[ WP ] You discover that Earth is the `` North Korea '' of the galaxy

`` Say what now?'' 
 
 Confused, I looked over at the blue-skinned alien sitting at the table next to me. He, she, or it, was smiling calmly, an inscrutable expression on s/heit's face. 
 
 `` You heard what I said,'' s/heit responded. `` By the terms of your old Pre-Unity history, your planet would be likened to the'North Korea' of the galaxy. 
 
 We were at a diplomatic conference. From what I could tell, it was a kind of meet-and-greet for the new kids in the neighbourhood. Namely, us. We'd achieved faster than light travel a couple of decades ago, and encountered our first alien presence a few months ago. That apparently drew the galaxy's attention to this little corner of space, so now we were supposed to be welcomed into the Galactic Confederacy or something. 
 
 My table partner was currently telling me why that would n't happen. 
 
 `` We can not possibly accept such a backwards, closed-minded, oppressive planet into our number,'' S/heit explained patiently. `` We insist several of your'laws' be relaxed as a basic measure of sapient decency.'' 
 
 Possibilities whirled through my brain. Ok, backwards I could accept, given our lateness to the galactic party. We must seem technologically, and hell, even socially kinda primitive. But closed-minded? Oppressive? What the hell? We had plenty of free speech! Race, religion and all that old, superstitious claptrap had ceased to matter long ago. We had free elections, and anyone could say more or less what they wanted about the government so long as they did n't hurt anyone else. Was the rest of the galaxy some kind of anarchic madhouse? How could they possibly have spawned enough of a civilisation to span the stars then? 
 
 Or, my mind jumped to a different track as it recalled all those sci-fi books I'd loved in my youth. Could it be the rest of the galaxy was some kind of hedonistic, decadent, free-sex hippy style commune? I swallowed hard. 
 `` What... kind of laws are we talking about here exactly?'' 
 
 `` Well... Let's go with the law of gravity to start with. Dreadfully arbitrary that. Imagine that someone might accidentally trip over something and just *die* from it. Utterly unfair, and utterly unacceptable.'' 
 
 `` Then there's the whole concept of linear time. I do not understand why you humans persist in only allowing it to go in one direction. Those are the most basic amendments we must insist on for your laws, but truly, if you ever want to be taken seriously as a galactic power, you should just start loosening up and expanding to the eleventh dimension *at least*.''
