First Contact Quotes

“Look, without our stories, without the true nature and reality of who we are as People of Color, nothing about fanboy or fangirl culture would make sense. What I mean by that is: if it wasn't for race, X-Men doesn't sense. If it wasn't for the history of breeding human beings in the New World through chattel slavery, Dune doesn't make sense. If it wasn't for the history of colonialism and imperialism, Star Wars doesn't make sense. If it wasn't for the extermination of so many Indigenous First Nations, most of what we call science fiction’s contact stories doesn't make sense. Without us as the secret sauce, none of this works, and it is about time that we understood that we are the Force that holds the Star Wars universe together. We’re the Prime Directive that makes Star Trek possible, yeah. In the Green Lantern Corps, we are the oath. We are all of these things—erased, and yet without us—we are essential.”
― Junot Díaz

“How do you say 'We come in peace' when the very words are an act of war?”
― Peter Watts, Blindsight

“Training was one thing, reality another, and no one could be sure that the ancient human instincts of self-preservation would not take over in an emergency.”
― Arthur C. Clarke, Rendezvous with Rama

“It took me all day to get that car out. Well, it wasn’t a car. That’s just what I thought it might be when I spotted part of it jutting out from decades of forest undergrowth, and moss, inside a mound of blackberry bushes.”
― C.A. Knutsen, Tom and G.E.R.I.

“In science fiction books characters always seem to have a weapon that can be set on stun. Do you have anything like that?” I asked. GERI laughed. He was getting better at it. “Yes, Tom, I have something like that.”
― C.A. Knutsen, Tom and G.E.R.I.

“Mr. Williams, in your short time boarding with us you’ve seen very little of my home,” Eleanor said. “I’d like you to see the rest of it, starting with my bedroom.”
― C.A. Knutsen, Tom and G.E.R.I.

“That got to me. I wasn’t communicating with a computer. Inside this machine was a sophisticated, self-aware intelligence, and it wanted me to be its friend.”
― C.A. Knutsen, Tom and G.E.R.I.

“The only reason we were here was because nobody had yet optimized software for First Contact.”
― Peter Watts, Blindsight

“The notion of a universe filled with cowards... who stay cowardly FOREVER, no matter how advanced they become... seems no[t] only unimaginative and temporally myopic, but deeply dismal, as well.”
― David Brin

“A more ambitious bet would be to learn from what we imagine a more mature civilization might have attempted. To take the small scientific leap and allow the possibility ‘Oumuamua was extraterrestrial technology is to give humanity the small nudge toward thinking like a civilization that could have left a lightsail buoy for our solar system to run into. It is to nudge us not just to imagine alien spacecraft but to contemplate the construction of our own such craft.”
― Avi Loeb, Extraterrestrial: The First Sign of Intelligent Life Beyond Earth

“Well, if a Little Fuzzy finds a door open, I’d like to know why he shouldn’t come in and look around.”
― H. Beam Piper

“Greetings, human. We come in peace. Take me to your leader so I may serve you.’
‘What?’
‘Fried or baked?’
‘Uh—?’
‘Serve, get it? That’s a first-contact joke.”
― Peter F. Hamilton, A Night Without Stars

“instructive to view things from ‘Oumuamua’s vantage point. From that object’s perspective, it was at rest and our solar system slammed into it. Or, in a way that works both metaphorically and, maybe, literally, perhaps ‘Oumuamua was like a buoy resting in the expanse of the universe, and our solar system was like a ship that ran into it at high speed.”
― Avi Loeb, Extraterrestrial: The First Sign of Intelligent Life Beyond Earth

“…We have not fully deciphered his language but I have, as instructed, been keeping full phonetic transcriptions of his every remark. Trubaz has calculated psychologically that the meaning of this remark to be:
“Ministers of the Great one, be gracious to me.”
The phonetic transcription is as follows:
AND THEY TALK ABOUT PINK ELEPHANTS!”
― Anthony Boucher

“A brilliant light exploded along the horizon...before subsiding into an angry red glare. As far as she could see, the skies were on fire...in the distance, cities were burning.
Roaring sounded over her head as multiple jet engines roared overhead...Daria thought wildly. 'Please God, let those be our jets!”
― Fionne Foxxe Farraday, Kairn

“You have a language!' I say. 'How do you have a language? You don't have a mouth!'
'”
― Andy Weir, Project Hail Mary

“I’d always said that if and when the aliens actually landed, it would be a letdown. I mean, after War of the Worlds, Close Encounters, and E.T., there was no way they could live up to the image in the public’s mind, good or bad. I’d also said that they would look nothing like the aliens of the movies, and that they would not have come to A) kill us, B) take over our planet and enslave us, C) save us from ourselves à la The Day the Earth Stood Still, or D) have sex with Earthwomen. I mean, I realize it’s hard to find someone nice, but would aliens really come thousands of light-years just to get a date? Plus, it seemed just as likely they’d be attracted to warthogs. Or yucca. Or air-conditioning units.”
― Connie Willis, All Seated on the Ground

“...когда несходные культуры вступают в контакт, одна обычно должна подчиниться, иначе - война.
("Первый контакт")”
― Murray Leinster, First Contacts: The Essential Murray Leinster

“We’re not having sex, are we?”
“No,” Talia confirmed. “Don’t take it the wrong way, you’re by far the nicest insect I’ve ever spent time with, but first contact is one thing. I’m not sure my reputation can take sleeping with the first alien I meet.”
― Gavin G. Smith, A Quantum Mythology

“He could talk at length about the known invasive species, and why there were so many different ones: the weblike filaments choking the trees in New Orleans, the flame-colored poppies erupting on Mexico City rooftops, the green fins popping up in Florida beach sand like sharks coming ashore. Every shell that struck Earth, and some that hit the surface of the water, cracked and sent millions of seeds into the air or into the oceans.”
― Daryl Gregory, Nine Last Days on Planet Earth

“Your president only speaks for Americans. American movies speak for your world. Who hasn't seen Wizard of Oz? Or Jaws? Or Star Wars? We've seen them, and we're not even from this planet.”
― John Scalzi, Agent to the Stars

“Harvest" is a deep and meaningful exploration of the complexities regarding the origins of the human race as well as the intentions of an alien species.”
― Readers' Favorite

“Have they been carrying out abductions and experiments on humans and animals?

“Emphatically No... Any species authorised to visit a planet must adhere to the six mandatory decrees imposed by the Guardians of Law and Natural Law: No contact, No impact, No interact, No extract, No transact, No artefact. To violate any of these prescripts is classed as an act of aggression against the Traits.”
― BH Mckechnie, The Last Question

“Let us begin by saying that no two symmetriads are alike and that the geometry of each is, as it were, an “invention” of the living ocean. So then, the symmetriad produces in its interior things that are often called “instant machines,” though these formations bear no resemblance to machines constructed by people — the term only refers to a certain “mechanical” purposiveness of operation.”
― Stanisław Lem, Solaris

“No, I do not come from a world like yours. But the more I understand the words, images and thoughts in your mind, it seems I might be a person after all.”
― Ahnimgoyothalia, from the novel, UNIMAGINARY

“This is how you break down the wall: Start with two beings. They can be human if you like, but that's hardly a prerequisite. All that matters is that they know how to talk among themselves.
Separate them. Let them see each other, let them speak. Perhaps a window between their cages. Perhaps an audio feed. Let them practice the art of conversation in their own chosen way.
Hurt them.
It may take a while to figure out how. Some may shrink from fire, others from toxic gas or liquid. Some creatures may be invulnerable to blowtorches and grenades, but shriek in terror at the threat of ultrasonic sound. You have to experiment; and when you discover just the right stimulus, the optimum balance between pain and injury, you must inflict it without the remorse.
You leave them an escape hatch, of course. That's the very point of the exercise: give one of your subjects the means to end the pain, but give the other the information required to use it. To one you might present a single shape, while showing the other a whole selection. The pain will stop when the being with the menu chooses the item its partner has seen. So let the games begin. Watch your subjects squirm. If—when—they trip the off switch, you'll know at least some of the information they exchanged; and if you record everything that passed between them, you'll start to get some idea of how they exchanged it.
When they solve one puzzle, give them a new one. Mix things up. Switch their roles. See how they do at circles versus squares. Try them out on factorials and Fibonnaccis. Continue until Rosetta Stone results.
This is how you communicate with a fellow intelligence: you hurt it, and keep on hurting it, until you can distinguish the speech from the screams.”
― Peter Watts

“Maybe the aliens are looking for the civilisations that don’t send out the SETI signals.”
― J.L. Haynes

“Lord Redgar never chose a God for himself. He served them all.”
― Kurt Levi