Plot
In the year 2082, everyone on Earth becomes aware of an alien presence when thousands of micro-satellites, dubbed "Fireflies", survey the Earth in a bright planet-wide flash. Through good luck, an incoming alien vessel is detected, and the ship Theseus, with its artificial intelligence called Captain and crew of five, are sent out to engage in first contact with the huge alien vessel called Rorschach.
As they explore the vessel in multiple excursions and attempt to analyze it and its inhabitants, the narrator, Siri, considers his life and strives to understand himself and ponders the nature of intelligence and consciousness, their utility, and what an alien mind might be like. Eventually the crew realizes that they are greatly outmatched by the vessel and its unconscious but extremely capable inhabitants.
When the level of this threat becomes clear, Theseus runs a kamikaze mission using its highly destructive antimatter payload, seemingly succeeding in eliminating the aliens. Siri returns to Earth, which he eventually realizes is being overrun by an offshoot of humanity.
Read more about this topic: Blindsight (science Fiction Novel)
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“The plot was most interesting. It belonged to no particular age, people, or country, and was perhaps the more delightful on that account, as nobody’s previous information could afford the remotest glimmering of what would ever come of it.”
—Charles Dickens (1812–1870)