What would be motivation of Aliens?

[Truman]

So they just decided to set the dome over the city? Why would they do that, some kind of weird experiment?

[Pucker]

Some people step over bugs on the sidewalk, while others go out of their way to step on them . . . and even yet others don't even notice them at all.

Why?

Because if there were one -- and only one -- way to think, we'd end up killing each other out of boredom.

[omm poppa mow mow]

Emily wrote these lines, something like, parting is all we know of heaven, and all we need of hell. So, yeah, an experiment sounds like a reasonable explanation. What kind of thoughts....there's been a few threads about "thoughts" on the board of late...what kind of thoughts are trapped beneath your "dome"? Remember the Johnny Cash song: I fell in to a burning ring of fire, I fell down down down, and the flames went higher, and it burns burns burns, this burning fire.

Johnny is the man. The man in black. He never wore bright colors on his back.

When I was a little heathen I used to take black ants, and red ants, and place them in a jar. Budding serial killer that I was, I was fascinated that the ants seemed to mimic life as I knew it. We never get off the playground, friend, and the red and the black seems to be our lot in life. (The red whipped arse.)

How many have "thought" that one day they'll wake up and find out it was all some sort of cosmic joke? As if we're stuck under a dome and how far from reality is that? And why? And who? And so on and so forth.

[GNTLGNT]

Ever see kids collect bugs in a jar? Same concept...

[Sigmund]

Hello, Sir.

If I am not mistaken, the 'alien children' were simply playing. Like Earth children 'play' by stirring an anthill with a stick. Or catch fireflies.

(Again, this is just my take on it. We humans believe we are the highest evolved species in the world as we know it. In UtD we realize that there are other beings bigger and greater than us. And just as we take those that are smaller weaker or 'lesser' and 'play' with them, these aliens saw Earth as we do an anthill and just for giggles or just to see 'What happens if I do X?' they placed a dome over part of our world (anthill). When the alien child saw the people struggling to live and pleading for help the alien child felt compassion (remorse?) and removed the dome.)

I hope that made some kind of sense. It worked in my head.

Peace.

[Alexandra19]

Hi,

It seems that aliens, just like girls in Cindy Lauper's mind, just wanna have fun.
And well they had... And so did we !

[sknut70]

did you read the book? the motivation was explained.. and it was a central theme.


if not here it is in a nutshell:

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the EPA needs to contain the pollution of springfield!

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jk jk

[Lencho_of_the_Apes]

I can't remember if the quotation was referenced in UtD, but that whole scenario always reminds me of some lines from King Lear:

As flies to wanton boys are we to th' gods,
They kill us for their sport.

We all float down here.

[doowopgirl]

What everyone else said. Kids playing, nothing else. But I SO loved the vibe of American politics in microcosime.

[blunthead]

What I really love about the revelation of the Dome is

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it's specific, deliberate, nothing vague about it, nothing so other-worldly as to be no earthly good. sK makes it clear, but clever so it's an interesting surprise. That takes vision, guts, artistic know-how and confidence. He could've gotten too scientific, or he could've decided to leave it to the reader (he knew better, it would've been a cop-out in this case, imho). The ending fit: on Earth, mankind naturally doing our neverending warfare of good vs evil; somewhere else, children naturally playing their universal games.