Carl Sagan's Contact and the 2000 election

[FaxModem1]

So, in the movie version of Contact, it takes place clearly during the Clinton administration. Since aliens are revealed, the machine is built, and it costs a third of a trillion dollars. The first machine was destroyed in a terrorist action, and the second seems inconclusive in it's effectiveness aside from creating 18 hours of static instead of 20 seconds. How would this affect the 2000 presidential election?

Would it be seen as the big folly of the Clinton administration? Would it be viewed as a new era in science and technology? Would it be an important issue in the election? What do you think?

[Crossroads Inc.]

If we are taking the MOVIE contact into effect...
Something no one seems to think about, is I am pretty sure WHAT was built in that movie isn't physically possible to build... A whirling Gyroscope as tall as an Office building? A geometric sphere where the door seamlessly disappeared into the rest of the ball? Oh yes, and lets not forget when activated, created 'energy waves' strong enough to pull a destroyer toward it from the ocean.

It shouldn't matter if people think it didn't 'work' everything ELSE it did should be proof the blueprints came from people not of this world.

[FaxModem1]

Yes, we're talking about the movie version, as it takes place in a completely different time frame than the novel.

[Crossroads Inc.]

In that case, hell yeah its going to be seen world wide as a "new era of science and technology"
As far as US Politics goes? Not much changes, The republicans will shout and call it a waste of tax payer money, the Democrats and progressives will call it proof of Alien life and a new dawn for mankind. As far as the election? Gore lost in the real world cause he had the personality of a damp towel... We know now he has quite a personality, especially when it comes to things like the future of mankind. Freaking contact with aliens and amazing new science just MIGHT be something to enflame his passion enough to win the 2000 election.
From there? Well theres dozens of alt-history 'what if Gore wins 2000' to go from if you want to read. the real question is what new tech can be gained from the "Device"

[FaxModem1]

Isn't there a congressional investigation of the 'device', and it's left in the air how the government and the general public view how things went going to affect the technological progress?

[Borgholio]

The congressional investigation of the incident is just a big show trial basically. When James Woods asked "What would be needed to fake a signal from Vega?", Ellie stuttered...and I was yelling at the screen, "You'd need to be AT Vega you fucking moron! You can't fake parallax with a a satellite!"

So I'm certain many other scientists would evaluate the real facts and conclude that yeah, there's no way this could be faked.

In the book, it's left to be far more ambiguous as the signal magically terminates as soon as Ellie and the group returns from the trip.

[Crossroads Inc.]

Yeah I forgot about that part. I remember talking about the movie with my Dad when we first watched it, and him stating that the singal itself should be all the proof we needed of Life outside Earth. Everything after that was just window dressing.

[FaxModem1]

The congressional investigation of the incident is just a big show trial basically. When James Woods asked "What would be needed to fake a signal from Vega?", Ellie stuttered...and I was yelling at the screen, "You'd need to be AT Vega you fucking moron! You can't fake parallax with a a satellite!"

So I'm certain many other scientists would evaluate the real facts and conclude that yeah, there's no way this could be faked.

In the book, it's left to be far more ambiguous as the signal magically terminates as soon as Ellie and the group returns from the trip.

So, we the audience, know it's real. And if scientists could look at the data and sum up that it's real. But how much of it would be public? The '18 hours of footage' scene seems to imply that the data is classified and the Congressional report is what the official record will be. So while James Woods can be lying out of his ass, the American public won't know that unless the scientists are really being focused on in the international media.

[Borgholio]

Yeah the 18 hours was classified, and they gave Ellie a blank check for more research so long as she didn't reveal that part. But given how scientists around the world were already involved in tracking and recording the signal, to just have one idiot politician say they're all being fooled...I don't think that would go over well. I can imagine some of the top minds in science such as Steven Hawking going on the air to set the record straight. People would listen to that.

[Crossroads Inc.]

Yeah, it goes back to the signal. You just can't fake something like that.
I mean the fact it was sending an encoded, hyper complicated set of blueprints for some massive Device that we could not hope ot build on our own, should be an over the top proof it's Life outside of Earth.

If the signal was just sending out prime numbers and nothing else, that, just that should be enough proof for the Scientific community. If the US government tries to 'Hush it up' saying it was faked by an Earth satellite, they are going to be laughed at by the rest of the world in the same way as people who say the Earth is only 6,000 years old.

[TOSDOC]

Didn't the Japanese forego a pilot candidate in exchange for the lucrative contracts they could obtain off the technology? So I could definitely see them starting a new era of science and tech, and strengthening their economy to boot. Maybe they're the next ones to the moon.

The Republicans would have a field day with the whole scandal created in Congress, but I imagine the scientific and engineering communities would be chomping at the bit over the evidence revealed to the public that everything was genuine. Even if there's a secret guvmint faction keeping the whole thing classified, how on Earth would they profit from this? Say they wanted to start the machine up in secret a la Stargate--the damn thing's in Japan, and people are going to notice if it starts up again. Maybe they could get David Copperfield to hide it while they run another field test.

[Borgholio]

Actually yeah, Japan is going to profit greatly from the engineering aspect of this thing. There's no way the government can cover up the whole thing. Maybe the actual technology itself...but not the signal.

[Alyeska]

Actually yeah, Japan is going to profit greatly from the engineering aspect of this thing. There's no way the government can cover up the whole thing. Maybe the actual technology itself...but not the signal.

They can't even cover up the technology. International companies were given access to the technology. Companies not even based in the United States. Hadden Engineering is going to greatly expand the worlds knowledge through profiting on this technology.

[The Yosemite Bear]

republican canidates demand that we build a debris field to protect our selves from the alien menace.

[Havok]

Wait... hold on a second... are you guys insinuating the the majority of the American population as well as the rest of the world are going to listen to scientists instead of politician sound bites and their church leaders?

[Alyeska]

Wait... hold on a second... are you guys insinuating the the majority of the American population as well as the rest of the world are going to listen to scientists instead of politician sound bites and their church leaders?

They are going to listen with their wallets and buy the newest Apple product incorporating Vega technology.

[Havok]

Wait... hold on a second... are you guys insinuating the the majority of the American population as well as the rest of the world are going to listen to scientists instead of politician sound bites and their church leaders?

They are going to listen with their wallets and buy the newest Apple product incorporating Vega technology.

Isn't the government going to "National security" every piece of info or tech that anyone gets from the signal?

[Guardsman Bass]

Wait... hold on a second... are you guys insinuating the the majority of the American population as well as the rest of the world are going to listen to scientists instead of politician sound bites and their church leaders?

They are going to listen with their wallets and buy the newest Apple product incorporating Vega technology.

Isn't the government going to "National security" every piece of info or tech that anyone gets from the signal?

Like it was mentioned up-thread, it's too late for that. The technology and info has been spread internationally through a wide range of contracts, and in any case anyone could pick-up the signal. Even if the US had tried to censor public release of anything coming out of it, somebody else would have decrypted it and figured out the Machine.

[Havok]

OK, so why won't the U.S. or other govs just "NS" everything? Just because the info is out there doesn't mean you can just use it.
I mean, last I checked, you can get the specs to build a current gen fighter jet but if you do, someone is going to come knocking to collect it.

I mean assuming you could even put the money together to build anything, (the gyro machine was half a trillion) how would you keep it a secret without government help which is exactly who is going to want to get their hands on it?

[Guardsman Bass]

Why would they all -want- to classify everything and keep it under wraps? That's potentially valuable technology there to be put to commercial use, and it would be very, very difficult to make the argument that it should all end up classified when it's going to be a civilian project with many international partners.

[Havok]

Because first and foremost they are going to want to go over everything (which I am sure they were doing in the background of the movie) to make sure there are no military applications that either they or (insert evil government) may try to use/make either for offensive or defensive use.

And it isn't fucking difficult to make that argument, there were two GIGANTIC FUCKING PROJECTS that they kept classified and secret.

[TOSDOC]

And it isn't fucking difficult to make that argument, there were two GIGANTIC FUCKING PROJECTS that they kept classified and secret.

Not in the movie they weren't. Didn't the test that killed David have a huge civilian audience there in person? And scenes of building the machine, candidate selection process and David's acceptance speech were all televised. Hell, Clinton's national address all but confirmed it was an extraterrestrial signal. It would be difficult for a single government to classify anything that had international cooperation on government and private corporate levels.

Why would the US have the only copy of Ellie's experience when the machine was constructed on Japanese soil? I'd bet good money the Japanese have a copy as well and also knew it lasted 18 hours.

[Crossroads Inc.]

Correct, everything was made public and there was a HUGE audiance for the first lunch. The SECOND one however was built in secret, but that was done as a backup because they feared the first might be destroyed.

So for the first one the public world wide was told that it indeed WAS a signal from outside the Earth.

The thing to consider is that the 'STORY' of contact wanted things to reset. It wanted to go "Everyone thinks we made contact with aliens, but oh wait, it might not be the case, so everyone goes back to asking big questions about the universe". But the truth is that really wouldn't happen.

More to the point, aside from embaressed US poltical types, who else would WANT to cover it up? I am sure there are many world governments that would love to use "Life outside of Earth" as an excuse for all sorts of programs.

[Guardsman Bass]

The secrecy around the Japanese project was never realistic, either. Considering how massive and expensive the first Machine was, it's going to be very noticeable that they're building a second one in Japan.

[Alyeska]

OK, so why won't the U.S. or other govs just "NS" everything? Just because the info is out there doesn't mean you can just use it.
I mean, last I checked, you can get the specs to build a current gen fighter jet but if you do, someone is going to come knocking to collect it.

I mean assuming you could even put the money together to build anything, (the gyro machine was half a trillion) how would you keep it a secret without government help which is exactly who is going to want to get their hands on it?

They can't National Security the information. It has spread to the whole world. Pandora's box cannot be closed. They can only restrict its use in the United States. They will have zero impact on the rest of the world.