Space Opera
First Contact is the first space opera I've actually read; I've seen the Star Wars movies and some clips of Star Trek, I guess I like to keep with the "Star" titled works, though I'm not actually sure if Star Trek counts as space opera or not. After reading First Contact, it brought to my attention aspects of Star Wars and even other unrelated works that I had noticed a bit but not actually put much thought into.
The main theme I picked up on is that of self-preservation, in fact that seems to be the focus of First Contact. As the humans come across the alien vessel, the narrative almost immediately begins discussing the logistics/necessities of the situation, none of which are good unfortunately. It makes it painfully clear, and reiterates multiple times in fact, how neither of the ships can risk going home without destroying the other. This actually reminds me of the phrase in Harry Potter, "Neither can live while the other survives," in essence meaning one of them has to die, in this case one of the ships, either the human or the alien ship, must be destroyed in order for the other to survive and go home.
The majority of the story involves the characters trying to figure out how to approach this. Unlike many stories, they don't get into a battle and have to figure out what to do once fighting, this story is unique because they spend all their time trying to figure out the best course of action, trying to figure out how to possibly avoid a fight with the other ship, both the humans and aliens trying to make a decision. Before interacting, they both realize the other ship must be thinking the same thing and trying to figure out what to do. Both ships appeared to learn about the nebula, both spot each other, both send out either a probe or a crew member to inspect the other, both ships retreat as the things they sent out investigate each other, then they both finally communicate with each other. It's interesting because even though they're completely alien to each other, the aliens resemble the humans, though with obvious differences, but they both are struggling with the same conflict and what decision to make. It was refreshing in the end they were able to come to an agreement that meant everyone could go home without dying, I only wish real life could be so diplomatic.
These two ships get stuck in this predicament totally by wild chance and accident, quite unfortunate when for most of the story they both think they have to kill the other. The idea of self-preservation is prevalent during the whole time they're trying to figure out what to do, but not just for themselves on the ship, they are also thinking about their home planets and how to keep their entire civilizations safe from each other and the possibility of invasions now that they know about each other. This concept of self-preservation shows up in Star Wars but perhaps not as much; Star Wars seems to focus on more of the whole epic tale with giant space battles and whatnot, but there is self-preservation seen in both the rebel forces and the Imperial Empire, both are trying to be the last man standing so their respective groups will live on though obviously for different reasons. This self-preservation is painfully obvious in real life as well and has been throughout all of history since the beginning of life; it's basically the nature of life, to self-preserve and make sure your line continues. This unfortunately ends in a lot of conflict and sadly I don't think we'll ever evolve past this rather primitive point, but I wouldn't mind if we were able to self-preserve peacefully and diplomatically, though I'm skeptical. Hopefully we as a species can work on this and make good progress to be more mature about keeping what we have going without stepping on everything and everyone we come across in the process.
The main theme I picked up on is that of self-preservation, in fact that seems to be the focus of First Contact. As the humans come across the alien vessel, the narrative almost immediately begins discussing the logistics/necessities of the situation, none of which are good unfortunately. It makes it painfully clear, and reiterates multiple times in fact, how neither of the ships can risk going home without destroying the other. This actually reminds me of the phrase in Harry Potter, "Neither can live while the other survives," in essence meaning one of them has to die, in this case one of the ships, either the human or the alien ship, must be destroyed in order for the other to survive and go home.
The majority of the story involves the characters trying to figure out how to approach this. Unlike many stories, they don't get into a battle and have to figure out what to do once fighting, this story is unique because they spend all their time trying to figure out the best course of action, trying to figure out how to possibly avoid a fight with the other ship, both the humans and aliens trying to make a decision. Before interacting, they both realize the other ship must be thinking the same thing and trying to figure out what to do. Both ships appeared to learn about the nebula, both spot each other, both send out either a probe or a crew member to inspect the other, both ships retreat as the things they sent out investigate each other, then they both finally communicate with each other. It's interesting because even though they're completely alien to each other, the aliens resemble the humans, though with obvious differences, but they both are struggling with the same conflict and what decision to make. It was refreshing in the end they were able to come to an agreement that meant everyone could go home without dying, I only wish real life could be so diplomatic.
These two ships get stuck in this predicament totally by wild chance and accident, quite unfortunate when for most of the story they both think they have to kill the other. The idea of self-preservation is prevalent during the whole time they're trying to figure out what to do, but not just for themselves on the ship, they are also thinking about their home planets and how to keep their entire civilizations safe from each other and the possibility of invasions now that they know about each other. This concept of self-preservation shows up in Star Wars but perhaps not as much; Star Wars seems to focus on more of the whole epic tale with giant space battles and whatnot, but there is self-preservation seen in both the rebel forces and the Imperial Empire, both are trying to be the last man standing so their respective groups will live on though obviously for different reasons. This self-preservation is painfully obvious in real life as well and has been throughout all of history since the beginning of life; it's basically the nature of life, to self-preserve and make sure your line continues. This unfortunately ends in a lot of conflict and sadly I don't think we'll ever evolve past this rather primitive point, but I wouldn't mind if we were able to self-preserve peacefully and diplomatically, though I'm skeptical. Hopefully we as a species can work on this and make good progress to be more mature about keeping what we have going without stepping on everything and everyone we come across in the process.
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