I felt that the way it handled first contact as the opposite of an inevitable conflict from an inherently hostile alien life form, but rather that the aliens want absolutely nothing to do with humans after contact, despite being aware of humanity's existence for a long time. Maybe "deconstruction" isn't quite the right term. Either way, I felt that it subverted the dark forest trope as depicted in other works like Killing Star and Run to the Stars where one civilization, upon discovery of another immediately sets out to kill the other. In Blindsight there was no immediate hostile response, they just kept to themselves, and, as humanity encroached on their claim in space, they politely told them to fuck off as they had no interest in contact or communication, nor, crucially, the ability to do so.
That's correct, our collective radio signals from our day to day comms, as well as our later attempts to directly hail them were a meaningless clutter that sapped useful time and energy attempting to decipher them, so in essence, the communication itself was a form of attack. They set up a Chinese room to stave off potential attempts to establish direct contact and carried on. I think firefall was just the Crown's attempt to figure out where the hell these attacks (telecommunications) were coming from and beam back the data.
There's a scifi trilogy called Conquerers that is about a first contact conflict that starts because the human ship sends out a radio buoy that causes the lizard people and their ghost ancestors physical pain that they decide is a preemptive attack.
For an interesting take/deconstruction of the dark forest theory, read Blindsight by Peter Watts
I've read it. How is it a deconstruction?
I felt that the way it handled first contact as the opposite of an inevitable conflict from an inherently hostile alien life form, but rather that the aliens want absolutely nothing to do with humans after contact, despite being aware of humanity's existence for a long time. Maybe "deconstruction" isn't quite the right term. Either way, I felt that it subverted the dark forest trope as depicted in other works like Killing Star and Run to the Stars where one civilization, upon discovery of another immediately sets out to kill the other. In Blindsight there was no immediate hostile response, they just kept to themselves, and, as humanity encroached on their claim in space, they politely told them to fuck off as they had no interest in contact or communication, nor, crucially, the ability to do so.
deleted by creator
That's correct, our collective radio signals from our day to day comms, as well as our later attempts to directly hail them were a meaningless clutter that sapped useful time and energy attempting to decipher them, so in essence, the communication itself was a form of attack. They set up a Chinese room to stave off potential attempts to establish direct contact and carried on. I think firefall was just the Crown's attempt to figure out where the hell these attacks (telecommunications) were coming from and beam back the data.
There's a scifi trilogy called Conquerers that is about a first contact conflict that starts because the human ship sends out a radio buoy that causes the lizard people and their ghost ancestors physical pain that they decide is a preemptive attack.