This isn't so much of a bone as it is a thought process. In all the movies (and most stories) when the aliens come down and immediately go to Washington DC or New York City (either for a treaty or to blow it up). Why? It seems awfully American-centric to believe that.
Just what would an alien species value, what is their world view, and how would that direct their first contact with Earth. Would they even come to see the humans? That's not really a given. We aren't the most successful or numerous species on the planet (I believe ants fill that role). We aren't the largest animals. We aren't the only social animals. Is there much difference (from an alien view) between cities and ant hills, or gopher warrens? Would they choose us because of our broadcast media? Would aliens even bother to watch or listen to our media? Would they even see there were signals on those wavelengths. Radio and TV broadcast signals are based on the radiation windows in our atmosphere. If you're a space based community, there are frequencies (for lack of better term) that have the capacity for more bandwidth than our puny signals, and in space they wouldn't have propagation issues that have on Earth. So it's not a given that aliens would be listening to us.
Okay, so let us say that aliens are interested in humans. Why Washington or NYC? Jakarta has a greater population density, Beijing as well. Heck, much of SE Asia has greater population density in their cities. Why not the Hague? Would aliens even care about our political divisions? Probably not.
And then there are the questions of why a species would be space faring in the first place? Economics? Adventure? Conquest? Would they even value the same things we do? Probably not. Our world is economics based. A far flung space empire wouldn't be because being in space is a huge drain on any economy. So what would drive them to be space faring?
Just some things to think about.
4 comments:
I'm totally blanking on the name of the book/(series?) and author.
Earth is trashed. Cities are in domes. Oceans are being killed (algae? heat? don't remember)
There are more than one alien group in orbit. Lead character (woman?) is some sort of pilot who can interface with ship and is training other pilots.
The aliens (and here's the point), do not hear see or experience anything on the same wavelengths we do. Nobody knows why they're here, what they want or anything about them. Most of the story is about trying to figure that out.
Maybe an Elizabeth Bear story? Really not sure.
Nathan, I have no idea. I'll try and do some thinking on that.
Steve, those are excellent questions. Unless there was a way to traverse space in a reasonable amount of time at not to great an expense, why do it? Unless you identify suitable worlds and then colonize them with ships that take centuries to reach their destination.
It turns out I wasn't totally off the mark. The book I was thinking of is WorldWired by Elizabeth Bear. Third book in a series preceded by Hammered and Scardown.
The description on the back of the book:
Give Canada's Master Warrant Officer Jenny Casey an inch and she'll take a galaxy. That's just the kind of person a world on the brink of destruction needs. The year is 2063, and Earth has been brutalized. An asteroid flung at Toronto by the PanChinese govt. has killed tens of millions and left the equivalent of a nuclear explosion in its wake.
Perched above the devastation in the starship Montreal, Jenny is still in the thick of the fray. Plugged into the worldwire, connected to a brilliant AI, her mind can be everywhere and anywhere at once. But it's focused on the mysterious alien beings right outside her ship. Are they there to help - or destroy? With Earth a breeding ground for treason and betrayal as governments struggle to assign blame, Jenny holds the fate of humankind in her artificially reconstructed hand...
I knew I didn't just imagine it...I'm not that good an imaginer.
thanks for the recommended read there, Nathan. Yeah, I never promised my story bones were unique, and I don't doubt that the wonderful Ms. Bear got there first.
Vince, yeah, many of the first contact stories seemed silly to me. Unless 1) space travel and energy suddenly become extremely cheap it isn't going to happen to much, and 2) most first contact stories are very human, and specifically Euro-centric.
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