away to someone else- there is no such thing as too much- there are never too many bananas (Akarinas)
3. Where reciprocity is the rule and gifts are the idiom, you cannot demand a gift, just as you cannot refuse a request (Nakkas)

What was my motivation beyond titillating you with intergalactic fruit? I am a big believer in alien life and intelligence. I think it’s just a matter of time before we make contact. The odds have improved now that we know the true extent and scale of planetary systems and sub-systems out there. At some point, we’ll interact with alien cultures, and we’ll need to understand them in a systematic manner. There are a myriad lessons to be learned from the scientific reports and anecdotal work of anthropologists. This may seem like crazy talk now, but once we make contact, it'll be already too late. I hope someone out there is writing the guidelines on how to understand and deal with extra-terrestrial societies, should we ever encounter them in the depths of space or in our corn fields.

I hope you found the tales interesting and entertaining. Thank you!

Previous tales

1. Cantara
2. Akarinas
3. Nakkas

Resources

Angeloni, Elvio. 1995. Anthropology.

David Counts. 1990. Too Many Bananas, Not Enough Pineapples, and No Watermelon at all: Three Object Lessons in Living with Reciprocity in The Humbled Anthropologist: Tales from the Pacific.

Images generated by @litguru using Stable Diffusion software

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