(Conquest of the) New World

The news is everywhere and I also got to the Earth-like planet found in the Gliese 581 system. My first impression was excitement mixed with amazement, joy mixed with some fears of the possibility of life other than that on Earth, but after reading some more I got to the point where I started thinking about all the research needed to have better clues whether actually this Earth-like planet can be inhabited, and then my thoughts jumped on to huge amount of money that will be involved and the possible benefits for the big money investors; gains after they gain access to the "New World".

I pictured it as huge machines exploiting the riches of this new world, a grey sky, and rich corporations reaping more profits than ever before. I wondered why this strange, pessimistic image got into my head... All this left me with a bad aftertaste.