"our duty of care outweighs such emotional considerations"

March 4, 2023 10:22 AM

"We believe close partners should be candid with each other when misunderstandings occur. As such, we wish to respond to certain inaccurate statements made today by British officials and media regarding our archaeological activities." From MeFi's own adrianhon, a short science fiction story: "The Taking of Stonehenge".
posted by brainwane (14 comments total)

Sounds entirely reasonable.
posted by Meatbomb at 10:40 AM on March 4, 2023

Short and sweet and nicely done. Can’t really argue with the alien’s reasoning, it’ll just be 150 years, tops!
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 10:55 AM on March 4, 2023 [2 favorites]

Oh, man. I loved the bit about the 200 undiscovered sites as well.
posted by mochapickle at 12:54 PM on March 4, 2023 [5 favorites]

Those who do not remember their history will relearn it the hard way!
posted by beaning at 1:26 PM on March 4, 2023 [1 favorite]

Ah, perfect.
posted by inexorably_forward at 1:48 PM on March 4, 2023

Very neat.
posted by doctornemo at 2:30 PM on March 4, 2023

I enjoyed this, thanks!
posted by EXISTENZ IS PAUSED at 6:55 PM on March 4, 2023 [1 favorite]

I'm always happy to have an excuse to link to this James Acaster clip.
posted by brachiopod at 5:27 AM on March 5, 2023 [4 favorites]

Hoisted on our own historical petard
as we should be
posted by winesong at 8:33 AM on March 5, 2023

There was a very short film posted about a loser attorney whom has been hired because he is a loser, to negotiate for the rights to Earth's oceans; this by the alien outfit who wants them. I enjoyed it, and the outcome.
posted by Oyéah at 12:55 PM on March 5, 2023

Thank you for your kind words everyone! I enjoyed writing this, it let me stretch my fiction muscles a bit. The story came to me after listening to a Radio 4 interview with a British archaeologist who deployed the usual bogus arguments, so I wanted to highlight just how incoherent and mercenary their stance was.
posted by adrianhon at 1:41 PM on March 5, 2023 [8 favorites]

I forgot to say, I enjoyed the story. The succinct irony of moving The Elgin Marbles off the planet is great. I think we should start a movemrnt to call them The Greek Parthenon Marbles. We should lean on George Mountbatten to give them back as a coronation gift, symbolic of the new sensitivity his reign will bring.
posted by Oyéah at 6:49 PM on March 5, 2023

I too forgot to say how much I enjoyed it. Very “believable” somehow.
posted by brachiopod at 6:26 PM on March 6, 2023

Adrian, thanks for writing the story and sharing it -- it was a treat! If you have other published prose fiction pieces I would like to read them (I couldn't figure out on your website whether they are all collected in one place, tagged, or something like that).

I imagine that Appendices A, B, and C are, respectively, the negotiated agreement itself (written in a Federation legal domain-specific language along the lines of Catala), the vanishingly few "Federation-approved Earth institutions" eligible to borrow a limited subset of the moved sites and objects, and the mind-bogglingly onerous protocols necessary to qualify for Federation approval.

People who want more speculative fiction that uncomfortably reflects on museum practices, artifact repatriation, etc. should check out "Exile’s End" by Carolyn Ives Gilman (previously).
posted by brainwane at 3:56 AM on March 8, 2023 [1 favorite]