I Come in Peace
It would sound very odd if the phrase “Welcome to Earth” was replied with an, “Oh! We call it XQ-824.”
This is bizarre and insensitive. Also, it is surprising that an alien could speak English. For a moment, I will assume there is some sort of translation machine. There needs to be a better way!
Lately, many other Earth-like planets have been discovered by satellites like Kepler. Such discoveries have led to generic planetary names such as “Kepler-20e.” This is not exactly a friendly sounding moniker and an issue that needs to be explored. Scientists are beginning to dive into this realm of artfully renaming discovered planets to that of friendlier sounding names.
I look forward to embracing new planet names such as “Romulus” and “Remus.” Those are names from Star Trek. This made me think that tomorrow’s discovered planets will inevitably be named by today’s science fiction wirters. It has now become time for those in the literary world to keep this in mind. The carefully selected character names an author happens to pen, may just one day be the word that describes the home of the first creature to utter to us – in use of a language-altering machine… “I come in Peace.”
[ images via: Paranormal People, flickr ]
