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Showing posts from July, 2017

Space Crime #4 Ender’s Game: 5 Reasons why Ender isn’t getting away with Xenocide

That’s right, this little mastermind is going to the slammer. The only real question here isn’t about guilt, but punishment. So let’s get right to it. Ender’s entire life had been devoted to killing the buggers. Ender had the actus reus. Firing the particle demoleculorizer thing was voluntary and intentional – he reasoned through it. He had the correct mens rea, he fired the it with the intention and for the purpose of destroying the bugger’s planet. “But wait,” you’re probably thinking, “Ender didn’t know it was real life! He can’t be held responsible for annihilating an entire species of intelligent beings when he thought it was just a simulation.” Thinking real life is a videogame is a mistake of fact – not a valid excuse When it comes to mistakes, only mistakes of law (and sometimes hybrid mistakes – but those don’t make sense, so we’re not going to talk about them) are valid. The best example of this is SpongeBob. I’m sure you’re familiar with the Free Ballo

Space Crime #5 Guardians: Star Lord isn’t a total A-hole but he is guilty

Nova Corps v. Guardians of the Galaxy Everyone has already seen Guardians of the Galaxy, the best of the not-all-that-super, super hero movies. But it’s so good, I’m sure nobody will mind watching this clip one more time again. (Catch up on the Top 10 Space Crimes here .) So, Peter Quill a.k.a. Star Lord, a Terran, busts out of the Kyln (Coordinates: M20H 119919142+0185112.), the highest security Nova Corp prison, with a few of his pals: a talking raccoon, a big tree thing, a green female assassin, and a big, dumb, muscular dude with tattoos. Everything about this says “crime.” But let’s see if we can get Pete off the hook. The Outer Space Treaty doesn’t apply The Outer Space Treaty is really cool and stuff, but unfortunately treaties only apply to signing parties, and even then, they’re pretty easy to get out of. Although the large majority of Earth’s countries have signed the treaty, Nova Corp is not a signatory. Therefore, it does not apply even though Quill is