Interplanetary Terror
Bin Laden is dead, we all know. I’m not going to dwell on the specifics.
But I will say that a science-fiction terrorist is an interesting idea. How about an interplanetary terrorist as opposed to an international one? Would it be like the United States going to Afghanistan to find him, just having to go to another planet entirely?
I believe it would actually be much easier to be an interplanetary terrorist than an international one. The dangers of space, which are well-documented, would make it much less difficult to kill people and wreak havoc on certain space stations and inter-planetary public transportation shuttles.
Lets have a man who is one of the first people to go out and colonize in Space, say on the Moon or Mars, and is one of the foremost astrophysicists in the world. Then an advancement is made (by his own hand, perhaps?) that makes it much easier for regular people to get to space, a sort of space tourism. He does not like this, and becomes a terrorist to keep this from happening. This is good motivation, a Heinlein-like villain that has had a dramatic evolution but is very intelligent and cunning.
A terrorist like this is much different than one such as Osama bin Laden. My terrorist has good motivation, as opposed to simple extreme religious orthodoxy, and can justify anything he does. It is a person like this which can create debates within a society. No one disagrees that bin Laden should have been killed or at least captured; my terrorist would have supporters, at least outside the space industry, and would be a boon for space travel. Controversies will be brought up, debates begun, and one more election issue will be created.
Expanding Consciousness 