When First Contact Is Established WIll We Still Have Sci Fi Shows?

If we ever found out the truth I'm not sure we'd still have a civilization left to have sci-fi shows.

I can very easily see complete social breakdown from public anger with governments and the religious among us flipping out after realizing the Earth is not the center of the universe and that they aren't the highest form of life, or thinking that ETs are demons.

The revelation will likely be so shattering that I only see the basics of our civilization standing afterwards. Entertainment would be the first to go.

a reply to: Wirral Bagpuss

No, science fiction films will become reality TV and reality shows will become fiction, if they're not already.

Looking at Eureka, which is clearly a Sci-Fi Show (and comedy drama or so) without any aliens, I do believe that we will have Sci-Fi shows after First contact. Maybe more realistic Sci-Fi, but it will still be around as long as there are stories in space and the future, that need to be told.

The programs that wave the SF banner have tossed the S out long ago. One has to look long and hard to find modern SF that is worth the trouble watching/reading more than once or even partly without calling dren.

The fact that people think SF needs aliens is telling enough.

a reply to: Wirral Bagpuss

one thing is for sure, I won't be getting my "first contact" information from mainstream news

a reply to: Wirral Bagpuss

We'll have soap operas with aliens in them and they still won't be telling us the truth.

Of course we will, our imaginations don't stop just because we meet someone new. We'll be inspired to draft up a whole new set of stories with the potential species as the inspiration in some form or another, just like with cultures here (we're mighty fond of Japanese & Chinese epics and draw from them, do we not?)

Two things make me wonder how the entertainment industry would change. First, this is going to put a whole new spin on the Miss Universe pageant. Maybe Futurama wasn't that far off in it's depiction?
And two, alien porn. Maybe we don't want to explore that one.

originally posted by: benrl
Yes, it will simply be called Drama, instead of Sci-fi.

You could argue that "science fiction" is not a proper genre as it is. It is mostly focused on speculative fantasy that takes place either "in the future" or "off somewhere in outer space".

But both of those will still exist after any potential "first contact" scenario. We would probably in fact have an explosion of interest in the sci-fi "genre". All that will be lost in the opportunity for "first contact" speculative sci-fi such as "Close Encounters of the Third Kind" and that Star Trek movie where we make first contact after discovering "warp drive".

a reply to: Wirral Bagpuss

Well...great question...will we:
1. Go Ape Sh*t over something like a huge saucer as in Independence Day or The Day the Earth Stood Still?
2. Will our own government try to tell us that this contact is all a hoax...swamp gas, mass hysteria...those old chestnuts?
3. Would someone in government take out the original Brooking's parchment and finally light a match to it?
4. Will all (or at least the money driven - phony) scientists commit mass suicide?

I would think we would most resemble what the Brooking's Institute lays out...mass panic

There's a lot of neat stuff for modern forensics, but to me the TV show CSI is more than half science fiction. Some aspects are even the butt of jokes, but hey people still love to watch it and it gets good ratings. Entertainment is entertainment, so any kind of fiction will work if the story is good, and that will be true whether or not we meet any aliens from space.

a reply to: Talliostro

Man i just started watching Eureka on the weekend, already on season 3.
Love sci fi.

Anyway, people should read Childhoods End by Arthur C Clarke, its a good read about if "Benign" aliens came along and a golden age started. I'm hoping that if disclosure does happen, that we wont lose our ambition as a species, which is a topic in said book i might add.

I wonder if the aliens watch our sci fi shows thinking they're soaps!

Very interesting replies. I am an author myself having written Sherlock Holmes stories and have on occasion written Sci Fi stories so I was interested to see what the consensus was on post First Contact situation regarding sci fi.

originally posted by: Wirral Bagpuss
When First Contact takes place, will we still have sci fi shows on that we can watch

Yeah, Amish Mafia should still be on.

a reply to: draknoir2

LOL!!!!!

No, they would be terribly offended and demand
we take those shows off the air by playing---- the "Space Card"

We'll probably have more sci fi after first contact since everyone's minds will be full of new possibilities. If anything, things will get more interesting since the influx of new ideas may drown out some of the tired old sci fi that takes classical drama and sets it in space.