If aliens became aware of us, would they conquer/enslave/exploit/displace/exterminate us?

[BrainGlutton]

Stephen Hawking (http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/science/space/article7107207.ece) compares the hypothetical situation to Europeans discovering the New World and enslaving or brushing aside the Indians. But, the Europeans had uses for the New World; it was almost exactly like where they came from only less crowded. For the Earth to be any more useful to ETs than Mars would be, their physiology would have to be similar enough to ours for them to breathe our air, eat our plants/animals or grow their own here, etc. How likely is that?

[Oakminster]

They may conquer you. They ain't taking me alive.

(Chambers a round. Spits. Squints.)

[thirdname]

I think there was just a thread about this.

[XT]

I would say that it depends on some basic assumptions. One of those assumptions would be that life, as we know it, can only occupy a fairly narrow band of what is or isn't habitable. So, basically, whatever alien is out there would also find the Earth to be in their zone of use. Which leads to the next assumption...that habitable planets like Earth are fairly rare, and thus become valuable. Not for the raw materials available, but because of the intrinsic value of a world where life can exist outside of an manufactured, artificial environment.

Assuming those things to be true, I could certainly see an aggressive alien life form who, discovering a world they could use (and having the ability to do something about it), wanting to come here and brush us aside to use the planet for themselves.

Of course, I'm not sure if those assumptions ARE true, so...

-XT

[CutterJohn]

Not very, imo. Even if very similar to us, there will be something *really* wrong with the planet that makes them not want to live here.

Maybe they are putting on winter gear when it dips below 100f.

Maybe their star put out a LOT less UV, or had a much better ozone layer, and they fry in minutes.

Maybe their atmosphere has 10% oxygen, and ours is poisonous.

Maybe our heavy metal content is way too high for them.

There are thousands of things that could be major deal breakers for the planet. Its quite unlikely they would want to live here, at least outside of controlled environments, and if they are living in controlled environments, there is no point to conquering us.

Most definitely they would not be here for the food. Earth food would be pretty low in nutritional value for any alien. They may share a few of the more simple proteins, but most would be like you or I munching on grass, and some might be extremely poisonous. They might get some calories from sugars and fats, but few if any vitamins would be vitamins to them. So coming to grill up some human burgers is pretty damned unlikely(except perhaps for the novelty factor).

Resources.. This could be a reason. Not that earth is really special(at least we presume its not), but we have spent the better part of a couple of millenia digging up vast amounts of mineral wealth and concentrating it handily on the surface for our new alien overlords. Whether they kill us and unleash the minebots, or hold us for ransom and use us as slave labor, or just unleash the minebots and let them chew out the mineral resources in us, or purchase vast sums off of us for the equivalent of shiny beads, I cannot say.

Then again, an interstellar society has the pick of a trillion planets, so even the resource angle isn't much likely... There are any number of planets out there that will be far more mineral rich than earth is.

[The Tao's Revenge]

Why bother with our impoverished mineral access when they have the riches of the asteroid belt?

[BrainGlutton]

Of course, a lot depends on the psychology of the ETs . . . They might want us to worship them just 'cause, you know, it's kewl. Like Cartman and the Sea People.

[BrainGlutton]

I think there was just a thread about this.

It was not in GD, (http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=560993) therefore never existed, so there.

[Little Nemo]

It's hard to predict. It would depend on how similar Earth is to their ideal planet and how rare those ideal world are. And it would also depend on how similar our cultures are. The aliens might decide that humanity is a better resource for exploiting than Earth is.

[BrainGlutton]

It's hard to predict. It would depend on how similar Earth is to their ideal planet and how rare those ideal world are. And it would also depend on how similar our cultures are. The aliens might decide that humanity is a better resource for exploiting than Earth is.

I would like to let them know that I could be useful in rounding up others to toil in their giant underground sugar-caves.

[Sage Rat]

The most likely reason for an alien species to conquer us would be as a quick and comparatively painless way to establish control and teach us to live at a higher level of civilization. In their view, allowing us to freely advance just causes needless deaths and suffering and so in the long-run a quick and surgical takeover actually saves the most lives.

It's highly unlikely that they would care about the Earth in terms of resources since there's lots of other planets and asteroids to harvest. Only the life forms on it would be of interest and those can be studied and harvested via tourism and barter. There's no need for conquest. And if they can travel from planet to planet in reasonable quantities of time, it's fairly likely that they could terraform a planet to match their needs. It's very unlikely that our planet would be any more auspicious an environment for what their bodies are suited to than any other planets. More likely there would be some other uninhabitable planet that was still closer to the conditions they needed and more ripe for terraforming.

It's also fairly likely that the aliens won't care about land at all. With a suitably large and advanced virtual reality system, physical land becomes meaningless except as a source of mineral resources to create sustenance and power. And as already said, the Earth is no better a source of mineral resources than any other chunk of rock in the sky, so why go through the hassle of conquering or killing a species to do it?

[Otara]

I think at best they'd wave hello or say nasty tihngs, given we havent yet found a credible way to travel interstellar distances and its possible no such practical method exists.

Doesnt really matter how great another planet is if you need to virtually wipe out your own solar system to get the resources together to manage it for instance, and it will take 20k years to get there. At this stage its not about psychology its about practicalities.

Otara

[Trepa Mayfield]

Maybe our heavy metal content is way too high for them.


"How ironic...our best missiles and bombs did nothing, and yet a simple band was enough to kill them all."

[elucidator]

Then there's Niven's Sphere of Potential Awareness, which I just made up the name and probably the idea wasn't original with Larry Niven but who cares?

And that is a sphere defined by how far radio/television/etc. waves emanating from Earth have reached. Being, of course, dependent on when you think sufficiently powerful radiation began to get out into space from here. Say, what? 1930? 1940? Well, then, ok, you got a sphere 140 light years in diameter. And even a half-assed technology is likely to notice an unnatural amount of radio waves coming out of a second rate planet circling a mediocre yellow star.

[kanicbird]

Enslave, but in a way that we don't realize it, they would draw off our 'life force energy' or whatever term you wish to use.

[elucidator]

You mean, when they say they are here to serve man, you think, maybe....

[Simplicio]

Yea, to believe aliens would want to come take our stuff, you have to believe that aliens could have the technology to make it relativley easy to travel intestellar distances to get here, but not the technology to get what ever resources they gain by conquering us from some other source that was closer or easier to get. And/or you have to believe that Earth-like planets are both rare enough that we'd be worth conquering, but also common enough that other aliens on a planet similar enough to Earth to want to conquer it are close by enough to notice us and come here.

Its not inconceivable that one of these things is true, but it doesn't seem particularly likely.

[BrainGlutton]

The best way to tell the "good" aliens from the "bad" ones is: If you find yourself abducted and in a vat of mildly burning liquid, you are in the hands of the good aliens, who are about to eat you.

The bad ones are much worse.

-- Revelation X: The "Bob" Apocryphon (http://www.amazon.com/Revelation-BobApocryphon-Hidden-Teachings-Deuterocanonical/dp/0671770063)

[The Second Stone]

We don't know. They are going to be unlike anything we have encountered before. You know, completely alien. But if they can get here from there either with or without getting around the law of relativity, that would demonstrate that they would be so far advanced that we would not be able to deny them anything they wanted to accomplish by force.

That said, I think it very unlikely that humankind will discover anything as complex as even an amoebae within the next 100 years.

[Wesley Clark]

I really don't buy the argument, since most of the arguments for this don't sound plausible


1. Either we or the aliens will all die due to some cross infection.

I don't believe that because any species advanced enough to traverse the galaxy will have the medical knowledge to avoid germs. Humans aren't anywhere near the point of interstellar travel, but we have pretty much conquered all microbial infections (assuming people practice scientific knowledge like good sanitation, clean water, vaccinations, antibiotics, hand washing, etc).

2. The aliens will enslave us

I don't see this happening either. Humans are 20-50 years away from functional bipedal robots from what I have heard. As a result, any alien species will have robots capable of levels of stamina, flexibility, strength and problem solving far beyond anything humans can do. Humans gave up on enslaving horses once we developed machines that did the work better. There is no motive to enslave us, machines can do anything we can do much better.

3. They want our natural resources

There are tons of asteroids and rocky planets in the galaxy. I have no idea why they'd want the resources in ours.

Not only that but a species that can conquer interstellar travel can probably conquer fission. Not only would they get energy from the fission, but they would also be able to create industrial elements out of abundant hydrogen.

4. They want our living space

It is unlikely that our planet has the perfect alien atmosphere. Something on our planet is likely toxic to them.


The only likely way they'd kill us is if they just didn't give a damn for whatever reason. We really don't have anything they'd want from what I can tell.

[kaylasdad99]

Maybe our heavy metal content is way too high for them.

"How ironic...our best missiles and bombs did nothing, and yet a simple band was enough to kill them all."Anthrax, right?

[Lobohan]

One thing to consider is that the aliens may want to save us. Picture a ship full of evangelical Christians.

[Isamu]

I really don't buy the argument, since most of the arguments for this don't sound plausible


1. Either we or the aliens will all die due to some cross infection.

I don't believe that because any species advanced enough to traverse the galaxy will have the medical knowledge to avoid germs. Humans aren't anywhere near the point of interstellar travel, but we have pretty much conquered all microbial infections (assuming people practice scientific knowledge like good sanitation, clean water, vaccinations, antibiotics, hand washing, etc).

2. The aliens will enslave us

I don't see this happening either. Humans are 20-50 years away from functional bipedal robots from what I have heard. As a result, any alien species will have robots capable of levels of stamina, flexibility, strength and problem solving far beyond anything humans can do. Humans gave up on enslaving horses once we developed machines that did the work better. There is no motive to enslave us, machines can do anything we can do much better.

3. They want our natural resources

There are tons of asteroids and rocky planets in the galaxy. I have no idea why they'd want the resources in ours.

Not only that but a species that can conquer interstellar travel can probably conquer fission. Not only would they get energy from the fission, but they would also be able to create industrial elements out of abundant hydrogen.

4. They want our living space

It is unlikely that our planet has the perfect alien atmosphere. Something on our planet is likely toxic to them.


The only likely way they'd kill us is if they just didn't give a damn for whatever reason. We really don't have anything they'd want from what I can tell.

Hardly anyone seems to think that aliens would be interested in our local flora and fauna. Frankly, if I was to travel to an alien civilization their biodiversity would be one of the most interesting things for me.

[gonzomax]

We will die of alien infection. Death by Reticulum Rot or Cygnus crotch decay.

[Sage Rat]

The best way to tell the "good" aliens from the "bad" ones is: If you find yourself abducted and in a vat of mildly burning liquid, you are in the hands of the good aliens, who are about to eat you.

The bad ones are much worse.-- Revelation X: The "Bob" Apocryphon (http://www.amazon.com/Revelation-BobApocryphon-Hidden-Teachings-Deuterocanonical/dp/0671770063)
That's bullcrap. Good aliens look like this (http://chockblock.files.wordpress.com/2009/09/seven-of-nine.jpg), and bad aliens look like this (http://technabob.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2008/09/alien.jpg).

[Blake]

NMaybe they are putting on winter gear when it dips below 100f.

Given that humans live permanently and willingly in the high arctic and the hottest deserts. it is very doubtful if anything climatic will bother an alien race capable of interstellar travel.


Maybe their star put out a LOT less UV, or had a much better ozone layer, and they fry in minutes.


The problem with this is that ozone is a product of UV reacting with oxygen. It can't vary a great deal unless the oxygen level in the atmosphere varies wildy, and that isn't really possible for reasons I'll detail below.


Maybe their atmosphere has 10% oxygen, and ours is poisonous.

Not really possible. Oxygen levels will always balance out at about the same level in any vaguely earth like system. Plants will produce oxygen until it reaches a level in the 20-30% range, whereupon the vegetation becomes so highly flammable that it ignites and consume the oxygen. It can't remain excessively low or excessively high unless something is consuming it. Maybe these organisms evolved so rapidly that the minerals are still sucking oxygen out of the atmosphere, but that's pretty unlikely.

Maybe our heavy metal content is way too high for them.

Unlikely given the way that terrestrial planets form. To be troublesome the hevay metals would need to be 10 times higher than what we have here on Earth. It's hard to see how that could occur.

There are thousands of things that could be major deal breakers for the planet.

Not really. If we assume an humanlike lifeform then it's going to be hard for the planet to be any less hospitable than some of the desert or arctic environments that humans have naturally and willingly occupied.

Most definitely they would not be here for the food. Earth food would be pretty low in nutritional value for any alien. They may share a few of the more simple proteins, but most would be like you or I munching on grass, and some might be extremely poisonous. They might get some calories from sugars and fats, but few if any vitamins would be vitamins to them. So coming to grill up some human burgers is pretty damned unlikely(except perhaps for the novelty factor).

This isn't really a major objection, because if you can travel through interstellar space you certainly know enough t be able to convert biomass using microbes. Even us humans can readily convert toxic material such as pufferfish, or inedible material like wood or nutritionally deficient material like sugar into highly nutritious complete, safe food using microbial vats.

A more realistically objection is that when you can hurl billion of people and arms across space you certainly have enough energy and technology to capture carbon directly form the atmosphere, and much more efificently.


Resources.. This could be a reason. Not that earth is really special(at least we presume its not), but we have spent the better part of a couple of millenia digging up vast amounts of mineral wealth and concentrating it handily on the surface for our new alien overlords. Whether they kill us and unleash the minebots, or hold us for ransom and use us as slave labor, or just unleash the minebots and let them chew out the mineral resources in us, or purchase vast sums off of us for the equivalent of shiny beads, I cannot say.


Once again, we have to ask what sort of technology would make it more efficient to hurl material across the universe at sizable fraction of lightspeed than to simply mine the neighbouring planet. Seriousuly, when would it ever be cheaper to go and pick up shopping carts from Alpha Centauri than to mine the metal from Mars? It may be more concentrated, but the time and energy involve din transporting it would be prohibitive unless we have a magic technology that makes travel free. And if we have a magic technology that makes space travel free then the depth we have to travel into a planet to get materials ceases to be an issue as well.

[Baboonanza]

One thing to consider is that the aliens may want to save us. Picture a ship full of evangelical Christians.
Oh the horror!

In the end it's pointless trying to ascribe motive to an unknowable and hypothetical alien race. However, I'd consider it fairly unlikely that a race capable of crossing intersteller space would turn up and try and enslave us (anything we could do could be more easily done my machines) or steal our planet (they could go and find a nice clean one instead).

What I consider more likely is they either ignore us or just blow us up. Afterall, why would they share our moral code? And does a morale code even apply to a different sentient species? In a dangerous universe shouldn't you just look after your own species by elliminating potential competition as early as possible?

[Mangetout]

If they have the capacity to visit us (which is really bloody unlikely), it's unlikely they would need anything we have when they get here that they couldn't get more easily somewhere else.

The only reasons I can think of that they might exterminate or conquer us:

They have some pathological, but irrational need to conquer/assimilate (Klingons, or missionaries)
They perceive us as a threat at imminent risk of expansion into their sphere of control (which we're not, and not about to be)
They do it out of some kind of (possibly misguided) altruism, as an attempt to uplift or improve us.

[AClockworkMelon]

I'd be more worried about aliens drive-by bombing us for shits and giggles.

[ivan astikov]

A friend of mine thinks we need the threat of an alien invasion to bring us humans together.

Tbh, I'd be all for settling our petty squabbles and getting together to kick some alien ass, or whatever equivalent they may have.

When your enemy has got tendrils instead of arms and a gaping maw for a mouth, that guy with the turban doesn't seem so bad after all.

[AClockworkMelon]

A friend of mine thinks we need the threat of an alien invasion to bring us humans together.

Tbh, I'd be all for settling our petty squabbles and getting together to kick some alien ass, or whatever equivalent they may have.Your friend doesn't happen to love The Watchmen, does he?

[ivan astikov]

Your friend doesn't happen to love The Watchmen, does he?

It's a she, and she's also an OAP who has never had an interest in action comics, so I doubt it.

On second thoughts, there's no doubt... I know it. She's more of a Steven Seagal fan - hey, we aren't all perfect!

[elucidator]

You are a desperate, desperate man. I can relate.

[Fake Tales of San Francisco]

They'd probably just be really confused that we're made of meat (http://baetzler.de/humor/meat_beings.html).

[AClockworkMelon]

They'd probably just be really confused that we're made of meat (http://baetzler.de/humor/meat_beings.html).Thanks for the link, that was hilarious.

[Gagundathar]

Thanks for the link, that was hilarious.

Not a bad solution to Fermi's Paradox.

[ralph124c]

Would extra-terrestrials find us tasty?
I always remember that old "Twilight Zone" episode.."To Serve Man". Or are we probably unfit to eat?

[BrainGlutton]

Of course, their intentions toward us might be even worse . . . (http://blog.cocoia.com/wp-content/uploads/2007/12/jabba-leia-throneroom.jpg)

[John DiFool]

If they have the capacity to visit us (which is really bloody unlikely), it's unlikely they would need anything we have when they get here that they couldn't get more easily somewhere else.

The only reasons I can think of that they might exterminate or conquer us:

They have some pathological, but irrational need to conquer/assimilate (Klingons, or missionaries)
They perceive us as a threat at imminent risk of expansion into their sphere of control (which we're not, and not about to be)
They do it out of some kind of (possibly misguided) altruism, as an attempt to uplift or improve us.


They very likely will be capable of thinking in terms of millenia-long time scales, or even longer (unlike our short-attention-span species which apparently cannot conceive of or worry about anything which might happen after c. 1 year), and, if they have developed the technology to get here from Far Far Away (which means it is possible), then we eventually will too, at which point we might become a threat to them. They may come to the very logical conclusion that we need to be nuked purely for that reason. This assumes that interstellar tech eventually will hit a wall, in the same manner in which jet transport hit a wall in the 60's, and they worry that we will indeed catch up one day. If they are confident that they will always stay one step ahead of us, casually neutralizing our puny weapons at every turn, then we have less to worry about.

[Mean Mr. Mustard]

Just in case, here is a handy tip sheet that we should all commit to memory or carry in our wallets:

If You Are The First Human Contacted By Aliens (http://www.laboiteverte.fr/wp-content/uploads/2010/03/first-contact-alien.png)

[MrDibble]

Our very existence might offend them, in some religious way - the fact that we don't Splooon or Vlub might make us anathema to them.

Or our radio transmissions are futzing with their hyperSoapies reception, and they're not standing for it.

They may have a need for planets of a certain type for other than economic reasons, like maybe they can only breed on Earth-like planets. Or are only allowed to breed on ELPs.

Maybe they're environmental fanatics, like some species in Brin's Uplift Universe, and they see killing us off to protect Earth's potential as a sacred duty. Or to get at our dolphins and chimps for Uplift before we do.

Or they might just like hunting and killing new things, like that one ST:Voyager species (Hirogen?), Predators or the Affront in Bank's Excession.

[BrainGlutton]

Then again, ETs might only want to study us out of scientific curiosity . . . which could be even worse . . . (http://galactanet.com/comic/view.php?strip=31)

[foolsguinea]

If you became aware of E.T.'s, would you conquer/enslave/exploit/displace/exterminate them?

[Malthus]

I assume an alien's response to us would be much the same as our response to those tube worms living on undersea volcanic vents - that is, we'd show up in a their equivalent of an IMAX documentary, with aliens ooohing and ahhhing at how goddamn wierd and wonderful we are, and with alien scientists struggling to get grants to study us.

Enslavement, expoitation? Not a chance. No possible eploitation could be worth the huge trouble it would take to get here. If they somehow had godlike powers to transport easily, what possible worth could human slaves be?

[Lust4Life]

I think that they'd use us for sex, food and entertainment.

They're alien for gods sake, we have no idea of their thought processes, feeling or motivations.

Alien means just that, not a human with a brow ridge or pointy ears, who just happens to have only one of our human emotions in predominance.

For all we know they might arrive here and start worshipping a small, desert dwelling lizard .


Aliens can be so...................alien sometimes.

[Quartz]

If they want our planet, surely they'd just sterilise it and move in their own flora and fauna?

[levdrakon]

We're the alien colonists, and our planet was colonized the only practical way for planets to get colonized - microbes.

[Mince]

What a ridiculous notion. Having the capability of galactic travel, why would they not just colonize any number of other planets that would be (presumably) unopposed?

[elmwood]

Any alien species advanced enough to travel here would probably have the technology for advanced robotics -- if they mastered computer science to the extent of humans -- and the ability to mine other rocky planets and asteroids, regardless of atmosphere, for the resources they need. Why enslave humans? Also, there's likely to be rocky planets with Earth-like atmospheres that don't have sentient lifeforms living on them. If I were the leader of an alien race in need of "lebensraum", and had the choice of settling on any of 50 habitable planets without sentient creatures, or one with humans, I'm going to go for the low-hanging fruit.

Just because Earth supports life doesn't necessarily mean it will support alien life. It's not just the atmosphere, but also temperatures, length of the day and year, and gravity. If the aliens originate from a planet with half the gravity of Earth, have a circadian cycle of 40 hours, and depend on crops that have a 300 day growth cycle, from germination to harvest, Earth isn't going to be the place for them.

[LonesomePolecat]

Then there's Niven's Sphere of Potential Awareness, which I just made up the name and probably the idea wasn't original with Larry Niven but who cares?

And that is a sphere defined by how far radio/television/etc. waves emanating from Earth have reached. Being, of course, dependent on when you think sufficiently powerful radiation began to get out into space from here. Say, what? 1930? 1940? Well, then, ok, you got a sphere 140 light years in diameter. And even a half-assed technology is likely to notice an unnatural amount of radio waves coming out of a second rate planet circling a mediocre yellow star.

Any electro-magnetic signal broadcast from Earth would become too weak to distinguish from background noise long before it ever reached 140 light years. IIRC, it wouldn't reach much beyond our solar system.

[Sage Rat]

They're alien for gods sake, we have no idea of their thought processes, feeling or motivations.

Alien means just that, not a human with a brow ridge or pointy ears, who just happens to have only one of our human emotions in predominance.
Math only has one solution, while as reason has many, but the total number of reasonable answers to any question is limited. An irrational answer is irrational regardless of anything.

A species that has been able to develop to travel outerspace in reasonable periods of time is most likely going to approach things rationally. You can't develop to that point if you're too irrational.

[BrainGlutton]

I assume an alien's response to us would be much the same as our response to those tube worms living on undersea volcanic vents - that is, we'd show up in a their equivalent of an IMAX documentary, with aliens ooohing and ahhhing at how goddamn wierd and wonderful we are, and with alien scientists struggling to get grants to study us.

Enslavement, expoitation? Not a chance. No possible eploitation could be worth the huge trouble it would take to get here. If they somehow had godlike powers to transport easily, what possible worth could human slaves be?

In S.M. Stirling's Domination of the Draka (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Domination_of_the_Draka) AH/SF series, a human culture emerges dedicated to, well, what might be called collective self-actualization, through the conquest and enslavement of all non-Draka. They even develop a power philosophy about it, based partly on Nietzsche; and while a philosophy of that kind might be invented originally as a justification/rationalization of what the culture is doing anyway, it can come to exercise independent influence over the minds of later generations. In the fourth novel, Drakon, the Draka of the 25th Century are exploring nearby star systems and conquering/enslaving any sentients they find there, making them worship "the gods from the sky" -- just because that's what Draka do. It's how they get interesting new toys, and they like having slaves truckle to them. They plan to conquer the whole galaxy eventually, however many millennia it takes; that's what they see as their destiny.

It is not inconceivable there is a real-life culture somewhere in the universe that thinks like that.

[BrainGlutton]

I've found myself wondering what Stirling's Draka would do, if they encountered an alien sentient race so utterly alien that any meaningful enslavement of it to humans would be imponderable. Such as the neutronium-based cheela of Dragon's Egg, (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dragon%27s_Egg) by Robert L. Forward, with whom even basic communication faces both physical and time barriers.

I rather suspect the Draka would try very hard to find some way to exterminate the cheela, simply because the existence of a free non-Draka race, anywhere, does not fit in with their view of proper order of the universe.

And, again, there might be an ET culture out there that thinks like that, and will kill us if, and because, they cannot enslave us.

[Malthus]

In S.M. Stirling's Domination of the Draka (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Domination_of_the_Draka) AH/SF series, a human culture emerges dedicated to, well, what might be called collective self-actualization, through the conquest and enslavement of all non-Draka. They even develop a power philosophy about it, based partly on Nietzsche; and while a philosophy of that kind might be invented originally as a justification/rationalization of what the culture is doing anyway, it can come to exercise independent influence over the minds of later generations. In the fourth novel, Drakon, the Draka of the 25th Century are exploring nearby star systems and conquering/enslaving any sentients they find there, making them worship "the gods from the sky" -- just because that's what Draka do. It's how they get interesting new toys, and they like having slaves truckle to them. They plan to conquer the whole galaxy eventually, however many millennia it takes; that's what they see as their destiny.

It is not inconceivable there is a real-life culture somewhere in the universe that thinks like that.

Another example of this sort of thing is Olaf Stapelton's SF classic Star Maker:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Star_Maker

Briefly, the semi-omniscient narrator encounters civilizations who have created world-spanning utopias, and who in some cases seek to "export" their utopian systems to alien sentiences, for their own good and in the name of higher morality - in some unfortunate cases, the utopian ideal turns perverse, in that the prostletization of aliens takes on the nature of a jihad, which in turn taints the "utopia".

All very unlikely IMO.

[BrainGlutton]

Another example of this sort of thing is Olaf Stapelton's SF classic Star Maker:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Star_Maker

Briefly, the semi-omniscient narrator encounters civilizations who have created world-spanning utopias, and who in some cases seek to "export" their utopian systems to alien sentiences, for their own good and in the name of higher morality - in some unfortunate cases, the utopian ideal turns perverse, in that the prostletization of aliens takes on the nature of a jihad, which in turn taints the "utopia".

All very unlikely IMO.

What, you think the development of high technology is enough to put an end to crazy-thinking?

From George Orwell's 1941 essay "Wells, Hitler, and the World State": (http://gutenberg.net.au/ebooks03/0300011h.html#part15)

Mr Wells, like Dickens, belongs to the non-military middle class. The thunder of guns, the jingle of spurs, the catch in the throat when the old flag goes by, leave him manifestly cold. He has an invincible hatred of the fighting, hunting, swashbuckling side of life, symbolised in all his early books by a violent propaganda against horses. The principal villain of his OUTLINE OF HISTORY is the military adventurer, Napoleon. If one looks through nearly any book that he has written in the last forty years one finds the same idea constantly recurring: the supposed antithesis between the man of science who is working towards a planned World State and the reactionary who is trying to restore a disorderly past. In novels, Utopias, essays, films, pamphlets, the antithesis crops up, always more or less the same. On the one side science, order, progress, internationalism, aeroplanes, steel, concrete, hygiene: on the other side war, nationalism, religion, monarchy, peasants, Greek professors, poets, horses. History as he sees it is a series of victories won by the scientific man over the romantic man. Now, he is probably right in assuming that a "reasonable", planned form of society, with scientists rather than witch-doctors in control, will prevail sooner or later, but that is a different matter from assuming that it is just round the corner. There survives somewhere or other an interesting controversy which took place between Wells and Churchill at the time of the Russian Revolution. Wells accuses Churchill of not really believing his own propaganda about the Bolsheviks being monsters dripping with blood etc, but of merely fearing that they were going to introduce an era of common sense and scientific control, in which flag-wavers like Churchill himself would have no place. Churchill's estimate of the Bolsheviks, however, was nearer the mark than Wells's. The early Bolsheviks may have been angels or demons, according as one chooses to regard them, but at any rate they were not sensible men. They were not introducing a Wellsian Utopia but a Rule of the Saints, which, like the English Rule of the Saints, was a military despotism enlivened by witchcraft trials. The same misconception reappears in an inverted form in Wells's attitude to the Nazis. Hitler is all the war-lords and witch doctors in history rolled into one. Therefore, argues Wells, he is an absurdity, a ghost from the past, a creature doomed to disappear almost immediately. But unfortunately the equation of science with common sense does not really hold good. The aeroplane, which was looked forward to as a civilising influence but in practice has hardly been used except for dropping bombs, is the symbol of that fact. Modern Germany is far more scientific than England, and far more barbarous. Much of what Wells has imagined and worked for is physically there in Nazi Germany. The order, the planning, the State encouragement of science, the steel, the concrete, the aeroplanes, are all there, but all in the service of ideas appropriate to the Stone Age. Science is fighting on the side of superstition. But obviously it is impossible for Wells to accept this. It would contradict the world-view on which his own works are based. The war-lords and the witch-doctors MUST fail, the common-sense World State, as seen by a nineteenth-century liberal whose heart does not leap at the sound of bugles, MUST triumph. Treachery and defeatism apart, Hitler CANNOT be a danger. That he should finally win would be an impossible reversal of history, like a Jacobite restoration.

And yet, he very nearly did win. And are we not, even now, worrying about Iran developing atomic weapons and putting them in service of a neomedieval conception of Islamic theocracy?

Why not a jihad among the stars?

[Malthus]

What, you think the development of high technology is enough to put an end to crazy-thinking?

From George Orwell's 1941 essay "Wells, Hitler, and the World State": (http://gutenberg.net.au/ebooks03/0300011h.html#part15)



And yet, he very nearly did win. And are we not, even now, worrying about Iran developing atomic weapons and putting them in service of a neomedieval conception of Islamic theocracy?

Why not a jihad among the stars?

Time, distance and expense.

The Jihad may appear to modern sensibilities as purely irrational, but in point of fact it served many strongly rational purposes: it allowed what was originally a group of weak tribes living in a crappy desert to overcome and appropriate several centres of world-civilization for themselves.

The problem with a Jihad among the stars is that the stars are so damn far away. Unless our aliens can overcome the laws of physics, any trip among them is going to take many years, and involve vast expense. Notions of interstellar troopers descending on Earth for a Jihad seem IMO very unlikely.

It is possible that the aliens would lob what amounts to a grenade in our direction - a small probe with some bio-war agent or loaded with advanced nukes, or something more esoteric - but that, too, seems unlikely to me; we would no more be a threat to them, than australian aborigines threatened England circa 1780.

[BrainGlutton]

It is possible that the aliens would lob what amounts to a grenade in our direction - a small probe with some bio-war agent or loaded with advanced nukes, or something more esoteric - but that, too, seems unlikely to me; we would no more be a threat to them, than australian aborigines threatened England circa 1780.

Probably; but, see post #53.

[Mijin]

There was a thread recently on this, but what the hell, I'll repeat myself:

I strongly doubt that aliens would want to conquer earth. If earth was of any value at all for extraterrestrials it would be to study our biology and culture; for curiosity only.

Because to travel here they would have to cover astronomical distances and expend astronomical amounts of energy, to get to somewhere that is a grain of sand on astronomical scales.
And, to cut a long story short, none of the reasons for them wanting this grain for themselves stands up to scrutiny IMO.

And that's before you even start to consider how much the rest of their technology and society will have progressed by that time.
I see no more reason to suppose that they'd behave like the conquistadors than like cavemen.

[Lumpy]

If I understand Hawking correctly, he's saying that since interstellar travel is so difficult, any species that could do it would almost have to be specialized as an interstellar horde or swarm, looting the resources of entire systems to build and fuel their next move.

[XT]

Well, if we build power armor then we'll be able to fight off the Posleen horde and keep them from putting us in their feeding pens as snacks...

-XT

[Mijin]

If I understand Hawking correctly, he's saying that since interstellar travel is so difficult, any species that could do it would almost have to be specialized as an interstellar horde or swarm, looting the resources of entire systems to build and fuel their next move.

I doubt this, as it was in reference to whether we should attempt to contact extraterrestrial species.

If they're looting entire systems, why would it matter whether we contacted them or not?

If they're specifically looting biosphere planets...why?
Jupiter has thousands of earth masses of hydrogen. Surely this would be a better planet to refuel at.

[BrainGlutton]

If I understand Hawking correctly, he's saying that since interstellar travel is so difficult, any species that could do it would almost have to be specialized as an interstellar horde or swarm, looting the resources of entire systems to build and fuel their next move.

Watch the skies for the Yacatisma! (http://www.poee.org/documents/Other_Religions/Church_of_the_SubGenius/Dictionary_of_the_Gods.htm#y)

[Damuri Ajashi]

Then there's Niven's Sphere of Potential Awareness, which I just made up the name and probably the idea wasn't original with Larry Niven but who cares?

And that is a sphere defined by how far radio/television/etc. waves emanating from Earth have reached. Being, of course, dependent on when you think sufficiently powerful radiation began to get out into space from here. Say, what? 1930? 1940? Well, then, ok, you got a sphere 140 light years in diameter. And even a half-assed technology is likely to notice an unnatural amount of radio waves coming out of a second rate planet circling a mediocre yellow star.

SETI hasn't noticed anything so either we aren't looking hard enough or we live ina quiet universe and life is much rarer than we think.

[Damuri Ajashi]

Enslave, but in a way that we don't realize it, they would draw off our 'life force energy' or whatever term you wish to use.

Ohh space vampires.

[Damuri Ajashi]

I really don't buy the argument, since most of the arguments for this don't sound plausible

Agreed.


Illnesses have trouble going from human to horse, i don't see how it goes from human to martian very easily.

We hardly seem worth the effort of enslavement.

If you can travel light years to gather resources I don't see why you need to gather contested resources.

Self replicating robots. the universe is filled with self replicating robots from extinct civilizations.

[BrainGlutton]

SETI hasn't noticed anything so either we aren't looking hard enough or we live ina quiet universe and life is much rarer than we think.

I could be that life is very common, but intelligent life is rare. Consider: If we visit another life-bearing planet, we are seeing only a momentary snapshot of its biosphere's evolutionary history. In Earth's case, that history goes back at least 2 billion years; and there were no intelligent lifeforms here at all, as far as we know, until the first hominids emerged a geological eyeblink ago. It could be that a life-bearing planet orbiting Tau Ceti is all set to produce intelligent beings a geological eyeblink from now, which is still a longer period than the entire existence of Homo sapiens to date. It could also be that planet had intelligent beings a geological eyeblink ago, but they went extinct while our ancestors were still knuckle-walking; the potential lifespan of an intelligent species is something for which we have not a single data point. That is why the Drake equation (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drake_equation) is at present all but useless -- too many imponderable variables.

SF generally ignores this, of course, because having your heroes explore a planet with life at something analogous to a Precambrian stage just is not as much fun. See the TVTropes page Sci Fi Writers Have No Sense of Scale (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/SciFiWritersHaveNoSenseOfScale) -- which is mainly about space but also applies to time.

[BrainGlutton]

Ohh space vampires.

Indeed. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_Vampires)

[BrainGlutton]

I really don't buy the argument, since most of the arguments for this don't sound plausible


1. Either we or the aliens will all die due to some cross infection.

I don't believe that because any species advanced enough to traverse the galaxy will have the medical knowledge to avoid germs. Humans aren't anywhere near the point of interstellar travel, but we have pretty much conquered all microbial infections (assuming people practice scientific knowledge like good sanitation, clean water, vaccinations, antibiotics, hand washing, etc).

In The War of the Worlds, Wells stated clearly that the Martians were not prepared for the possibility of infection by Earth's microorganisms because there is no microbial life on Mars.

Not Wells' finest moment. How could any biosphere include macroorganisms but no microorganisms?!

[BrainGlutton]

Self replicating robots. the universe is filled with self replicating robots from extinct civilizations.

Again, the Yacatisma!

[BrainGlutton]

Sometimes I think sufficiently advanced aliens exist, and Ancient Astronauts gene-engineered Homo sapiens just to fight for their amusement.

That would explain a lot.

Some SF writers have come up with ideas far sillier. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sirens_of_titan)