Chance Encounters

Imagine if we know an alien race is approaching Earth with the intention of invasion and, in doing so, will eliminate the human race. What would be our reaction? How does humanity respond? Do we lose hope and get into anarchy mode? Or do we remain optimistic and use this information as a motivational stress?

This is the premise of Cixin Liu's trilogy Remembering Earth's Past. I read two books in the series: The Three-Body Problem and The Dark Forest. Undoubtedly, this is the most captivating science fiction I have read in a long time. It has great ideas, science, futuristic concepts, and vision mixed with human emotions, psychology, and politics. 

As a side note, the aliens have already sent a proton-based ever, pervasive supercomputer to Earth, through which they can spy on every human activity and also mess with experiments so that they prevent the scientific advancement of the human race so that we do not make scientific advancements to defeat them by the time they arrive here. Reading these books was very inspirational and, at the same time, humbling. Time and space are the two dimensions over which humans have no control. Our communication and space travel is limited by the speed limit of light. How can we overcome these limitations? Can we fold space to make time travel possible? What are the biological limits of time/space travel ? Can we comprehend these concepts with the current processing power of our brain? Do we have to merge our brains with supercomputers to go to the next phase of evolution ?

So many questions? At one point in the story, we receive a message from the alien race 'You are Bugs". Intended as a threat and a reminder of our primitive technological state compared to theirs. It was a depressing message for most. Yes, we are primitive; scientific advancement is blocked, and we can do nothing to prevent the calamity from happening. What do we do ? What would a bug do? As one character says, we humans have been trying for a very long time to overcome various bugs using pesticides, antibiotics, vaccines, and whatnot, but the bugs lived on... The universe is a cruel place; it has limited space and resources, and it abides by the first law of thermodynamics. We bugs might still live on. Hopefully. 

As of now, we are a lonely civilization. I firmly believe there are life forms in the universe that we may or may not encounter. If our civilization manages to expand and overcome the challenges we have, chances are that we may come across alien species. Our descendants may one day benefit from watching Star Wars. The world will be a very different place for them, something I cannot even imagine.