How do you think First Contact will play out?

[Josh123914]

We'll end up fighting these guys.

Spoiler

But it'll be ok, 'cause then Shepard will come along and save us all from galactic annihilation.

Yes, but they'll be great when your in a fight and are really good meme-machines:
you humans are all racist!
Ah Yes.......... we've dismissed that claim
Sorry for the inconvenience sir.
can it wait for a bit? I'm in the middle of some calibrations
to name a few

"Stupid humans, we're here to put you down!"

"Can it wait for a bit? I'm in the middle of some calibrations."

We could put the war off for years.

could be worse, we could run into batarians, steal their planets and reduce them to a Terminus slave-trade race....... OH WAIT

 

[Bre2nan]

I believe that if there are hyper-advanced extraterrestrials out there, there's a reason they've never visited us. I could imagine them out there studying our planet like it's a giant microscope slide, not daring to get anywhere close to it in case we discover them. If they have mastered the technology of space travel and interstellar observation, they'd know full well that making contact would mess up their results.

And they would have reason to study us, in the same way that we would have reason to study the ancient Egyptians or Mesopotamians or something. Studying us could possibly give them insights on how sentient life emerged and grew on their own world. If they are advanced enough to master space travel, it likely would have been hundreds if not thousands of years of years since they were on our level of technology.

 

[octafish]

Ack! Ack! Ack! Ack! Ack Ack Ack Ack! *blooolooooloooo*

or,

Ulllaaaaaaaa! Ullaaaaaaaa!

EDIT: Oh yeah, take that MartianWarMachine. I totally Jeff Wayne ninjaed you...

 

[DeadlyYellow]

I can see it now....

Patrick Stewart travels back in time to stop the Borg from destroying our prototype warp drive, the technological advance that gets us noticed by another race.

Wait.

 

[Shoggoth2588]

5. We encounter religious nuts who believes our very existance offends their gods,a la Halo(bar the Halocaust ringworlds)

I never understood this aspect of Halo. What makes Humans so repugnant that The Prophets want us dead? The took in the Brutes, the worms that make up Hunters and, Scarabs, the Grunts, why not humans? Also, why is it that humanity never encountered another species rejected by The Prophets (other than The Flood I mean). It could have worked out better than the whole brute-elite falling out I think.

back on topic:

Any species that has mastered interstellar travel will either be
A) conquers who will raze our planet and strip it of resources or,
B) Smart enough to know that if they mess with us too much, it'll screw our society up

That being said, I would think first contact would either be sudden, loud and, quick (former) or, quiet and taking place between select individuals (later)

I would much rather have Aliens be here right now, trading silicon for corn peacefully and quietly than to have Darth Malak glass the Earth from above because we are unwittingly harboring the fallen Darth Revan. Honestly though I wouldn't be surprised if either one happened.

 

[Redlin5_v1legacy]

Hopefully like this;

Spoiler

Right, time to memorize this shit. Got to love the internet. As for the OP... I really, really hope we have something like the Vulcan's first contact. That would be ideal.

 

[Accountfailed]

It will play out like that terrible movie Contact, and then everyone (aliens included) will want their money back.

 

[Buzz Killington_v1legacy]

7. We encounter aliens, but we're so different from each other that neither species recognizes the other as intelligent--or does, but can't communicate with the other.

This scenario shows up in science fiction quite a bit. Take C.J. Cherryh's tc'a, for instance. They're serpent-looking methane breathers whose brains are divided into five parts, and all communications from them have to be rendered into five-by-five matrices of words that can be read horizontally, vertically, or diagonally. None of the oxygen-breathers in the books are every entirely sure what they mean.

 

[Digital_Hero]

To be completely honest? Our politicians piss them off and on that merit, they destroy us
no seriously, im pretty sure thats how it'll eventually play out

 

[Lyx]

How it would play out?

A) The spacefaring species considers humans uninteresting and of too low mental evolution to be useful. They continue their journey.

B) The spacefaring species considers humans uninteresting, but additionally humans do something stupid towards them, so they nuke a few humans, and then continue bored elsewhere.

Summary: Mostly harmless... and boring. Humans are a waste of time, for a spacefaring species, because to become an interstellar species, certain conditions would need to be met. And relative to those conditions, humans are just rats with bombs.

 

[Hader]

The Ordo Hereticus will launch an Exterminatus on our planet.

Oh well.

 

[DefunctTheory]

Like that.

 

[Veylon]

If there is a first contact, it'll probably play out via radio waves and take decades.

 

[reddfawks]

*Thinks "Don't say anal probe, don't say anal probe..."*

NNNRGH! *Chews on knuckle*

 

[Josh123914]

*Thinks "Don't say anal probe, don't say anal probe..."*

NNNRGH! *Chews on knuckle*

too late to stop them now, you've given them ideas

 

[Josh123914]

5. We encounter religious nuts who believes our very existance offends their gods,a la Halo(bar the Halocaust ringworlds)

I never understood this aspect of Halo. What makes Humans so repugnant that The Prophets want us dead? The took in the Brutes, the worms that make up Hunters and, Scarabs, the Grunts, why not humans? Also, why is it that humanity never encountered another species rejected by The Prophets (other than The Flood I mean). It could have worked out better than the whole brute-elite falling out I think.

back on topic:

Any species that has mastered interstellar travel will either be
A) conquers who will raze our planet and strip it of resources or,
B) Smart enough to know that if they mess with us too much, it'll screw our society up

That being said, I would think first contact would either be sudden, loud and, quick (former) or, quiet and taking place between select individuals (later)

I would much rather have Aliens be here right now, trading silicon for corn peacefully and quietly than to have Darth Malak glass the Earth from above because we are unwittingly harboring the fallen Darth Revan. Honestly though I wouldn't be surprised if either one happened.

Well from my understanding Elites and prophets were the founding members, Brutes, Jackals and the bugs(can't remember their name) joined volunterally because it benefitted them, the Grunts were only just entering their bronze age and the worms that made up hunters were sitting on top of craploads of Forerunner relics so they were pretty much forced in(though only by the prophet's orders, that's why most of them joined the Elites in Halo 3)The Engineers I'm not sure about, but they are deployed as recon, repair and suicide bombers and apparently can only communicate with the prophets so they are like a slave race, but not exactly at the bottom(those spots are reserved for Jackals, Grunts and bugs). The reason why the prophets want to 'kill all humans'(cookie for reference)is because of our connection with the forerunners, I didn't read any of the books but apparently Truth and Mercy discovered the connection around a year before war broke out about the connection, and it's probably the explanation, I mean why else would Tartarus need Keyes jr. in Halo 2 to activate the Halo array? or why Truth needed Johnson(Summer Tales, Rooster trails, you, your kids and your Johnson(you get the cookie jar for this reference))alive on the Ark in Halo 3, hell, even in the original Halo the Elites captured the survivers of the Pillar of Autumn, probably to activate Instillation 04 because to my understanding that is one of the only times the Covenant took Human prisoners, All times on a Halo ring or some other Forerunner Instillation. Also, I'm guessing that the reason why we haven't seen species rejected by the Covenant is because either A) the covenant accept everyone, we hjust haven't seeen them all, I mean since halo 2 we've met at least half a dozen species outside of Grunts, Elites, Hunters and Jackals,(not to mention 2-3 species from the covenant were scrapped in Halo 2 because of time restrains) or B) They simply eradicate any that they don't deem 'worthy' for admission.

 

[Pyromaniak3]

Any of you seen Independance day?
Just like that.

 

[KrabbiPatty]

I was discussing something with a friend a while ago, when we were talking about how much we both loved ID4. We came to the agreement that, if aliens showed up tomorrow, people would be able to deal with it basically--we've all come to the realization, I believe, that aliens MUST exist simply because of how big the universe is and how many billions of habitable worlds (or worlds with life in environments we would not even consider habitable) must exist. Statistically it is not just inevitable that intelligent life exists, but impossible it does not.

However...

My friend said to me, "If they look like squids or whatever, yeah we're fine with that. But if they look like humans it would be panic in the streets."

Why, I asked.

"Because," she said, "If aliens look like aliens, like Greys or something, it will be what people expect. If the aliens look like us, it throws everything we know about biology, evolution, religion etc up in the air." And I agree. If that happened it would change everything. Suddenly man did not just evolve on Earth. Suddenly, man was not made in God's image. Suddenly, not only are we not alone, but we have identical twin brothers a few hundred lightyears away. If that happens nothing will ever be the same.

I'm reminded, interestingly, about a scene from an episode of Power Rangers in Space, wherein they first met the red ranger who was an alien teenager who looked identical to a normal human. When asked about it his response was to say "Humans didn't just evolve on Earth you know," as if it were the most obvious thing in the world. That may be the respond we get if aliens look like humans and we inquire as to why.

"Oh what? You think you evolved on THIS rock? Lolwut! No your ancestors were criminals we exiled here eons ago."

Just a thought.