More on the space story

I'm still thinking about the space story—you know, the one where the characters are at war but you never see the war and it's something far away. I like the idea a lot but there are some tough problems to solve. First, how do you make it not come across as a comment on Iraq? Second, I've been thinking about integrating my gangs-need-society idea, but it doesn't make as much sense when you approach it from the society's POV. The gangs-need-society idea is the notion that what makes gangs possible is an inability to think in terms of long-term consequences. All you have is a continuous present. And this is frustrating for them, so what gang members are trying to do is engage in short-term activities with long-term consequences. So you do bad things and then get caught and put in jail. And finally you feel the ontological weight of tradition. And that is exactly what you've been longing for.

I've been thinking that the falling satellite is something like a key to the 'truth' of the war. The kids are fed propaganda images at school and the satellite provides raw data, but to an extent, they both are equally perplexing. In a hypothetical ending, the kid is leaving for the war and his mother asks him why he is going. He says, "because they need us." That's the gang idea right there. But somehow, it works better when you say it from the gang's POV—"why do we fight? Because we need them."