An early approach to the topic, H. G. Wells' War of the Worlds

First contact is a common science-fictional theme about the first meeting between humans and aliens, or, more broadly, of any sentient race's first encounter with another one. The theme allows authors to explore such topics such as xenophobia, transcendentalism, and basic linguistics by adapting the anthropological topic of first contact to extraterrestrial cultures. First contact may refer to: In science: First contact (anthropology), a first meeting of two previously unknown cultures First contact (astronomy), the moment in astronomy during a transit or eclipse when the apparent positions of the two bodies first touch In Star Trek: First Contact (TNG episode), a fourth season... Image File history File links Download high-resolution version (487x700, 202 KB) Česky |hehe Deutsch | English | Ελληνικά | Español | فارسی | Français | עברית | Indonesian | Italiano | 日本語 | 한국어 | Magyar | Nederlands | Polski | Português | Românǎ | Русский | Slovenščina | Српски | Sunda | 简体中文 | 正體中文 | Türkçe | Русский | Українська +/- File links The following pages on the English Wikipedia link to this file (pages on... Image File history File links Download high-resolution version (487x700, 202 KB) Česky |hehe Deutsch | English | Ελληνικά | Español | فارسی | Français | עברית | Indonesian | Italiano | 日本語 | 한국어 | Magyar | Nederlands | Polski | Português | Românǎ | Русский | Slovenščina | Српски | Sunda | 简体中文 | 正體中文 | Türkçe | Русский | Українська +/- File links The following pages on the English Wikipedia link to this file (pages on... Herbert George Wells (September 21, 1866 – August 13, 1946), better known as H. G. Wells, was an English writer best known for such science fiction novels as The Time Machine, The War of the Worlds, The Invisible Man, The First Men in the Moon and The Island of Doctor Moreau. ... The War of the Worlds is a novel written by H.G. Wells in 1898 depicting an alien invasion of the earth. ... Science fiction is a form of speculative fiction principally dealing with the impact of imagined science and technology, or both, upon society and persons as individuals. ... Science fiction has a number of common concepts and themes that have been reused by numerous authors. ... This article is about modern humans. ... Green people redirects here. ... Not to be confused with sapience. ... Look up xenophobia in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. ... Transcendental in philosophical contexts In philosophy, transcendental experiences are experiences of an exclusively human nature that are other-worldly or beyond the human realm of understanding. ... Broadly conceived, linguistics is the study of human language, and a linguist is someone who engages in this study. ... This article is about the social science. ... First contact is a term used to describe a first meeting of two previously unknown cultures. ...

Overview

Murray Leinster's 1945 novelette First Contact established the term "first contact" in science fiction, although the theme had previously appeared in e.g. H. G. Wells' The Time Machine (1895), The War of the Worlds (1898) and The First Men in the Moon (1901). Murray Leinster (June 16, 1896 in Norfolk, Virginia- June 8, 1975) was a nom de plume of William Fitzgerald Jenkins, an award-winning American writer of science fiction and alternate history. ... A novelette (or novelet) is a piece of short prose fiction. ... Herbert George Wells (September 21, 1866 – August 13, 1946), better known as H. G. Wells, was an English writer best known for such science fiction novels as The Time Machine, The War of the Worlds, The Invisible Man, The First Men in the Moon and The Island of Doctor Moreau. ... The Time Machine is a novel by H. G. Wells, first published in 1895, later made into two films of the same title. ... The War of the Worlds (1898), by H. G. Wells, is an early science fiction novel which describes an invasion of England by aliens from Mars. ... The First Men in the Moon is a 1901 science fiction novel by the British author H. G. Wells. ...

There have been entire series devoted to this theme. One classic series is the "interstellar trader" series by Andre Norton. A more modern treatment, using radio rather than spaceships, are The Hercules Text by Jack McDevitt, "Signal from Space" by Will Eisner, or Contact by Carl Sagan. Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle's The Mote in God's Eye was written to be, in Niven's words, "the epitome of first contact novels". Here it is humanity which plays the role of the visiting aliens, as the religious, technological, political, psychological, military, cultural and biological implications of first contact are explored. Andre Alice Norton (February 17, 1912 – March 17, 2005), science fiction and fantasy author (with some works of historical fiction and contemporary fiction), was born Alice Mary Norton in Cleveland, Ohio, in the United States. ... The Space Shuttle Discovery as seen from the International Space Station. ... Jack McDevitt (1935-) is an American science fiction author whose novels frequently deal with attempts to make contact with alien races and archaeology (or xenoarchaeology). ... William Erwin Eisner (March 6, 1917 – January 3, 2005) was an acclaimed American comics writer, artist and entrepreneur. ... Contact is a science fiction novel written by Carl Sagan and published in 1985. ... Insert non-formatted text here Carl Edward Sagan (November 9, 1934 – December 20, 1996) was an American astronomer and astrobiologist and a highly successful popularizer of astronomy, astrophysics, and other natural sciences. ... The Mote in Gods Eye, by Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle, is a science fiction novel that was first published in 1974. ...

The Star Trek television series explores the theme in depth, and introduced the concept of the Prime Directive - a law which explicitly forbids first contact (or any form of interference for that matter) between humanity and its allies, and any and all races not sufficiently advanced (i.e. capable of interstellar travel) for such an encounter. There is also the movie, Star Trek: First Contact. This article is about the entire Star Trek franchise. ... To meet Wikipedias quality standards, this article may require cleanup. ... Star Trek: First Contact (Paramount Pictures, 1996; see also 1996 in film), is the eighth feature film based on the popular Star Trek science fiction television series. ...

By contrast, in the novels of Iain M. Banks, the Contact division of the galactic civilization calling itself The Culture (which features in the majority of Banks' science fiction) are frequent manipulators of less advanced civilizations, steering them towards peaceful progress, especially those which may become aggressive or dangerous, under the pretense of maintaining the balance of galactic power. A notable exception being when the Culture encounters the Earth in the short story The State of the Art and deems humanity not to be worth contacting. Novels such as The Player of Games and Look to Windward delve into the psychology of first inter-species contact in considerable depth and it is in the novel Excession where Banks coins the phrase Outside Context Problem in relation to first contact. Iain Menzies Banks (born on February 16, 1954 in Dunfermline, Fife, Scotland) writes mainstream novels as Iain Banks and science fiction as Iain M. Banks. ... The Culture is a fictional anarchic, socialistic and utopian society created by the Scottish writer Iain Banks and described by him in several of his novels and shorter fictions. ... The State of the Art is a collection of short fiction, mainly science fiction, by Scottish writer Iain M. Banks, first published in 1991. ... The Player of Games is a science fiction novel by Scottish writer Iain M. Banks, first published in 1988. ... Look to Windward is a science fiction novel by Scottish writer Iain M. Banks, first published in 2000. ... Excession, first published in 1996, is Scottish writer Iain M. Banks fourth science fiction novel to feature the Culture. ... An Outside Context Problem or an OCP is any problem outside a given groups (organisation, society, culture or civilisation) experience, with an immediate, ubiquitous and lasting impact upon it. ...

The novel The Gods Themselves by Isaac Asimov eerily explores simultaneously the potential unity of all races, and the possibility of conflict that is inherent in all first contact situations: even as members of different races understand each other, their disparate ways may endanger both their worlds, even the fabric of their respective universes. This gap between individuals and their respective societies is characteristic of the First Contact plot of ET. Other explorations of the theme in popular culture include encounters with predatory or semi-sentient races as in Alien and Independence Day. The Gods Themselves is a 1972 science fiction novel written by Isaac Asimov (ISBN 1061500534). ... Isaac Asimov (January 2?, 1920?[1] – April 6, 1992), pronounced , originally Исаак Озимов but now transcribed into Russian as Айзек Азимов [1], was a Russian-born American author and professor of biochemistry, a highly successful writer, best known for his works of science fiction and for his popular science books. ... For the Atari 2600 video game based on the movie, see E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial (Atari 2600). ... Alien (1979), directed by Ridley Scott, is an extremely popular and influential science fiction/horror film that spawned several sequels and imitators. ... Independence Day (also known by its promotional abbreviation ID4) is a 1996 Academy Award-winning science fiction film directed by Roland Emmerich. ...

The absence of First Contact is evident in other works of science fiction, such as Asimov's Foundation series, where the Galactic Empire of Humanity is the undisputed ruler of the known cosmos, since no aliens exist. Examples of the mutual inscrutability and the potentially unbridgeable gaps between races which - by their very natures - are just too different to bond or even to accept each other, include Stephen Baxter's Xeelee Sequence concept of the dark matter photino birds, the god-like Firstborn from Arthur C. Clarke's Odyssey series, and Stanisław Lem's planet Solaris and the events of the novel Fiasco. In other cases, such as Greg Bear's The Forge of God and Anvil of Stars, or Bruce Sterling's Schismatrix, aliens are presented as falling into a highly diverse spectrum, some easily relating with humans, others too alien for meaningful communication. Stephen Baxter (born in Liverpool, 13 November 1957) is a British hard science fiction author. ... The Xeelee Sequence is a series of novels and short stories by British science fiction author Stephen Baxter. ... Sir Arthur Charles Clarke, CBE, Sri Lankabhimanya (16 December 1917 – 19 March 2008) was a British (lived in Sri Lanka since 1956) science fiction author, inventor, and futurist, most famous for the novel 2001: A Space Odyssey, written in collaboration with director Stanley Kubrick, a collaboration which led also to... StanisÅ‚aw Lem ( , September 12, 1921 – March 27, 2006) was a Polish science fiction, philosophical and satirical writer. ... Cover by Oscar Chichoni for the Spanish edition Solaris is a Polish science fiction novel by StanisÅ‚aw Lem (1921-2006), published in Warsaw in 1961 and probably his most famous work. ... Fiasco (Polish: Fiasko) (1987; ISBN 3518396749) is a science fiction novel by StanisÅ‚aw Lem that deals with clashes of cultures. ... The Forge of God (1987) is a science fiction novel by Greg Bear that gives a convincing account of an alien attack on Earth accomplished through misdirection and the use of self-replicating von Neumann machines. ... A book by Greg Bear and a worthy sequel to Forge of God. Where the children saved from the recently destroyed earth are sent on a quest, by a faction called the benefactors, to find and destroy the civilsation who send the killer probes in the first place. ... Schismatrix is a science fiction novel by Bruce Sterling, originally published in 1985. ...

Peter Watts' Hugo nominated Blindsight (2006) is one of the latest works to explore the theme of first contact. Peter Watts is a Canadian science fiction author and marine-mammal biologist. ...

Anthropology and other fiction

Many stories about the old American West featured a first contact between English colonists and Native Americans. In Papua New Guinea, first contacts with hitherto unknown tribes were made as late as the 1930s. The Western United States, also referred to as the American West or simply The West, traditionally refers to the region constituting the westernmost states of the United States (see geographical terminology section for further discussion of these terms). ... This article is about the English as an ethnic group and nation. ... This article refers to a colony in politics and history. ... For other uses, see Native Americans (disambiguation). ...

Further reading

• "Encyclopedia of Extraterrestrial Encounters" by Ronald Story (2001) ISBN 0-451-20424-7 (It was the result of a collaborative Extraterrestrial Encyclopedia Project (ETEP); excerpts online)

See also

• First contact (anthropology)
• Outside Context Problem
• SETI
• Contact (novel)

First contact is a term used to describe a first meeting of two previously unknown cultures. ... An Outside Context Problem or an OCP is any problem outside a given groups (organisation, society, culture or civilisation) experience, with an immediate, ubiquitous and lasting impact upon it. ... This article is about the search for extra-terrestrial intelligence. ... Contact is a science fiction novel written by Carl Sagan and published in 1985. ...

External links

• List of works of science fiction dealing with First Contact