Earth is invaded, then we win.

[senordesol]

Treat them as POW's. Its the only reasonable thing to do. If we condemn them as monsters for their militaries actions and kill them, we become no better than those we condemn.

This isn't about who is better, you can't be a better person than something that isn't human. Just like you can't be a better person than ebola.

Sentience counts for nothing, eh?

Not if the first thing they did when they came into town is killed a couple billion people and enslaved the planet.

Any sapient life form that does that to a different sapient life form should not be treated as sapient, they should be treated as a more clever disease, only something that can be eradicated to the betterment of mankind. At the very least until they recognize and respect us enough to feel the need for diplomacy, because at that point we'll know they see us as equals.

Very efficient. Let's hope when and if we find the shoe on the other foot (per se) we can take that to heart.

 

[senordesol]

if mass effect taught me anything, when you discover a new intelligent species, try and mate with it.

"With vigorous enthusiasm. Oh yes. Just a little more to the left."

 

[Floggo]

Sounds like Mass Effect 3. SAVE US SHEPARD.

 

[Do4600]

Treat them as POW's. Its the only reasonable thing to do. If we condemn them as monsters for their militaries actions and kill them, we become no better than those we condemn.

This isn't about who is better, you can't be a better person than something that isn't human. Just like you can't be a better person than ebola.

Sentience counts for nothing, eh?

Not if the first thing they did when they came into town is killed a couple billion people and enslaved the planet.

Any sapient life form that does that to a different sapient life form should not be treated as sapient, they should be treated as a more clever disease, only something that can be eradicated to the betterment of mankind. At the very least until they recognize and respect us enough to feel the need for diplomacy, because at that point we'll know they see us as equals.

Very efficient. Let's hope when and if we find the shoe on the other foot (per se) we can take that to heart.

What other foot? If they're at all consistent, the next thing they will do if they get the chance is kill all of us regardless of whether we kill the colonists or not, slaves aren't worth the trouble if they can't be controlled and we just proved that we can't. If the first action of an alien species is to kill hundreds of millions of humans and enslave the rest of us, you can be sure they don't value mercy, or human life (besides how much work we can do under the whip).

 

[Blobpie]

Keep them prisoner as collateral; the aliens will be back, and we wouldn't want them to enslave us again would we?

 

[Talshere]

Treat them as POW's. Its the only reasonable thing to do. If we condemn them as monsters for their militaries actions and kill them, we become no better than those we condemn.

This isn't about who is better, you can't be a better person than something that isn't human. Just like you can't be a better person than ebola.

People who torture animals by your reckoning have nothing to be ashamed about. Being a good person isnt about simply being better, its about doing the right right thing always. If you execute them all history of any peaceful race, so future us, would look back and condemn those actions. For all you know thats aliens were drafted to come to this planet to colonise. And you would just slaughter them?

By every law we know you cannot have purely war like civilisations capable of interplanetary travel/warfare. Any civ with that kind of technology hold unbelievable raw power at their command, at the very least they harness fusion casually every day. Likely they have successfully stabilised and commoditized antimatter in addition to sources of power we have never heard about. These technologies are capable of cleansing a planet of life in a day.

There would be a period of time, not a small one where they have total command over their planet, much like us, we know everyone and can go anywhere, but where several civs have the power to wipe out continents, like us now. If you are war like you will never survive long enough to achieve space travel on any scale. Your race will cleanse itself from the universe. So by default they must have become war like later in which case there are full reasons to believe this race is more then capable of being civil.

 

[Soviet Steve]

Assuming that we will eventually have to face another invasion it would be prudent to prepare for it - Divide the prisoners up and encamp them around nuclear devices, interrogate them for as much information as possible and keep them in camps as a bargaining chip and possibly research.

 

[Do4600]

Treat them as POW's. Its the only reasonable thing to do. If we condemn them as monsters for their militaries actions and kill them, we become no better than those we condemn.

This isn't about who is better, you can't be a better person than something that isn't human. Just like you can't be a better person than ebola.

People who torture animals by your reckoning have nothing to be ashamed about. Being a good person isnt about simply being better, its about doing the right right thing always. If you execute them all history of any peaceful race, so future us, would look back and condemn those actions. For all you know thats aliens were drafted to come to this planet to colonise. And you would just slaughter them?

By every law we know you cannot have purely war like civilisations capable of interplanetary travel/warfare. Any civ with that kind of technology hold unbelievable raw power at their command, at the very least they harness fusion casually every day. Likely they have successfully stabilised and commoditized antimatter in addition to sources of power we have never heard about. These technologies are capable of cleansing a planet of life in a day.

There would be a period of time, not a small one where they have total command over their planet, much like us, we know everyone and can go anywhere, but where several civs have the power to wipe out continents, like us now. If you are war like you will never survive long enough to achieve space travel on any scale. Your race will cleanse itself from the universe. So by default they must have become war like later in which case there are full reasons to believe this race is more then capable of being civil.

This is a different subject altogether than torturing animals. If a dog came to earth and killed several hundreds of millions of humans and enslaved us all, I'd kill it if I had the chance. In the same way that I feel that if a human gets gored to death by an animal, I always feel that the human is responsible. If the aliens were drafted to come to this planet and kill most of us and they had an objection to it, they should have done something about it.

If you're drafted and you have serious moral issues with the tasks you will be doing then you must take action to prevent being forced into doing that, or you carry responsibility for your actions. In the same way that Nazi soldiers and American GIs in Vietnam(among other conflicts) don't escape the moral gravity of doing something because they were ordered to. Even if these aliens were drafted and forced into invading, they still bear responsibility for it because they allowed themselves to be tools of an act they considered immoral. If somebody gave you a gun and ordered you upon pain of death to kill somebody, and you did, you allowed yourself to be a tool of an immoral act and bear responsibility for it. In the same way that the colonists probably knew they are acting to retain out home planet.

The point that a war-like civilization can't attain technology is moot. They might be incredibly peaceful with their own kind but their religion demands that all other life is inferior and only fit for slaughter or slavery to attain purity from a deity.

Every prisoner that has ever been in prison has had the "capability of being civil." Having a capacity for a trait and actually exercising a trait are very, very, very different things. And only one thing truly matters in that equation and that's exercising a trait.

I really think Robert Heinlein has it correct here, the story of intergalactic conflict is really a question of evolution. The war of humans against aliens isn't a political, moral struggle. It's for survival of a species, in the same way that two single celled organisms are struggling against each other for survival. I think we're so removed from that struggle by our dominance of this planet that we can't understand that life only exists when other life is destroyed.

 

[Daffy F]

The more practical side of me wants to say execute them. Can even kind of justify it since they were apparently fine with coming over there to take our world and enslave us. They're all scum anyway.

I'd say imprison them though. Don't feel comfortable with the idea of sentencing people to death if we can just imprison them. Do, however, get all the information you can out of them.

Imprison them where? (we're talking several hundred thousands still) Including children?

I'd say it's that or execution. Which would you prefer? In all seriousness, I doubt I'd feel particularly sympathetic to the spawn of a race that had conquered my planet.

 

[Daffy F]

The more practical side of me wants to say execute them. Can even kind of justify it since they were apparently fine with coming over there to take our world and enslave us. They're all scum anyway.

I'd say imprison them though. Don't feel comfortable with the idea of sentencing people to death if we can just imprison them. Do, however, get all the information you can out of them.

Imprison them where? (we're talking several hundred thousands still) Including children?

I'd say it's that or execution. Which would you prefer? In all seriousness, I doubt I'd feel particularly sympathetic to the spawn of a race that had conquered my planet.

 

[Talshere]

This is a different subject altogether than torturing animals. If a dog came to earth and killed several hundreds of millions of humans and enslaved us all, I'd kill it if I had the chance. In the same way that I feel that if a human gets gored to death by an animal, I always feel that the human is responsible. If the aliens were drafted to come to this planet and kill most of us and they had an objection to it, they should have done something about it.

Many German people (most of the normal populous i nfact) during WWII were flat out lied too and a refusal to obey a direct order would have you shot on the spot and possibly labelled a traitor and/or sympathiser which had ramifications for relatives.It takes time to undermine a war machine and is exceedingly hard to do if not impossible while your actually winning.

If you're drafted and you have serious moral issues with the tasks you will be doing then you must take action to prevent being forced into doing that, or you carry responsibility for your actions. In the same way that Nazi soldiers and American GIs in Vietnam(among other conflicts) don't escape the moral gravity of doing something because they were ordered to. Even if these aliens were drafted and forced into invading, they still bear responsibility for it because they allowed themselves to be tools of an act they considered immoral. If somebody gave you a gun and ordered you upon pain of death to kill somebody, and you did, you allowed yourself to be a tool of an immoral act and bear responsibility for it. In the same way that the colonists probably knew they are acting to retain out home planet.

The colonists are a none issue. Many likely did not know the name of the planet until they were told they were going there. SIGN UP NOW! JOIN AN EXPEDITION TO A NEW WORLD WITH NEW BEGINNINGS!!!! The USA started that way. The only distinct difference between this and that is that the Native Americans lost. Were those first colonists evil? No, they just wanted the chance to live a better life away from the troubles of the one they had. To condemn them for that is to outright state that the entire current population of the US deserves to be culled for the genocide inflicted on the natives.

The point that a war-like civilization can't attain technology is moot. They might be incredibly peaceful with their own kind but their religion demands that all other life is inferior and only fit for slaughter or slavery to attain purity from a deity.

Yeah, thats not how civ development dynamics occur. The most plausible argument I can see for an advanced race in total war with everything is the Warhammer 40k universe where the Primarchs of the super solider caste are sworn to obey the Emperor, to death, who's last wish before being encased in the Golden Throne into a permanent catatonic state was that they obey the council who in turn control the regular army and the inquisitors (a bit like the SS or secret police) who have a veryed intrest in keeping the war going to maintain power, while the primarchs were largely wiped out (thus removing the capacity to order them to do anything different) in the chaos wars leaving to few chapters to rally against the councils doctrine all rolled into an inherent fear of essentially immortal beings to return to the state of the chaos wars where the Astartes chapters fought each other to a blood stand still over the course of several thousand years. Thats convoluted as hell in order to maintain the story required for all out war in the galaxy and it STILL boils down to corrupt politicians and propaganda not popular informed opinion.

The only other reasonable explanation is the one put forward by John Ringo in the Posleen War where a peaceful advanced race accidentally created a more stupid warlike one, in which case we would probably have had help, or certainly would if we managed to beat them enslaved as we were, as we would have just proved our usefulness (unless of course we prove ourselves to be just as barbaric as our conquers since what's the point in crushing one galactic plague just to unleash another one).

Every prisoner that has ever been in prison has had the "capability of being civil." Having a capacity for a trait and actually exercising a trait are very, very, very different things. And only one thing truly matters in that equation and that's exercising a trait.

Ill give you this point. However this still doesnt condemn the colonists who likely as not are more or less ignorant and have personally committed no atrocities against humans. Innocent till proven guilty.

I really think Robert Heinlein has it correct here, the story of intergalactic conflict is really a question of evolution. The war of humans against aliens isn't a political, moral struggle. It's for survival of a species, in the same way that two single celled organisms are struggling against each other for survival. I think we're so removed from that struggle by our dominance of this planet that we can't understand that life only exists when other life is destroyed.

I havent read any of Heinlein's work so I cant comment there. Problem is ultimately all struggles are over energy, all organisms require energy but a civilisation as advanced at the one proposed here COULD LITERALLY MAKE SUNS! Hell, WE can do that "in theory", the biggest problem we have is farming enough gas, a problem solved if you have intergalactic travel. Heinlein, living in the 50/60 couldnt understand this, because we didnt know it. There are more raw materials in asteroid belts and nebula than they could possible hope to find on the earth. A civ this advanced could strip this planet of any valuable material in a hand full of years, most of that being brining the mining equipment here.

When you have that much energy and that many resources at your fingertips, the need for struggle becomes mute, at least against other beings.

Ultimately, there is no point in killing the settlers. They cant give you anything that the military type couldn't and like as not are blameless. By killing them you get literally nothing but possibly a grim, perverted and misguided sense of justice and revenge, while releasing them at worst does nothing and at best engenders exceedingly large quantities of good will and brings people to our defence.