Alien invasion.. Why, and how?

[JirinPanthosa]

I think it's fair to assume that IF there is reasonably priced faster than light travel, aliens who came across us would see us like the Europeans saw the Americans and Africans in the previous millennium.

Gold can probably found in just about any planet of a main series star in trace amounts.

But remember, if we are not drastically wrong about the laws of physics, it's not only aliens who can't travel faster than light, information can't travel faster than light either. If they are 200 light years away their information is 200 years out of date.

Another option I've used in a science fiction story that I find amusing, they come for cheap labor, but instead of taking slaves they start outsourcing their jobs to Earth. And aliens start hating humans because humans are coming to take their jobs!

 

[Marsden]

Cheeseburgers.

 

[JD]

Interesting. I don't believe I've heard of that one.

It's pretty good, I'd recommend it. It follows the residents of the town of Defiance, formerly St. Louis, in a future where a group of alien refugees from multiple races showed up and their technology partially terraformed the Earth. It starred Grant Bowler from Lost and True Blood, Supergirl's Jessie Rath, Graham Green, Tony Curran, and Warehouse 13, Spartacus, and Dexter's Jamie Murray.

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[RJDiogenes]

Ah, okay. It rings a bell when I see the arch. I never did watch it, though.

 

[Mage]

We're tasty.

 

[Qonundrum]

https://www.trekbbs.com/threads/eve...h-to-fake-moon-landings.301373/#post-13102447

On the other hand it could be this:

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Holy campfest, Batman!

Now here's a more fun alien invasion:

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We're tasty.

Yup. That's what Diana and John were up to.

 

[Locutus of Bored]

If aliens meant to wipe us all out but take the planet intact for colonization, we'd probably never even know it was happening until it was too late to do anything about it. They could just deposit a genetically modified airborne virus that's designed to only target humans that remains asymptomatic during the contagious period until it's spread to everyone on Earth, and then it activates and wipes all or most of us out with brutal efficiency. There's no need to ever expose themselves to return fire or to even be seen when they can just drop our doom from the skies at will.

Of course, one would hope that a civilization capable of crossing interstellar distances would have ethically evolved beyond the need to conquer other occupied planets in such a manner since they should presumably be capable of providing for their own resource needs through planetary engineering of uninhabited worlds.

 

[C.E. Evans]

I think any alien invasion based on the idea that they actually need Earth itself has to be based on caveat that the number of other Earth-like planets within feasible reach of the aliens is extremely low if not outright zero, making Earth a rarity that they can't really pass up. Either that or the aliens are like insects that invade and take over any Earth-like planet that they happen to come across and make it their own. Some may choose to coexist with Humans (openly, covertly, or parasitically), while others may decide not to and eliminating Humans is a logical or nature course of action for total conquest.

 

[Qonundrum]

If aliens meant to wipe us all out but take the planet intact for colonization, we'd probably never even know it was happening until it was too late to do anything about it. They could just deposit a genetically modified airborne virus that's designed to only target humans that remains asymptomatic during the contagious period until it's spread to everyone on Earth, and then it activates and wipes all or most of us out with brutal efficiency. There's no need to ever expose themselves to return fire or to even be seen when they can just drop our doom from the skies at will.

Of course, one would hope that a civilization capable of crossing interstellar distances would have ethically evolved beyond the need to conquer other occupied planets in such a manner since they should presumably be capable of providing for their own resource needs through planetary engineering of uninhabited worlds.

Anything's possible. They might want to take over Earth because it's in the way of a new interstellar highway bypass or, worse, they want to play billiards with planets because there's a wormhole in space sending out anomalous radiation and only Earth's size shot into its gravity field would have an effect by plugging the whole of the hole, so to speak.

Yowza, that BBC sci-fi really puts in the most bonkers ideas to give credit toward. Thankfully they're mixed with intentionally good comedies (Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, Red Dwarf) so they work.

 

[Mysterion]

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[diankra]

For all intents and purposes, they could be interested in Gold. I don't know where in the universe, Gold can be found except on earth. We use gold for electronic equipments because of it's conductivity. Maybe aliens would need our gold for their own technological uses.

Seriously, where do you get that idea? All heavy metals are formed in stars, Earth has gold for that reason, most planets will also do so, but as in Earth, in trace deposits.
Given that gold is pretty dense (and of little use except as an electrical conductor or insulation layer, or as currency due to its rarity), the costs of mining and transporting it from another planet would probably be financially stupid.

 

[EmoBorg]

Seriously, where do you get that idea? All heavy metals are formed in stars, Earth has gold for that reason, most planets will also do so, but as in Earth, in trace deposits.
Given that gold is pretty dense (and of little use except as an electrical conductor or insulation layer, or as currency due to its rarity), the costs of mining and transporting it from another planet would probably be financially stupid.

Well the aliens don't need to mine it. We have been mining for gold for thousands of years. It is estimated that there are 190 000 tons of gold in government and private hands right now. The aliens just need to come and take it from us.

The aliens might have a need for gold as an electrical conductor for their technology.

 

[Silvercrest]

Seems unlikely. As with so many other things: If the aliens can get here that easily, then their technology must be advanced enough that they don't need the gold that badly. If it's not that easy for them, i.e. it requires large expenditures of time or resources to cross the stars (and then wage war), then it'd be hard to justify financially. How much time, money, and materials (not to mention your own people's lives) do you spend to bring back 190,000 tons of gold? Cost/benefit analysis says "no go".