Aliens: What if we're the advanced species?

[Nouw]

I'm from the Escapist, and I say kill 'em all!

Ha ha. Because genocide of a semi-innocent intelligent race is perfectly fine when done for the sake of an action movie.

We exterminate species!

 

[Asclepion]

I've pondered this a bit. I've also have pondered the question asked by many a skeptic.
"If extraterrestrials do exist then why haven't they made contact?"

One answer is that they aren't technologically advanced enough to do so.

Another answer is fear. They're afraid to make contact.

Why? Because while they have advanced past us in the field of interstellar travel and such, they haven't do so in the field of weaponry.

They see our weapons. They see how destructive, devastating, and overpowering they are.
They see how willing we are to use them, (against each other no less).
They see that despite having weapons so powerful we can level cities and wipe entire islands off the face of our planet, we continue to imagine even more destructive weapons.

They see all of this and say, "if we make contact and mess up, then they might get hostile and declare war. If they declare war their weapons will rip us apart! Stay away from that planet!"

We've come up with "warrior races" like the Klingons in our stories, but looking at our history we're the "warrior race." Hell for all we know we just might wield the most powerful weapons in the galaxy.

http://www.projectrho.com/rocket/prelimnotes.php [Jon's Law]

Any intelligence that creates FTL travel also creates weapons of mass destruction.

Let's say you have a rocketship with a mass ratio of 5, which will give it a delta V of 8,421 km/s, and you want to destroy the united states. If you expend all your propellant in a single burn in the direction of Earth and then launch a 1 ton missile into New York City it will impact with the energy equal to an 8.48 megaton bomb.

And this is peanuts compared to what you can do if you really want to make a splash: crash your ship into the planet. If your ship weighs 10,000 tons it will impact with a force of 84.8 gigatons. Essentially, it will wipe out the entire western hemisphere, and turn the northeastern United States into a molten lake. And there's no reason to demand an alien crew consign themselves to riding a giant kinetic missile into a planet to do this either. You can just take the propellant tanks and engine of a ship, mount a simple targeting computer on it in place of the weaponry and habitat modules, and go to town with no need for a crew of would-be suicide bombers.

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I think the aliens wouldn't give a second glance at humanity. We're just another primitive culture in deep space.

 

[personion]

There's not really a debate to be had here. Kill most of them, enslave the rest for dissection and slave labor, and steal all their natural resources. It's the human way!

 

[applesandoranges]

edit

 

[samsonguy920]

If anyone thinks we as a species learned from what happened when the New World, Africa, and Asia were colonized by the Europeans, I have a bridge to sell them.
Even Star Trek and Stargate SG-1 show that we can still be prone to kiss any care away about a resident population's needs in the desire for resources.

I honestly would like to think that we actually grow beyond this by the time we achieve interstellar flight and colonization, but I am not feeling too optimistic about it.
Keep in mind those interstellar flights will be most likely funded by private corporations who could care less about any relations. That is where we are headed, where the corporations finally shed their cowls and take charge of world administration.

What would suck for us is when it turns out that less-advanced species was actually under the protection of others who were far, far more advanced.
I think that's what started the whole fracas in Space:Above and Beyond, if I remember correctly. Corporation finds planet, steps on the population there in order to exploit it, and then comes along those who are in charge of protecting that planet and gets pissed off at all humans.

 

[philosophicalbastard]

Regardless, the two groups would be so far apart that it'd basically be an Ugly Roadblock hitting another Ugly Roadblock. Sure, the first Humans to explore this planet would try to learn of their culture, teach a couple of the Aliens English, but in the end, it'll basically become Africa: Taken Over, colonized poorly with a few Independent lands, eventually freed, and in poor shape. Though, hopefully not as poor as Africa.

Or they could end up like Japan did: a strong imperial power rivaling our own.

If we discover any alien intelligence we will be much to curious to leave them alone, and to careless to not get caught by them. I doubt we would go after their resources, since there isn't much on the planets where intelligence tends to develop. The only thing we would ever want from them is living space, if their planet can maintain human life. A scenario like that just wouldn't end well, so no one would ever try that. The worst that could ever happen is that some government deems them to dangerous to humans and nukes them.

Contact with less technologically advanced life won't turn out as bad as everyone thinks. I'm confident Humanity has learned their lesson with what happens with any imperialism.

 

[Ectoplasmicz]

I reckon we monitor them over the years and see how they evolve.

 

[Trippy Turtle]

I would want to send a small ship to make crop circles that only one person sees so everyone thinks he is crazy!

Seriously though I would want to make friends with them in case we come across another not so friendly race. Possibly trade with them... send some poor sucker to make the first contact with them and hope he doesn't get eaten.

Although if they are really really primitive then I want to pretend to be a god with my magic space powers.

 

[Wushu Panda]

Unfortunately, I agree with the first reply. There is no reason to go messing with a lesser advanced civilisation, although it is tempting. But we'll probably just invade similar to Battle for Terra.

I was discussing with a german guy at work how it would be interesting if we got to exploring the galazy/universe, and found out that all other life was extinct. That the universe was coming to an end (Still a few hundred thousand years away), but we were to be the last space-faring race....

Archaeologists would go insane!

Have you never ever seen an episode of Star Trek or Stargate? They ran into less technologically advanced cultures all the time.

Like...every second episode. Ah, Stargate. How you rocked my child and teenage years. And then my adult years by rewatching them.

Archaeology was my major >.>

I have a wish that advanced interstellar travel will be achieved and I can go work on another planet learning of alien culture and studying how they lived/evolved and studying the technology they developed when THEY were just starting to create tools.

But it would suck if it turned out we were the last of anything. Sitting in an alien University going over alien history with an alien archaeologist would be awesome.

 

[steve the evil]

A little off-topic, but I've always thought it would be funny if we came to a planet and it turned out we were physiologically superior to them. Like we invade a planet populated by meringue-people who view our normal functions as super-powers, like our spit is acidic and our nails are super sharp. Then WE can be the monsters in an alien invasion movie!

OT: I'd like to think by the time we have the ability to contact sentient life, we've figured out how to stop fighting with everything we see. Probably won't happen (for multiple reasons), but I'd like to think that.

 

[Krois]

Teach it the ways of magic instead of technology! Maybe they'll find something we missed as a civilization.

 

[Plucky]

Depends on what their intelligence is, if they're undeveloped, we shouldn't interfere with their culture or progression since that might upset the balance on their world.

If they are intelligent, we probably should only form diplomatic relations with them only if they come up to us willingly, however we shouldn't make their lives too cushy by introducing too advanced technology, otherwise people either become too dependent on unusual technologies, or it might cause political unjust within their world, possibly causing wars and damage with devices newly created with ideas from our machines.

 

[Zen Toombs]

Then the aliens are not intelligent, intelligent aliens are based on our level or above.

"Advanced" likely refers to technology level. It is possible that could have the most advanced technology but be less intelligent as a species. For example, the other alien species could have had less time than Humanity to create tools and shiny tech.

Well i tell you what we wouldnt do. Randomly fly around trying to be stealthy but failing all the while probing anus's left right and centre. We also wouldnt come along every so often to build a monument between anus inspecting. That would be retarded

You receive 2 points. Make sure to get a receipt from our desk attendant.

 

[everythingbeeps]

If we stumble upon an alien species on their own turf, we'll almost certainly fuck everything up and wind up destroying them. I just don't see how we're capable of any better.

Fortunately for them, we're just nowhere near being advanced enough to do that. And as long as you have conservatives in power, the space program won't get nearly enough money to develop the technology to do that.

 

[Cipher1]

Imperialism 2.0 (now with 99% more spaceships) as much as I'd like to think we've come a long way given the option of a whole new world I cant see us passing up the option to exploit the hell out of it for our own gain.

 

[CrimsonBlaze]

I've always had a belief about us, the human race, being an alien race from another planet because
a.) no other creature on Earth comes close to being EXACTLY like us (i.e. no different species, just races),
b.) all animals rely on pure base instinct, while we rely on our intelligence to get through the day,
c.) we tend to harm the environment by merely settling on it, and
d.) all animals (even the ones that can rip us to shreds) FEAR us, for no apparent reason other than we are not food, thus, we are scary. If all the animals would fight against the humans (ala Rise of the Planet of the Apes-style), the human race in general would be screwed.

There is also a lot of talk about how the humans in the B.C. era had relations or contact with aliens, how they helped humans develop their civilization and structures that would be difficult/impossible to accomplish in that era, even by today's standards. How do we know that we were merely speaking with our 'relations' in order to better inhabit this world?

If we go along this train of thought, essentially the main questions come down to:
1.) What happened in the past that has caused us to break ties with our 'alien brethren?'
2.) Why would the past interactions with these aliens not recorded or mentioned? Was the 'colonized' alien/human race so arrogant that they decided to take all the credit for their accomplishments on Earth and leave their alien help out of the picture?
3.) Are there any attempts to re-establish the lines of communication?
4.) Is there something on Earth that has been long forgotten that is preventing the aliens from coming to/landing on Earth? And what is it?

I could ramble on, but I think this is a good place to stop.

 

[Jon Shannow]

The same thing that happens every time an advanced civilization discovers a primitive one... regardless of intent it never turns out well for the primitive one.

Hopefully someone will inform James Cameron of this for the next Avatar film.