Re: Could alien astromoners recognize Earth as possibly M-cl
^^Too unlikely to give any credence to the idea at all.
^^Too unlikely to give any credence to the idea at all.
Could alien astromoners recognize Earth as possibly M-class?
- Thread starter Bill Morris
- Start date
Re: Could alien astromoners recognize Earth as possibly M-cl
Chris, if a long range telescope (or something more advanced) detected Earth as a possible resource-rich planet, wouldn't the aliens send an unmanned probe to investigate first since it would be more economically feasible than a manned expedition?
When they find that there are certain resources that they could use, and a native population to do all the dirty work, they would then send a mass force or a small manned expedition.
I've read a number of science fiction stories about aliens coming to Earth to rape us of our natural resources and use us as slave labour, cannon fodder, or colonisation fodder. Some have been well done, and some not, using theories that were acceptable at the time but are now nonsense because of advances in various fields, but that doesn't make the stories any less enjoyable to read.
Chris, if a long range telescope (or something more advanced) detected Earth as a possible resource-rich planet, wouldn't the aliens send an unmanned probe to investigate first since it would be more economically feasible than a manned expedition?
When they find that there are certain resources that they could use, and a native population to do all the dirty work, they would then send a mass force or a small manned expedition.
Re: Could alien astromoners recognize Earth as possibly M-cl
Chris, if a long range telescope (or something more advanced) detected Earth as a possible resource-rich planet, wouldn't the aliens send an unmanned probe to investigate first since it would be more economically feasible than a manned expedition?
When they find that there are certain resources that they could use, and a native population to do all the dirty work, they would then send a mass force or a small manned expedition.
I've read a number of science fiction stories about aliens coming to Earth to rape us of our natural resources and use us as slave labour, cannon fodder, or colonisation fodder. Some have been well done, and some not, using theories that were acceptable at the time but are now nonsense because of advances in various fields, but that doesn't make the stories any less enjoyable to read.
Chris, if a long range telescope (or something more advanced) detected Earth as a possible resource-rich planet, wouldn't the aliens send an unmanned probe to investigate first since it would be more economically feasible than a manned expedition?
When they find that there are certain resources that they could use, and a native population to do all the dirty work, they would then send a mass force or a small manned expedition.
Re: Could alien astromoners recognize Earth as possibly M-cl
But why bother? Earth has an intense gravity well. It's the biggest solid body in the Solar System, and it's pretty deep in Sol's gravity well to boot. It would take a lot of energy to lift anything out of those two gravity wells in order to ship it elsewhere. Just about any resource an alien civilization needs will be available in places that are far more easily accessible to them. Like I said, the cometary belts in any star system's outer regions will have immensely more water (as ice) than Earth contains. They'll also have vast amounts of the carbon, nitrogen, and other elements that are critical to sustaining biological organisms or building advanced technology. As for metals and other such minerals, the Main Asteroid Belt contains far more mineral wealth than you could obtain by stripping the entire crust of the Earth bare, and again it's far easier to access because there's nowhere near as much gravity to fight, and because it's available in a bunch of nice, small, convenient asteroids rather than buried deep inside a planet. Earth is one of the worst possible places in the universe to get basic resources from, unless you already live there. Heck, even habitats on the Moon or in Earth orbit would probably find it cheaper and easier to import water and minerals from the asteroid belt than from Earth's surface, simply because of the huge amount of energy it takes to fight our gravity well.
As for a native labor force, why bother when you have robots? Any technology advanced enough to travel the stars would also have the capacity to build self-replicating robots, which are far more economical and reliable than any conquered slave race could ever be.
Like I said, the idea of aliens conquering us for our resources is a fictional conceit. The only resources we'd have that would be of use to them would be luxury items, "exotic" foodstuffs and artworks, that sort of thing. Maybe we'd have chemicals that would have valuable pharmaceutical uses for them, but all they'd need to do is sample them and replicate them in bulk from raw materials they could obtain in their home system or neighboring ones. Heck, it would be more economically feasible for them to contact us by radio, ask us for the chemical compositions of our medicines and herbs and plants, extract what they needed from the data, and replicate it there without ever expending the immense energies and resources required to travel here physically.
I suppose they might conquer us if they had some ideological need to lord it over other beings, but it's not plausible that they would do it for economic reasons alone, because conquering a planet and impressing its resistant natives into helping you drag limited resources out of their intense gravity well and across interstellar distances is hardly an economical way of obtaining what you need, not when there are much simpler and more efficient ways of getting what you need. So such a conquest would cost a civilization more than it gained from it, and thus it would be unlikely to last very long.
In that case, given an ideological motive for domination, they'd probably do what smart conquerors throughout history have done: subcontract. Co-opt some local power, give them the backing they need to conquer their neighbors for you, and use them as a vehicle for spreading your ideology and sending you tribute.
You completely misinterpreted me there. I believe there's plenty of reason to be optimistic about the notion of abundant life in the universe. We keep discovering more extrasolar planets, we keep finding that life on Earth can thrive in far more hostile environments than we imagined, and we keep doing computer simulations showing that habitable planets are more likely to exist than we assumed just a few years ago.
What I was saying is that the Sirius system, specifically, is a profoundly unlikely place to find a technological civilization. That has nothing to do with the probability of life existing elsewhere in general. If I say that, say, the top of Mt. Everest is a vanishingly unlikely place to find a strip mall, that doesn't mean I think it's vanishingly unlikely that strip malls exist.
But why bother? Earth has an intense gravity well. It's the biggest solid body in the Solar System, and it's pretty deep in Sol's gravity well to boot. It would take a lot of energy to lift anything out of those two gravity wells in order to ship it elsewhere. Just about any resource an alien civilization needs will be available in places that are far more easily accessible to them. Like I said, the cometary belts in any star system's outer regions will have immensely more water (as ice) than Earth contains. They'll also have vast amounts of the carbon, nitrogen, and other elements that are critical to sustaining biological organisms or building advanced technology. As for metals and other such minerals, the Main Asteroid Belt contains far more mineral wealth than you could obtain by stripping the entire crust of the Earth bare, and again it's far easier to access because there's nowhere near as much gravity to fight, and because it's available in a bunch of nice, small, convenient asteroids rather than buried deep inside a planet. Earth is one of the worst possible places in the universe to get basic resources from, unless you already live there. Heck, even habitats on the Moon or in Earth orbit would probably find it cheaper and easier to import water and minerals from the asteroid belt than from Earth's surface, simply because of the huge amount of energy it takes to fight our gravity well.
As for a native labor force, why bother when you have robots? Any technology advanced enough to travel the stars would also have the capacity to build self-replicating robots, which are far more economical and reliable than any conquered slave race could ever be.
Like I said, the idea of aliens conquering us for our resources is a fictional conceit. The only resources we'd have that would be of use to them would be luxury items, "exotic" foodstuffs and artworks, that sort of thing. Maybe we'd have chemicals that would have valuable pharmaceutical uses for them, but all they'd need to do is sample them and replicate them in bulk from raw materials they could obtain in their home system or neighboring ones. Heck, it would be more economically feasible for them to contact us by radio, ask us for the chemical compositions of our medicines and herbs and plants, extract what they needed from the data, and replicate it there without ever expending the immense energies and resources required to travel here physically.
I suppose they might conquer us if they had some ideological need to lord it over other beings, but it's not plausible that they would do it for economic reasons alone, because conquering a planet and impressing its resistant natives into helping you drag limited resources out of their intense gravity well and across interstellar distances is hardly an economical way of obtaining what you need, not when there are much simpler and more efficient ways of getting what you need. So such a conquest would cost a civilization more than it gained from it, and thus it would be unlikely to last very long.
In that case, given an ideological motive for domination, they'd probably do what smart conquerors throughout history have done: subcontract. Co-opt some local power, give them the backing they need to conquer their neighbors for you, and use them as a vehicle for spreading your ideology and sending you tribute.
You completely misinterpreted me there. I believe there's plenty of reason to be optimistic about the notion of abundant life in the universe. We keep discovering more extrasolar planets, we keep finding that life on Earth can thrive in far more hostile environments than we imagined, and we keep doing computer simulations showing that habitable planets are more likely to exist than we assumed just a few years ago.
What I was saying is that the Sirius system, specifically, is a profoundly unlikely place to find a technological civilization. That has nothing to do with the probability of life existing elsewhere in general. If I say that, say, the top of Mt. Everest is a vanishingly unlikely place to find a strip mall, that doesn't mean I think it's vanishingly unlikely that strip malls exist.
Re: Could alien astromoners recognize Earth as possibly M-cl
Your argument does not take into account that the aliens might fancy living here as well. If they happen to have similar biological requirements to ours then they would find taking over this planet easier than terraforming another one.
Also - if aliens have an economy why build robots when you can get humans doing all your dirty work? Humans are self sufficient, slef maintaining and cheap. Whats more you do not need any whip toting evil slavery, a little bit of influence in the US government would give you enough influence to get your pieces in place.
Your argument does not take into account that the aliens might fancy living here as well. If they happen to have similar biological requirements to ours then they would find taking over this planet easier than terraforming another one.
Also - if aliens have an economy why build robots when you can get humans doing all your dirty work? Humans are self sufficient, slef maintaining and cheap. Whats more you do not need any whip toting evil slavery, a little bit of influence in the US government would give you enough influence to get your pieces in place.
Re: Could alien astromoners recognize Earth as possibly M-cl
It's funny, but hundreds of thousands of intelligent civilizations may have risen and fallen in our galaxy, might even co-exist with us right now and we'd have no way of knowing it. If an intelligent species only transmits data "en masse" for a century or two on average via wide band radio, we'd be like flickering lights in the cosmos. The chances of us listening and their broadcasting in sync with one another and with enough power to register would be virtually nil.
I admire their efforts, but I really do think CETI is a practical waste of time.
It's funny, but hundreds of thousands of intelligent civilizations may have risen and fallen in our galaxy, might even co-exist with us right now and we'd have no way of knowing it. If an intelligent species only transmits data "en masse" for a century or two on average via wide band radio, we'd be like flickering lights in the cosmos. The chances of us listening and their broadcasting in sync with one another and with enough power to register would be virtually nil.
I admire their efforts, but I really do think CETI is a practical waste of time.
Re: Could alien astromoners recognize Earth as possibly M-cl
Believe me, I have taken it into account -- as an SF author, I've spent many years pondering all these issues and more. Rather, I don't think it's especially likely. Different planets would probably have different biochemistries, different heavy metal ratios, different atmospheric compositions, as well as different gravities. Like I said, Earth is the most massive planet in our system; assuming that's typical, and just going by the rule that smaller bodies are more abundant, odds are that most sophonts would be from worlds with lower gravity than ours. Not to mention that most would come from cooler stars with less UV in their spectra. If they came from a world with different heavy-element ratios, living on Earth could give them either metal poisoning or severe mineral deficiencies. If their biochemistry were too different, our plant and animal life, pollen, spores, pheromones, etc. might be poisonous to them; but if they were biochemically similar enough to survive on our food, then our bacteria could eat them as well, and they'd have no resistance.
On the whole, it's tons easier to build artificial habitats with whatever environment you want than it is to terraform a whole planet to suit your needs -- particularly since an artificial habitat can be tailored in ways a planet can't, such as gravity levels. Finding pre-existing planets that suit your environmental and biochemical needs would be hard to do and have limited odds of success. Building tailor-made habitats out of the asteroidal material of your own home system would be a much surer bet and much easier and cheaper in the long run. Our own main asteroid belt contains enough materials to build habitats with a surface area dozens of times greater than the habitable surface area of Earth.
So are self-replicating robots. You don't need people to build them, since they build more of themselves from raw materials. You only need to invest in the construction of the initial units, plus a nominal effort to monitor their replication and ensure they don't mutate in undesirable ways. They're a lot cheaper than sophont labor in the long run.
Also, as I've explained, it's simpler to build new habitats or replicate desired resources using the immense amounts of material that are present in your home system, or in immediately neighboring uninhabited systems, than it is to seek out distant inhabited planets and try to get them from there. Given that, there would be no economic sense in going to other inhabited planets to obtain sophont labor when it would be cheaper to build homegrown robots.
Now, if you can establish an interstellar commercial network and set things up so that immigrants from other star systems come to you voluntarily seeking employment, then maybe you'd have something. If they're there already on their own dime, then maybe it's cheaper to use them than to use robots. But going out to conquer them and bring them back? That's pretty darn inefficient.
Which is what I was saying -- the only sensible approach to interstellar political domination is by co-opting local authorities to do it for you. But my point is that there's no reason why it should be done for economic or material motives, because it's not the best way to fulfill those motives. Unless the economics involve purely luxury items like spices or artworks or the like. I'm not saying conquest is impossible -- I'm saying that the common sci-fi trope of conquest being waged for motives like raw materials or territory is unrealistic, based on simplistically transposing patterns from Earth history without considering whether they validly apply in a high-tech, interstellar context. It wouldn't be "we want your water" or "we want your women" or "we want to very inefficiently and cinematically bombard your cities and take over your land while giving you plenty of time to fight back with simple computer viruses." It would be more like the maritime trading empires of the East Indies, which were motivated by the pursuit of luxury items and generally proceeded by co-opting of local authorities and targeted acts of intimidation rather than full-on territorial conquest with massive military forces.
Believe me, I have taken it into account -- as an SF author, I've spent many years pondering all these issues and more. Rather, I don't think it's especially likely. Different planets would probably have different biochemistries, different heavy metal ratios, different atmospheric compositions, as well as different gravities. Like I said, Earth is the most massive planet in our system; assuming that's typical, and just going by the rule that smaller bodies are more abundant, odds are that most sophonts would be from worlds with lower gravity than ours. Not to mention that most would come from cooler stars with less UV in their spectra. If they came from a world with different heavy-element ratios, living on Earth could give them either metal poisoning or severe mineral deficiencies. If their biochemistry were too different, our plant and animal life, pollen, spores, pheromones, etc. might be poisonous to them; but if they were biochemically similar enough to survive on our food, then our bacteria could eat them as well, and they'd have no resistance.
On the whole, it's tons easier to build artificial habitats with whatever environment you want than it is to terraform a whole planet to suit your needs -- particularly since an artificial habitat can be tailored in ways a planet can't, such as gravity levels. Finding pre-existing planets that suit your environmental and biochemical needs would be hard to do and have limited odds of success. Building tailor-made habitats out of the asteroidal material of your own home system would be a much surer bet and much easier and cheaper in the long run. Our own main asteroid belt contains enough materials to build habitats with a surface area dozens of times greater than the habitable surface area of Earth.
So are self-replicating robots. You don't need people to build them, since they build more of themselves from raw materials. You only need to invest in the construction of the initial units, plus a nominal effort to monitor their replication and ensure they don't mutate in undesirable ways. They're a lot cheaper than sophont labor in the long run.
Also, as I've explained, it's simpler to build new habitats or replicate desired resources using the immense amounts of material that are present in your home system, or in immediately neighboring uninhabited systems, than it is to seek out distant inhabited planets and try to get them from there. Given that, there would be no economic sense in going to other inhabited planets to obtain sophont labor when it would be cheaper to build homegrown robots.
Now, if you can establish an interstellar commercial network and set things up so that immigrants from other star systems come to you voluntarily seeking employment, then maybe you'd have something. If they're there already on their own dime, then maybe it's cheaper to use them than to use robots. But going out to conquer them and bring them back? That's pretty darn inefficient.
Which is what I was saying -- the only sensible approach to interstellar political domination is by co-opting local authorities to do it for you. But my point is that there's no reason why it should be done for economic or material motives, because it's not the best way to fulfill those motives. Unless the economics involve purely luxury items like spices or artworks or the like. I'm not saying conquest is impossible -- I'm saying that the common sci-fi trope of conquest being waged for motives like raw materials or territory is unrealistic, based on simplistically transposing patterns from Earth history without considering whether they validly apply in a high-tech, interstellar context. It wouldn't be "we want your water" or "we want your women" or "we want to very inefficiently and cinematically bombard your cities and take over your land while giving you plenty of time to fight back with simple computer viruses." It would be more like the maritime trading empires of the East Indies, which were motivated by the pursuit of luxury items and generally proceeded by co-opting of local authorities and targeted acts of intimidation rather than full-on territorial conquest with massive military forces.
Re: Could alien astromoners recognize Earth as possibly M-cl
I don't disagree with you. Your original argument mostly hinged on whether raw materials on Earth were worth taking when you could just mine some nice fat asteroids instead. I merely add that it would make it worthwhile if you happened to fancy living here.
Logically you would also need immunity from bacteriological nasties and so no to live here, but advanced medical technology probably comes with the package. FTL travel and large scale construction of the kind needed for Interstellar travel are way beyond us currently.
In fact if a lot of sci-fi (particularly on tv) has one weakness it is that to ensure that it provides entertainment it is often not futuristic enough. You see some neat things (I was discussing with someone the other day the similarities between the Minbari control systems in B5 and an Iphone) but im not sure you see anything like what the far future might be like.
Unless alien biochemistry is more similar than we think it otherwise might be. Your very well reasoned arguments hinge on logical deduction and the balance of probability based on our current level of knowledge. Nothing wrong with that of course but there is no guarantee you are right about any of it. That is of course what makes sci-fi interesting, it is a window on the unknown but plausible, a tangible feeling of a future none of us will live to see.
As I said unless you happen to be there with 6 billion people in the palms of your hands already. If you can enslave easily they will be easier than even the scenario you portray?
I was only implying it would be easier if it came with the planet, I was following on from the point about the raw materials.
With a little gunboat diplomacy to keep the locals in line, very much the current US "Empire" model and it does work of course.
Well it is commonly used as allegory of course - most of the classic alien invasion films are such allegories of the paranoid USA of the 1950s with aliens substituting for communists.
Also of course it fundamentally comes down to the universe being a huge place. Fortunately the whole concept of interstellar war is pretty daft for the reasons you say, no arguments there.
Don't forget the flip humour, saves the day in many a movie!
Well in fact logically all you would do is stand off and flatten any planet you wanted to take - I doubt ground warfare would be a big issue - it never makes sense in Trek.
I don't disagree with you. Your original argument mostly hinged on whether raw materials on Earth were worth taking when you could just mine some nice fat asteroids instead. I merely add that it would make it worthwhile if you happened to fancy living here.
Logically you would also need immunity from bacteriological nasties and so no to live here, but advanced medical technology probably comes with the package. FTL travel and large scale construction of the kind needed for Interstellar travel are way beyond us currently.
In fact if a lot of sci-fi (particularly on tv) has one weakness it is that to ensure that it provides entertainment it is often not futuristic enough. You see some neat things (I was discussing with someone the other day the similarities between the Minbari control systems in B5 and an Iphone) but im not sure you see anything like what the far future might be like.
Unless alien biochemistry is more similar than we think it otherwise might be. Your very well reasoned arguments hinge on logical deduction and the balance of probability based on our current level of knowledge. Nothing wrong with that of course but there is no guarantee you are right about any of it. That is of course what makes sci-fi interesting, it is a window on the unknown but plausible, a tangible feeling of a future none of us will live to see.
As I said unless you happen to be there with 6 billion people in the palms of your hands already. If you can enslave easily they will be easier than even the scenario you portray?
I was only implying it would be easier if it came with the planet, I was following on from the point about the raw materials.
With a little gunboat diplomacy to keep the locals in line, very much the current US "Empire" model and it does work of course.
Well it is commonly used as allegory of course - most of the classic alien invasion films are such allegories of the paranoid USA of the 1950s with aliens substituting for communists.
Also of course it fundamentally comes down to the universe being a huge place. Fortunately the whole concept of interstellar war is pretty daft for the reasons you say, no arguments there.
Don't forget the flip humour, saves the day in many a movie!
Well in fact logically all you would do is stand off and flatten any planet you wanted to take - I doubt ground warfare would be a big issue - it never makes sense in Trek.
Re: Could alien astromoners recognize Earth as possibly M-cl
It's not just a matter of biochemistry, but of planetary and atmospheric chemistry. Assume that panspermia works and the bulk of life in the galaxy is descended from a common unicellular origin, based on the same amino acids and DNA coding -- the life on different planets will nonetheless have evolved to adapt to their conditions. As I said, beings from a metal-poor world would suffer metal poisoning from living on Earth, and those from a metal-rich world would suffer severe nutritional deficiencies. Sure, those could be medically corrected, but still, they're inconveniences that artificial worldlets wouldn't have.
Also there's the air to consider. Too much oxygen, nitrogen, or carbon dioxide would be poisonous, and too little oxygen wouldn't be good either. Terraforming is as much (or more) about transforming the atmosphere as the landscape.
Again, I'm not saying there couldn't be a plausible story told about alien invasion and conquest -- just that most of the stories told about it in fiction are quite naive and unrealistic. And that the majority of aliens in the galaxy probably wouldn't find it profitable or practical. Some of them occasionally might, but the very rarity of those means they'd tend to be very far from any planet they might find ideal for conquest, which adds to the unlikelihood that they'd find it practical to conquer it (unless you postulate a means of FTL drive that's independent of realspace distance, like Andromeda's slipstream).
Yes, but that's exactly the point I'm addressing: the "happening to be there." It takes a lot of effort, energy, and resources to travel to another star system. Fiction often uses FTL drive as a shortcut to make interstellar journeys easy and practical enough to drive the story, but realistically, even if FTL drive could exist, it would probably take an even greater investment of energy and resources to make it happen than it would to travel slower than light. So the question is, what makes it worth the aliens' while to come here in the first place when they have more convenient sources of materials or labor? I'm not willing to accept "if they happen to be here" as an ad hoc postulate, because that's one of the biggest problematicals of the whole discussion.
Hence, I feel the situation would be analogous to maritime history on Earth. Before modern technology, intercontinental journeys could take months or years, a great investment of resources, and a considerable amount of danger. And what motivated those journeys was not territorial conquest, racial extermination, or the acquisition of basic necessities or material goods, but the acquisition of luxury items, precious substances, things that were prized for their rarity or exotic provenance. If aliens coveted something from Earth, it wouldn't be our water or our labor, it would be our spices, our foodstuffs, our art, our music, our works of entertainment. And they'd be better off leaving our civilization and biosphere intact so those items could continue to be produced, so a full-on blowy-uppy invasion and subjugation wouldn't be likely. It would be a more subtle domination, like V only with more plausible motivation.
That would only be useful if you wanted to destroy an enemy because you felt it was a threat to you. It would be simple enough to accelerate a small asteroid to near the speed of light -- the enemy couldn't detect it until it was almost at its target, they couldn't track its position accurately because of the lightspeed lag, and it would hit with enough force to cause a planetwide extinction event. But what good is the planet to you afterward? Its civilization and biosphere will be dying out, so there's nothing to profit from. It won't become habitable again for decades, won't become comfortable again for centuries if not millennia. It makes no sense as a means of territorial conquest.
That is something I failed to include in earlier discussions. While conquest as generally portrayed in the media is unlikely, the desire for wholesale annihilation is possible. A species that saw us as a threat and had no interest in living on Earth itself might choose to eradicate us for their own protection. Their morality might not extend to other species, or it could be very alien from ours -- or it could be just like ours, for it's certainly within the realm of human thought to conclude that total eradication of an enemy is justifiable in self-defense.
Of course, that sort of thing would be unlikely until we become an interstellar power ourselves, at which point we'd presumably be able to defend against it to some degree. It's hard to see the motivation for it in a near-future context, unless the aliens in question (or at least the rulers of their dominant political entity) are paranoid or xenophobic.
It's not just a matter of biochemistry, but of planetary and atmospheric chemistry. Assume that panspermia works and the bulk of life in the galaxy is descended from a common unicellular origin, based on the same amino acids and DNA coding -- the life on different planets will nonetheless have evolved to adapt to their conditions. As I said, beings from a metal-poor world would suffer metal poisoning from living on Earth, and those from a metal-rich world would suffer severe nutritional deficiencies. Sure, those could be medically corrected, but still, they're inconveniences that artificial worldlets wouldn't have.
Also there's the air to consider. Too much oxygen, nitrogen, or carbon dioxide would be poisonous, and too little oxygen wouldn't be good either. Terraforming is as much (or more) about transforming the atmosphere as the landscape.
Again, I'm not saying there couldn't be a plausible story told about alien invasion and conquest -- just that most of the stories told about it in fiction are quite naive and unrealistic. And that the majority of aliens in the galaxy probably wouldn't find it profitable or practical. Some of them occasionally might, but the very rarity of those means they'd tend to be very far from any planet they might find ideal for conquest, which adds to the unlikelihood that they'd find it practical to conquer it (unless you postulate a means of FTL drive that's independent of realspace distance, like Andromeda's slipstream).
Yes, but that's exactly the point I'm addressing: the "happening to be there." It takes a lot of effort, energy, and resources to travel to another star system. Fiction often uses FTL drive as a shortcut to make interstellar journeys easy and practical enough to drive the story, but realistically, even if FTL drive could exist, it would probably take an even greater investment of energy and resources to make it happen than it would to travel slower than light. So the question is, what makes it worth the aliens' while to come here in the first place when they have more convenient sources of materials or labor? I'm not willing to accept "if they happen to be here" as an ad hoc postulate, because that's one of the biggest problematicals of the whole discussion.
Hence, I feel the situation would be analogous to maritime history on Earth. Before modern technology, intercontinental journeys could take months or years, a great investment of resources, and a considerable amount of danger. And what motivated those journeys was not territorial conquest, racial extermination, or the acquisition of basic necessities or material goods, but the acquisition of luxury items, precious substances, things that were prized for their rarity or exotic provenance. If aliens coveted something from Earth, it wouldn't be our water or our labor, it would be our spices, our foodstuffs, our art, our music, our works of entertainment. And they'd be better off leaving our civilization and biosphere intact so those items could continue to be produced, so a full-on blowy-uppy invasion and subjugation wouldn't be likely. It would be a more subtle domination, like V only with more plausible motivation.
That would only be useful if you wanted to destroy an enemy because you felt it was a threat to you. It would be simple enough to accelerate a small asteroid to near the speed of light -- the enemy couldn't detect it until it was almost at its target, they couldn't track its position accurately because of the lightspeed lag, and it would hit with enough force to cause a planetwide extinction event. But what good is the planet to you afterward? Its civilization and biosphere will be dying out, so there's nothing to profit from. It won't become habitable again for decades, won't become comfortable again for centuries if not millennia. It makes no sense as a means of territorial conquest.
That is something I failed to include in earlier discussions. While conquest as generally portrayed in the media is unlikely, the desire for wholesale annihilation is possible. A species that saw us as a threat and had no interest in living on Earth itself might choose to eradicate us for their own protection. Their morality might not extend to other species, or it could be very alien from ours -- or it could be just like ours, for it's certainly within the realm of human thought to conclude that total eradication of an enemy is justifiable in self-defense.
Of course, that sort of thing would be unlikely until we become an interstellar power ourselves, at which point we'd presumably be able to defend against it to some degree. It's hard to see the motivation for it in a near-future context, unless the aliens in question (or at least the rulers of their dominant political entity) are paranoid or xenophobic.
Re: Could alien astromoners recognize Earth as possibly M-cl
After reading these posts, I have to seriously reconsider my own original science fiction novel. The majority of the plot centres around these type of issues and it really saddens me to see that I was so naive as to not take these things into account.
Back to the drawing board.
After reading these posts, I have to seriously reconsider my own original science fiction novel. The majority of the plot centres around these type of issues and it really saddens me to see that I was so naive as to not take these things into account.
Back to the drawing board.
Re: Could alien astromoners recognize Earth as possibly M-cl
^^Well, of course in fiction you can cook the books to justify whatever situation you want. It may be improbable, but if it generates an interesting story, you should go for it. Although it is good if you can work out plausible motivations and explanations for things.
You might want to take a look at this site -- it's a great resource for writing SF, particularly military-related stuff:
http://www.projectrho.com/rocket/index.html
^^Well, of course in fiction you can cook the books to justify whatever situation you want. It may be improbable, but if it generates an interesting story, you should go for it. Although it is good if you can work out plausible motivations and explanations for things.
You might want to take a look at this site -- it's a great resource for writing SF, particularly military-related stuff:
http://www.projectrho.com/rocket/index.html
Re: Could alien astromoners recognize Earth as possibly M-cl
Well surely that is what biochemistry is a result of, obviously to want our planet they would need to come from a very similar one? I'm not saying it is likely or probable but it is certainly possible.
Well I always thought that the rationale in War Of The Worlds made a lot of sense. The more recent movie ironically makes less sense as it is never terribly obvious what the aliens are after.
I like Babylon 5's hyperspace myself, as long as they don't have that one from Event Horizon, frankly a FTL drive which takes you to Hell strikes me as flawed.
Well yes, unless you have a power source which is borderline unlimited and FTL which is basically usable quite casually, like in Star Trek.
Well maybe as you say they fancy some kind of rare item, or they have some kind of racial imperative to wipe out all inferior life - its common enough amongst humans.
Not at all IMHO - all I'm saying is that if the aliens can come here relatively easily, if they have a similar enough biochemistry to be comfortable here, sufficient medical technology to survive our bugs and nasties and just happen to think that another planet would be a pretty nifty thing to have (for alien reasons presumably) then they might well try and take over the Earth one way or another.
Well yes, though there were an awful lot of those.
Also - some truly essential items cannot be found everywhere in the world - rubber, tin, certain grades of metals - it was genuinely important to acquire these from wherever the combatants could in wartime, in WW2 the Germans converted submarines especially to go get them.
So if as you say the aliens are at the stage of the ancient colonizers and they only make Columbus style voyages to find a cheaper route for getting silk - why come here? If they have gotten as far in terms of travel as 1940s maritime trade, then all that is required is a useful material here on Earth to make the trip.
Indeed, there is a lot to covet on Earth, though if they want entertainment hopefully we could fob them off with a DVD player and the extended LOTR movies.
I hope you are right! Of course as you say they could have an ideological imperative as well, like the Nazis or Trek's Dominion or frankly any group of assorted nutters.
Well if you wanted to merely cripple Earth's government merely getting rid of the cities would do the job, as well as the military units that support any rebuilding effort.
That way the populace are so busy licking their wounds you can move in as you see fit.
Indeed, like the Dominion in Trek.
Well it is likely that the weapons used in that kind of war would be so destructive (as you say Asteroid bombardment, our favourite nukes) would be hard to defend against, somewhat like the MAD of the 60s and onwards. Earth with a massive defense grid and a fleet of spaceships defending it would be pretty nifty but personally I'd be taking us out before then.
Well if they are anything like us that is more than likely.
Well surely that is what biochemistry is a result of, obviously to want our planet they would need to come from a very similar one? I'm not saying it is likely or probable but it is certainly possible.
Well I always thought that the rationale in War Of The Worlds made a lot of sense. The more recent movie ironically makes less sense as it is never terribly obvious what the aliens are after.
I like Babylon 5's hyperspace myself, as long as they don't have that one from Event Horizon, frankly a FTL drive which takes you to Hell strikes me as flawed
.Well yes, unless you have a power source which is borderline unlimited and FTL which is basically usable quite casually, like in Star Trek.
Well maybe as you say they fancy some kind of rare item, or they have some kind of racial imperative to wipe out all inferior life - its common enough amongst humans.
Not at all IMHO - all I'm saying is that if the aliens can come here relatively easily, if they have a similar enough biochemistry to be comfortable here, sufficient medical technology to survive our bugs and nasties and just happen to think that another planet would be a pretty nifty thing to have (for alien reasons presumably) then they might well try and take over the Earth one way or another.
Well yes, though there were an awful lot of those.
Also - some truly essential items cannot be found everywhere in the world - rubber, tin, certain grades of metals - it was genuinely important to acquire these from wherever the combatants could in wartime, in WW2 the Germans converted submarines especially to go get them.
So if as you say the aliens are at the stage of the ancient colonizers and they only make Columbus style voyages to find a cheaper route for getting silk - why come here? If they have gotten as far in terms of travel as 1940s maritime trade, then all that is required is a useful material here on Earth to make the trip.
Indeed, there is a lot to covet on Earth, though if they want entertainment hopefully we could fob them off with a DVD player and the extended LOTR movies.
I hope you are right!
Of course as you say they could have an ideological imperative as well, like the Nazis or Trek's Dominion or frankly any group of assorted nutters.Well if you wanted to merely cripple Earth's government merely getting rid of the cities would do the job, as well as the military units that support any rebuilding effort.
That way the populace are so busy licking their wounds you can move in as you see fit.
Indeed, like the Dominion in Trek.
Well it is likely that the weapons used in that kind of war would be so destructive (as you say Asteroid bombardment, our favourite nukes) would be hard to defend against, somewhat like the MAD of the 60s and onwards. Earth with a massive defense grid and a fleet of spaceships defending it would be pretty nifty but personally I'd be taking us out before then.
Well if they are anything like us that is more than likely.
Re: Could alien astromoners recognize Earth as possibly M-cl
And I'm saying it's possible but unlikely. If you think I'm saying it's impossible, you're totally missing my point. I'm just trying to explain why it isn't as simplistic a matter as TV and movies would have us believe, trying to assess the questions involved in a more informed way.
My point here is that if you want to find another world that's a match for your biochemistry, one that you can live on comfortably and safely, you're not going to be able to find very many and they won't be very close. It will be a much surer bet simply to create your own artificial habitats out of the resources in your own system. Then you can make them to order and not have to worry about the unpredictable quirks of an unknown planet.
So again, my point is not that conquest is impossible, just that it wouldn't be done for the reasons that most alien-invasion movies postulate. If all you want is more lebensraum, it's more practical to build your own. Searching the galaxy for worlds that happen to be just like yours would turn up relatively few results and they'd be very far away, making it hard to defend or supply them as conquered territories. Building artificial habitats out of your own system's asteroids will potentially give you dozens of planets' worth of habitable area right in your own cosmic backyard. It's more payoff with less risk.
Well, in terms of a race driven by desperation -- conquering a neighbor world that isn't ideal for them just because it's the only option they have. I could buy that. But the ultimate fate of that invasion just goes to show the problems inherent in trying to occupy an alien biosphere.
If you're going to throw in arbitrary, magical hypotheticals, then obviously you can force any desired conclusion. I'm trying to approach the question more realistically here -- something which is done all too rarely in Hollywood.
And I'm saying it's possible but unlikely. If you think I'm saying it's impossible, you're totally missing my point. I'm just trying to explain why it isn't as simplistic a matter as TV and movies would have us believe, trying to assess the questions involved in a more informed way.
My point here is that if you want to find another world that's a match for your biochemistry, one that you can live on comfortably and safely, you're not going to be able to find very many and they won't be very close. It will be a much surer bet simply to create your own artificial habitats out of the resources in your own system. Then you can make them to order and not have to worry about the unpredictable quirks of an unknown planet.
So again, my point is not that conquest is impossible, just that it wouldn't be done for the reasons that most alien-invasion movies postulate. If all you want is more lebensraum, it's more practical to build your own. Searching the galaxy for worlds that happen to be just like yours would turn up relatively few results and they'd be very far away, making it hard to defend or supply them as conquered territories. Building artificial habitats out of your own system's asteroids will potentially give you dozens of planets' worth of habitable area right in your own cosmic backyard. It's more payoff with less risk.
Well, in terms of a race driven by desperation -- conquering a neighbor world that isn't ideal for them just because it's the only option they have. I could buy that. But the ultimate fate of that invasion just goes to show the problems inherent in trying to occupy an alien biosphere.
If you're going to throw in arbitrary, magical hypotheticals, then obviously you can force any desired conclusion. I'm trying to approach the question more realistically here -- something which is done all too rarely in Hollywood.
Re: Could alien astromoners recognize Earth as possibly M-cl
My apologies - I respect you tremendously from you previous posts and in fact got your book when I subscribed to a magazine recently and have every intention of reading it, so please do not get frustrated with a discussion I am finding very interesting.
I accept what you are saying as it is - but I think we are both following our arguments through beyond our original points. I think our differences lie not as much in our absolute opinions but in our opinions of what can be believed in a fictional context.
Ironically our debate started in an attempted defense by myself of a post of yours from a poster who did not seem to be in the right forum!
Indeed - though as I stated sci-fi is not always about a plausible vision of the future as much as it is allegory of our own times. The movies you mention (recently "Independence Day" which you have indirectly mentioned) are all descended or are directly the invasion movies of the 1950s which of course were not intended as much as a plausible scenario for aliens invading as a study of US fear of communism.
Though logically they would scout ahead a bit to check for bacteria and such - so the plausibility suffers a little there.
Well yes, but borderline unlimited power and casual use of FTL are extremely common in sci-fi are they not? This is not always because the authors are lazy or because it is implausible (it isn't necessarily) but because it helps tell the sort of stories they would like to tell.
My apologies - I respect you tremendously from you previous posts and in fact got your book when I subscribed to a magazine recently and have every intention of reading it, so please do not get frustrated with a discussion I am finding very interesting.
I accept what you are saying as it is - but I think we are both following our arguments through beyond our original points. I think our differences lie not as much in our absolute opinions but in our opinions of what can be believed in a fictional context.
Ironically our debate started in an attempted defense by myself of a post of yours from a poster who did not seem to be in the right forum!
Indeed - though as I stated sci-fi is not always about a plausible vision of the future as much as it is allegory of our own times. The movies you mention (recently "Independence Day" which you have indirectly mentioned) are all descended or are directly the invasion movies of the 1950s which of course were not intended as much as a plausible scenario for aliens invading as a study of US fear of communism.
Though logically they would scout ahead a bit to check for bacteria and such - so the plausibility suffers a little there.
Well yes, but borderline unlimited power and casual use of FTL are extremely common in sci-fi are they not? This is not always because the authors are lazy or because it is implausible (it isn't necessarily) but because it helps tell the sort of stories they would like to tell.
Re: Could alien astromoners recognize Earth as possibly M-cl
^^I'm not making value judgments about what kind of stories people are allowed to tell. I'm simply trying to discuss the relative plausibility of various conquest/invasion scenarios, as an intellectual exercise. It's an axiom that people are entitled to make whatever fictional assumptions they want, but it's still worthwhile to analyze their relative feasability and credibility, in the interests of enriching our understanding of the universe. One of the great things about SF is that it's an excellent launching point for discussions of science, history, politics, sociology, etc.
^^I'm not making value judgments about what kind of stories people are allowed to tell. I'm simply trying to discuss the relative plausibility of various conquest/invasion scenarios, as an intellectual exercise. It's an axiom that people are entitled to make whatever fictional assumptions they want, but it's still worthwhile to analyze their relative feasability and credibility, in the interests of enriching our understanding of the universe. One of the great things about SF is that it's an excellent launching point for discussions of science, history, politics, sociology, etc.
Re: Could alien astromoners recognize Earth as possibly M-cl
And writing novels based on themUSS KG5 said:
Agreed. May you have many years of launching such discussions!
Re: Could alien astromoners recognize Earth as possibly M-cl
Given the economy of current economic trends in few decades it will be easier to make robots to do manuel labour that it is to get Manuel to do it.
Maybe we can sell the aliens cheap robots they can use for their labour needs, thus cementing our place in the galactic economy.
Given the economy of current economic trends in few decades it will be easier to make robots to do manuel labour that it is to get Manuel to do it.
Maybe we can sell the aliens cheap robots they can use for their labour needs, thus cementing our place in the galactic economy.
Similar threads
