Speculation re Sagan's Contact.

[Gawdzilla Sama]

The book Contact imagines that an alien race picks up our radio and television signals and sends us a message that includes instructions on how to build a machine of some kind.

What do you think would happen if that actually occurred today? Would it be different if it had occurred in, say, 1969?

[Feck]

Well I think an alien Fanfare for my birth would have been giving the game away .

[Gawdzilla Sama]

Well I think an alien Fanfare for my birth would have been giving the game away .

That and making John Hurt so much.

[Audley Strange]

First of all we'd have to translate the EULA. (say decades0 Then we'd need to agree to it, (again that might take decades) Then we'd find out that there were several dozen trivial but mandatory updates to the software which we'd download. Then we'd reset the computer and start the machine only to find out it was a trial version which can only sent the user to a distance of 1/8th of a lightyear.

[Gawdzilla Sama]

First of all we'd have to translate the EULA. (say decades0 Then we'd need to agree to it, (again that might take decades) Then we'd find out that there were several dozen trivial but mandatory updates to the software which we'd download. Then we'd reset the computer and start the machine only to find out it was a trial version which can only sent the user to a distance of 1/8th of a lightyear.

And it would have a virus in it which would make the only TV show visible to us "The Graham Norton Show".

[Audley Strange]

So you did bittorrent one then... I should have known.

Related to this, I've always wondered how we'd react if aliens entered the solar system, flew right past us and colonised Mars, completely disregarding us or our attempts to communicate. How long do you think before we'd be trying to get them off Mars because "that's our planet?"

[Atheist-Lite]

The instructions would only tell how to build the machine. The aliens would trun it on from the outside as is the way with microwave ovens.

[maiforpeace]

The instructions would only tell how to build the machine. The aliens would trun it on from the outside as is the way with microwave ovens.

They are coming to annihilate us.

I would love for this to happen during my lifetime but I feel fairly certain it won't, sadly. In the meantime I'll console myself with reruns of the movie.

[Gawdzilla Sama]

I'm wondering if it would even be built in this economy.

[Woodbutcher]

It would be contracted to the lowest bidder....it would never make it past the moon.

[mistermack]

I doubt if anybody would take the risk of building the machine.
What are the odds of it being benign, versus aggressive? Too many Trojans about.

[Gawdzilla Sama]

I doubt if anybody would take the risk of building the machine.
What are the odds of it being benign, versus aggressive? Too many Trojans about.

That was one of the scenarios brought up at the Presidential advisory meeting in the movie. Sagan's assumption that advanced races would always be peaceful has a few flaws. The current holders of the technology could be degenerate descendents of the race, or bellicose aliens could have captured the equipment or defeated the originators.