What if we met an alien intelligence?
Also known as: first contact premise
A story founded on humanity's first encounter with a non-human intelligence and the effort to understand it.
What if we met an alien intelligence? in fiction: 13 works
Martians arrive and humanity's first meeting with alien intelligence is one of annihilation.
The Overlords arrive to shepherd humanity, framing a first contact that transforms the species.
The living ocean of Solaris is an alien mind humanity cannot comprehend, its central premise.
The monoliths mark humanity's contact with a guiding higher intelligence across its evolution.
Aliens visited and left behind incomprehensible Zones and artifacts, the story's premise.
Ordinary people are drawn toward a peaceful meeting with visiting aliens.
A decoded alien signal gives humanity blueprints to build a machine for contact.
A decoded alien message provides the means to attempt contact, the film's premise.
Learning an alien language reshapes a linguist's experience of time, the story's premise.
A crew meets an alien intelligence that may be conscious without being self-aware, the novel's premise.
Earth signals its location to a threatened alien civilization that resolves to invade, the trilogy's premise.
A linguist must learn an alien language to communicate with visiting heptapods, the film's premise.
A lone astronaut befriends an alien engineer to jointly save both their dying stars.
More premises
- What if machines could think?
- What if we could travel through time?
- What if we could create life?
- What if reality were a simulation?
- What if we could live forever?
- What if civilization collapsed?
- What if we could edit the mind?
- What if the state controlled everything?
- What if we could engineer humanity?
- What if we settled other worlds?
- What if history had gone differently?