This is a discussion on Which institutions will react on alien invasion? within the Space & Defense Technology forum, part of the Global Defense & Military category; Wall of text incoming
Presuming they have a shred of empathy in there bodies they will not take offense to ...
Wall of text incoming
Presuming they have a shred of empathy in there bodies they will not take offense to our making of harmless contingency plans or even a global mobilization, doing such would only be prudent in a situation such as first contact.
Nuclear weapons might be our only defense, they might be able to deflect them but we could threaten to nuke ourselves, making the planet far less useful. Not the best move but it might be the only move we can make. Hopefully given our violent history and demeanor they will back off. Of coarse they could just take a few genetic samples from us and bio-engineer a super-plague that wipes out all life on earth and dust our atmosphere with it.
as for the logistics being impossible
1. cornucopia tech and nanotechnology would make logistics a breeze for a space faring race able to use the abundance of material found in space: Cornucopia Future technology List of nanotechnology applications - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
2. Genetic Modification can potentially reduce a species consumption rates (at a cost in other areas) and make more efficient crops and livestock.
3. very advanced technology such as FTL or wormhole drives could make travel near instantaneous.
4. If the species prefers to live on terra firma and planets capable of supporting life are rare than any logistical price may be worth it.
I reject the notion that the ETI's will have evolved the violence out of them. We have no evidence to suggest that that is the natural coarse of evolution (in fact the species most adept at violence on our planet is also its most successful, I'm on a website dedicated to its tendency's literally right now!) there is plenty to suggest that only predatory species can develop intelligence. An intelligent person with high-minded ideals might get far but an intelligent person with few morals can frame him for murder, sleep with his wife and steal all the money in his bank account, unless a person of the law who is willing to do violence to enforce it can stop him. (Lying, cheating and stealing are advantageous, and violence or the threat there of is the counter) Of coarse they might not think of us as equals more like pests. They might not even think they are harming use by vaporizing or eviscerating us.
Now imagine that you are walking down the road and a hideous being with mandibles and bug eyes comes walking towards you, shrieking with his arms outstretched towards you. You are almost certainly either going to 1. Run 2. Fight. But for all you know it was merely extending in its culture a friendly greeting. All those smiling diplomats at the UN may be challenging the ETI's to a fight (smiling bears your teeth, in most species a sign of aggression).
Should the UN be in charge? At various times in its history it has been a puppet for the US or a useless platform for the 3rd world. It is tremendously corrupt and incompetent. And worse of all its slow to react. War cannot be waged by committee. Oh yeah and a significant portion of the world does not trust the UN. The war would be waged on a local level (the OPFOR would likely destroy any large buildups or movements from space and would probably be able to shut down wireless communications. The US would be one of the few nations with a global presence and so would likely be fighting world wide.
If we were trying to engage the ETI's diplomatically, than the UN is our best option (as imperfect as it is) although nations not represented at the UN would likely object
As for Americans being from another planet, we are all just Europeans, former slaves, native Americans and recently in our short but colorful history, immigrants from the third world (often the best/brightest/most well connected) in other words extremely unlike most other nations (the closest parallel being the late soviet union with its maze of ethnic groups) we think differently because we are a product of our people, success and form of government. Hungarians on the other hand 1. Have a Difficult language unlike that of the countries around it 2. Produce an unnaturally high amount of brilliant mathematicians and physicists. (I am only joking of coarse, the few Hungarians I have met were certifiably human)
Our best coarse of action would be to meet them as far from earth as we can. History would be different if the Europeans were greeted by the American natives far out at sea in there own ocean going vessels.
For an in depth look at the subject of first contact might I suggest the following books
An Introduction to Planetary Defense:
. I have read this book and highly recommend it to anyone really interested in the subject. Its cover does not do justice to the contents which are serious.
it is called a out of context problem
copied and pasted because cant post links yet
An "Out of Context Problem" is one that we encounter without any possible preparation of forewarning. For example, the Aztec Empire was at the height of its power, literally the strongest nation in their world, when the Spanish arrived. The Spanish had technology so far beyond the Aztecs that they could never have predicted or prepared to combat it. We've seen many versions of this particular brand of "Out of Context Problem" throughout history; the Romans versus the Teutons, American Colonists versus Native Americans, even the atomic bomb dropped on Japan.
so we just have to hope they want us as pets lol
because if they want us gone then it would just be to easy to remove us
they dont have to fight a war in the conventional sense because the goal is to remove all of us
not just some of us so they dont have to discriminate they can easily target us with viruses and mop up whats left if any with out even revealing them selfs
our best chance at survival as a species would be if they want us for something
to put it into some sort of context think how easy it would be for us to wipe out the romans with 2000 years more advances or how long to beat the germans with just 70 years more advances and then think that we would be talking about a race that has crossed a vast distance just to be here
Last edited by joho; November 25th, 2011 at 11:08 AM.
I would like to make a couple of comments to this interesting topic.
I remember reading a paper written from some NASA PhD on how much time it would take to explore the galaxy with non FTL technology. He actually did the math. LOL. Something like 6 to 10 % speed of light, which is still incredibly difficult and expensive. It would take thousands of millions of years to go from star to star. I think he looked at different scenarios like visiting only stars that have potential life and took it down to ONLY a quarter of the galaxy and it would still take a couple of 100 thousand years. So even if it where technically feasible for an advanced civilization to build ships/satellites that could operate at those speeds and work after thousands of years to report back info, well, how do you get your civilization to last that long? I will try to find the PDF file and post it.
My other thought parallels some other posts, there is a mind set? that I think derives from Hollywood movies that really distorts likely encounters, especially invasive ones. I am referring to "Independence Day" type movies, where the aliens really aren't that different than us, they just have superior tech and they just kill everybody. No talks, not even really all that smart sometimes, they just show up and start shooting. Well , it makes sense from a 1 to 1 and half hour summer movie that is geared toward 15 year olds on summer vacation but from a military point of view,not really objective. A very good book(series) from David Gerrold, "The war against the Chtorr", is far more realistic and uses tech that makes sense and not that really more sophisticated than ours. For example, why invade a planet that is different, you have to "terraform" it to match your alien habitat. Also if it takes years to arrive, why not drop some engineered super virus to kill/weaken the locals? Sure you won't get everybody but if you can kill half the humans without even firing a bullet and weaken/ render unstable/ depress the other half, why not? After that send your fauna/flora to "terraform" Earth and slowly change it over decades, sure the locals are pissed but if the alien fauna/flora is stronger/faster/deadlier than Earth's fauna/flora, let them do the dirty work. By the time the aliens arrive, you have a new planet suited to your tastes and all the locals are pretty much gone. The aliens never get their "hands" dirty that way, just takes decades. Sure doesn't make for a good summer movie but far more realistic and economical than "Independence Day". As someone reported,NASA has already looked at "terraforming" Mars, we have a lot of the tech and ideas to make it feasible, not the money, but give it 100 to 200 years of terraforming, quite feasible by Earth today. Who says you have to terraform "overnight"? Take your time and accomplish it for far less money, just takes longer. Kind of reminds me of visiting Mars, recently and FINALLY someone thought of my idea, which was why send people to Mars and then spend billions on sending them BACK to Earth??? You mean, we can't find a few scientist that would go on a one way mission to Mars? Shoot, I would go in a heart beat. By the way, the cost if I remember was like not even a third of a round trip mission.
Finally, too bad the series hasn't been finished by the author and I am afraid he never will but still some very interesting concepts.
I would like to make a couple of comments to this interesting topic.
I remember reading a paper written from some NASA PhD on how much time it would take to explore the galaxy with non FTL technology. He actually did the math. LOL. Something like 6 to 10 % speed of light, which is still incredibly difficult and expensive. It would take thousands of millions of years to go from star to star. I think he looked at different scenarios like visiting only stars that have potential life and took it down to ONLY a quarter of the galaxy and it would still take a couple of 100 thousand years. So even if it where technically feasible for an advanced civilization to build ships/satellites that could operate at those speeds and work after thousands of years to report back info, well, how do you get your civilization to last that long? I will try to find the PDF file and post it.
My other thought parallels some other posts, there is a mind set? that I think derives from Hollywood movies that really distorts likely encounters, especially invasive ones. I am referring to "Independence Day" type movies, where the aliens really aren't that different than us, they just have superior tech and they just kill everybody. No talks, not even really all that smart sometimes, they just show up and start shooting. Well , it makes sense from a 1 to 1 and half hour summer movie that is geared toward 15 year olds on summer vacation but from a military point of view,not really objective. A very good book(series) from David Gerrold, "The war against the Chtorr", is far more realistic and uses tech that makes sense and not that really more sophisticated than ours. For example, why invade a planet that is different, you have to "terraform" it to match your alien habitat. Also if it takes years to arrive, why not drop some engineered super virus to kill/weaken the locals? Sure you won't get everybody but if you can kill half the humans without even firing a bullet and weaken/ render unstable/ depress the other half, why not? After that send your fauna/flora to "terraform" Earth and slowly change it over decades, sure the locals are pissed but if the alien fauna/flora is stronger/faster/deadlier than Earth's fauna/flora, let them do the dirty work. By the time the aliens arrive, you have a new planet suited to your tastes and all the locals are pretty much gone. The aliens never get their "hands" dirty that way, just takes decades. Sure doesn't make for a good summer movie but far more realistic and economical than "Independence Day". As someone reported,NASA has already looked at "terraforming" Mars, we have a lot of the tech and ideas to make it feasible, not the money, but give it 100 to 200 years of terraforming, quite feasible by Earth today. Who says you have to terraform "overnight"? Take your time and accomplish it for far less money, just takes longer. Kind of reminds me of visiting Mars, recently and FINALLY someone thought of my idea, which was why send people to Mars and then spend billions on sending them BACK to Earth??? You mean, we can't find a few scientist that would go on a one way mission to Mars? Shoot, I would go in a heart beat. By the way, the cost if I remember was like not even a third of a round trip mission.
Finally, too bad the series hasn't been finished by the author and I am afraid he never will but still some very interesting concepts.
The problem with sending something like genetic seeds if you will over that amount of time is that life loves stuff like that. Time and competition=evolution. What good is it if the colonization fleet arives to find what should have been a apple now poisones and that the wheat that was supposed to be grown in the field now dead because microbes have in the 50-100 years sense you arrived gone through millions of generations worth of mutations and now effectively wipped out all of the crop. Then in behind that bacteria native plant and animal species have taken over and thrive.
Thats the thing if you are assuming all the animals and plants on a world are say carbon based lifeforms just like we are what if they aren't? Or what if you use that weapon send in the seed ships but the weapon has survived or maybe mutated and is almost impossible to kill rendering the colony doomed?
Hollywood makes it to simple its like trying to make plans to defeat a enemy who could be coming at you with swords or guns, be 3ft tall or 20, amphibian, reptile, mammal, etc. So many variables. So pick what makes the best story.
I would like to see a movie outside of the predictable..........of course thats hollywood so....
1. Have a Difficult language unlike that of the countries around it 2. Produce an unnaturally high amount of brilliant mathematicians and physicists. (I am only joking of coarse, the few Hungarians I have met were certifiably human)
