10 Alien Civilization Scenarios

Discussion in 'Science and Technology' started by Gingerbread Demon, Feb 25, 2022.

  1. Gingerbread Demon

    Gingerbread Demon I love Star Trek Discovery Premium Member

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    Interesting video but I do like the notion of the alien probe that visits other worlds and spits out clones of the people on the planet it is visiting in order to arrange first contact. Some of the scenarios though are a bit depressing and downright scary.
     
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  2. Ferengi Prime 5

    Ferengi Prime 5 Lieutenant Commander Red Shirt

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    Be fearful if you wake up and there is an Alien starship in the sky above you. When a technology advance society meets a much lesser technology advance society things go poorly for the latter.
     
  3. BillJ

    BillJ The King of Kings Premium Member

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    Can things go any more poorly for us than they are right now?
     
  4. Gingerbread Demon

    Gingerbread Demon I love Star Trek Discovery Premium Member

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    Not if they are friendly
     
  5. Ferengi Prime 5

    Ferengi Prime 5 Lieutenant Commander Red Shirt

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    Friendly or not , we will suffer like the indigenous people have before us...
     
  6. Gingerbread Demon

    Gingerbread Demon I love Star Trek Discovery Premium Member

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    How would friendly aliens be harmful?
     
  7. Asbo Zaprudder

    Asbo Zaprudder Admiral Admiral

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  8. Ferengi Prime 5

    Ferengi Prime 5 Lieutenant Commander Red Shirt

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    The social disruption to society. Let look, all our worlds religions will be question as relevant or not. If they(advance aliens) have a god than it must be the true god. That is just one issue of many without firing a shot at us...
     
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  9. publiusr

    publiusr Admiral Admiral

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    When the FAST dish at China was thought to have picked up ET, it got barely a blurb.

    I remember a four second video on the CBS evening news about the launch of Energia-Buran….the most futuristic thing I have ever seen. Dan Rather talked for about eight seconds about it…with the video going to break…and I was flabbergasted: “ Wait, what!?”

    I think the same thing would be true here…they would trot out Seth Shostak who would say that it looks like a simple radar with no info…but it is extrasolar and definitely of technological origin—-and then?

    “Back to the coverage of Jan. 6th/Hunter Biden scandal” for the other 23 hrs. 59 minutes and 45 seconds of the news day.
     
  10. Asbo Zaprudder

    Asbo Zaprudder Admiral Admiral

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    Yes, I can imagine quite a few scenarios along those lines:
    • The aliens have discovered the secret of near immortality but are unwilling to share it.
    • The aliens have discovered the secret of near immortality and are willing to share it.
    • The aliens have discovered how to tap zero-point energy but are unwilling to share it.
    • The aliens have discovered how to tap zero-point energy and are willing to share it.
    • ...
    • The aliens have discovered all the secrets of the universe but are unwilling to share them.
    • The aliens have discovered all the secrets of the universe and are willing to share them.
    Contact with superior intellects could produce a global gestalt of apathy and nihilism. Even acquiring their knowledge would either make us very dangerous to ourselves and to them or make us feel very inadequate. That's if they don't just decide to exterminate us to remove a potential threat and steal our stuff.

    Three quotes by A C Clarke come to mind:
    "Two possibilities exist: either we are alone in the Universe or we are not. Both are equally terrifying."
    "I'm sure the universe is full of intelligent life. It's just been too intelligent to come here."
    "One day we shall meet our equals, or our masters, among the stars."
     
    Last edited: Aug 15, 2022
  11. Ferengi Prime 5

    Ferengi Prime 5 Lieutenant Commander Red Shirt

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    What if the Aliens pick a nation to give it largess to ,being the kingmaker of our world... You know narcissism of small differences or divide and conquer... And again no shots fired...

    I like the quotes... If Aliens show up in our sky's just consider our selves second class citizens on our own planet... The aliens will build their settlements and live like kings...
     
  12. Gingerbread Demon

    Gingerbread Demon I love Star Trek Discovery Premium Member

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    I don't know I'd like to be optimistic about all this
     
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  13. Starkers

    Starkers Admiral Admiral

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    Yeah, the most benign aliens imaginable could turn up but their very arrival would radically change humanity in all sorts of ways, some of which we haven't even considered yet. Maybe it'd all be amazing and cause us to open and minds and our hearts and grow as a species, more likely we might feel suddenly even more insignificant, especially if they aren't willing to share their knowledge with us (and why should they?).

    One of the worst scenarios for denting our arrogance could be the "Roadside Picnic" scenario, in the novel by the Strugatsky brothers aliens visit Earth but don't interact with us, but they leave advanced tech behind after they leave. The title of the book comes from the idea that maybe the aliens stopped for a rest, didn't notice us at all, and all the stuff they left behind is effectively their litter; the equivalent of empty food wrappers and tin cans!

    Another shitty scenario would be that we learn aliens exist, but they're so far away that it's unlikely we will ever meet
     
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  14. Asbo Zaprudder

    Asbo Zaprudder Admiral Admiral

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    More frightening scenarios are raised by the Galactic Center Saga, Revelation Space, and The Three-Body Problem, just three examples of numerous works of science fiction dealing with alien contact that goes anything but well.

    Good job that interstellar distances are vast and FTL appears to be impossible or they'd already be here.
     
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  15. oberth

    oberth Commodore Commodore

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    that not aliens - that's the british empire (okay the no shots fired part would be new)
     
  16. Asbo Zaprudder

    Asbo Zaprudder Admiral Admiral

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    There's a 1960 Brian Aldiss novel, The Interpreter (in the US published as Bow Down to Nul), where the alien occupiers of Earth are colonial oppressors. It's based on Aldiss's observations of British and Dutch rule in India and Indonesia. It's not a book I suggest anyone goes out of their way to read.
     
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  17. Ferengi Prime 5

    Ferengi Prime 5 Lieutenant Commander Red Shirt

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    Maybe we are the first... Do advance society survive? We not looking to go ourselves...

    The Fermi paradox is the conflict between the lack of clear, obvious evidence for extraterrestrial life and various high estimates for their existence.[1][2] As a 2015 article put it, "If life is so easy, someone from somewhere must have come calling by now."
     
  18. oberth

    oberth Commodore Commodore

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    good one (aldiss usually is) - and one day i will find out why american publishers change titles oh so often
     
  19. Asbo Zaprudder

    Asbo Zaprudder Admiral Admiral

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    Merchandising.

     
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  20. XCV330

    XCV330 Premium Member

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    Just finished Three Body Problem a few weeks ago. I'm going to use spoiler tags since supposedly Netflix is making a show about it.
    I enjoyed the book, but the idea that the nearest star system had a species that was not-so far beyond us technologically that we couldn't catch up, was kind of ludicrous. It was a throwback to people like Bradbury writing about Martian invasions long after they should have known better. I also thought the whole beaming a signal to the sun to amplify it at some high magnitude was something of a stretch. I would not have cared except the author otherwise seemed to take such great care to say within the realm of plausible physics.

    The idea of an entire biosphere evolved to survive inconsistencies like their chaotic seasons was interesting. The unfolding of the particles and the one hostile civilization inside of one was amazing. I only read the first book. Maybe my issues get addressed in the other books
     
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