GoKawiilPeter Watts' 'Blindsight' explores first contact through transhuman crew aboard the Theseus
'Blindsight' is a science fiction novel by Peter Watts set in 2082, opening with a global event called 'Firefall' in which thousands of comet-like probes sweep Earth and broadcast across the electromagnetic spectrum before burning up. A subsequent signal traced to a comet leads humanity to send increasingly advanced probes and finally a crewed ship, the Theseus, piloted by an AI and crewed by genetically and technologically altered specialists, including a resurrected vampire captain. The mission is redirected to a hidden object near a sub-brown dwarf called Big Ben, which responds to the crew upon being uncloaked.