Instead of asking yourselves 'would aliens attack us?' ask yourseves 'Would we attack the aliens if we found them?' chances are, yes. Thus your answer.
We would have to wouldn't we? If we were capable of colonizing our galaxy (and other galaxies) then we basically have the capability to grow exponentially, or should we say, we will grow exponentially as a 'civilization'. The same would be valid for any other galaxyfaring species. Either we outgrow them, or they will outgrow us. Unless we change our biology and then the aliens have won by definition. Or they are the star trek kind of aliens. Pussies.
All aliens speak english and look very much like us except they have different hair growths and slight deformations in their ears and forheads. Star Trek sucks...
Don't critisize Star Trek "Aliens" too much. In TOS and TNG, CG technology was insufficient to make convincing enough aliens for the screen, and the makeup budget didn't stretch that far. Maybe if there is a series after Enterprise then it will have very alien aleins.
Ok, I'll make a serious post to this even though I realize that it will probably be wasted... I'm bored, what can I say? Seriously though, I think that very few of you are thinking in a very realistic way (except maybe Fraggle Rocker, and it does sound like Alien Nation). None of you seem to grasp the enormity of a conflict on the scale of an entire planet. You throw around cliche's about how "advanced" and "unimaginable" an alien civilization might be, and that if they are capable of getting here we wouldn't stand a chance, blah... blah... blah... That's bullshit. There are over 6.5 billion of us, and we live all over the planet. Assuming they could get here, even if they were capable of some weird way of traveling faster than light, there numbers would have to be relatively small, or they will be expending most of their energy producing food to feed themselves. The only way I could see them as a true threat to our civilization (if we knew they were here and trying to take over) is if their forces were composed primarily of self-replicating machines of some kind, and even then they need the raw materials to self-replicate, which means that they have to establish a foothold in a resource rich area of our planet (all of the areas where we exist in the largest concentrations), and then replicate at a fast enough rate to outpace our efforts to destroy them. Just to gain that foothold they have to contend with virtually limitless resources, all being turned toward the purpose of defending our civilization and eradicating them. Just look at the fanaticism with which we fight each other, and then think for a moment about what it would be like if we had even less common ground then our shared humanity. I'm sorry, unless you're going to copout and say we can't predict their technology or biology, we'd win. Hands down.
heck, who says they couldn't draw their resources from a local body such as our moon, or another planet? they could collect a number of gases from the jovian planets and even more elements from the rocky ones. our nukes probably wouldn't be a threat if they were out that far because a nuke on a rocket in space is a single, very visible target that can either be avoided or shot down via energy weapon or by something as simple as lobbing a rock at it with sufficient speed. so they'd be free to stockpile for the blitz just a thought, i'm not expert
Does it really matter how many there are of them? If they are up in high orbit they are basically unreachable for us. We can't even launch a man to the moon. Unfortunately, we are not unreachable. We are at the end of a gravitational well.
@Jaster You bring up some good arguments. There would undoubtedly be more of us than them. However, with more advanced technology usually comes greater destructive capabilities. One would imagine that this is the same case for alien species. As Weed_Eater_Guy noted, there are tons of untapped resources in the rest of the Solar System. The invaders could bring only what they needed for the voyage here, and get the rest of their resources from the Solar System upon their arrival. IIRC, this is what's done in Larry Niven's Footfall -- the Fithp spend at least 15 years in the outer Solar System, specifically Saturn and its moons. They harvested material from Saturn's rings to use for fuel and other resources for the coming invasion. An advanced spacefaring civilization would likely have time to wait and prepare. They would want their invasion to succeed, so they will naturally plan for it to the best of their ability. However, I do agree that invading a planet like ours, with 6.5 billion people on it, is nothing short of monumental. It would require technological and logistical abilities beyond anything we've seen in human experience. Then again, why waste precious time and resources on a military invasion? Could there be more efficient ways of getting the job done? It turns out that there are. One way is to follow the old Roman dictum, divide et impera -- divide and conquer. Get the people you want to conquer to first fight themselves, leaving them weakened by the time you arrive. Another method is to use weapons of mass destruction. Asteroids and nuclear weapons stand out in this regard. The latter may be less desirable, though, since they would likely produce deadly radiation. (Unless that doesn't bother the aliens -- cosmic cockroaches, anyone?) An even better device, however, is the relativistic bomb. Using the equations for momentum, it follows that an object moving close to c will have an enormous amount of kinetic energy. Such a high velocity, then, gives you more "bang for the buck" -- you can achieve an equivalent amount of destruction with less mass. Of course, you'd have to somehow get it moving that fast in the first place, but these aliens are supposed to be very advanced, right? I'm assuming it would be no problem for them to do it. Anyways, all you would need to do is hit Earth with some of these things, and not only is humanity gone, but nearly all other life too. If the civilization was patient enough, it could send some relativistic bombs to Earth, wipe out humanity and 99% of all other life, wait for the dust to settle (not all that long), come in and seed Earth with its own ecology and people. Presto! A true "shake-and-bake" colony. Now the only question is why the aliens would want to do this in the first place. So far, the only way I can see that happening is if: They have no innate curiosity or interest in science for the sake of science -- i.e. they have no desire to study Earth or its life-forms (including us). They either do not recognize other intelligent species (such as ourselves) as being intelligent, or they lack any sort of empathy for them. They have, for whatever reason (though speculating about this might be interesting), adopted a policy of relentless expansion. In this case, they would do the same thing to worlds without intelligent species -- it would be "standard operating procedure". Any thoughts? Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!
Alright, I admit that they could get their resources from another body within the solar system, but that still doesn't make it even close to easy to contend with a huge civilization fighting for it's very survival. And you don't think we'd start pouring our rescources into more advanced rocketry, electro-magnetic guns, more powerful nuclear devices, and the like if we were facing extinction? That doesn't sound realistic at all. It's not as if we have hit some kind of a wall with these kinds of technology, it's just that we don't have the proper motivation to develop them further at a rapid pace. If the alien battlecruisers started appearing in orbit around the Earth, I think we'd gain the motivation.
Of course it matters how many of them there are. You don't win wars by bombing the hell out of the enemy, you have to secure the ground. If they are coming here for colonization, and are tryign to avoid utter devestation of the Earth, then they would have to initiate a ground invasion, or else they would be fruitlessly pounding away at mountainsides and trying to find underground bunkers packed with thousands of humans just waiting to conduct a guerilla war. And what are you talking about? We've already launched a man to the moon. We are fully capable of reaching them. Rockets aren't that big, and if they are close enough to accurately target our cities they'd be close enough for us to hit with nuclear weapons. Even if we can't do it now, we'd move heaven and earth to develop the technology to do it, just so that we could hit them back.
While we build that stuff they fire off their oxygen-cydronator. It sets off a chain reaction in the free O2 in the air turning it in liquid furnikov oxygen, which has the tendency to explode into contact with anything. Making us explode and sufficate at the same time.
It is highly unlikely that we would be able to defeat a hostile alien race that is capable of interstellar or intergalactic travel. I don’t think the aliens would even give us a chance to defend ourselves. And there are some people like me that would be willing to help the aliens. I am thinking about a scenario that is similar to the X-files. (A small group of people helps the aliens colonize earth in return for some privileges) I would be willing to help the aliens kill most of the people on this planet if they were willing to let me use their technology. I would love to have the ability to genetically modify my body and travel to other galaxies. If I had to use one word to describe myself it would be misanthropic. I hate my life and I really hate the current state of humanity. I wouldn’t think twice about helping the aliens.
I have the balls to kill people without any remorse, but I choose not to do it because I believe that it would be an illogical act. I don't think that it would be illogical for me to kill thousands or millions of people if I possessed advanced alien technology. Think about the supersoldiers in the last season of the X-files.
my my don't we have a sociopath... you'd rather be lazy and sacrifice your brethren than go to college and build the technology you desire yourself. Personally, I don't think you have the balls to do EITHER, nor would the aliens bother to offer you a choice, as you clearly lack the mental capacity that would interest them.
Lets not forget that we are talking about a fantasy here. I haven’t seen any little green men recently. Have you? And why do you think that I don’t have the mental capacity that would interest them? Is it because I have a hatred for humanity? Fuck humanity. Sometimes I feel like an extraterrestrial that is living in a human body. I'm a carbon based life form that is living in the wrong place at the wrong time. If a hostile alien race was going to attack earth I think they would be interested in anyone that wanted to help them. (Don’t forget that I am still talking about a scenario that is similar to the X-files) And my primitive mental capabilities would be improved if my body were genetically enhanced.
Um... it seems that you completely ignored what I said about them not wanting to completely devestate the surface of the planet. If they are coming here, specifically, for colonization, then obviously our planet is valuable to them because of it's environment, which means that using that kind of environmentally altering weaponry would be counter-productive. No, if they want to kill us off and then live here, then they'd have to do it the hard way, methinks.
