A Sci-Fi Lesson

Sort of a science fiction day. Watched Valerian. I’d seen it before, and remembered I liked it, but, like a goldfish in a bowl, I guess, it was interesting straight through. One thing I really liked about it, was the cool alien worlds. The beaches of Mul (there’s supposed to be an umlaut over that, but my keyboard offers me no such possibility) and the Big Bazaar, or Grand Market I think it was called. The story, in the end, was not that amazing, our hero and heroine saved the nearly extinct alien race and caught the bad guy, but it was visually spectacular and that’s what I want in the future.
Then I went back to binge watching Another World. Season two is easily as good as season one. Sure, there’s action and cool science stuff, but there are ethical dilemmas galore. Do you sacrifice one person to save the whole crew? Can you ever really trust an AI? But the central question of the whole show is are the Archaians friend or foe – it’s looking like mostly foe but there have been a couple of points where negotiations seemed to be open – like when they saved the little girl.
But, it seems to go back and forth and the people on Earth have definitely seen a friendlier face than those out in space. But, it got me to thinking: it really will be a problem because we can’t even make that determination very well in our every day lives. There have been tales throughout history, and up to the present, across all strata of society, of people misjudging people, trusting somebody for years, maybe a business partner, maybe a spouse, and then are betrayed.
So, there’s no reason to think it will be any different when we meet our first alien species.