Who needs modern-day sci-fi to get excited over political parallels?

[Deja Q]

TARRANT Well, it might. There's still a price on our heads from the old days.
SOOLIN Not on G-P, there isn't.
VILA G-P?
AVON I imagine that is what the locals call Gauda Prime, your home planet.
SOOLIN I grew up there, yes. But for a home you need a family and mine were murdered when the Federation declared Gauda Prime an Open Planet.
AVON A general suspension of the penal code.
SOOLIN That's right.
DAYNA You mean there's no law at all?
SOOLIN It's the fast way to get resources exploited, in this case mineral resources.
DAYNA I don't understand.
VILA Neither do I. How does junking the law speed up mining?
SOOLIN G-P was an agricultural world. The settlers were sent there to grow crops, raise timber. They were farmers, my family among them. They were given title to the land.
AVON And then somebody discovered there was more profit under the ground than there was on top of it, only the farmers were in the way, and the law was on their side. Hence the Open Planet designation.

TARRANT What, get rid of the law you get rid of the problem? You seem to know a lot about it.
AVON Orac is an excellent research tool. Do you imagine I would take us in blind?

TARRANT You've done it before.
DAYNA (to SOOLIN) What happened to your family?
SOOLIN When the mining corporations moved in, the farmers moved out. Those that didn't were murdered.
VILA And it wasn't even a crime.
SOOLIN Oh yes, it was a crime all right. It just wasn't illegal.
VILA That's what I meant.
SOOLIN I hope so.

TARRANT Planet must have been a draw for every crook and killer in the quadrant.
AVON A lot of people made a lot of money.
SOOLIN Some even lived to enjoy it.
AVON I imagine they are the ones who now want the planet returned to normal legal status.
SOOLIN (angry) You're not serious.
AVON Orac?
ORAC A formal application was laid before the High Council on Earth within the last thirty days. I could get you the exact date --

Excerpted from "Blake's 7", episode 52, entitled "Blake".