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First Contact Quotes

Browse 55 quotes about First Contact.

First Contact Quotes

“So, let me get this right. You invented this groundbreaking medical technology that changes the way we literally do everything in trauma and blood, and you are out here, 30.3 light-years away from Earth, on a planet where everyone involved in the Eden project was a hundred percent sure there’d be no DNA, blood, or anything? And now here we are playing with the DNA of an alien race? What is this? What is actually going on here?”

Genetic EngineeringFirst ContactDeep SpaceHard Sci FiEthics In ScienceScience Gone WrongAlien DnaBio TechMedical Sci FiSpace Exploratio
Book:Eden 2:b
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“We!” he emphasizes, pointing at his crew, “get to be the first link in a new chapter in our history. But I want you all to really consider what is going on here…” He takes the tone of a circus ringmaster. “This is bigger than successfully colonizing Mars and Ganymede. It’s bigger than Columbus or Magellan. It’s even bigger than the first homo sapiens leaving Africa.” He raises his voice even more, waving his arms. “Hell, this is bigger than fish crawling out of the fucking water and growing legs! Think about it!” Everyone is quiet, avoiding eye contact with Calvin. Everyone except Captain Taylor looks at him ambiguously. “Why not Cook and Vancouver?” Taylor asks. “Excuse me, sir?” “You said Columbus or Magellan, but that’s preposterous. Magellan was a madman who tortured his crew and never made the whole trip, and Columbus, to be honest, is completely overblown. The dignity alone that Captain Cook commanded…” “Yeah, yeah, OK. Cook and Magellan? Frances Drake? Whoever. The point is…” Calvin walks to the glass and points. “This,” the pudgy showman continues, “is right here, right now. Got it?! Everyone here needs to admit the real reason we want to go down to that mysterious blue planet, figure out the atmosphere, and collect some space plasma. It’s not because it’s our job. No. It’s time we’re all honest and admit we are now part of something much bigger than ourselves. It’s not just our job, it’s our story. It’s our story as human beings, it’s our instinct to explore!”

Science FictionFirst ContactExploration Quotes
Book:Eden 2:b
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“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.”

First ContactExtraterrestrial Life
Book:Extraterrestrial: The First Sign of Intelligent Life Beyond Earth
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“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.”

PhilosophyScienceConsciousnessFirst Contact
Book:Solaris
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“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.”

First ContactExtraterrestrial Life
Book:Extraterrestrial: The First Sign of Intelligent Life Beyond Earth
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“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.”

AliensFirst ContactEtClose Encounters
Book:All Seated on the Ground
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“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.”

First Contact
Book:Nine Last Days on Planet Earth
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“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.”

Science FictionAliensFirst Contact
Book:The Last Question
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“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.”

IntelligenceFirst ContactBlindsight
Author:Peter Watts
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“I'm overwhelmed, Captain Picard. I'm quite - overwhelmed. I go home each night to a loving wife, two beautiful daughters. We eat the evening meal together as a family, (I think that is important), and they always ask me if I had a good day." "And how will you answer them tonight, Chancellor?" "I will have to say, 'This morning, I was the leader of the universe as I knew it. This afternoon, I am only a voice in a chorus. But I think it was a good day.”

First Contact
Author:Star Trek: The New Generation
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“Un singur punct cenușiu - meteorit uman, singuratic, lunecând lent prin beznă, printre spiralele albastre... Apoi teleecranul se stinse; undele viorii, minusculului meteorit uman și masiva umbră convexă planetară, ce-l atrăgea, se topiră, în aceeași lumină argintie, ce invadă încăperea, ca un metal fluid opalescent.”

Science FictionSpace ExplorationSpace TravelRomaniaFirst ContactHigh Intensity Realism
Book:Anotimpul sirenelor
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“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.”

CultureRaceSlaveryScifiFirst ContactPeople Of ColorFanboy
Author:Junot Díaz
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“Peter Watts has taken the core myths of the First Contact story and shaken them to pieces. The result is a shocking and mesmerizing performance, a tour-de-force of provocative and often alarming ideas. It is a rare novel that has the potential to set science fiction on an entirely new course. Blindsight is such a book.”

FirstsBookIdeasStoriesCoursesForceResultsFictionNovelTakenPiecesPerformancesScience FictionMythCoreContactPeterShockingProvocativeFirst ContactMesmerizing
Author:Karl Schroeder
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“It is a written fact that our people had warned of all these consequences of wrongful environmental behavior since our very first contact with the non-Indians. There was a time when our elders used to say to us, "You can't function with one foot in the white man's canoe and one foot in the Indian's canoe." With these extreme environmental concerns taking place on the earth, mankind is all in the same boat. Or better be.”

PeopleMenFirstsFactsEarthUsedWhiteWrittenFeetMankindBehaviorConsequenceConcernFunctionEnvironmentalExtremesContactBoatIndianWhite ManEldersFirst Contact
Author:Leonard Peltier
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“I think everyone agrees First Contact was our best film, and even at that, they're kind of... I don't know, they're sort of movies. But they're kind of really Star Trek movies, if you take my meaning. It's hard for me to say. I was glad to be doing them. Whether they were good isn't really up to me to determine, and it doesn't matter what I think. I thought we had a really nice script on Nemesis, and the audience didn't seem to care for it, so what can you do?”

IfsThinkingKnowsFirstsKindMatterHardSeemsCareFilmStarsAudienceNiceAgreeScriptsDetermineGladContactReally NiceNemesisBest FilmFirst ContactStar Trek Movie
Author:Brent Spiner
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