Bloodless Coup

I followed the link and was somewhat surprised to see that a very notable (and recent) example was missing: The Firefly TV series and/or the Serenity movie.

Opposition to the central government is THE key theme in these works by Joss Whedon. The protagonists exist on the 'fringe' worlds and spend most of their time avoiding "Alliance" (the central government) entanglements. In this universe the central government is actively evil and is behind many of the problems that affect a portion of the society's citizens.

The reason I bring it up is that not only is the central government an important part of the created universe, many of the plots deal with the more substantive issue of doing "What's right" even if that's illegal. What's morally right and what's legally right is an interesting question for these characters.

In the dialog for these works characters sometimes talk over each other (wow, what a concept, just like real life) its witty and it NEVER, EVER talks down to the viewer. If this is a subject that's of interest to you, check out the series or the movie. They're available at Netflix and (of course Amazon.com).

One final note. The series DVD collection has a 5 out of 5 stars average rating with over 2,400 (!!) customer reviews. Obviously, there something going on here. Enjoy.

The debate over morality versus law is an age-old one, not unique to SciFi. That being said, SciFi always manages to approach the question in a more interesting fashion (IMHO) than "regular" fiction.

I have the Firefly series, and have seen "Serenity". Both are excellent. I like them better than "Buffy" (though I've only seen the first season of that).

I am, however, nervious: Whedon is writing the script for the big-budget Hollywood verions of "Wonder Woman" thats due out either late this year or next. I suppose it might be good, but I'm not going to hold my breath.