How easy is it actually to reverse engineer a UFO?

[Tim Walker]

It is possible to build a general purpose computing machine out of thermionic tubes and ferrite core memory so an emulation of modern mobile phone circuitry would also be possible. However, it would likely be enormous and use a lot of power if the smallest available tubes were those of the sort from before the transistor age. The main problem would be that its switching speed would be far too slow to do the necessary modulation, demodulation, error correction, encryption, and decryption in real time.

This is the sort of thing I had in mind when I suggested a kludge. The deficiencies that you described suggest that a kludge would have rudimentary capabilities compared to a more sophisticated machine.

This suggests the limitations of trying to imitate something from a higher technological tier.

 

[Asbo Zaprudder]

Well as long as you understand the basic principles, you can incrementally refine the design over time.

 

[Tim Walker]

Yes, there seems to be a general tendency towards refinement over time.

 

[publiusr]

The top one looks cooler. That and a Ham set up should be Uhura’s station should look like.

 

[Non Sync]

The top one looks cooler. That and a Ham set up should be Uhura’s station should look like.

Lightyears different in capabilities. Newer one unit had OLED displays and multiple layers of input keys.

 

[BillJ]

One of those questions that has no answer until we actually encounter alien technology.

 

[Swedish Borg]

Life on Earth has existed for nearly 4 billion years, technology has existed for less than two centuries (if that) so the chances of another civilization being anywhere in our vicinity with technology accessible to us are extremely low (even assuming that life exists on many planets which is far from proven).

 

[Tim Walker]

Off the top of my head.....

Different levels of complexity/intricacy were listed by Orion's Arm Universe:
.
Mega refers to gigantic engineering projects in outer space.

A list in order of decreasing size and increasing intricacy:

1. Macro-roughly, at the scale of everyday objects, which we can see and touch.

2. Microtech-this is the scale of modern electronic components.

3. Mesotech. Engineering with small clumps of atoms. The prefix "Meso" means middle.

4. Nanotech-engineering at the atomic level.

There has been speculation, and a few books, regarding nanotechnology.

I have seen a bit of speculation regarding even smaller levels, such as Picotech.

Orion's Arm also included its own list of technological tiers. We are presently at the Middle Tech tier, which can include Meso-tech at a late stage. More sophisticated levels include High Tech, and the even more sophisticated Ultra Tech. I suspect that most of the technology of visitors would be at, at a minimum, High Tech, if not Ultra Tech.

 

[Asbo Zaprudder]

There's also the Kardashev scale, of course.

 

[Swedish Borg]

There's also the Kardashev scale, of course.

This assumes that it's possible to travel at speeds much faster than light which given the Fermi paradox is far from being likely.

 

[Asbo Zaprudder]

This assumes that it's possible to travel at speeds much faster than light which given the Fermi paradox is far from being likely.

The Kardashev scale relates to total energy usage and states nothing in its assumptions about FTL capability. Our current planetary civilisation is approximately type 0.73, not yet type I, according to Sagan's logarithmic modification of the concept. One can colonise a galaxy at sub light speed in the order of a million years or less by using Von Neumann probes and seeder ships. I agree the Fermi paradox implies that there are no current type II or III civilisations in this galaxy. We also haven't encountered any berserkers - yet.

 

[Swedish Borg]

What are berserkers? Some kind of crazy aliens or something?

 

[Asbo Zaprudder]

What are berserkers? Some kind of crazy aliens or something?

A variant of the self-replicating starship is the Berserker. Unlike the benign probe concept, Berserkers are programmed to seek out and exterminate lifeforms and life-bearing exoplanets whenever they are encountered.

Self-replicating spacecraft - Wikipedia

 

[StarCruiser]

^ Or in simple language...scary.

 

[Asbo Zaprudder]

If they existed, they would already have wiped us out - or maybe they've been on the way since they detected our radio transmissions...

 

[Santaman]

Nah, they have scanned us, then laughed their balls off and went back on course, they'd have seen that we're busy killing off ourselfs and the planet, why waste energy and resources, just wait a little longer and tadaa your work has been done for you.

 

[Swedish Borg]

Self-replicating spacecraft - Wikipedia

Yes, I've seen that in StarGate Universe, but I find that a bit insane, who would build such a thing, and what would be the point?

 

[Swedish Borg]

If you kill all life on a planet it will likely deterraform itself and after a few decades become completely and irremediably uninhabitable, so I fail to see the point of destroying all life on a planet.

 

[Asbo Zaprudder]

Among the possible reasons:

• To terraform the planet to the specifications of the builders
• To destroy and conquer just for the sake of it
• To perform a glorious blood sacrifice
• To remove the potential opposition
• To steal the planet's resources and/or assimilate its technology
• To remove organic beings that are seen as inferior to artificial beings
• A Doomsday machine gone rogue - the Star Trek version wasn't depicted as a replicator but it could well have been
• Or no real reason or purpose, just originally benign Von Neumann probes gone rogue, for example the Greenfly plague in Alastair Hamilton's Revelation Space novels

If it isn't impossible, all of these will happen somewhere. The universe is not designed to be nice - nor indeed is it designed at all. There is no guarantee that alien races - biological or created - are going to be pleasant and not xenophobic. Just one instance of the creation of berserker or rogue probes in the past might explain the Fermi paradox.

 

[publiusr]

Saberhagen had a whole novel series on the subject. A chapbook had Sherlock Holmes encounter one. Richard M Powers’ did book cover art I didn’t quite get. Babylon 5 did an episode—but the horror film THE MANGLER captured the feel best—that was supernatural though