Poll: First Contact - If Intelligent Aliens Arive, Would They Invade?

[Strazdas]

@KyuubiNoKitsune-Hime: Did a marvelous turn explaining how we, with our current technology, could redirect a comet's trajectory. I'll just add that any interstellar species presumably has (at least) fusion power as the basis of their drives and energy production. Assuming no new physics, no use of exotic matter, just the incredible amount of energy from fusing hydrogen, you could do more than move a comet. You could use a robotic craft that was little more than big deuterium tank and a fusion rocket, land it on Ceres, then steer it right into the target of your choice. We'd see it coming, but so what? We don't have the technology to stop it, even if we nuked it to pieces. A rain of pieces would get the job done just as well.

If you want to go stealthy though, comets are the way to go. Comets move pretty quickly, and they're not as massive as a dwarf planet or giant asteroid. It's hard to imagine that a species contemplating interstellar hostilities will not have the ability to land a small robotic craft on a comet, and steer it. The craft then refuels from the comet itself, then hops off to find another suitable kinetic weapon.

I think you have misunderstood me a bit here. i had no doubt the aliens could steer the comet into earth. i was asking could WE - humans - steer a comet at the aliens. because if we can thats a pretty big "These guys are dangerous" sign right there.

 

[Yopaz]

The only exceptional part of our planet is us being on it, us and the other life present on this rock. If there's a spacefaring species out there capable of traveling the vast expanses of space to reach us then they're very not not going to bother doing so just to attack and risk destroying the only thing that makes this rock special.

Y'know, unless they're giant colossal dicks I guess, which is theoretically an option as well.

We also have a high oxygen concentration, lots of water, lots of metals and an atmosphere that ensures a fairly stable climate. Redox chemistry actually places a demand on an atmosphere containing either oxygen, chloride or fluorine, but the two latter interact dangerously with organic components making oxygen a likely necessary resource for advanced life.

Probably not for the resources - if they have approx. light speed traveling tech(if they didn't have it we would've found them) to arrive this desolate waste-solar system they could just extract the things they need from non-living inhibited planets. Hell, we have 7 extra planets in this solar system.(much more if you include moons)

If they DO invade it would be for a our planet - as in, Earth is not too hot nor cold and aliens can't be bothered to find a new planet - assuming that they have similar origin of life as we do.

So out fate falls to their ethics.(or their fate to our ethics) Logically, I would eradicate humans and purge the life out of the Earth for the security reasons and continued survival of my(that is, alien) species. Sentient lifeforms can be difficult to understand/predict and are potential threat - especially after the first contact has been made.

However, those aliens may favor the harmony between two intelligent species - after all, space is big enough for the two ruling races. In this case less advanced one hits the jackpot. Rules the galaxy together etc.

Well, if you have the choice to mine resources from an inhabitable environment versus the choice of mining form a habitable environment the choice is easy. We have lots of mineral deposits in the ocean which we can get to without too much work, but there's more work than mining what's available on land.

OT: I'd say it's impossible to say. I can give plenty of reasons they would, plenty why they would not. It could go both ways.

 

[Paragon Fury]

The better question is; why wouldn't they?

If life on Earth is anything to extrapolate from, there would be no reason for a much superior force and race to conquer a lesser one. Hell, the only reason it doesn't happen with humanity right now is MAD; if MAD didn't exist then there would be no reason for the United States or Russia or China or the EU to NOT try to physically dominate the other nations.

 

[Beffudled Sheep_v1legacy]

I don't know if they will invade.
I do know that I will try to have sex with them, no matter what they do.

 

[Fox12]

They would be stupid if they did. There are plenty of planets that have valuable resources, that don't have life. Besides, if they're powerful enough to reach Earth then, trust me, they don't need our paltry resources.

The only reason to destroy us is if they want to remain the only intelligent life in existence.

 

[Barbas]

What, and share responsibility? I'd just hang around in orbit and watch the little mushroom puffs go off. Either that or I'd virus-bomb it from orbit; if they can travel that far through space then they must be able to introduce lethal diseases to the environment of another species.

I might buzz a few cities, actually.

It's also possible that some of the things that we've invented are things they haven't, leading them to want to trade technology.

Or this. This one's better than mine.

 

[Thaluikhain]

The better question is; why wouldn't they?

If life on Earth is anything to extrapolate from, there would be no reason for a much superior force and race to conquer a lesser one. Hell, the only reason it doesn't happen with humanity right now is MAD; if MAD didn't exist then there would be no reason for the United States or Russia or China or the EU to NOT try to physically dominate the other nations.

The other nations have things they want, in a habitat humans can easily live in. That's unlikely to be true from an alien PoV, anything they want (excepting living things) can be got easier elsewhere.

 

[Smooth Operator]

Invade with an all out war?
That just seems illogical, for a species with reliable inter-solar travel we would be no more then monkeys in a cage, sure we can throw some rocket poo at them but that is the full extent of our abilities.
If they wanted something they would just take it at arms length and probe it's anus obviously...
Maybe in an extreme case where a dying society manages to only construct one life boat and they shoot it for their most promising planet found and upon arrival they have no choice but to fend for themselves here, still an all out war is just a terrible option.

Biodiversity is probably the only thing they would really want to take, resources same as ours are plentiful through all planets so that would not make sense to come and get on our rock, more then likely they would just study our oddball planet.

 

[pookie101]

we would be seen as a potential threat and the simplest way to deal with us is a very large asteroid or two, maybe orbital bombardment of what ever weapons they have but if they wanted to take the planet relatively intact then a species specific plague of some type would do the job pretty simply if it was airborne and very hard to detect with a longish incubation period.

they could also just plain ignore us and start terraforming and introducing new species enmass

hell EMP our planet and the only ones with power and tech left would be the military but equally they would have to deal with society collapse world wide

or just a combination instead of just one to be sure

 

[Tilly]

Unless they're currently living hidden somewhere in the solar system, they'd have to have insane technology in order to get here. So we probably won't have anything of interest to them. Except Vidya Gamezzzz