Hello, SFIA audio listeners, in this month's Nebula exclusive, Big Alien Theory,

we're asking the reason alien civilizations might be rare is because most aliens are huge.

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One day, strangers from a strange land may come to our world, and it is entirely possible

they'll come as friends or conquerors, burying guns or gifts or seeking sanctuary.

The tricky part will be figuring out which is which.

For the last couple of months, we've been looking at concepts like extra-galactic

sanctuaries and deep space habitats and why someone might live in such places and what sort

of someone's that might be.

And it reminded me of a common staple in science fiction, rather than aliens coming to meet

us or conquer us, they're actually refugees looking for a place

to live.

The sci-fi film, District 9, looks at the notion of an alien ship landing in South Africa in

1982 in an alternate past.

We also see this in the film and TV show Alien Nation in which we have the alien newcomers

as a refugee population in California after

their ship landed in the Mojave Desert, and we see Taryn Stamp playing an alien crime

boss in that movie.

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