Space now terrifies me

[Internet Kraken]

then you have no imagination and are boring. lame answer. 'nuff said.

Tell that to all the scientists and great thinkers who spend their days trying to come up with theories of what alien life will actually be like when we finally do meet it. I find your shallow mind to be, as you say, "lame".

Notice how your acting superior about something you don't understand. Nobody knows what alien life would be like. We can make, at best, educated guesses about how species would have evolved on other planets. We have no clue about what an intelligent, space-faring species would be like since we have not even reached that level yet. Think about how many different environments there are on earth and how much diversity we see here. Think about what a species could be like if genetic modifications were incredibly common and they had altered themselves to the point where they did not even resemble there original form. Then you need to take into consideration what impact their technology may have had on society.

When you make all of this into consideration, I find you saying something like this;

I find terrifying aliens to be implausible and therefore not compelling. I prefer to think about what aliens might actually be like.

to be laughably absurd.

OT: I find space to be terrifying, but not because of aliens. Frankly I have no idea what another intelligent species would be like. The fear from the scenarios you depicted in the OP don't really stem from the conflict being in space anyways. What I find to be terrifying about space is how empty it is. Think about how freaky isolation can be here on Earth. Now imagine you are in space. You are alone, with nothing around for an incomprehensible amount of distance. You are but a tiny blip in an enormous expanse. A thousand species could comb through space for a thousand years and never even come close to locating you. To be lost in space would mean you are lost forever.

That terrifies me.

More terrifying then aliens our size, what I fear most is "monster of the deep" type scenarios, just like there are potentially massive creatures lurking in the depth of our seas (giant squids are best example, apparently we only found baby ones and they are already the size of buses D, so there might be gigantic (relative to our size) entities who would barely register our spacefaring vessels as more then insects to be consumed for a quick snack (or just ignore us completely, whether they are hostile or not matters little to me).

Kinda like how in the olden times seafaring vessels used to be scared of encountering giant creatures that would sink the boat, that would be my personal fear when traveling into space, crusing along and mapping a new area of space only to realize that the disturbance/absense of reading in a sector of space isn't an anomaly, but a living entity.

That's a pretty big exaggeration. The largest species of squid is not the giant squid, but rather the colossal squid. While scientists still know little about this species, from what has been deduced from pieces of corpses and the few live specimen found have not been as big as bus, and these were mature adults. Though that's not to say there might not be huge creature lurking in the deep. There's a tendency for many species to grow incredibly large compared to their cousins higher up, and with how little we have explored of the deep it's hard to know what might be down there.

Though I don't think you need to worry about something coming up from the deep and killing you. Most creatures down there would die shortly after being brought to the surface.

 

[Agayek]

And there you go. Another part of the galaxy. If even that. Could be another one in our local group, or one much farther out than that. Point is, space is big. Monstrously fucking huge, and the whole speed of light velocity limit means travelling to even the closest planet with intelligent life, unless it's in your solar system, won't be worth the resources, if it's even feasable at all.

The nearest galaxy to us is 2.5 million light years away. Anyone viewing earth from there, with even the most technologically advanced equipment, won't see any evidence of human life for another 2.4 million years.

There actually isn't a limit on velocity. We can travel as fast as we want to. The problem is accelerating enough to reach that speed.

We're actually not that far from effective FTL travel, to be honest. It's not going to happen in my lifetime, and likely not in that of my children, but it will be coming soon enough. What we need to figure out is the fundamentals of gravity (ie, how and why it functions). Once we do that, we'll know how to manipulate space-time and can basically teleport ourselves anywhere we want.

 

[Internet Kraken]

-snip-

No it's not relevant. Stop driving that joke into the ground.

 

[Alphakirby]

-snip-

No it's not relevant. Stop driving that joke into the ground.

I didn't even have enough time to get the joke... T.T
Now it's already dead.
I HATE BEING TOO POOR TO AFFORD VIDEO GAMES!!!!

 

[Nieroshai]

Implausible? How so? There's too much space out there for there not to be intelligent life. What's to say this life isn't the spacefaring fuck up your entire day kind?

What evolutionary imperative promotes the annihilation of random species you know nothing about? You wouldn't eat them, their biology would likely be toxic to you. You wouldn't destroy them for their resources, resources are too abundant in this universe to waste time squabbling over. If the aliens are xenophobic it's much easier to avoid us. If they subscribe to a fascist superiority of their species then they aren't advanced enough to be space faring.

More to the point violent and warlike species will probably blow themselves up long before alien races get the chance.

You say that like intelligence and technological advancement go hand in hand. We still kill, hate, and envy just like we did when all we had was pelts and sharpened sticks. Besides, we got off-topic. The necromorphs and the Aliens xenomorphs use living organisms as part of their reproductive cycles, and are hive-minded parasites. They aren't space-faring in the slightest. In fact, the necromorphic plague in Dead Space originated from a code on a monolith on Earth, so they aren't aliens at all, just transforming zombies.

 

[Treaos Serrare]

the fact that you as a human being, are the size of a pico particle in the grand scheme of the galaxy let alone the universe should terrify you every waking moment of your life

 

[Agayek]

Hollywood has put the image that aliens are out for our brains or resources. Which if they exist is stupid. Any race smart enough for intergalactic travel has obviously no need to do anything evil.
And enslaving is out too cause hey robots man.
So if anything they'd teach us, and befriend us.

Why? What possible reason is there for a race that could exterminate our entire species with minimal effort to teach us enough to pose a plausible threat?

Also, what's cheaper/easier, kidnapping someone and making them your slave or gathering the requisite materials and building your own robot? I guarantee, it's not the robot.

Depending on what kind of materials they need, it's fully possible (and I would say plausible) for an alien race to exterminate us then harvest Earth for its resources. It's basically what the Europeans did to everyone else at one point.

Like gravity. And the speed of light.

Its still going to be pretty much the same shit where ever you go.

The worst thing we could possibly find in space is religion.

The rules behind evolution will be exactly the same. Primarily that those best suited to survive will, and the rest will die.

What the hell does being the best suited to survive in an alien world have anything to do with our experiences on Earth? For all we know, intelligent life could have evolved on Jupiter. We make assumptions based on our experiences on Earth, but there's no reason there couldn't be some kind of silicon-based (possibly even carbon-based) life form that adapted to living under the astronomical pressure at the heart of Jupiter. And we wouldn't recognize it as alive at all.

The point is, just because something evolved one way on Earth is no guarantee it will evolve at all similarly on other planets. Life as we know it is purely that, it does not preclude the existence of additional forms.

 

[Caligulove]

Space has always terrified me. The worst way I can think of dying would just to be thrown out into the vacuum, even if I were in some kind of space suit- my death is inevitable. It's like dying lost out at sea but 100000x more terrifying.

 

[Outright Villainy]

There actually isn't a limit on velocity. We can travel as fast as we want to. The problem is accelerating enough to reach that speed.

Relativistic mechanics would break down at FTL travel; under our current model of (well defined) physics it's expressly forbidden.

 

[Canid117]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gamma-ray_burst
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/gamma/milkyway.html


I'll just post these here to terrify all who pass and understand.

And also to display how lonely we are. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drake_equation]

 

[kingpocky]

Also, resources that are right here are infinitely more valuable than resources on the other side of the universe. That's plenty of reason for an alien fleet in the Solar system to murder all of humanity.

Of course, with the vastness of space there's no good reason for them to be right here unless they are here specifically to see us.

 

[Raesvelg]

In terms of alien life, there are three rules to go by. I originally came across these rules in a book called "The Killing Star", by Charles Pellegrino and George Zebrowski, and I find that they are probably, all things considered, about as good a guide to go by as you're going to find. Ever.

Rule #1: Wimps don't become top dogs. Any species that has risen to dominate its home planet will be intelligent, aggressive, and ruthless when necessary.

Rule #2: Their survival will be more important to them than our survival. If they have to choose between them and us, they will NOT be choosing us.

Rule #3: They will assume the first two rules apply to us.

 

[ediblemitten]

The second you talk about alien galaxies you must immediately consider the fact that likely EVERYTHING (besides basic fundamental rules of physics) is wildly different. You can't make any assumptions about any forms of government, or society, or racism, or anything, simply because you have an earth bias. Things could be radically different for another civilization.

 

[viking97]

Aliens that terrify me most? The bigger Flood forms and necromorphs are already pretty nasty, but what truly scares the pants off me are the little infector-type aliens - you know, the ones that are basically independent penises with 'brutal and fatal rape' as the standard pre-programmed setting. Xenomorph facehuggers, those little Flood buggers, that necromorph thing that looks like a flying vagina with a protruding spike, what have you...

what about head-crabs? if my understanding is correct, they basically replace your brain and mutate you a whole bunch!

i personally found IT to be a relatively unfrightening movie, but the one scene where everyone is tied up, and he is individually testing their blood, scared me a bunch. anybody could be the creature, you can't trust anyone.

 

[Popido]

Hollywood has put the image that aliens are out for our brains or resources. Which if they exist is stupid. Any race smart enough for intergalactic travel has obviously no need to do anything evil.
And enslaving is out too cause hey robots man.
So if anything they'd teach us, and befriend us.

Why? What possible reason is there for a race that could exterminate our entire species with minimal effort to teach us enough to pose a plausible threat?

Religion. To teach us for no reason and to destroy us without any reason.

The rules behind evolution will be exactly the same. Primarily that those best suited to survive will, and the rest will die.

Enough said.

I dont expect to find monkies at the moon. Life itself seems to be more of an computer/machine to me, so im not finding the fleshy breathing as a basic formula for lifeforms either. Just whatever works at that place is fine.

 

[Wicky_42]

But the idea of a xenomorph style alien is still plausible. It is a parasitic being that evolved by living off of other creatures. Who's to say some spacefaring race doesn't stumble accross it's home planet and unknowingly take it away with them?

One thing about the Aliens xenos is that they are probably an artificial species developed as a weapon - and once you throw that into the mix the potential for hostile and dangerous aliens increases exponentially. Remnant automatic weapons are a recurring theme in Sci-fi - doomsday weapons the makers never turned off, automated defence sats for species long-extinct, militarised viruses or bacteria waiting for victims to disturb them, homicidal AIs calculating extermination of lives, killing machines - organic or mechanical - wielding weaponry and technology potentially limitless in variety and scope, or even a full-on slumbering race of galactic conquers waiting for some bumbling red-shirt to hit the big red button and unleash carnage. There's a heck of a lot of potential bad right there without even touching on active species being hostile ^_^

That said, we really ought to get exploring sometime soon, get colonising, get asteroid mining, cos otherwise we're condemned to a slow death here, things continue as they are. On the plus side, I saw somewhere today that NASA's looking at using photon drives for launches from the surface. That's pretty fucking sci-fi

 

[Agayek]

Of course, with the vastness of space there's no good reason for them to be right here unless they are here specifically to see us.

Or they could, you know, be on their way somewhere else and happen to stumble across us. Or maybe they just lost a fight and had to run away in some random direction.

Or maybe they specifically sought us out to murder us all.

There's an infinite number of possible reasons for an alien race to be here, the majority of which are pure coincidence and/or happenstance.

Why? What possible reason is there for a race that could exterminate our entire species with minimal effort to teach us enough to pose a plausible threat?

Religion. To teach us for no reason and to destroy us without any reason.

Fair enough. The religious mind does not subscribe to logic.

 

[kingpocky]

Of course, with the vastness of space there's no good reason for them to be right here unless they are here specifically to see us.

Or they could, you know, be on their way somewhere else and happen to stumble across us. Or maybe they just lost a fight and had to run away in some random direction.

Or maybe they specifically sought us out to murder us all.

There's an infinite number of possible reasons for an alien race to be here, the majority of which are pure coincidence and/or happenstance.

We're just a needle in a haystack, although the haystack is the size of a large country. Just happening to come across us is about as improbable as all the water molecules in your swimming pool evaporating at the same time (OK, that's an exaggeration, but they're both unlikely enough that they don't even register on the scale of what is comprehensible to humans.)

It's plausible that they would be here specifically to murder us though. They could also decide to study us or peacefully contact us though, depending on what their culture is, which we can't really know anything about.

 

[Darks63]

Stuff like rogue stars and rogue blackholes should scare you more than possible aliens.

 

[Singularly Datarific]

The way I see it: If there is an infested space station with no hope of finding survivors- big whoop! The damn thing's in SPACE! How the hell is a malicious xenomorph going to get off of it?! Remotely vent the atmosphere, send whatever survives into reentry with a push from the thrusters, and you've solved your little bug problem.