If I was incubating the Okal Rel Saga today, it would feature heroes overcoming the tragedy of the commons: CO2 emissions, plastic pollution, and the general using-up of the irreplaceable on the trivial or transitory.
In the 70s, as a teenager, nuclear war was the existential threat and women's liberation the social challenge. Hence the "How not to destroy the world once you can " theme:
Sevolites fight with swords to avoid planet-killing warfare and Reetions reply on their benign AI, but both regulatory methods are disrupted when they come into conflict.
And, yes, there is a lot of sexual politics in the saga.
The Vrellish "reverse the rape threat" and make equality of the sexes a no-brainer. Although the biology required to justify Vrellish nature, in retrospect, makes them -- perhaps -- too different to speak to real life challenges.
Maybe this is why the Okal Rel novel I'm most likely to write in the near future will be set on Lathon, an industrialized world of the regime pre-dating Rire's Arbiter Administration, which suffered aspects of today's ills that I could poke and prod in fictional form. It would be called The Last Days of Lathon. Because Lathon doesn't make it.
Still hoping we will.
Endnotes
Some of the inspirations for my tragedy of the commons remark.
(1) Just Have a Think. (Apr 2020). Is the Gulf Steam Collapsing? Youtube. https://youtu.be/6Yz8nZbZPE8
(2) PBS Newshour. (Nov 2019). The Plastic Problem - A PBS NewsHour Documentary. Youtube. https://youtu.be/1RDc2opwg0I
(3) ABC News. (Aug 2021). UN climate report warns of ‘code red for humanity’. Youtube. https://youtu.be/TZ6hcV6lbos
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The Friday journal is a repository for stray throughs and chance encounters for the previous week. For better formed gems try the REALITY SKIMMING category on this blog.