Are there scenarios in which the aliens would consider terminating our command with extreme prejudice? That sounds almost exactly like the premise of "The Day the Earth Stood Still."
By Alan Boyle
A study that reviews a host of sci-fi scenarios for contact with extraterrestrials stirred up such a ruckus today that NASA had to step in and distance itself from the research. The controversy focuses on the idea that E.T. could well decide that we're a threat to interstellar order, and therefore we have to be stopped before we spread.
The report itself, published in the journal Acta Astronautica, covers ground that's familiar to dedicated fans of E.T. lore. For example, the premise of the 1951 sci-fi classic "The Day the Earth Stood Still" is that universalist-minded aliens see our civilization as so rooted in violence that it's better to snuff us out than let us ruin the neighborhood. (The 2008 remake, starring Keanu Reeves, recycled that idea with an environmental theme.)
Then there's the "Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy" scenario, in which Earth is destroyed merely to make way for a new stretch of intergalactic infrastructure.
"At the heart of these scenarios is the possibility that intrinsic value may be more efficiently produced in our absence," the researchers write.
Read More: http://cosmiclog.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2011/08/19/7419399-what-if-et-thinks-were-evil
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