A realistic view of what would happen if extraterrestrial life visted our planet

[Imthatguy]

In the worst case scenario, we encounter an Outer God. I'd rather participate in a war with aliens then spend a single minute in a general area with Nyarlathotep.

Do not fear the chaos.

We are all simply manifestations of the primordial chaos.

Nyarlathotep walks in our very souls.

 

[guidance]

I understand why people are so afraid of alien contact and being suspicious of it, but you guys are using a terrible example to theorize what would happen. You guys say it's like Columbus, I would say it's more like us now. There are tribes left on earth that we don't have contact with, we study them, and observe what they might do, but really don't interact with them. Maybe the aliens want to make contact, then it will be like the tribes we have contact with. We don't destroy them, we again study and observe them but through contact. Why would a species that has mastered space flight come to a planet and say "hey look intelligent life, lets conquer it". If we now have gotten past this point in our evolution, why haven't they? Maybe they want resources, well we can try to give them resources but we are running out for ourselves, not like we have enough to keep them alive. There are probably more planets in space with water than there are with intelligent life.

 

[A Satanic Panda]

If an alien race could reach us, they could destroy us, it would literally take less than a day, we wouldn't stand a chance, but this is only if they decide to kill us, which I doubt they would. If they really have to technology to reach us, from wherever they are from, chances are they will have forms of alternate energy, and won't need our resources, which we really don't have to much of anyway. I believe only good things would come from contact.

Except we have an abundance of water and minerals and a habitable planet. If they can jump from system to system they can probably transform an atmosphere to their liking.

Well ya useless water, we have so little fresh water it laughable, they can take all the salt water they want, And to aliens earth would be about as habitable as the moon is to us, they wouldn't want to live here.

How do you know an advanced alien race doesn't drink or know how to purify salt water?

And why can't aliens live on Earth? It's very easy to change the content of an atmosphere, us humans do it everyday. Plus Earth has the rare combination of having a moderate atmosphere with oxygen, a magnetosphere, and being in a star's habitable-zone that supports liquid water. Aliens wouldn't come primarily to mine it, they would come here to expand their race. They would just have to get rid of us first.

 

[lSHaDoW-FoXl]

This debate has been going on for decades but on the grand scheme of things what would happen? Well the fact is if this civilization is more advanced then us then most likely we would see the same thing that happened between Christopher Columbus and the Native Americans but on a much larger scale. (See: http://www.understandingprejudice.org/nativeiq/columbus.htm ) There is no plausible way that these aliens would have conquered greed. A lot of scientist say that we should not seek out alien interaction just for these purposes. A lot of people say that if they are so advanced that they traveled all the way here then they must be a peaceful race and all they want to do is further extended their knowledge along with ours about the universe. That however is a very optimistic view. At first that is probably what they would say their intentions are but who's to say they would not have a much more sinister plan in mind?

On another note if we found a alien planet that had a less advanced society on it what do you think we would do? Yeah history does seem to repeat itself. So if we do ever find another life form that is alien then we should treed lightly because we never know what's afoot.

We're nothing but hairless apes. I can imagine our fates would be much more reflective of how we treat animals then how we treated the natives. The differences between those creatures and us wouldn't be small like a different skin color or a language. The differences would be far more drastic. To them, we'd be animals. We'd be crying and screeching about how cruel those 'evil aliens' are. But the honest truth is, whatever they do to us - no matter how completely inhumane it is - we probably have it coming given how we still treat other humans alone - never mind how we treat animals.

They'll be testing on us, eating us, domesticating us, and skinning us. And their main justification will be the exact same one we used on doing those things to animals - because they are superior to us. If it wasn't so horrifying and cruel I'd almost be willing to say it's poetic justice. Well, that is unless they're all self - righteous animal rights activist like I am. Then maybe you'd be let off the hook.

 

[xPixelatedx]

If they look like Navi or otherwise impossibly resemble humanity (that's so not going to happen btw)we will invite them in with open arms regardless of their intents. If they look like something from District 9 (much more likely) we will quarantine them and treat them like beasts, even if their intents were good from the start.

 

[Shaved Apple]

People shouldn't really be eager to meet aliens because if we do they will most likely try to take over because they would want more land.

 

[The_Waspman]

Well lets overlook the fact - for the moment - that any intelligent alien species capable of crossing the vastness of space to reach us would most certainly be non-caporeal, the simple truth is that if aliens did show up, there is a high probability that our own political systems would break down, and we'd all just nuke each other.

Thats the one thing that annoys me about hollywood alien invasion flicks. The aliens arrive, they attack, and everyone bands together to fight back. Wouldn't happen. Such an event would most likely cause us to fight each other all the more.

 

[Quiet Stranger]

Really? NOBODY? (well maybe somebody but too lazy right now to read all of it)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NIufLRpJYnI

That's what I imagine would happen.

 

[C F]

There'd be war.
There's always war.

Let's face it, we have all these weapons and we're a bit too reserved on the matter of using them because our only targets are each other. Into the picture walks something that's different than us, and someone somewhere is going to find some reason to open hostilities.

The only question is will we eventually overcome it, settle down, and continue on, like we did with the Turians in Mass Effect, or will we be forced to fight tooth and nail until it becomes a war of survival like with the Covenant in Halo?

 

[SEXTON HALE]

I can see dozens of outcomes to our first contact with aliens.
They all range from tragic to hillarious to the standard happy ending.
I cant imagine which one would win out overall.

 

[Wolfenbarg]

I seriously doubt that would ever happen. The staggering distances between even our nearest stars isn't the only obstacle to finding life, but also timeframe. Human civilization has only been around for a few thousand years, advanced civilization with the ability to send communications to space for only a few decades. That's a fraction of a percent of the amount of time the Earth has even been here. The odds that aliens would manage to find us while we're around and not before our after we've existed adds another trial. Finding intelligent life on Earth wasn't a big deal, finding intelligent in space would be the greatest discovery any space faring civilization could possibly make. Immediately subjugating them and mining out their natural resources completely undermines such a discovery.

Not only that, but the greatest likelihood is that whoever visited would be only a small group of explorers against our entire planet. Unless they came equipped for war specifically, they'd be impossibly outnumbered and outgunned. We don't put death robots in our space faring vehicles, why would they?

 

[TheLizardKing]

Maybe they have found us, they're just wise enough to stay the fuck away.

 

[Korolev]

We have no idea what would happen - there is no reason why aliens should be like us in any way, aside from an ability to comprehend mathematics and physics (which would be needed to even get to Earth).

They could be super peaceful, or super aggressive. There is absolutely no reason to think that they would share our emotions - they might have emotions so different to ours that we can't comprehend them. We might be so different to each other that any meaningful communication, outside the realm of mathematics, might be impossible.

There's no way to tell how they would act if they met us.

 

[Aprilgold]

Realistically, we wouldn't know.

No explanation is needed, there is no 'realistic' situation to something that we don't even know about. Its like saying that you could take a realistic stance on a giant space worm coming to devour the Earth. How exactly is something that is in everyone's imagination realistic.

 

[Extra-Ordinary]

I'd be as cautious as I'd be excited.
I almost hate to admit it, but I'd want some artillery wherever they landed. Don't fire it (yet) just insurance, you know? I figure aliens would make it pretty apparent pretty early on what their intentions would be, making said artillery either justified or, well, better safe than sorry, eh?
I remember a few RT podcasts bringing up a few points I never see talked about. Like what if they come here and they don't even recognize us as life, we just don't register with them as something that's living? That one's a real thought-provoker for me.

 

[MrPeanut]

I'd be as cautious as I'd be excited.
I almost hate to admit it, but I'd want some artillery wherever they landed. Don't fire it (yet) just insurance, you know? I figure aliens would make it pretty apparent pretty early on what their intentions would be, making said artillery either justified or, well, better safe than sorry, eh?
I remember a few RT podcasts bringing up a few points I never see talked about. Like what if they come here and they don't even recognize us as life, we just don't register with them as something that's living? That one's a real thought-provoker for me.

If they can get here they would probably detect and counter said artillery before it's even set up.

Umm, just saying.

 

[Extra-Ordinary]

I'd be as cautious as I'd be excited.
I almost hate to admit it, but I'd want some artillery wherever they landed. Don't fire it (yet) just insurance, you know? I figure aliens would make it pretty apparent pretty early on what their intentions would be, making said artillery either justified or, well, better safe than sorry, eh?
I remember a few RT podcasts bringing up a few points I never see talked about. Like what if they come here and they don't even recognize us as life, we just don't register with them as something that's living? That one's a real thought-provoker for me.

If they can get here they would probably detect and counter said artillery before it's even set up.

Umm, just saying.

Good point. I guess if they even let us break it out then it would mean they're not here to fight, right?
Unless they're Predators and they're just giving us a sporting chance.

 

[kickyourass]

Well I see a number of possibilities, it's possible that they are either peacful or simply find us too uninteresting to interact with. But I think it's slightly more likely that they'll see us in roughly the same way we see chimps, hopefully they're the types who see chimps as cute and not something to hunt for sport.

 

[ServebotFrank]

I guess it will be some kind of a ' 'MERICUHHH, FUCK YEAH ' scenario where America shows up no matter where (if) the aliens land and present themselves as ambassadors of humanity. From that point it will just keep derailing.

Wouldn't be an Escapist thread without someone making a smartass comment about America.

OT:I think it will be fine. If an alien race is at the point that they can travel light years to us, they probably have gone through enough that they're somewhat cultured. Waging war across space sounds really expensive anyway, especially to deal with a still somewhat primitive race.

 

[Vrex360]

The image of an army of proud warrior Sangheili descending from their carriers to rain vengeful hell upon the miserable human race when they find out the Elites were removed from Halo 4 multiplayer comes to mind.

Oh wait, that's just a recurring happy dream I keep having.

But yeah as others have said, huge risk. If the aliens are coming here, ignoring the fact that communication would be impossible and we have no way of knowing if our peaceful gestures may result in war or not, if they are coming to Earth it's probably because they have a specific thing that they want from us and if the history of conquering nations has taught us anything it's that the technologically inferior race is very rarely treated nicely by invading forces.