Silly idea

[kengr]

I was reading some rather silly fiction by someone from the Traveller mailing list. He had a guy using a cover ID of an agent of the EPA.

This bit caught my attention:

“Most of my supervisors at the EPA could not care at all about the state of Humanity. But they are very deeply concerned about the state of The Earth.”

This led my brain down some strange paths and out popped the idea of the Environmental Prevention Agency.

A bit of backfilling led to this:

"Sorry, you've made a common error. Many newcomers to Mars make it. We aren't the environmental Protection Agency. We're the Environmental Prevention Agency."

"Huh? Why would you want to prevent the environment. Hell, how could you?"

"Remember? This Mars. We are charged with preventing the development of anything the EPA bureaucrats back on Earth could call an environment. Because if there ever is one, they'll find a way to use their rules to force us off of Mars."


So now I'm wondering what sort of logo the Mars Colony EPA might have. Because Fay and I would love to print up some ID badges for use at cons.

Comments

[stickmaker.livejournal.com]

Maybe a foot coming down on a cockroach? :-)

[kengr]

Infestations aren't the sort of thing that would qualify as an environment. Or at least that doesn't quite fit.

Something that manages to survive outside the "domes" would be a real problem.

Why do I suddenly see Greenpeace types trying to smuggle in organisms that could establish a "native" ecosystem?

Hmm. That'd mean there'd be other "environmentalists" trying to stop them, because the organisms would be "despoiling" the native (lack of) ecosystem worse than the colonists are.

[stickmaker.livejournal.com]

In a hard SF novel I'm working on, people planning the first extrasolar colony at one point joke that to establish a terran ecosystem quickly they should bring crabgrass, kudzu, dandelions and blackberry bushes.

[kengr]

Blackberry isn't too bad. *Himalayan* blackberry is what has taken over large chunks of the Pacific NorthWet (no that's not a typo :-)

English ivy is another nasty invader. Fay didn't understand what the big deal was until I pointed out a dead snag when we were up on Rocky Butte. It was 30 or so feet of evergreen trunk that still had some branches left. Except you couldn't see the trunk or branches for the ivy.

I pointed out that the ivy was probably what killed it. She looked over the slope that was covered with ivy (hundreds of square yards worth, and the other trees that had varying amounts of ivy on them and went "Oh"

[dornbeast.livejournal.com]

Globe of the Earth with the colors inverted?

("You're under arrest for Terrarism.")

[brockulfsen.livejournal.com]

A blow torch (with two gas bottles) scorching Lichen off a rock?