Of course, this makes Lilith distrusted among her fellow humans. She and the humans she has already awakened will be the only beings that the newly awakened humans will see until they are deemed ready by the aliens. She’s to be a liaison between other newly awakened human survivors and the aliens. Her (relatively) calm and open-minded nature was-in part–why she was chosen. While Lilith is initially terrified and completely incapable of interacting with the aliens, she does by gradual turns accept the truth of the situation and begins to interact with the aliens, trying to discover their end-game. As Lilith’s fear subsides and her trust–at least in a limited sense–grows, this restricted information is a constant source of tension between Lilith and her alien handlers.

While the aliens don’t lie, they do withhold information, only gradually doling it out as they see fit. The aliens genuinely want to help the humans and mean them no harm, but they do have their own plans and see a means to benefit from their interaction with humanity. While Lilith’s fear turns out to be unfounded, her distrust proves sound. She discovers that she’s been awakened and put back in stasis on more than one occasion. Lilith instinctively fears and distrusts the aliens. And it features the most challenging and terrifying out-group imaginable-an intelligent alien race. However, for Lilith the situation is not akin to shipwreck rescue because there’s a stark in-group / out-group conflict to get over. They offer rescue, the hope of survival, and a promise to allow human survivors to rebuild their society in a low-radiation area of Earth when they are sufficiently trained in the necessary survival skills. The aliens are akin to a merchant ship that comes upon the survivor-baring life rafts of a sunken cruise ship-or at least they appear to be. Lilith is one of a small number of human survivors of nuclear holocaust. This is no run-of-the-mill alien abduction. Dawn is the story of a woman, Lilith, who awakens in the custody of aliens.

Dawn by octavia e butler