Earth receives a signal from an alien race that simple says, "We will be arriving in 1 Earth year." (or any other length of time), no other information or means of communicating back to them?

It's an idea for a story, but I'm not sure if it has been done already.

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-These are the demands and sayings of Ericubus.

In the future it will become even easier for old negatives to become lost and be "replaced" by new altered negatives. This would be a great loss to our society. Our cultural history must not be allowed to be rewritten. - George Lucas 1988

I always liked the idea of a movie about a televangelist being haunted by the ghosts of the people he pretended to heal.

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God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. - Romans 5:8

Letterboxed

What does she look like?

Is she easy?

Is her species sexual?

I think I might do her.

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Pender will beat off to anything....

I meant a dollar bill . . .

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-These are the demands and sayings of Ericubus.

In the future it will become even easier for old negatives to become lost and be "replaced" by new altered negatives. This would be a great loss to our society. Our cultural history must not be allowed to be rewritten. - George Lucas 1988

In her thong?

I like this.

Get this man money to fund this. Stat.

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Pender will beat off to anything....

Sounds like a variation on a classic sci-fi trope.

Carl Sagan's "Contact" (as well as the film adaptation with Jodie Foster) relied on a premise somewhat similar to this.

There was a book in the 60s or 70s called The Listeners that dealt with mankind trying to cope with having gotten a message from space.

The Forge of God, by Greg Bear, doesn't quite do what you're asking, but it's in the ballpark. Essentially, mankind gets an alien message that it's going to be destroyed soon, but has no way of verifying it or talking about to the folks who sent the message. The novel is a buildup to the promise of that message (and is quite good).

I want to say there is an Arthur C. Clarke short story that deals with this.

Hell, 2001: A Space Odyssey is effectively this plan, innit, only without the countdown? Aliens leave behind an inscrutable message for mankind. Mystery ensues.

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"Hitler had a pretty good idea there." - Eric

Ya, kind of. I want to explore more of the human reaction to how the message is interpreted, and what that says about us. Contact did touch on that briefly, but I wanted to make it more about that issue.

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-These are the demands and sayings of Ericubus.

In the future it will become even easier for old negatives to become lost and be "replaced" by new altered negatives. This would be a great loss to our society. Our cultural history must not be allowed to be rewritten. - George Lucas 1988

Nothing that exactly fits the bill is springing immediately to mind, but it sounds like you might want to browse lists of "first contact" stories.

Jack McDevitt's "Omega" kind of deals with this, but from the opposite perspective. WE are the aliens in that one. It's a real page-turner.

I swear, there's a Clarke story that deals with this. Going to have to browse his short story anthologies when I get home to see if any of the titles ring a bell.

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"Hitler had a pretty good idea there." - Eric

The Japanese cartoon, Battleship Yamato (Star Blazers over here), starts with this premise, but adds a race against time plot device to keep the story advancing.

The recent animated remake (26 episodes) goes into far more detail about first contact, and how two separate alien races deal with humanity as either friend or foe. Highly recommended, especially if you have any memories of the original animated show from 1973, and far better than the (still really good) live action movie.

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In space, nobody can hear you ride breakfast goat

That's what I thought of but it's been 15+ years since I read that book.

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God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. - Romans 5:8

Letterboxed

Loved me some Star Blazers, but I don't remember that part of it, or actually any detail beyond the cool looking space battle ship. I'll have to revisit it.

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-These are the demands and sayings of Ericubus.

In the future it will become even easier for old negatives to become lost and be "replaced" by new altered negatives. This would be a great loss to our society. Our cultural history must not be allowed to be rewritten. - George Lucas 1988

Ericubus and I are twins of the Star Blazers experience.

I shall revisit, too.

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Pender will beat off to anything....

That was my grandfather.

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"You're totally cute and seem like a nice dude." --crikey

Battleship Yamato (the remake) is, absolutely, some the best space opera you will ever watch. The first 9 episodes are pretty much identical to the original, and then it starts to stray a bit (for the better). It also uses the same character and ship designs, and the same music and sound effects as the original. The only major difference is the inclusion of several new female characters (since the original only had two). There are also two in-jokes that are weaved into the plot (which will go unnoticed by non-hardcore fans, but it was great that the writers incorporated this much detail).

The entire series is on piratebay. The audio is Japanese, with English subtitles. There is no English dub, and the company selling the Blu-Rays in the US (Voyager Entertainment) is doing a fucking awful job distributing the series. I'll dump it on my server if you're too squeamish to torrent it.

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In space, nobody can hear you ride breakfast goat

I met another McDevitt today, so I guess you can say it's been a McDevitty day for me.

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"Hitler had a pretty good idea there." - Eric

There was a half-decent series on NBC a couple of years called The Event which had a similar premise but different in that a small number of the aliens had already been here in secret for quite some time preparing for the arrival of the rest of their race.

It was cancelled before season 2 but they did set up one whopper of a second season when the "event" actually happens in the final scene of the season/series.

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"You know the best thing about necrophilia? You don't have to bring flowers. They're usually already there." -- George Carlin

Loved the original series as a kid...where can I watch the new version?

EDIT: Should have read the whole thread...

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Wiggle your big toe.
Wiggle your big toe.
Wiggle your big toe.

We're taking over.

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"You're totally cute and seem like a nice dude." --crikey

You can stream it for free here: http://www.animehere.com/uchuu-senkan-y ... ode-1.html

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In space, nobody can hear you ride breakfast goat

I do not torrent, so, yes please.

My name is not homechives.

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Pender will beat off to anything....

I'm out of town all day, but will PM a link to whomever wants it tonight...

There will be 7 ZIP files, totaling 26GB.

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In space, nobody can hear you ride breakfast goat

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1549572/

Sort of. Kind of. But not really.