I've often thought of the sheer ramifications of us discovering anything extraterrestrial, be it a slice of tech or a martian bacterium would be profound but actually I think more recent science fiction has got it right: it sadly doesn't make much difference to the life of the everyday citizen.

I used to look to Star Trek as the ideal for where I'd love humanity to be but I think as I've gotten older The Expanse is closer to reality. That also had at its core the discovery of an extraterrestrial object orbiting Saturn....