First Contact

We continue our look at hypothetical alien civilizations by discussing the various possible circumstances in which we might first contact them or be contacted by them.

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[isaacarthurSFIA]

****READ BEFORE
1) It's not an accent :)
2) If you're about to post about Ender's Game, read the other posts first, it's all covered there and in short, the author has written around a dozen books on the topic, if you haven't read them all you're probably missing key info.

[No_OneV]

No conspiracy theories no bullshit just serious discussion. I'm so glad i found your channel

[patrickhyden]

"Altaran Prime Minister insists attack justified to free galaxy of Reality TV"

You know, I can't really fault them for that.

[neeneko]

Toasters do indeed have self preservation built in, that is why they have fuses. It is not sophisticated, but it is still 'if I notice this thing that will destroy me, take this action to stop it even if it interferes with my primary function'

[LetsReadPodcast]

The aliens could also be green. If they’re green, they’re probably lemon lime flavored. If they’re lemon lime flavored, they’re probably sour. If they’re sour, they’ll make you make this face >.<

[krimzongangbeats]

Its weird sitting here watching this, thinking about alien hundreds of light years away. They don't know how much we want to know about them, and that we can come up with different scenarios to meet them. Its very humbling.
Imagine being them, not knowing that there is a species that goes by the name "human", who are talking indirectly about you.
oh the existentialism.

[Ian_sothejokeworks]

"Well, boss, we have our gift for the Earthlings, an infinite energy source, ready to be handed over to them."

"I changed my mind! Instead of handing it over when we meet them, I want you to launch it at them at near-relativistic speeds, so it gets there a day earlier than we do."

"Umm..."

[DrShaym]

What if aliens are trying to decipher our languages, but they can't tell one from another? If they're getting radio transmissions from all over the world, they would be getting signals in English, Spanish, Japanese, Chinese, Russian, and so on, all mixed together. They might listen to one transmission in English, then try to compare it to one in Chinese for context, not realizing it's a different language and making it even more confusing. It's like if you tried to teach a Chinese speaker English by holding up a picture of a cat and saying the Russian word for house.

[richardsorge]

Great work! Keep it up. As a novice sci-fi writer you gave me inspiration for a story and it won a award!

[jetflaque]

"i'd have the incompetent fool shot"

best quote of the series: :D please be our president when first contact occurs sir..

[robertwilson]

This video is about 4yrs old, but I am just starting to play catchup on your vast library...this video is still fresh material for me. Thank you !

[willbrown]

The buggers realised they were fighting intelligent beings, however, they believed that the humans they killed were merely drones and that killing them was like "clipping the "human queen's" toe nails"

[chrisbenson]

Man, I would love to read a sarcastic sic fi novel about a first contact where the aliens decide that toasters are the more intelligent species that have been enslaved by humans....

[Taco]

"You would have to be monumentally dense to miss signs that Earth has intelligent tool users on it." LMAO

[DavidMacDowellBlue]

8:24 as I recall the problem was that the Buggers presumed we, like themselves, were a hive mind and killing individuals was just a way of attracting attention. That the individuals were individually sentient was what they could not at first wrap their heads around, not that somebody here was intelligent enough to build spaceships. So the Buggers' mistake was not as you characterize it.

[colonelgraff]

7:15 "If the other fellow can't tell you his story, you can never be sure he isn't trying to kill you."

[conureking]

Dang he sounded salty on that “they’ve been here” part, like he was directly telling aliens not to screw up.

[ianyboo]

these episodes are a bit like reading tvtropes for me where the more I learn about a topic the more ridiculous the books and shows dealing with that topic look.

[mikey]

This channel gets me through long work shifts. Thanks for that!

[thomasr.jackson]

It's been a while since I read Ender's Game and the sequels, but my recollection was that what the buggers were slow to understand was not that we were intelligent, but the idea that we were individually sentient. As hive creatures, their unit of individuality was the hive, or perhaps specifically the queen. So, doing something that resulted in the death of a million individual humans didn't register to them with the same moral consequence. When they discovered their mistake they were horrified, withdrew, and awaited the retaliation, which though greater than they expected, was still something they understood.