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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This episode is sponsored by Auduble.

One day, an alien ship may arrive here on Earth, and whether they come in peace or

to enslave us, it would seem like civilization as we know it would be over.

So what should we do if the situation is reversed and we find a planet inhabited by primitive aliens?

So welcome to another sci-fi Sunday here on SFIA, where we take some time to examine

popular concepts in science fiction and ask how realistic they are.

And today's topic, primitive aliens, struck me as an appropriate topic after our recent

looks at surveying exoplanets and sending probes and explorers to them.

Probably one of the most common themes of science fiction is an advanced civilization

showing up to conquer us, or enlighten us or whatever, and whether their intent is

benevolent or malevolent, and whether the net result is positive or negative, humanity

is changed forever by that meeting.

Needless to say, we have a lot of history to draw on, warning us of possible mistakes that civilizations

can make when meeting each other.

Those are not limited to when one of those civilizations has a large advantage in technology

or numbers, nor is it universally one-sided, but an awful lot of science fiction deals

with pioneering of new worlds that's drawing inspiration

from various colonial scenarios in our own history, probably the American Wild West being the biggest.

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