I started the story in 1967 as a companion piece to The Andromeda Strain. Install Windows Server 2003 Vmware Esxi. But then, I didn’t know where to go with it. The idea of doing a story about contact with superior intelligence, a time-honored theme, is that it’s very hard, if you stop and think about it.
Phenomenology and Psychological Science Historical and Philosophical Perspectives, Peter Ashworth, Man Cheung Chung, Mar 11, 2007, Philosophy, 226 pages. English parliamentary sources in date order plus alphabetical listing of references to Andrew Roberts book on the Lunacy Commission.
Most writers evade the issue by making the alien recognizably human. It’s 9 feet tall, with spiky teeth, and it wants to eat you. Or it’s 3 feet tall and wants to hug you. In either case, it’s human-like.
What’s more likely about first contact with an extraterrestrial is that the alien wouldn’t look human-like at all. You might not even be able to see it or detect it. And its behavior would be absolutely inexplicable. Trouble is, it gets hard to dream up a story where at the center there is something that’s inexplicable. What interested me in this was to take a book in which a very extreme situation was presented to a group of people and then to see how this group of people responded to the extreme situation. From Sphere: Barnes was staring at him.
He seemed uncomfortable. He shuffled the files around on his desk. “Actually, this isn’t an airplane crash site, Dr. Johnson.” “What is it?” “It’s a spacecraft crash site.” There was a short pause. Norman nodded. “I see.” “That doesn’t surprise you?” Barnes said. “No,” Norman said.
“As a matter of fact, it explains a lot. If a military spacecraft crashed in the ocean, that explains why I haven’t heard anything about it on the radio, why it was kept a secret, why I was brought here the way I was When did it crash?” Barnes hesitated just a fraction before answering. “As best we can estimate,” he said, “this spacecraft crashed three hundred years ago.”. From Sphere: Barnes said, “Norman?” “Let’s admit the truth,” Norman said.
“We’re not really trained for a saturated environment and we’re not really comfortable down here. At least I’m not. And we’re not the best people to evaluate this spacecraft. At this point, the Navy’d be much better off with a team of NASA engineers. I say, go.” “Harry?” “Let’s get the hell out,” Harry said. “Any particular reason?” Barnes said. “Call it intuition.” Ted said, “I can’t believe you would say that, Harry, just when we have this fabulous new idea about the ship -” “That’s beside the point now,” Barnes said crisply.
“I’ll make the arrangements with the surface to pull us out in another twelve hours.”. From Sphere: “Don’t choose one,” Beth said.
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