# What would be a likely reason for interstellar/interspecies war? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [January 27, 2010, 8:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-would-be-a-likely-reason-for-interstellar-interspecies-war/526680 "2010-01-27T20:11:14Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 14\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![XT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/xt/32/456_2.png) [@XT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/XT)\ **Post date:** [January 28, 2010, 6:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-would-be-a-likely-reason-for-interstellar-interspecies-war/526680/41 "2010-01-28T18:29:53Z")
Once a species becomes interstellar and starts to spread out, conflict may be inevitable. A species that is static, or doesn’t expand to fill any ecological niche it occupies is probably never going to bother with interstellar travel or colonization in the first place. A species already disposed to expand is going to, well, expand…and most likely if other species are in it’s path to expand then conflict will arise. Even our own species is like that…look at how our species has expanded to fill nearly every ecological niche on the planet. Eventually we’ll start to feel constrained and will either turn on ourselves or turn outward to the solar system (at least). A species similar to us but with more advanced technology that actually has the option of moving at interstellar distances is going to expand to fill all that space out there. I remember reading somewhere that if a species could move at interstellar speeds that it could potentially fill the gallaxy in a fairly short (by cosmic scales) time frame…I don’t remember if it was 10,000, 100,000 or a million years, but something like that. -XT ---
**Author:** ![garygnu](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/garygnu/32/2924_2.png) [@garygnu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/garygnu)\ **Post date:** [January 28, 2010, 6:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-would-be-a-likely-reason-for-interstellar-interspecies-war/526680/42 "2010-01-28T18:34:31Z")
I’ve seen some attempts at realistic space wars that start with the scenario of a colony on the moon or another planet rebelling against its Earth-based overlords. ---
**Author:** ![Arkcon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/96bed5/32.png) [@Arkcon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Arkcon)\ **Post date:** [January 28, 2010, 7:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-would-be-a-likely-reason-for-interstellar-interspecies-war/526680/43 "2010-01-28T19:01:55Z")
> [@An\_Gadai](#): > > My point is that if you get to the level of technology where you can travel out into other star systems “easily” then real estate is no longer much of an issue. We would be sufficiently advanced to find nice real estate anywhere we wanted, and also to change environments in places to suit our needs. Yeah, I was going to say that. Assuming an advanced, galactic traveling race were to discover Earth, and decided they wanted it – with the vast amounts of energy needed to make the trip, and the advanced technology needed to find a tiny rocky dot which happened to be what they’d want, they’d simply wipe out the pesky inhabitants, and that’s not a war. Unless I personally now owe hundreds of ant colonies treties of recognition and war reparations. For there to be an interplanetary war, two species would have to arise on separate planets in the same solar system. That would be a true progression of our current national wars. We’d unify against the Martians, or the Venusians. Or perhaps, once we’d colonized various racy bodies of our solar system, the new planets would go to war, against each other. ---
**Author:** ![Arkcon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/96bed5/32.png) [@Arkcon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Arkcon)\ **Post date:** [January 28, 2010, 7:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-would-be-a-likely-reason-for-interstellar-interspecies-war/526680/44 "2010-01-28T19:08:22Z")
you know, _ **rocky** _ bodies, not necessicarily racy bodies ---
**Author:** ![Anne\_Neville](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/b9e5f3/32.png) [@Anne\_Neville](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Anne_Neville)\ **Post date:** [January 28, 2010, 8:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-would-be-a-likely-reason-for-interstellar-interspecies-war/526680/45 "2010-01-28T20:00:57Z")
> [@This\_Just\_In\_2](#): > > One possible reason to launch an attack on an alien civilization would be to take a technology or a technologically advanced machine. > > As an example, if one race had developed antimatter rockets but the other had not - it would potentially be worth the risk to seize such spaceships and use them, as well as trying to duplicate them. Such events might precipitate a war but at that point both sides are on more equal footing. Probably more efficient to spy on them, like the Soviets did when the US had atomic bombs and they didn’t. Or maybe to try to buy or steal some of the desired item, like indigenous peoples often did when Europeans had guns and horses and they didn’t. Either of those strategies does have a chance of provoking a war, but not a 100% chance. ---
**Author:** ![mswas](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e99b99/32.png) [@mswas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mswas)\ **Post date:** [January 28, 2010, 8:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-would-be-a-likely-reason-for-interstellar-interspecies-war/526680/46 "2010-01-28T20:02:45Z")
The existence of another species? ---
**Author:** ![begbert2](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/begbert2/32/3357_2.png) [@begbert2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/begbert2)\ **Post date:** [January 28, 2010, 9:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-would-be-a-likely-reason-for-interstellar-interspecies-war/526680/47 "2010-01-28T21:34:09Z")
> [@Arkcon](#): > > you know, _ **rocky** _ bodies, not necessicarily racy bodies Well, Venus. ---
**Author:** ![This\_Just\_In\_2](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/bbe5ce/32.png) [@This\_Just\_In\_2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/This_Just_In_2)\ **Post date:** [January 28, 2010, 9:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-would-be-a-likely-reason-for-interstellar-interspecies-war/526680/48 "2010-01-28T21:36:12Z")
> [@Anne\_Neville](#): > > Probably more efficient to spy on them, like the Soviets did when the US had atomic bombs and they didn’t. Or maybe to try to buy or steal some of the desired item, like indigenous peoples often did when Europeans had guns and horses and they didn’t. Either of those strategies does have a chance of provoking a war, but not a 100% chance. People spying on other people is one thing, but presumably aliens won’t look and talk anything like us. This would likely make it magnitudes harder to effectively infiltrate and spy on them. As an example, I read recently that dolphins are probably the next smartest species on earth (they communicate, use tools, large brains etc) - but it would be exceedingly difficult to infiltrate a pod of them and steal their secrets. Aliens will probably appear more different to people than people are to dolphins. Buying tech is a valid option - providing the other species is willing. But what could we offer them, short of more tech? It goes back to there being nothing material we have that they could not obtain more easily in their own solar system. And if somehow we did, then we are back to that being a cause for war. ---
**Author:** ![mswas](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e99b99/32.png) [@mswas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mswas)\ **Post date:** [January 28, 2010, 10:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-would-be-a-likely-reason-for-interstellar-interspecies-war/526680/49 "2010-01-28T22:28:47Z")
> [@aruvqan](#): > > And if we travel to a planet where the main sentient race is a silicone based thingy that looks like a very slow moving rock that needs a particular world … we roll i n and do not recognize them as sentients and terraform the world to our needs and kill them off. > > Who is to say that there would not be a race that does not consider a sentient race any reason not to take a world and [chtorriform](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_War_Against_the_Chtorr) it to their specs This is what fascinated me the most about the reaction to Avatar. Eywa was stipulated explicitly to be sentient, but some people after seeing it still thought it was all about the Na’vi. ---
**Author:** ![zamboniracer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/e9a140/32.png) [@zamboniracer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/zamboniracer)\ **Post date:** [January 28, 2010, 10:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-would-be-a-likely-reason-for-interstellar-interspecies-war/526680/50 "2010-01-28T22:43:02Z")
> [@BrainGlutton](#): > > Of course, it could happen because of a [canceled TV show.](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/When_Aliens_Attack) Or a canceled commercial: [Cite](http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/AppointmentTelevision) [QUOTE=Dave Barry] This is why you and all your friends think television is so awful. It isn’t designed to please you: it’s designed to please creatures from another galaxy. You know the Wisk commercial, the one with the ring around the collar, the one so spectacularly stupid that it makes you wonder why anybody would dream of buying the product? Well, the aliens love that commercial. We all owe a great debt of gratitude to the people who make Wisk. They have not sold a single bottle of Wisk in 14 years, but they have saved the Earth. [/QUOTE] ---
**Author:** ![Mangetout](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mangetout/32/19_2.png) [@Mangetout](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mangetout)\ **Post date:** [January 29, 2010, 12:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-would-be-a-likely-reason-for-interstellar-interspecies-war/526680/51 "2010-01-29T00:48:53Z")
> [@This\_Just\_In\_2](#): > > Buying tech is a valid option - providing the other species is willing. But what could we offer them, short of more tech? It goes back to there being nothing material we have that they could not obtain more easily in their own solar system. And if somehow we did, then we are back to that being a cause for war. I think _we_ might want _insight_ as an exchange commodity - insight into their lives, their background, their biology, culture, philosophy, or whatever passes for those sorts of things. Of course there’s no guarantee an alien species would want the same from us - but it seems to me that curiosity of some kind might be a fairly common trait amongst species that develop technology. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [January 29, 2010, 2:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-would-be-a-likely-reason-for-interstellar-interspecies-war/526680/52 "2010-01-29T02:08:13Z")
From [_The Alamo,_](http://www.amazon.com/Alamo-Micheal-Lind/dp/0395827582) by Michael Lind: > [@](#): > > The Texan pickets, poised on the cool ground > beyond the fortress walls, gazed up in wonder > at armies of the stars. There was no sound > in all the dark and dormant planet under > those glimmers, bright as rainbows after thunder. > The prairie wind, an intermittent breeze, > blew from the effervescing galaxies. > > Above the silhouette of Bexar’s church > the tranquil blue stars of Centaurus gleamed; > beyond that glint, stormers began to surge > across a log stockade. Onward they streamed, > two-legged reptile warriors, redeemed > in battle, when they rendered up their lives > as tributes to their queen and all her hives. > > Another war was starting, in a void > a million galaxies away, due east > of Bexar through Bootes. Strikes destroyed > a satellite, but not till it released > a swarm of missiles, black and smooth. They teased > their rivals by a gas globe’s amber glow, > some cratering an ice moon’s rigid snow, > > some thistling soundlessly. While robots fought > three worlds away, in bunkers far below > their polities their masters watched as dot > chased phantom dot. Their agitation showed; > on leopard-colored slugs the tendrils glowed > red with anxiety. Which rival side > would own their homeworld, proxies would decide. > > At just that moment, on a fissured moon > beneath a crescent knotted by faint storms, > a stone-walled city by a farmed lagoon > was taken. Standards wobbled as the swarms > advanced down ramps of glass. The trilled alarms > of nurses were too late; by axes held > in mandibles, the squeaking grubs were felled. > > That massacre continued, fifty times > the Milky Way’s diameter away > from earth, through Draco. Where the ecliptic climbs > from Taurus through the Twins, the death of day > brought an armistice in another fray, > permitting flight by exiles, quadrupeds > whose fingered antlers grew from mouthless heads. > > The frightened calves were clicking, soothed by strokes > from pliant horns. Most here were cows, or bulls > too old to fight. A crowded wagon’s spokes > sank mired in the mud; the slaves tucked in their gills > and hoisted. Clicks of panic greeeted hulls > of sleek dirigibles, soft antlers bristled > and clenched as volleys flashed and rockets whistled – > > all this, west of the sleeping Alamo, > above the skyline’s fringe of sable brake. > The starlit Texan sentries could not know > that war balloons were veering round to rake > those refugees, just then; the light would take > a billion years to reach earth from that star. > That morning, half of heaven was at war. ---
**Author:** ![DanBlather](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/f4b2a3/32.png) [@DanBlather](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DanBlather)\ **Post date:** [January 30, 2010, 6:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-would-be-a-likely-reason-for-interstellar-interspecies-war/526680/53 "2010-01-30T06:00:26Z")
> [@An\_Gadai](#): > > MI am curious what would be a likely reason for combat. [http://wiki.answers.com/Q/Which\_direction\_should\_the\_toilet\_paper\_roll\_face](http://wiki.answers.com/Q/Which_direction_should_the_toilet_paper_roll_face) ---
**Author:** ![InterestedObserver](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/838e76/32.png) [@InterestedObserver](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/InterestedObserver)\ **Post date:** [January 30, 2010, 8:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-would-be-a-likely-reason-for-interstellar-interspecies-war/526680/54 "2010-01-30T08:50:36Z")
Hell, have you not seen Star Wars? 😕 it lays it all out for you…the same reasons the Republicans are forever battling the Democrats (and vice verse); deep ideological differences, the difference between totalitarian subservitude to greedy dictators set on global, nay, GALLACTIC control of all resources, labor and thought AND freedom/self determination/free enterprise/equality/justice. (and which party represents which depends upon your personal bias/interpretation :D) As a (very liberal) film student, I have seen the SW trilogy interpreted from both/all sides, but my personal thesis is that despite the contemporary conservative interpretation that they represented some insidious liberal agenda (akin to Avatar:D), they actually served to pave the way for/reflect the Reagan revolution (so-called) with their focus on individualism, militarism/“freedom fighting”, resistance of “big government”, and the infusion of religion into the political/activist sphere. :rolleyes: Some sneaky shit, this popular culture. I tell you. 😃 Anyway, imo, any species/culture advanced enough to engage in inter-planetary warfare would only do so out of honest self-defense. (including defense against totalitarianism) The more I think on it, the less likely my immediate responses of “resourses” and “labor” and/or “food” (i.e. “us”) seem. I mean, WE, pathetic in so many ways as we are, have already reached the level where almost all of us recognize that things like slavery and other exploitation of others, even if they ARE of another “race”, is wrong…and we have not even mastered the skills to RECOGNIZE, much less say ENGAGE, any other populations in the Universe. :dubious: I suppose it is possible that some race could evolve to that level and STILL be assholes, but I find the prospect exteemly dudious; I assume it is a universal rule that assholes typically exterminate their own planet before they are able to infect others. (or that some benevolent Galactic Federation intervenes to prevent their aggressions…haven’t y’all seen Star Trek? :p) [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-would-be-a-likely-reason-for-interstellar-interspecies-war/526680.md?page=2)