For this hypothetical, let’s say it’s not aliens actually visiting earth. But let’s say JWST finds a planet maybe a few hundred light years away, and we can see lights and cities and maybe spaceships or stuff like that around it. So no contact, but 100% proof there’s intelligent life out there. How would humans (and different groups of humans, like conservative Christians) react to this?

  • dat_math [they/them]
    ·
    11 months ago

    Fun fact: The Vatican has a basic plan for what to do if we encounter aliens, starting with finding out if they exist in a state of grace or committed original sin, and if Jesus visited them to do the whole sacrifice to redeem their sins thing.

    The vatican should read Simmons' Hyperion

    • Frank [he/him, he/him]
      ·
      11 months ago

      Word. Fun book. I love that it's "The Canterbury Tales; IN SPACE edition." I wish he'd kept up that conceit in the sequels, it was really original and fun.

      • dat_math [they/them]
        ·
        11 months ago

        Word. Fun book. I love that it's "The Canterbury Tales; IN SPACE edition.

        Seriously!

        I wish he'd kept up that conceit in the sequels, it was really original and fun.

        Same, the first two books were incredible and the subsequent two felt like simmons was writing with one hand in a few places and trying to woo some western Buddhist with the whole

        spoiler

        Aenea acausally accessing and communicating through the time crystal comprised of every living and dead consciousness that is for some reason stored like data on a hard drive in the interstices of the universe

        I did love how they tied together Rachel's story in Rise of Endymion and I wouldn't mind a prequel novella about the ousters 150 years before the events of Hyperion