"V" and Religion

A quick word on something that came up in the opening scenes of the science fiction television series "V". Apparently in the world of "V", the Roman Catholic Church, or the Vatican, had not come up with an answer to the question of extraterrestrial intelligences, and were forced to react "in crisis mode" and come up with a ruling on the fly, that the aliens count as "God's creatures" too. I've now read a few spoilers about the series online, and it seems that the decision might not be totally on the fly, as apparently governments and organizations may have already known about the existence of the aliens.

For the information of anyone who happens to be reading this, in our world, the Vatican actually has issued a statement about the possibility of the existence of Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence, and it's pretty much the same as the one in the show "V". In fact, I wouldn't be surprised if they were quoting directly from the Vatican's statement. According to today's world's Roman Catholic Church, if ETIs are discovered to exist, then they will also be "God's creatures".



On another note, the spokeswoman for the aliens appears to be a real flesh-and-blood entity, and not a computer-generated entity, as I initially expected. This is really weird, because no one would expect aliens from another star system to look virtually identical to humans. In the show, the reporters awkwardly ask the alien spokeswoman basically "How come you're a purty lady and not a butt-ugly alien?" which is a rude question in itself, but I wouldn't put that past today's media, although I'd expect such a question more from an outfit like TMZ than anything like the LA Times or CNN.

Also, why are the media not interviewing Neil DeGrasse Tyson, Stephen Hawking, or any number of NASA folks, SETI folks, or just plain amateur astronomers. Surely they're not all bought by the alien conspiracy. And you gotta know that Neil DeGrasse Tyson has some serious questions for the aliens. In fact, probably any astrophysicist who is watching this whole Alien Introduction thing play out is probably pointing out the same inconsistencies as I am, and probably a number I haven't even thought of.

But then, even if you have serious concerns, what can you really do? Can you lob nuclear missiles at them? They probably have defenses against nuclear weapons, and even if you did manage to destroy the aliens, you're wiping out huge economic centres in the process. New York City, Los Angeles, London, Paris, Moscow, Cairo, all the financial and industrial capitals of the world.

When you look at it this way, you can only conclude that the aliens' utter proximity is a show of force, and they intend to be threatening. The alien spokeswoman talks about peace and trade, but the body language of the alien spaceships says "invasion" pretty clearly. It says "yes, we're in your face now, and there's nothing you can do about it."

What would I do about it? Well, I do believe in diplomacy and talking. Clearly the aliens are technologically superior, so there's no point in fighting. And they did take the trouble to learn human languages, so apparently they are somehow invested in the continuity of the human race, or else they wouldn't have bothered communicating. The first thing I would do though, would be to ask the aliens to back off from the cities of earth, like I said in my last post, go park in orbit around the moon, and then we'll talk.

One more problem with science fiction film and television is of course the fact that we tend to pick human actors to play the aliens. There are numerous strategies to tackle this problem, and "V" has gone with the idea that the aliens are so technologically advanced and so eager to please the human race that they've taken on a form that would be considered "beautiful" in Southern California. Don't get me wrong on this: I happen to share many of these standards of what I consider "beautiful" with Southern California. I just don't see why the aliens should place such a high priority on "looking good".

Well, I shouldn't say I can't totally see it, because the fact is, aliens would have mainly had access to our media that was broadcast by radio waves, and this type of media is somewhat weighted toward Southern California.

However, again, if the aliens took the time to learn English, French, and Arabic, then you'd think they'd learn a little bit about how humans perceive beauty, and they would rather quickly realize that it's just another one of our silly evolutionary quirks, and there's no real reason to play along with the beauty game.

Remember, the aliens have humanity completely at their mercy. They say they want water and mineral resources, but they could easily get these from the comets and asteroids, cheaper than they could get them from earth. So what do they want? Well, maybe they actually do want to play the beauty game. Maybe they crave a feeling of superiority over every intelligent creature they find. Maybe they just want to see if they can do it. Hell, maybe they're scientists.

Remember Jane Goodall, who lived with the great apes in the Congo? She went to great lengths to learn how the apes communicated. In effect, she learned their culture. She never tried to dominate a tribe of apes by being the most beautiful or desirable. But in some senses she did attempt to be seen as "a member of the troop". She tried to blend in, in order to learn more about the apes.

Perhaps with the aliens of "V", this is what they're doing. Of course they're horribly misguided. Just like you don't walk into a troop of apes and start pushing around the biggest silverback you find, you shouldn't park an alien spaceship above the economic hearts of the most powerful countries on Earth. Someone is going to get hurt.

If you're the scientist among the silverbacks, hey maybe you have a gun. Good for you. Bad for the poor silverbacks, and bad for your scientific experiment if you kill your subjects.

So for the aliens in "V", their experiment is rather ham-handed, but I think I might actually be able to forgive them for this, because I have no idea what alien culture might be like. Maybe the differences are so great that they simply cannot comprehend the intricacies of human culture. And I say "human" culture with some hesitation because even in our global human society, we have cultural differences that can really mess with diplomatic relations. Just take the standards of beauty I was talking about earlier. What would happen if this alien lady showed up in Saudi Arabia? Could they take her seriously? Somehow I doubt it. She seems very well dressed and positioned to take a position of power in Europe or North America, especially New York or Washington, but I'm not so sure she'd fare as well in the rest of the world.