Re: How would you act if given absolute power over an alien civilization?

[jakeyjakey]

I used the pyramids as an example of what can be accomplished through cooperation (or in the case of the Egyptians, coercion). I wouldn't want pyramids. Also I can't imagine a rock from a catapult built by ant-sized lifeforms being posing much of a threat. It would be like a pea.

However, with a strong collective effort they should be able to cultivate enough food for me and eventually construct giant-sized amenities. I'm sure that my planting a massive foot on one of their schools or densely populated residential areas would provide motivation.

...I question your sense of scale and logistics. If you could crush a school with your foot, then you're talking about people who are smaller than your pinky finger, probably even smaller than a joint on your pinky finger. The Lilliputians of Gulliver's Travels were 1:12 of standard human size, putting the average Lilliputian at roughly 6 inches (15 cm). The way you're talking about it, you seem to be imagining something closer to 1:220, at which point the equivalent of a 6 foot (183 cm) alien would stand at a mere 0.33 inches (0.84 cm). Laying 6 of these people head to foot would give you about one French Fry's worth of volume. And you expect that these people would be able to produce enough food to sustain you?

Well, in that case, they have other uses. I would have them march up and down my shaft until I ejaculate. > If they were really tiny maybe they can adopt my spermatozoa as sacred pets. Also I run competitively so my feet and running shoes almost always stink. An army of tiny slaves to rake up my foot crud and remove debris and corpses that accumulate on my sneaker treads would be nice.

You know, it's considered polite to keep one's fetishes to themselves.

No idea what you are talking about. Get help?

 

[Abomination]

You know, it's considered polite to keep one's fetishes to themselves.

No idea what you are talking about. Get help?

I would have them march up and down my shaft until I ejaculate. >

 

[Eacaraxe_v1legacy]

In my current Stellaris game, I've nerve stapled all races in my empire besides my own, and gene-modded them to be delicious (no, really that's an actual trait) aside. This allows me to grow other species as livestock, which in turn means I can build more power plants and mines instead of farms. Now, I'm playing a megacorporation, and have branch offices of my corporation in the space of every other empire in the game except for the genocidal robots, who I'm in the process of exterminating from the face of the galaxy. Despite the fact the other empires pretty much all hate me for being xenophagic, they're so weak compared to me they won't do anything to evict my branch offices, which would give me casus belli against them.

What does my megacorporation do, you might ask? Fast food.

I tricked other empires' peoples into emigrating to my empire, and I genetically altered them to be space cows. I slaughter them by the billions and feed them to their own people in the form of cheap, unhealthy, convenience food, and the other empires are too afraid of me to do anything but quietly engage in empire-wide cannibalism in humiliating obeisance. I am making a shitload of money off this I don't even need, because half the worlds in my empire are ecumenopoli and I have a Dyson sphere.

The question posed in the thread title probably isn't one I should answer.

My next playthrough is going to be with post-apocalyptic fanatic purifiers!

 

[Drathnoxis]

In my current Stellaris game, I've nerve stapled all races in my empire besides my own, and gene-modded them to be delicious (no, really that's an actual trait) aside. This allows me to grow other species as livestock, which in turn means I can build more power plants and mines instead of farms. Now, I'm playing a megacorporation, and have branch offices of my corporation in the space of every other empire in the game except for the genocidal robots, who I'm in the process of exterminating from the face of the galaxy. Despite the fact the other empires pretty much all hate me for being xenophagic, they're so weak compared to me they won't do anything to evict my branch offices, which would give me casus belli against them.

What does my megacorporation do, you might ask? Fast food.

I tricked other empires' peoples into emigrating to my empire, and I genetically altered them to be space cows. I slaughter them by the billions and feed them to their own people in the form of cheap, unhealthy, convenience food, and the other empires are too afraid of me to do anything but quietly engage in empire-wide cannibalism in humiliating obeisance. I am making a shitload of money off this I don't even need, because half the worlds in my empire are ecumenopoli and I have a Dyson sphere.

The question posed in the thread title probably isn't one I should answer.

My next playthrough is going to be with post-apocalyptic fanatic purifiers!

That sounds great! Is sector management any less terrible now that the game's been out for a couple years?

 

[Majestic_Manatee]

I would gift all the different factions each a separate religious scripture containing conflicting information and rules on how life should be lived if they want the promise of eternal bliss and an easy cure for the fear of mortality. Then I shall watch them fight amongst each other until only the strongest faction remains. Battle Royale! That faction will get a fond pat on the back, a cheap trophy built from used tin foil and a picnic hamper with a card saying "By the way, there was no afterlife and I had no power over you gullible idiots or your lives. It was nevertheless a riveting time. Here's my number. Call me?" Written in a hard to decipher language, theoretically buying me enough time to get as far away as possible.
The last venture did not go as smoothly.

 

[Saint of M]

Conquer their threats, be advanced in development but mindful of the environment. Hook up with a beautiful, intelligent, warrior female. Conquer earth.

 

[Xprimentyl]

I would gift all the different factions each a separate religious scripture containing conflicting information and rules on how life should be lived if they want the promise of eternal bliss and an easy cure for the fear of mortality. Then I shall watch them fight amongst each other until only the strongest faction remains. Battle Royale! That faction will get a fond pat on the back, a cheap trophy built from used tin foil and a picnic hamper with a card saying "By the way, there was no afterlife and I had no power over you gullible idiots or your lives. It was nevertheless a riveting time. Here's my number. Call me?" Written in a hard to decipher language, theoretically buying me enough time to get as far away as possible.
The last venture did not go as smoothly.

Well, save yourself some hassle in the first bit; just release one religious scripture to everyone then let human nature and condition do the heavy lifting developing contrasting ideas from it. Not exactly a new idea, but if it ain?t broke?

 

[Addendum_Forthcoming]

Very badly...


Being realistic, who actually has time for this shit? I barely have the energy to go to my work-study at uni. And it's not as if what I do is all that demanding.

99% of people are unfit to do anything much more than take care of themselves and an immediate circle of friends or family. And even then 'take care' being a quasi-esoteric idea of psychosocial support and environmentally-driven thought dictating personal prosocial activity. Being a leader is hard, and most people are not cut out for it. Most 'leaders' in some form or another, from governments, militaries, corporations, are not cut out to be leaders themselves.

I will say I've met better 'leaders' in the army compared with corporations or goverment bureaucracy, but that's because the military stresses education as to role, and are the closest things to meritocracies we have in our late-stage capitalist world. And most people don't have what it takes to lead others.

Nobody is a born leader, because we're gregarious pack animals that rely on structuralist social supports for everything that we are and do. People who pretend like they're good leaders without any training or real life experience that has cultivated those skills tend to be manipulative arseholes and charlatans whose only real skill and 'leadership' is self-aggrandizement and simply consuming the efforts of others.

Most people can do little more tha uplift themselves.

If humans were a race of creatures with inherent qualities of leadership, we'd already be communists with no desires for prestige consumerist consumption with the rise of the empirical movement, and teachers would be the most celebrated of professionals.

Most humans are so bad at personal qualities of leadership we require uniforms and concrete ranks of social power we simply invest into them a false prestige of importance to tell us whose orders and ideas to follow. Even then we fuck that up by not endeavouring more to invest the right people with those powers.

Most humans are so bad at leadership religion is a thing. Deities from on high that so conveniently exist to excuse one from finding anything else to guide their 'moral' judgments. Religions that fabricate the virtue of being maladaptive, critical of deviance, incapable of recognizing social bonds and statuses that break their preconceptions regardless of how benign and socially liberating they are if made socially acceptable.

Humans are so bad at leadership that 'conservative' is a badge worn with pride in the face of people struggling to find acceptance for no fault of their own, for the 'crime' of thinking they themselves should be the arbiter of their benign social relations.

What makes anyone truly think they are capale of ruling others? Humans are awful at it.