Alien Invasion - Lets be serious for a second

Discussion in 'Pseudoscience Archive' started by Wayward, Feb 19, 2012.

  1. Wayward Registered Member

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    I have a crazy idea that will not go away. So I after much resistance I have decided to post it here to see if my house of cards can stand up to sensible scrutiny.

    I have watched a lot of the Hollywood alien invasion movies. All of which seem to assume that the Aliens have terrible tactics. They all end up getting killed in hand to hand fighting. Why?

    To my mind, if an Alien race wanted to attack us, then they would have to commit huge resources to the venture. Assuming no faster than light travel, then the Aliens will have to get here the hard way. Taking hundreds of years. So the gains have to be worth it.

    They also have an enormous supply train problem. They have to bring everything they will need with them, or know that it is available here.

    So here comes assumption number 1. Any alien invasion will first have scouted us out. There is simply no point sending in a significant invasion force blind.

    Assumption 2. If a scout gets here and sees that we have potential, then it will send a signal home and stay here. Continuing to monitor us. Because it is sensible to have up to date intelligence on your enemy, and because the scout may have additional resources that you may need.

    Assumption 3. We are more vulnerable to alien attack at our current stage of development that we ever have been before or will be in the near future. This requires a bit more explanation, and some considerable speculation.

    Any alien race capable of sending an interstellar invasion force must be highly developed technically. Will have expanded throughout their own system, and will have mined and extracted and used all the minerals that they can. If they continue to expand then sooner or latter they will want to look outside their own system for the resources. Say these are the Rare Earth elements. Now would it be easier to go to a neighbouring system and try to look for these elements and then mine them, or to go to a planet that has already mined them and has them readily available.

    At our current stage of development we are heavily dependent on technology, on mass farming and mass distribution. We are also only just putting a toe into space.

    So any invasion force, having taken a hundred or so years to get here, will not mind taking its time destroying us. Just sit in high orbit. Throw rocks at anything likely to be a potential risk to it (airport, missile launch facility, etc) throw a few more rocks to destroy all bridges, power stations, dams, power distribution grids, and all sea ships. Then drop a enough rocks to simulate a nuclear winter and sit back and wait for disease, famine and cold to kill off the vast majority of us. After a few years they could demand whatever they want from us. It would make a poor movie, but good tactically.

    Assumption 4. The invasion force will try and sneak up on us. The element of surprise is a good one. If we see them coming, decelerating into the solar system, then we can have a few months preparing. If however they timed their approach so that we were on the far side of the sun we wound not see them until they were much closer. The scout, presumably still here, would also be much closer. Perhaps on the far side of the moon, or at one of the trojan points. It could be used as an advance guard to take out any initial potential threat we could put up.

    So there it is. A possible invasion plan. I apologise for being cheeky and for this being my first post, but what do you think?
     
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  3. Balerion Banned Banned

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    Welcome to Sciforums!

    A few problems here. One, the distances between stars is prohibitive to interstellar exploration, so this isn't ever going to happen. It isn't just a question of time, it's a question of energy. To move at those speeds for that length of time requires tremendous amounts of fuel. NASA can't get money to go to Mars; imagine some distant alien congressman asking his government to okay a quintillion-dollar-per-day mission to Earth.

    Two, supposing there is some sort of workaround for this problem, we're talking about a technological society far outstripping our own. It likely wouldn't take an invasion for them to get from us what they needed. A simple virus would do, I'm sure, or perhaps some form of long-range weapon. I mean, hey, if we're allowing for star-hopping space aliens, why not gamma ray bursts from 100 light years away?

    In other words, if there ever was a reason for some alien civilization to attack us, we probably wouldn't know it was happening.
     
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  5. origin Heading towards oblivion Valued Senior Member

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    I think your scenario is possible. What is clear is that if there was an alien force that came to invade us we would not stand a chance.
     
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  7. GeoffP Caput gerat lupinum Valued Senior Member

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    Simple: douse the planet in Ebola. Done, clean planet.
     
  8. HectorDecimal Registered Senior Member

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    Are we food? I think it would be more like "War of the Worlds."
     
  9. aaqucnaona This sentence is a lie Valued Senior Member

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    A very good post. I love it! Hitting the ground at 100mph.

    OK, so - your scenario hangs together, but -

    Its still obscure - its not like going to an underwater cave for diamonds, like its going to the sun for helium. Even if the material is rare, you dont factor in two massive determinants -

    First, such a species will be certainly a scientism based civilization - no pack-social instinct or localised views. For methological naturalists capable of interstellar travel who have survived the exploitative and overpowerful infancy after the brith of science who have a massive appreciation for fellow space farers - however primitive they may be.

    Second, wanting some rare earth minerals [which I am sure are non-existent, we have pretty much the same stuff as other planets] is not a good reason for invasion and extermination of our planet. They wanna live here, maybe - they can do better on the moon - no competition. They would not pass on the opportunity to observe and learn from another superspecies [species that make civlization and often progress to technological expertise]. Send in a proof for one of the mathemetical theorums and explain, say - black hole radiation mechanics and promise more in exchange for our minerals - it would be a billion times of a larger incentive than that for the space race.
     
  10. aaqucnaona This sentence is a lie Valued Senior Member

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    Indeed. Us against aliens that have come from outside the solar system is like cavemen against modern tanks - it would never, ever end well for the underdog.
     
  11. Balerion Banned Banned

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    It would more closely example a medieval European against the Plague, I think.
     
  12. Saturnine Pariah Hell is other people Valued Senior Member

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    Why would it necessiarly have to be an aggresive invasion? what if they are Un-manned drones sent throughout the galaxy to gather data. In all likely-hood the invasion force would be comprized of pre-programmed but adaptive drones that would most likely want to harvest chorophyll or choroplast. Both of which can be used to generate bio-mass fuesl and consumable plasma subsitutes.Liquid water contrarty to populat notion is actually quite common throughout the universe and based on those assummpitions any extraterrastrial life-forms wouldn't invade for liquid water. As for the tactics...most likely an EMP or some use of kinect energy to disperse global oceans patterns that would in turn create massive tidal waves or tsunamis ( 80% of the worlds populations live near water) these intial strikes would render our military unorganized and weakend due to the influx of refugees. Any nuclear strike against them would be pointless. If their ships have the techonolgy to traverse lightyears of distances then they would institue a plasma or energy based sheilding techonology to withstand solar radition, metorites and the sheer speed of travil( even in the vacum of space there are particles and molecues that can react violently agaist most metals and synthetic materials, most of the probes and sattelites we've sent will last a long time but will eventually be destroyed.
     
  13. spidergoat pubic diorama Valued Senior Member

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    A very expensive exploratory vehicle from another civilization would not come here to steal our resources. They would come to learn about us. They could kill us in a matter of weeks simply by sending down some biological weapons that we have no cures for, a mutated flu for example.
     
  14. adoucette Caca Occurs Valued Senior Member

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    Well we've never sent anything into space with the idea to destroy what it finds.

    When would that change?
     
  15. aaqucnaona This sentence is a lie Valued Senior Member

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    I dont get the simile.
     
  16. decons scrambled egg Registered Senior Member

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    The greatest fear of the human race: What if aliens behave like humans?
     
  17. Reiku Banned Banned

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    This is a complete reflection on our incapabilities. If we assume there are aliens and that they are able to visit, we must assume that they are way beyond the scientific establishment of the human race. They for instance, may have a suitable energy source. They may have the technology to create some kind of Alcuibierre Drive.
     
  18. Reiku Banned Banned

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    I'm not a biologist, but I am quite sure that not all types of influenza are even dangerous to humans.

    In fact, that is not even the point. Aliens could not manufacture a biological weapon against mankind without a little biological information on our makeup...
     
  19. spidergoat pubic diorama Valued Senior Member

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    That wouldn't take long, they wouldn't even have to come down to the surface. They could probably find out all they need to know on the internet. But why bother? Unless they want to settle here without the interference of humans.
     
  20. Reiku Banned Banned

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    Neh, they would be open to too many alien viruses living here on planet Earth. They'd have to be constantly wearing protection suits or something along those lines.

    I am with you on this one, why bother? Unless there is something of great value or great treasure I doubt they'd exterminate us. Only in the most extreme scenario, of their planet failing under some extreme astmospheric or cosmological disaster could I even see a remote possibility of an alien life wanting to terminate us for our planet. Even if that... there is the question of course why they would not try a more peaceful way to co-exist, afterall, they would calculate for sure that we would eventually use nuclear weapons in a desperate fight against them, our planet in the end most likely would be laid to waste.
     
  21. Saturnine Pariah Hell is other people Valued Senior Member

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    Then in one instance the entire human race would have a common enemy to fight against and unite us as a whole. Funny how wars can bring humans together to accomplish any task as long as it is against a common enemy..but afterwards we fight our allies and repeat the cycle that has transpired within our civilazation for the last 10,000 years. If Extraterrestrial organisim behaved anything like us they would have had similar setbacks in techonolgy and science and probably ate themselves out of house and home just like we've been doing.
     
  22. Xotica Everyday I’m Shufflin Registered Senior Member

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    A few sensible assumptions. Intergalactic space travel requires not only an understanding of physics far beyond our current threshold, but also the material resources and the engineering creativity to utilize such knowledge. Attaining such a lofty plateau implicitly requires the avoidance of technological self-destruction. This in turn implies the ability to attain goals sans violence. It is also reasonable to assume that such exploration will be conducted via proxy... command/navigational systems imbued with AI.

    Beyond acquiring data, I can't conjur a compelling reason why such a civilization would even bother with us.
     
  23. keith1 Guest

    The (a) human knowledge base of the visible universe (as well as the (b) human knowledge base of theoretical conceptualizations involving beyond-horizon universe dynamics), are without saying, of a greater advance, and have quickly outstripped the (c) human knowledge base of viable human transportation modes considered, and may yet be conceived.

    This imbalance is to perhaps be expected, as a natural progression of sentient advance (at least until a and b come to such an enlightening understanding, as to hasten the advancement of c). Further, as a and b develop, so too does a (d) human knowledge base of "spread strategy" (involving "directions of exploratory interest", etc.).

    If a highly advanced civilization were to follow comparable rates of development (that is with an outrageously progressed a and b development with a slow c advancement), might suggest that:

    1) The greater number and total understanding of dynamics of the universe would be ascertained by the civilization, some aspects of which might reshape it's d strategy as to not to require a high c growth to achieve it's direct universe modes of transport.

    2)Advanced a and b dynamics understanding (not foreseen or conceivable by humans at this time) allow for the complete monitoring of detailed sentient activities in the universe by a highly advanced culture, including their discrete, clandestine, undetected presence.

    3)A highly advanced civilization having a d directive or focus not or no longer involving a regional interests.
     
    Last edited by a moderator: Mar 4, 2012

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