First Contact Fiction

First Contact Fiction is a science fiction subgenre built around the initial meeting between humanity and an intelligent extraterrestrial species, a moment the genre uses to explore how people and societies might actually respond to proof that they are not alone in the universe. Stories in the genre range from hopeful accounts of peaceful contact and mutual understanding to accounts dominated by miscommunication, fear or conflict between the two sides, and the central encounter is often used as a device for examining humanity's own assumptions, prejudices and institutions from an outside vantage point. The subgenre has been a recurring strand of science fiction across the twentieth and twenty first centuries, in written fiction, film and television alike, developing its own familiar conventions around first encounters, translation and the politics of contact.