Carol and I watched Contact, the 1997 movie staring Jodie Foster about our first contact with extraterrestrial’s. It’s one of my favorite movies of all time and also one of my favorite books. It definitely makes you think about how we’d react. Surprisingly enough this science fiction story routinely invokes god and religion and what it means for each of us. It’s actually a very spiritual movie but also shows the ugly sides of humanity.
At 5 this morning I thought up how a sequel would play out. A couple of things to keep in mind is that in the book it was not just Dr. Arroway that goes on this trip. There are seven or eight others that go with her and they ALL have the same experience where a loved one greets them and talks to them about their hopes/desires/fears. And all of them have the eighteen hours of static on their personal recording devices. And of course no one believes them and they are discredited just like in the movie.
My thought this morning was that the world would change. Sure, many people would believe the whole International Machine Consortium (IMC) was a hoax and move on with their lives, but some would not. In fact, I believe it would fundamentally change some religions and create new ones in all the messy ways that religion often takes us.
So imagine if thirty years has gone by. The kids that grew up believing that we had indeed contacted aliens are now engineers and scientists and politicians in their own right. Faced with the existential crisis of climate change and global governments not being able to reign in all entities polluting the planet what would they do?
Well, I’d imagine they’d infiltrate the IMC (because you know it never really goes away), take it over and send a group to plead for intervention from the extraterrestrials! Then the real question is what do the aliens do? Do they give us the technology to help heal the planet? Or do they tell us to deal with our own problems in our own way?
Oh, the questions and story lines that could come out of said story. I wish I was the story teller that could bring this idea to life but maybe, just maybe it lights a fire in you. I give anyone permission to freely use this idea - just send me a signed copy some day. And maybe invite me to the world premier of the movie. :)