The standard nightmare

The standard nightmare is the recurring scenario in which Earth discovers a powerful alien civilization and is then conquered by it. In Johnny Bezique’s encounter with Loris, the feared sequence begins as expected, but the story complicates the division between vulnerable humanity and threatening aliens: Loris appears almost impossibly perfect, and the crisis gives the Lorians an aggressive alien general who may serve their interests as much as it endangers Earth.

Definition and Background

The expression names more than a single encounter. It describes a pattern that Earth’s expeditions anticipate and that, in the narrative, begins whenever contact is made with a formidable alien society. Earth sends out expeditions on the defensive premise that it is safer to find other civilizations first than to wait for them to arrive unexpectedly. The imagined danger is not simply that alien life exists, but that it possesses the power and intention to dominate humanity.

The feared civilization can take different forms. Aliens may be mechanically advanced, endowed with extraordinary mental powers, or physically almost invulnerable despite being unintelligent; the scenario includes such possibilities as walking plant-people and swarming insect people. These variations alter the nature of the threat without changing its essential direction. The aliens are usually ruthlessly amoral, in contrast with Earth’s self-image as the good side, and the pattern ends with their taking control.

The Expected Sequence

The scenario is built around a simple reversal of power. Earth makes contact with a stronger civilization; the aliens take over. Its simplicity gives the fear its force: technological difference, unfamiliar forms of life, or superior physical and mental capacities all lead back to the same prospect of subordination. The story presents this as the main sequence beneath the nightmare’s many possible details, not as one outcome among equally weighted alternatives.

That expectation shapes the reception of first contact. The encounter is already charged before the alien society’s intentions are fully known, because the possibility of being conquered supplies the interpretive frame. The central concern is whether Earth can defeat the visitors or whether they can defeat Earth. The scenario therefore turns contact into a contest over who will be on top, rather than a neutral exchange between neighboring civilizations.

Bezique’s Arrival at Loris

The story attaches this broad fear to a specific expedition. Johnny Bezique, a spaceship driver for SBC Explorations, Inc., surveys a previously unexplored fringe of the Seergon Cluster. The first four planets offer nothing of interest. When he reaches the vicinity of the fifth, the standard nightmare begins: his loudspeaker activates remotely, and a deep voice identifies the approaching planet as Loris and anticipates that he intends to land.

The measured welcome does not remove the imbalance that troubles Earth. Loris can communicate with Bezique’s ship and provide landing information directly to its computer. He agrees to the arrangement, making first contact with alien life, while the narrative places his meeting within the familiar pattern of Earth encountering a formidable civilization. The planet’s appearance—blue, green, and brown—makes the approach concrete, but the larger uncertainty remains the question of what the neighbors might do to Earth.

Bezique is an especially pointed figure through whom to stage that uncertainty. He is mechanically competent, but also conceited, disputatious, ignorant, fearless, and profane. The narrative treats his aggressive self-confidence and impervious ego as qualities suited to the stresses of deep-space exploration, comparing his disposition to that of the Conquistadores, who succeeded in part because they failed to recognize that their undertaking seemed impossible. His confidence does not resolve the danger; it makes him a fitting human instrument for confronting the unknown without fully appreciating its scale.

Loris and the Reversal of the Nightmare

The encounter initially appears to confirm the pattern and then unsettle it. Loris seems too good to be true: its society strikes Bezique as perfect, a perfection he finds dismaying and suspicious. He assumes that every virtue must have a corresponding vice and looks for a loophole. Even the existence of extremely polite police, called monitors, becomes evidence to him that there must also be criminals. His suspicion exposes the expectations Earth brings to an apparently ideal alien society: perfection cannot be accepted without searching for the concealed weakness.

The ending shifts the nightmare’s consequences into a two-sided account. For Earth, the feared event has arrived: an advanced alien civilization is about to impose its culture. For Loris, however, the encounter has supplied something it previously lacked. The Lorians, described as defenseless before, have acquired an aggressive alien general and are soon to have mercenaries to operate their spacefleet. What threatens Earth may therefore strengthen Loris. The reversal does not erase the danger of conquest; it makes clear that the same contact can be nightmare for one civilization and advantage for another.

Narrative Significance

The standard nightmare works both as a plot pattern and as a measure of Earth’s assumptions. It begins with the expectation that alien power will be hostile and that contact will culminate in human defeat. Loris complicates that expectation through the contrast between its apparent perfection and its newly acquired capacity for force, as well as through the different consequences the encounter has for Earth and the Lorians.

That contrast gives the expression its irony. Earth’s fear is not dismissed: the narrative confirms that its nightmare is taking place. Yet the outcome is not simply an alien invasion viewed from the human side. The Lorians’ position changes too, and the arrival of an aggressive alien general is not bad for them in the same way it is bad for Earth. The nightmare thus exposes a perspective-bound account of power: a civilization’s catastrophe may be another civilization’s opportunity.