Moya arrives in 2003(Farscape RAR)

[FaxModem1]

HUGE SPOILERS for season 4 of Farscape:


So, at the end of the Farscape episode "Kansas" and beginning of "Terra Firma", Moya arrives in orbit of Earth through a wormhole, clearly in 2003, with mankind knowing we're not alone, but it's during the Bush administration after 9/11, and Crichton gets a bit fed up with how the US has changed, and takes off with Moya and company, but returns a few months later to drop off his notes on everything at Jack's flag site on the moon.

What happens then? While we know what happened to John, Moya and the rest through Farscape, how would American politics, the Bush administration, international politics, space travel change?

As it's been a year, we have some perspective on how history has gone since then, but how would it change with access to information about aliens, wormholes, and space travel?

[Ahriman238]

Having not seen those episodes, how much did the government learn about what's out there? Do they know about the Peacekeepers? The Scarrans? Notes mean the journals he's been recording, right? Was this information shared to a handful of individuals or is the existence of aliens generally known?

Probably a whole lot of paranoia with little concrete action, and a large budget injection to NASA IASA to try and build space cruisers.

[FaxModem1]

We're talking DNA samples, full press interviews, and Crichton debriefing them on all the organizations out there without telling them the specifics about his crewmates lives.

EDIT: They also did tours of Moya, looking at the crew's weapons and small ships, answering some questions. Enough to see where Earth stood in the galaxy.

[NecronLord]

Earth gets very very frightened. Though less than it should be after Crichton told the Scarran Emperor that Crystherium Utilia grows here(!)

Really it's not like he gave them knowledge of how to make giant spaceguns or something.

[Thanas]

Bush will still be Bush, so not much will change. There will be a real fight among nations to get the notes first (which the US probably might win) and then nobody might be able to do much with them.

[Mr Bean]

Bush will still be Bush, so not much will change. There will be a real fight among nations to get the notes first (which the US probably might win) and then nobody might be able to do much with them.

Are you kidding? America would go nuts, with the status of how the world is then and we find out we are not alone in the universe and there are dangers and terrors out there? Can you say armament program to end all armaments? American priority one would be space defenses followed by space cruisers, just enough to get us in contact with those of us who can sell us the technology to boot strap our race to being able to defend our selves from the 50,000 hostile races out there.

And it would be sold that way, stick with America we will defend you from the evil aliens Critcen and his crew lead back to our planet.

[PREDATOR490]

Eh ?

The wormhole was sealed so the threat of invasion is gone and it assumes the notes would be that graphic.
This is the same John that said if he tried to tell Earth the truth they would lock him up so he kept his mouth shut. I do not see the world taking John's information very seriously when they have no real evidence of it.

All the Earth knows is that aliens exist, they came with John to Earth and gave a bunch of interviews. Aaron was the only one that seemed to give an interview which suggested they might be concerned about invasion and she pretty much tells everyone it would not happen because Earth is worth less than shit on a galactic scale.
Granted, the Scarrens have an interest but without the wormhole they are a non-threat that Earth has no knowledge of except whatever information John told them.

The information John is largely limited because he used an audio tape recorder with one tape which limits his information to an audio book. Not exactly the best medium to go about revealing technical secrets of the universe even if you assume it had an insane capacity which John filled to maximum.

For the world at large: Lots of wars
Nations fighting over the crumbs that John left behind while opportunists use the political situation to fear monger for their own gains.
That said, even if Wars do break out the overall situation should not be any more or less different than they were.

Space Travel - Unlikely to happen with war breaking out but even if it does, space travel is just going to be the same as it was because John could not have left anything to help with that. Unless you want to tell me he magically described in pin-point detail how to construct engines for alien spacecraft then told his Dad they would have to go into space by building rockets.

[Alkaloid]

Are we going from where Crighton left earth in the show? Because according to his father IASA had been reformed and there was actually a considerable amount of international co operation happening. (I assume because they were shitting themselves over the prospect of being invaded)

As for his notes, I don't know how much use they would have been from a purely technical standpoint. They pulled apart some pulse pistols and had a look, but that's no good without whatever oil they use to fuel them is. The got a look at Moya and the drive pods on the module on the ground, but even Crighton was never able to understand how they worked, just that they worked proved what we think are laws of physics are not actually laws of physics.

Most of his audio recordings seemed to be more his personal musings, messages for his father and thoughts on aliens from what we saw on screen. His notebooks could have had more and he did a lot of work mapping stars and trying to work out where he was in relation to earth, so they may well work as navigational aids for finding the more inhabited parts of the galaxy, but beyond that, who knows?