A Rational First Contact Scenerio

So, I've been thinking about aliens lately, or more specifically First Contact. This is an area of speculative fiction which many people have dwelt upon before because of the questions that it raises about the nature of our civilization and how we are able to deal with massive changes.

However, there is one particular aspect about alien related stories that just bug me. Namely, I am struck by how poorly thought out most contact strategies are from the alien's perspective. If they come in peace, they seem to either inspire mass panic and/or bring out of the worst of mankind. If they are invading, their strategy often ends up leaving them exposed, are ludicrously inefficient or leave the audience wondering what their goal really is. It seems that most alien lifeforms do not even bother to do their damn research before messing around with the earth.

So, I pose this question: If humanity was the group doing the contact, how would we go about doing it?

Let's say that sometime in the future, mankind has developed interstellar travel and is the process of space colonization. In the course of our journeys, we come across Planet X, a planet that appears to be the host for an intelligent race of beings. Although they do not yet know of our presence, many members of the species seem to have an interest in space and theorize that life might be out there. Although their customs and behavior are strange to us, several parts of the planet seem to have achieved a post-industrial society and have their own nascent space programs.

The planet is not united by one government or culture and there seem to be a variety of different alien languages, most of which are immensely difficult for us to learn and impossible for us to speak ourselves.

How does humanity interact with this planet? Do we reveal ourselves and if so, how? Conventional communication is going to be nigh impossible due to language barriers. Is it possible to contact the planet without totally destabilizing it and falling to the same pitfalls typical Hollywood aliens do?

Have you ever read The Mote in God's Eye?

edited 22nd Jun '11 8:43:51 PM by blueharp

I am afraid not. I looked through the First Contact page here and saw an entry for it. The page made the book look interesting and I will certainly take a look at it when I can.

I think a good first step would be to identity the people least likely to panic and try to talk to them exclusively... though, I suppose if others found that out later it could be seen as conspiracy. Hm.

If we're looking for inspiration, TNG had the federation watching a planet for many years before making contact. We'd study its media to try to learn the race's language, then move on to studying the culture, the leaders, etc. It would make sense to gather as much data as possible before even thinking about whether to introduce ourselves.

Well, it depends on how developed the aliens in question are, and whether or not the world would be inhabitable or terraformable. If by some insane chance it was already nearly suitable for human habitation and the alien population was relatively dense, for instance, it might be a simple matter of deploying biological weapons to eliminate most of their population, developing innoculations for humans and our animals from local microbes, and beginning colonization while using conventional warfare to remove any remaining aliens. If the planet's biosphere is (as is almost certain) totally incompatible with human life, the easiest route would be redirecting a number of asteroids toward the planet as kinetic energy weapons to completely eliminate it, then begin terraforming.

edited 22nd Jun '11 9:43:05 PM by Wanderhome

It would be a lot like Europeans making contact with the New World.

The difference would be whether said aliens would be of the "Spanish" school (the far more sinister one where conquest is a very real possibility), the "French/Dutch" school (where diplomatic means would be the method to secure interests" or the "English" school (where letting the aliens settle on Earth is viable).

Would depend on the alien culture in the end.

I recommend The Mote In Gods Eye, if we've got that page, if not it should be linked on Larry Niven.

@Wanderhome:...you are trolling. That can't possibly be serious.

No I think he is. He's kind of got a human-centeric viewpoint.

And I think it depends on how "alien" the Xenos are. If their first reaction to any threat is to first crush and eat it then it might be best to move slowly away and find a nicer place to set up shop.

edited 23rd Jun '11 2:51:54 AM by JosefBugman

It would also depend on what the alien planet has. The chances of finding something worthy the cost of exterminating a race but leaving the planet intact enough to colonize is likely too high for most endeavors.

The biggest problem I see with this is distinguishing fiction from reality. Consider how much raw data our planet pumps out every second. Any alien species that would want to observe us would have to sort through billions of different sources in at least a dozen languages. Wouldn't information start to get jumbled? Even if we did somehow manage to learn at least one the planet's languages we could have a gross misunderstanding of their culture.

How do we separate propaganda, alternate history or even common forms of fiction from reality?

Shouldn't we pursue diplomacy before war? Genocide seems a tad... extreme even if the situation did escalate.

It seems pointlessly cruel to wipe out a civilization that can barely fight back.

Even so, if the civilization was that hostile would you want to just leave it alone and wait for it to develop similar space-faring capabilities? Allowing the genocidal race to continue to develop its space program while we do nothing seems to be a bad strategy.

edited 23rd Jun '11 9:20:37 AM by Pentadragon

How about go in peace and offer to trade technology and stuff?

"We come in peace. We have no intention to rule or oppress you. We want to trade technical and scientific data. We have interstellar space flight. You don't. We're at another whole fucking tech level. It's in everyone's best interests that we remain friends" would be a way to do it.

Gunboat Diplomacy but with spaceships, really.

edited 23rd Jun '11 9:23:31 AM by SavageHeathen

Presumes they have anything to trade, or that there won't be negative consequences to the contact.

At a certain level, a hands-off policy may be more prudent.

Hmm, I think best source would be following:

1) After locating planet and corfiminging alien life, set up observation point.

2) Locate possible scientific satelite dishes.

3) Broadcast continuous loop, monitor outgoing info untill it becomes clear they have detected it.

4) Keep broadcasting.

5) Send sterile, small objects to orbit or better yet, find a way to slowly decend them to surface without damage to planet.

6) Wait untill society adjust itself.

7) Monitor few years(or other time unit, reasonably long anyway)

8) Observe reactions to confirmation of "alien" life. If hostile and chaotic, keep distance, keep monitoring.

9) If shows sings of stability, bring manned space craft to orbit, observe and deploy new sterile probe with messages that can be(hopefully) decoded, declare peacefull intents.

10) After it becomes clear that inhabitants are now used to idea of alien life, present yourself in small number. Establish peaceful relationship if possible.

All this time, scientist must keep attempting to decode atleast one of their language to create dialogue with them. If language is "cracked" by the 5th or 9th point, deploy probe with alien language and current lingua franca(i.e. English) having same excat(or close enough) message.

I think main point is to not destabelize aien civilization, instead giving it time to adjust itself. Imagine difference if instead we get clues and small contacts with aliens and by time we are pretty sure what we are dealing with, they represent themselves. Nwo imagine if they just show up and say "Hi, you are not alone". Main point is to keep direct interaction to minimal untill such actions do not cause massive panic among populace.

@blackhumor: How is that trolling. It sounds a lot like how the assorted empires of earth behaved on meeting native populations and they wanted something bad enough.

If the aliens had the capability to detect it, I would send an (apparently) unmanned probe on a flyby of their solar system, then (if possible) set up some way to covertly monitor them for the next generation or so (assuming we know the length between birth and reproduction for them).

Then, after they've had some time to get used to the idea of (intelligent(!)) life other than theirs, we can have a craft reenter their system, make our presence known, then wait a few months to see if they mount an expedition towards us or try to contact us.

At the actual contact, (assuming they can perceive sounds in our vocal range,) I'd start taking objects for which the purpose is clear and get them to associate the names for them with the object itself. Once they have a basic vocabulary of nouns, we can work on relationships between nouns to teach the some of our verbs, then we can get to more advanced language concepts like tenses and conditional statements.

As for the actual language we teach them, since only a small amount of people would be allowed to speak to the aliens anyway, the most common human language shouldn't be used. Most natural languages could be confusing because of homophones, expressions that only make sense to terrestrials, and linguistic ambiguity in general. I would think a conlang structured to be as unambiguous and intuitive as possible should be used instead. An example would be lojban, but it could be made specifically for this meeting.

NOTE: Another option would be for the probe to somehow teach them a system of notation we use to describe astrometric locations and broadcast the coordinates of some place near to their planet, but one that would require quite a bit of effort and planning to reach. That way we would be sure to meet prepared specialists from their most industrialized and technologically advanced nations.

Stanisław Lem in Fiasco and Ursula K. le Guin in Left Hand Of Darkness both have some interesting First Contacts. The first one is the study of how We Come In Peace turns into gunboat kind. The second works by sending nothing but an ambassador and his shuttle, and a Subspace Ansible, to open up the locals in a way that is as non-frightening as possible.

In a First Contact scenario with alien life, why don't we just walk over there and say "hi" and let the chips fall where they may? We didn't pull this observe and hide for generations bullshit with other cultures and peoples on Earth we just walked up and said hi more or less. So why should we do that with other species on other planets?

Yes, and those contacts went sooo well. It's not like we had period of colonialism, exploiting natives who didn't know better, didn't anyway cause them to fight among themselves, accidentaly released deadly diseases among them, Oh, Wait!....

The ideal way to make contact would be without letting them know where our homeworld(s) are.

After all, you don't know that species's attitudes towards First Contact: As far as you know, they might well be all for pre-emptive xenocide.

Send an unmanned probe with some data them aliens can analyze if they catch it. Ideally, data that shows that we're just curious and not hostile, and still doesn't reveal where the Hell the probe comes from. Start surveying stuff in their solar system like it's nobody's business. See whether they freak out, how they react, proceed from there.

edited 26th Jun '11 9:06:49 AM by SavageHeathen

Above all, sterilisation. No, not of the planet. Of anything put into the planet.

I'm not talking "just make sure its sterile", make sure there is no way anything from Earth that is smaller than a fly could possibly get into the biosphere. If something is so much as dropped into the mix, even if its a microbe harmless to every living thing on Earth, it could totally destroy large populations or even wipe out species. Quarantine is everything.

After that... it depends. Interstellar trade requires FTL travel to be practical anyway, unless its very small amounts of extremely valuable materials. Look at the political layout. If everyone is at peace and its a stable, advanced society, consider making contact and even settling. If the world is engulfed in wars or still at the point of burning witches, staying in orbit and observing from a distance is probably the best bet. Even if they see you, what are they going to do?

...well, they might launch a nuke. We did say 2nd world war... if they're at that level of tech maybe make contact just to let them know you are not, indeed, hostile (and also to let them know there are a lot more of you if anything were to happen to the generation ship.)

Force them to serve Humanity! Exploit their planet and its resources to the maximum possible extent! Domesticate them and make them our pets if they happen to be cute enough! Use them for "pleasure" if they are even cuter! Exterminate them if they look butt-ugly!

At the levels of energy needed for space travel, all any side might conceivably need of the other is tech.

Uplifting lesser civilizations would be wasteful: Better to let them figure out stuff on their own. Monitor what they do. If any'of'em solves a technical problem in an innovative way we didn't think of, rip off mercilessly. Hold out on First Contact until they notice you.

As for more powerful civilizations, best course of action is to hide until we're as powerful as them.

edited 26th Jun '11 9:23:29 AM by SavageHeathen

"Uplifting" civilisations that are not mature enough to deal with potentially destructive technology is a bad idea.

I also think that our hypothetical more-primitive-than-us alien civilisation should be given time to develop its own culture and history, and shouldn't be contacted until they begin colonising their own solar system. This would prevent cultural contamination. I have never viewed Benevolent Alien Invasions as genuinely benevolent because a less advanced species should be given a chance to grab its own destiny, not be handed a diluted one on a silver platter. Think about it - all of your culture and history is suddenly rendered utterly irrelevant by advanced beings from the stars. That's got to be damaging to a species' psychological development.

edited 26th Jun '11 10:05:38 AM by pagad