Subject: Re: First Contact
Author:
Posted on: 2009-06-15 12:07:00 UTC
If I weren't about ninety per cent asleep, I'd have a lengthy answer for this. But my brain is unconscious, so I'll limit myself to saying the odds of them understanding anything we say aren't all that high. And I'll let Trojie explain exactly why.
SETI has a multi-billon dollar thing set up to search for alien life. They've now admitted that, if they find it, they'd have no clue what to say, so they've asked the public for help. Any ideas on what first words we should say to extraterrestrials if and when we ever encounter them?
And no, "Go away. We have weapons" has been taken.
assuming they even understand us...
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little thingies underneath the first line?
...Sorry, couldn't resist :P
... but frankly, we're ruled by governments that are so terrified of EACH OTHER that chaces are, they'll be throwing nuclear missles at you the moment they get jumpy. Sorry. But the rest of us are usually pretty good!"
(Usually I'm more optimistic, too, but last night I watched "The Day The Earth Stood Still" and wound up being rather cynical.)
I've heard of it, but not what it's about.
Aliens decide that Earth is too valuable as a life-supporting planet to die due to human behaviour, and after Keeanu Reeves' character (an alien in human form) is thoroughly discouraged by the hyper-paranoid American government and has had a chance to show off his Amazing Mind Control Of Electricity And Machines Power, decides that, yes, all humans have to die. Lead Female Character tries to change his mind. Big chase. American Defense People are paranoid and shoot, shoot, shoot. Lots of proof that alien technology is WAY superior to ours (except our CGI workshop) despite being hypocritical considering that they're Uber Environmentalists.
Reeves' character eventually gets all sentimental and agrees that, yes "we" (humans) do show their best qualities when on the edge of death (this is, by the way, after Lead Female Character has cried and insisted that "We can change!" many times over), and goes out and nearly (or perhaps actually) gets himself killed stopping his own machines, which then fly away, but have already destroyed most of New York (of course. Why is it never Perth or Anchorage or Bristol?), and have ruined all electrical power so humans will have to Go Back To Nature.
Very moralistic.
That wasn't short. Pfft.
it's San Fransico. And Fantastic Four damaged London. As did 28 Weeks Later (which firebombed it). :D
But it sounds like an interesting film.
... where they don't speak English?
Popular sci-fi ideas for what to 'say' to aliens if we meet them include exchange of mathematical and chemistry/physics concepts, because those are seen as being more universal than language.
However the fact that we'll have to come up with some kind of pidgin way of translating this tends to put a dampener on it.
I'd suggest pictures, but then who knows what kind of vision system they'll have, if any. They might not see with the same light spectrum as us, for a start.
What if they see in UV? Or infra-red? Or microwaves, for heaven's sake?
Hell, IF there are aliens and IF they contact us, I'l be mightily surprised if they even breathe oxygen. And if they can break our atmosphere in their oogly boogly spaceships, I'll eat my steel-capped boots :D
That said, where's my tinfoil hat? :P
This means they can't get at my brain, rigbt?
RIGHT?
what you really want are ear muffs and a hard hat so they can't suck your brain out through alien space straws. *hands you said items*
Actually it's now university policy that I have to own my own hard hat, so I might do that when I go and buy it ...
That's an odd policy.
... if I get brained on fieldwork.
And the section I was working on last Friday did randomly disgorge lumps of rock every so often. Although it's considered bad form to actually let yourself get hit. That's what *undergrads* do ...
... geology, where the men are hard men, even when we're women ...
where men are men, women are men and cute thirteen-year-olds are FBI agents.
And everyone is called Kevin or Steve and lives in their parents' basement.
Hmm... okay, I'll swap from David to Kevin. Sure I can't be Kyle? The basement thing... that's a problem. I'll have to dig a basement first. Bungalows don't tend to ever come with them and most British houses don't have them anyway.
And I promise I'm a woman, but then so do all the men :P
I'm a man... I think. Will it help if I promise I'm either a man or a woman?
... I don't care if you're man, woman, hermaphrodite or neuter. Skill before sexual organs!
... that is possibly the worst rallying cry EVER.
Personally, I think Theoden in Return of the King had the worst (in the film anyway. I think it was Eomer in the books). "Ride to ruin and the world's ending!"
Alternatively, that guy in Braveheart... I think. I can't actually remember what it is.
But I like yours. It gives support to those who say that size doesn't matter. Which is true. If you're hung like a horse, you're not going to get many girls then either.
However I agree with your last statement.
I think the best worst battlecry is probably 'Let's all get our throats cut, boys!'
but you should know how often things are twisted totally out of context.
I presume the last statement was the "hung like a horse" comment?
And what film is that battlecry from?
Yep, that statement.
It's not from a film, it's from Terry Pratchett's 'Jingo', wherein Captain Carrot's battlecry 'Remember, if we succeed, no-one will remember, and if we fail, no-one will forget!' (or words to that effect, it's been a few years since I read it) is considered to be almost as bad as 'Let's all get our throats cut, boys!'
I've never got around to reading Pratchett. *is shamed*
But it always amazes me that writers, both in fanfiction and published writers think that bigger is better. If a man was hung like a horse, I think the woman would feel more pain than pleasure.
There's a joke, but I can't remember it in it's entirety. An Australian man is in Amsterdam, trying to find a prostitute, but every one runs away when he pulls it out, afraid it'll hurt them. Eventually, he finds a brothel owner who swears that one of her girls will be big enough for him and she asks how big it is.
Man: "Seven inches."
Brothel Owner: "Seven inches? Whatever is the fuss about then?"
Man: "Thick, ma'am."
people read this thing at home and school - warnings are good. Also, y'know, we've got very young teens here.
That said, that one did make me snort.
hadn't occurred to me.
How young are some of the people here then?
... around the age of twelve on this Board. I dunno how young the youngest who posts here is, but I really wouldn't be surprised if there were lurkers of that kind of age kicking around. Fandom's getting younger and younger people floating around.
And already completely desensitized to any badfic less disgusting than Agony in Pink/Red, and mostly desensitized to badfic of that caliber and above. I don't go on AFF, though - not into random pornfic.
Link please? I've been meaning to read Pink and the Wiki page mentions a sequel.
As for desensitising, the only badfic I haven't been able to handle has been Draco's Christmas Cuppa. One day, and one day soon, I'll be attempting to reread it. I just have to shut off my brain first (I visualise fics as movies. This is very useful when writing and even badfics are usually okay, but DCC just broke the screen).
Really? I didn't have a problem with DCC. It just made me raise an eyebrow.
maybe I was already feeling unwell and that pushed me over the edge.
I remember I was linked to it because I felt like reading an absolute shedload of badfic and coming out mostly unscathed. I succeeded, for the most part - I had to skim Subjugation and Agony in Red/Pink though, ten percent because they're disturbing and ninety percent because they're long and repetitive. I think it was mostly the repeated thoughts of 'Didn't I just see this scene a few pages ago?' that made me skip half.
Took a one-sitting readthrough of That Series and the other Legendary Badfic by the same author to start the 'nausea' part most people experience at the first page or so.
Been here for about 3/4 of a year. I actually meant that I didn't really want to search for Agony in Red - I'll just Google it up now.
...Oh, what the hell is this. There's another one. I'll just toss you all three of these, I guess.
http://godawful-fanfiction-wiki.pbworks.com/Agony-In-Pink
http://godawful-fanfiction-wiki.pbworks.com/Agony-In-Yellow
http://godawful-fanfiction-wiki.pbworks.com/Agony-In-Red
That's probably all of it. Red was by someone else - the guy was trying to write something worse than the original. He may have succeeded.
I'll probably grab them later today. The only one I can't would be Red, because that's on 17chan and, though I've never heard of it 4chan etc are blocked, so 17chan probably will be too.
I just realised that the titles are based on the colours. So... Kimberly was the Pink Ranger... who were Red and Yellow?
Thanks for the links though.
Jason and Trini. Or Rocky and Aisha. Depending on when it's set.
set in the original series rather than the dinosaurs and ultimate ninja gibberish.
Oh, stop it, you're making me feel ancient. :P
So far as I can see aff's sole purpose is to provide one with an easy route to bad smutfic to spork. If there's reading for fun to be had there, I can't see where it hides.
It's extremely rare, but I've encountered two parodies in the Star Wars section. Parodies of the crap on the rest of the site. :D
There's also a decently written torture story (I think. It's been a while since I read it) which, as far as I can remember, had no issues but the usual AFF format screwups (where words merge etc) and the sexual element and a bit of fandom-breaking stuff (it was Jaina Solo being tortured to death by a sentient ship that Anakin Skywalker had pissed off and being raped by her lightsabre).
There was also a Tomb Raider fic which was decently written. It was a "Lara dies every single chapter because that's what happens in-game" fic. It was very amusing to read the comments whining about the lack of sexual content. As one comment said in response, while AFF is usually used for porn, there's no rule saying there has to be porn.
Wandering into random pornfics, usually those of the yaoi variety, on AFF has caused me much pain. One day I may learn to stick with the stuff posted to the LJ comms/authors I know are good.
to post on most fanfiction sites though?
But that doesn't stop people. You also have to be eighteen and over to look at some things ... however all you have to do is click a button that says 'I am 18+' - it doesn't have a lie detector built in :)
What makes you think that'd stop them?
You have to be eighteen or above to access aff. I've been hanging around there since I was about fourteen*. It doesn't seem to have scarred me, although if I'd seen some of the current fics back then, or even known how m/m sex was supposed to work, it might have done.
*Not that I'm encouraging anyone who is underaged to follow my example and visit there.
True. I encountered AFF when I was 16. It's been blocked on every PC I can find, unfortuately.
... I don't suppose you could tell me if there's a Left 4 Dead section in the Games category?
I didn't expect people to be that young. I'm 15, by the way.
In any case, tarnishing innocence is fun in its own way~!
in underage rape fics...
Paedophilia/lolicon/shotacon is one of the few things I know I personally could never write about.
And no, I can't seem to spot a Left 4 Dead category in the Games section.
Thank god for L4D. The Resident Evil section is filled with goreophilia. Badly written goreophilia at that.
I have two rapes in my combined stories (that I can remember right now anyway). One victim is a seventeen-year-old woman, the other a fourteen-year-old girl. I'm going to be trying to handle it as realistically as possible and therefore, those fics are high on the "I'm going to make this perfect before I even consider uploading" list. So therefore, no comfort sex (or even thoughts of it) and no "oh, I liked that, do it again!" bull et cetera.
"Hi! My name's (name here)! What's your name? Let's be friends! Can I hug you?"
In that case, the answer to the later queries will be 'no'. Then... well, my advice would be useless, since I have no idea what Denebian Slime Devils are.
It's a Trek reference (a Klingon called Kirk a Denebian Slime Devil). I got the impression it was slimy.
"Hello. We are from a faraway place. We would like to cooperate with you to form a better life for both of our species. However, we must warn you that if you should in any way attempt to harm us, we have access to weapons that could very easily shatter your homeworld. We would say you'd all just become ash, but the fact is it'd be more likely for those who took the brunt of the blasts to be vaporized. The few of you who survive will likely succumb to the fallout and die shortly."
It occurs to me that I'm a somewhat aggressive individual. Oh well, never hurts to be safe when potentially hostile extraterrestrial beings are involved.
but I was going to emphasise the fact that we'd want peace to be preferable.
I suppose that could be the rest of it. I'm afraid I get wrapped up in my descriptions of horrifying doom. Fun stuff, that.
Yes, yes indeed.
Unless they're morons. But that's not the case on this site, so woo!
Which is unlikely, unless they're far more advanced than we and have universal translators. But, assuming...
How about just saying "hello"?
Say we create a real life version of the Federation or Republic. I imagine that the words said at first contact would be repeated. "Hello" just wouldn't do.
Mass Effect doesn't like to capitalise race names (finally, a sci-fi that does that). Basically, they're a race of monogendered blue "alien space babes."
http://masseffect.wikia.com/wiki/Asari
If they are like the asari, then we shall sing "roll-a bowl-a ball a penny a pitch".
Sorry. If it's a reference, I didn't get it.
If I weren't about ninety per cent asleep, I'd have a lengthy answer for this. But my brain is unconscious, so I'll limit myself to saying the odds of them understanding anything we say aren't all that high. And I'll let Trojie explain exactly why.
but we can still say something epic and they can translate it later.