Space Opera Fans discussion

Here's a thought-provoking sci-fi short film (28 minutes) which explores what would you do if Earth was about to be destroyed in an exploding super-nova, but a bunch of alien spaceships showed up to offer you survival in exchange for agreeing to be their slaves.

This was really well-done. I highly recommend you watch it.

So what do you think, Space Opera Fans? Would you choose to survive? Or are some things more precious than continued existence? Does anybody know of any great sci-fi books or short stories that explores a similar theme? Maybe with the same, or a different outcome?

Movie is HERE:
https://vimeo.com/144314464

Well...first of all, the chance of a supernova threatening us is REALLY small. There aren't any likely supernova candidates within 100 light years (the rough distance away from Earth where a supernova is threatening). Closest one is like 150 light years.

As for the question...it's kind of a Hobson's Choice. I.e. you either accept slavery or not. Take it or leave it. It's really the same thing as saying "there's a bomb strapped to your chair and it will blow you up in 1 minute, but I'll let you go if you agree to be my slave."

So I don't find the question all that interesting.

As for the movie, the production was well done, but the story was very pedestrian and predictable. The ubiquitous Inception Sound at the end was unnecessary, and the sad piano soundtrack throughout was too cliché for me.

The theme is interesting, but the execution of that short-film didn't catch me.

Primarily because it doesn't deliver: there's no sacrificing of freedom (as written in the video description), because the dilemmas are almost exclusively stuff the main characters screws up on their way from A to B.
So it's really a question of conventional moral versus practical necessities of survival, while the aliens and the deal they're offering is basically a MacGuffin.

Now if there'd been som stuff about why the aliens wanted human slaves in the first place, what degree of slavery we were talking about (terms of agreement), if there had been some sort of interesting negotiation going on, or even some inversion of white privilege.

I'm in the middle of Octavia E Butler's Xenogenesis, and she does one heck of a better job with the same theme, because the aliens actually play an integral part of the story and the genetic engineering they wish to do to "save" humankind has very complex ramifications.

My first thought was that this sounded an awful lot like Xenogenesis, but with white people.

I was kinda just along for the ride until they got to the ship at the end and all the suitcases were all lined up. It reminded me of the pile of goods at the haulocaust. It was like ... DON'T GET ON THAT SHIP!!!

My thought about the suitcases was like "oh, so THERE is the giving up freedoms-part?"

Personally I'd been more affected if they had walked into the spaceship and encountered a "males left, women right"-sign. Or more obvious, if they had been forced to go on different spaceships into the unknown.

Maybe because I care more about relationships and love than material possessions ;)

1) Go with the aliens as slaves
2) Become trusted by the aliens
3) Learn the aliens technology
4) Total the aliens
5) Take over the galaxy

R. wrote: "1) Go with the aliens as slaves
2) Become trusted by the aliens
3) Learn the aliens technology
4) Total the aliens
5) Take over the galaxy"

You got that wrong. It goes:

1) Go with the aliens as slaves
2)
3) PROFITS!

Hahah nice one Micah :D

I really like the Catteni series by Anne McCaffery, starting with Freedom's Landing. There are 4 books. They follow a group of people captured from Earth and other planets, and enslaved by aliens. None of them chose to be enslaved because they did not have a choice. But the books cover a lot of the choices that the captives have to deal with in surviving their captivity. I think that's where the interesting action occurs.

As a modern American I find the whole notion of slavery to be mind-boggling, but it continues in many parts of the world today in various forms, from sex-slavery of women to involuntary sharecroppers held prisoner on a finca or plantation to harvest the crop. And it's not all that far in the past we had this institution on our own land.

What spooked me about the suitcases was it reminded me a little too much of the gas chambers in Auschwitz.

I've faced death a few times in my life, and I would rather die than submit to an unknown lifetime of servitude and possible suffering.

A life sentence to prison is pretty much equivalent to slavery. You lose all your bodily freedoms, have to do whatever you are told, and can be subjected to punishments largely at the whim of your captors.

"Would You Agree To Be Enslaved To Escape A Doomed Earth?" - No.

Oh ... I wouldn't STAY a slave! Get on board. Act docile and stupid to earn their trust. Sneak around and start figuring out how all their systems work. Where the vulnerabilities are. How you can turn it to your advantage. Take over. Go back to Earth. See if there is anybody left to save?

The suitcases changed that ... made me think everyone who went with them was just going to be exterminated. That does in the whole 'take over' thing if you get gassed and turned into pet food.

How many ways can one say no? Not ever. I like the beach scene. A lot like the movie with the asteroid that hit the ocean in the end and the father/daughter stood on the beach waiting for the tsunami/100+ ft tall tidal wave whatever you want to call it....anyway they died. Sorry not good at movie titles.

"Deep Impact" with Tea Leoni.

As to the original question, yes, I probably would. As long as you are alive there is hope for change. If not for you, then for your descendants.

I liked 'Deep Impact' in spite of the proselytizing, but that woman gave up her seat on the helicopter for a little girl to live. A bit of nobility, eh? Always a nice touch. Here, it was a bit more difficult to portray why to stay behind and be irradiated by a gamma ray burst. I don't think I'd sit on the beach like that. I would find a cave and try to figure out a way to survive. But only because the suitcases made me think the aliens weren't being honest.

Do the aliens have cookies?

...and milk...