No aliens in the 'Verse...How do you feel?
POSTED BY: BWare42
UPDATED: Wednesday, February 8, 2006 03:25
VIEWED: 20169
PAGE 8 of 9
Quote:
Originally posted by christhecynic:Quote:
Originally posted by asarian:Quote:
Originally posted by CaptBryan:
... Well I say we stand no chance because we would just fight amongst ourselves and the Aliens would sit back in Horror or Laughter and let us do the work for them.
Hmm, I think we're pretty much right there, now. :)
Has it never occurred to anyone that aliens could be just as screwed up as us? There is no way to know how different physical and cultural evolutions would effect a species, but why does everyone seem to assume that we alone have exclusive rights to chaos and infighting?
Hey there, Mr. cynic, :)
I think it requires a certain level of organization and absence of chaos to venture out into place to try and meet new people. :) That's why Klingons, as a species, are so unrealistic: they're way too chaotic to be plausible aliens (well, bad example, actually, as Klingons, in the strictest sense, are not aliens, but Reavers; but I'll leave that for another time).
Waxing serious, for a moment, what it so brilliant about FireFly/Serenity, is that is HAS a monster; but a very slick one. Not a drooling madman, like, say, the bad guy in Highlander, but a smooth and educated human man; the one y'all know as The Operative:
"There's no place for me there, any more than there is for you. Malcolm. I'm a monster. What I do is evil. I have no illusions about it, but it must be done."
Skipping to the brilliancy part, our Monster actually has a better understanding of humanity than, say, Dr. Mathias. Because The Operative understands that Simon acted out of Love, whereas Dr. Mathias was stupified by it.
Now, see, that's more scary than an alien! And something a good deal more dangerous.
P.S. See? I can make a post without mentioning River! :)
"Mei-mei, everything I have is right here." -- Simon Tam.
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I feel relieved.
However, there may indeed be aliens out there, but they probably don't have FTL drive, or Gawdelpus, we might actually be the more advanced civilisation...
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While I think one cannot discount the possiblity of other life on other planets given the vastness of the universe, planets capable of supporting life in a similar sense to how it happens on Earth would be extremely rare compared to the lifeless rocks floating out there, given how perfect conditions on such planets would have to be. Some of those planets probably wouldn't support terribly complex life, and those that did may not at this time support intelligent life advanced enough to travel around in starships. The chances of such life being in close enough proximity to interact with it even within the next 600 years is very slim. So I have no problem with the 'Verse not containing any alien life. It's actually very refreshing when compared to some sci-fi shows like "Star Trek" where a completely new intelligent alien race is introduced every episode. I'm not questioning the validity of the universes of that show and other shows, but having humans in Firefly/Serenity as the only intelligent life does give the show an easy-to-relate-to grounding that sets it apart from other shows.
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Quote:
Originally posted by JaysonAych:
It's actually very refreshing when compared to some sci-fi shows like "Star Trek" where a completely new intelligent alien race is introduced every episode.
Just want to point out, for no reason at all, that some of those races were damn good. I think the line, "Darmok and Jalad at Tenagra," will be with me forever though I don't actually know how to spell it.
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I will forever be a fan of "Star Trek". And there is no question in my mind, that there is life on other planets out there.......waaaaaaaaaaaaaaay the heck out there. Having said that, one of the many reasons I love "Firefly" is because there are no aliens. You can barley find a futuristic science fiction TV show or movie that doesn't have aliens in it. "Firefly" is refreshing in that way.
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Quote:
Originally posted by christhecynic:Quote:
Originally posted by JaysonAych:
It's actually very refreshing when compared to some sci-fi shows like "Star Trek" where a completely new intelligent alien race is introduced every episode.
Just want to point out, for no reason at all, that some of those races were damn good. I think the line, "Darmok and Jalad at Tenagra," will be with me forever though I don't actually know how to spell it.
This is very much true, and that was a very interesting episode...and I hope what I said wasn't interpreted as a bash at "Star Trek." I enjoyed every iteration of the series at one point or another. But the constant addition of new races so frequently in the show, IMO, required some suspension of disbelief, at least on my part.
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I haven't read all the replies yet, but I just wanted to weigh in with something that I hope will give a little perspective to the whole "where are all the aliens?" spiel, both on the show and in real life...
This is a LOOOOOONNNNNGGG post, so feel free to skip it. It's also an oversimplified way of looking at things, in the interest of keeping it from being even longer, and because frankly, I'm just not that bright. :)
Let's look at things from a Big Picture point of view. Religious viewpoints and beliefs aside, our best scientific evidence says that our universe is roughly 16-20 billion years old, depending on who you ask, and when you ask them. Even the margin of error in that timeline is enough time to let a world form out of the nothingness, cool down, attract a moon, develop oceans, an atmosphere, and life. And pizza! :)
Okay, given such an overwhelmingly stupendous, really just amazingly big stretch of time, you have a lot of opportunities for aliens to develop (be Created by their Maker, evolve, thrust themselves into this mortal coil, or whatever you choose to believe). Best guesses say the Earth is around 4.5 billion years old, but that not even the most basic life forms started here until over 1.5 billion years into that span. Sooooo... you had basically a 13-17 billion year time period BEFORE there was life on Earth (intelligent or otherwise) where you might have had intelligent life roaming all through the galaxies getting up to no good. Like seeding the Earth with life, for instance. ;)
So there's the whole timeline thing. "Intelligent" humans have been on Earth for thousands of (or tens of thousands of, or hundreds of thousands of) years at best, not for millions or billions. Humans who could actually really recognize, perceive, or accept an alien lifeform as being "alien" have been here a lot less time than that. And we've only been "actively" (I use the term loosely, given SETI's budget) searching for them for, what?, the last 30 years or thereabouts?
Given billions of years, we're carping about not finding them in the last few dozen years. Sounds like we're an impatient bunch, huh? :) Remember that entire classes of beings evolved, lived, and went into extinction within mere millions of years. Generally speaking, our "intelligent" era of life is smaller than a speck when viewed on the timeline of the universe. Other intelligent species very well may have already existed, bloomed into supremacy, and died out long before our proto-human ancestors were even capable of looking at the stars and wondering if they were alone in here.
Okay, let's look at the whole SPACE issue next. As in, "Space - there sure is a lot of it." There's a reason they call it space after all: because it mostly consists of nothing but empty space! But that aside, let's say there are hundreds... no, let's say thousands... wait - let's say there are MILLIONS of planets out there. I'm with you on that part; so many billions of stars in bilions of galaxies, how could there NOT be another one with intelligent life?
But say there was. Or is, or will be. (There's that pesky timeline again.) Now either we've got to find them, or they've got to find us. That's IF two species exist at the same time, and both have the means to search or monitor the heavens, and at least one is searching for another, or hoping to be found by another. Big "if", that. But even if all the planets aligned (so to speak), we could still completely miss each other, even while trying desperately to find each other! Ever see the shows where someone's lost in the desert, the forest, or the mountains? Everyone's looking, and the lost folk are usually really trying to be found, but often as not they're not found. At least not alive. And that's just in one tiny corner of our middling-sized world.
Our technology is sufficient at this point to *start* letting us conduct a rudimentary search, and that's no small feat. Even so, we have a hard time even finding planets orbiting nearby stars. The ones we have found are gene
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I think the show is much better off without aliens. It's about human cultures and how they interact. I understand the point about Native Americans being an important part of the American frontier, but that's an aspect that Joss has chosen not to include. Oh wait, he did: the Reavers. Maybe in a horribly stereotyped way, but the legends of "Injuns" used to include wild, primitive, inhuman raiders wantonly murdering and performing perverse acts. I don't think Joss meant it in that way, though.
As far as the likelihood of running into aliens: remember, this is just one star system. Not finding aliens doesn't lend credence to either side of the "do they exist" argument.
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Quote:You mean Reavers in the "warped reflection of humanity" metafictional sense, or Reavers in the "stole their stuff from the folks they beat up" sense?
Originally posted by asarian:
I think it requires a certain level of organization and absence of chaos to venture out into place to try and meet new people. :) That's why Klingons, as a species, are so unrealistic: they're way too chaotic to be plausible aliens (well, bad example, actually, as Klingons, in the strictest sense, are not aliens, but Reavers; but I'll leave that for another time).
'Cause, chronologically, the (current) Klingon civilization is really young (they just hit the four digits mark during DS9). They should be in the Dark Ages, socially. It's just that the Hur'q invaded them a few hundred years ago, and the Klingons rebelled, killed their enslavers, and stole/modified/copied their tech.
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We applied the cortical electrodes but were unable to get a neural reaction from either patient.
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As far as I understood it, its not like they have travelled the verse. Just to another solar system probably in close proximity to this one, say less than 20 light years for example.
Nothing is mentioned but I take it there is no such thing as faster than light travel in FF (correct me if I'm wrong) and it a very big verse.
Might have to travel a very long way to meet intellegent life.
"If wishes were horses we'd all be eating steak!!!"
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