this post was submitted on 27 Jul 2023
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Honestly the scariest thing about first contact is if absolutely nothing changes.
Scary would be if they rock up, observe us for a few days, then leave hurriedly, forever.
That's... Actually probably exactly how Star Trek would handle modern Earth. Part of the prime directive is that any species that gets contacted by the Federation has to achieve a certain level of technological and societal advancement first, and we're close, but I'm pretty sure we'd get put on the "check back in a century" list.
So, if they're nice aliens and they just watch us for a while and leave, maybe our first contact just got waitlisted?
The main requirement is warp capability, right? I'd say we're still a ways off. I think we're even slower than impulse drive, still.
I think warp capability just means they're guaranteed to find other life on their own now, so there's no point in hiding.
@Int @fossilesque, scary rather the shame we experience when they ask us to bring them to our leader
“Two hundred thousand years of evolution, and for what?”