What If Aliens Came To Save the Galaxy From Mankind? 534
astroengine writes with an amusing piece in Discovery. From the article: "In a study carried out by NASA and Pennsylvania State University scientists, several intelligent extraterrestrial encounter scenarios are examined. One of the scenarios is a sci-fi favorite: what if we encounter an alien race hellbent on destroying us? However, there's a twist. This isn't mindless thuggery on behalf of the aliens, and they're not killing us to get at our natural resources; they have a cause. They want to exterminate us for the greater good of the Milky Way."
It's our own damn fault (Score:5, Funny)
We could always have voiced our objections against the interstellar express route.
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But we'd need manned space flight for that. NASA isn't doing much to help us here, our best hope is SETI finding Beeblebrox in time.
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Hey, I didn't make the rules, bureaucracy applies to everyone equally. If humankind can't be assed to leave its planet, it's not the fault of the intergalactic bureaucratic agency.
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Re:It's our own damn fault (Score:5, Insightful)
For less than 3% of the current US defense budget, you could FULLY FUND NASA!!
Why the HELL is NASA always the FIRST thing talked about when cutting, and Defense always the LAST.
Or Defense budget is OBSCENE.
I refuse to acknowledge anyone who is "fiscally conservative" who's first priority is not cutting the Defense budget.
I'm looking at you tea party!!
Re:It's our own damn fault (Score:5, Insightful)
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Actually first on the block should be foreign aid. Then I would agree with cutting defense as well as any and every other program out there with NO exceptions.
Better yet. Cut farmers'subsidies. Then foreign farmers won't have to compete with artificially cheap USA/EU food (even in their local markets). Then foreign help will be not so necessary and you probably can cut it, too. And probably there will be less for bases everywhere and you can cut Defense spending!!.
Re:It's our own damn fault (Score:5, Insightful)
As good as it feels to hate farm subsidies, they do serve a halfway useful purpose -- they basically eliminate famine and domestic shortage in exchange for higher total costs the other 95% of the time. Seriously... when's the last time you *ever* heard the word "famine" used in the context of "United States" or "Post-WWII non-Soviet-Bloc Europe"? If farmers operated purely without subsidy in a profit-maximizing way, they'd simply risk a bad food-free year every 10-20 years in exchange for .73% higher profits the next quarter. If one or two farmers did it, nobody would notice. If the American Agribusiness Industry acted like California's power-generation and transmission industry, we'd have a domestic crisis every time locusts descended upon Arkansas or Kansas (or at least poorer countries would, because the US would buy up most of their food).
Subsidizing dead industries is a bad thing, but there's a lot to be said for year-to-year stability as well. Would anybody who's sane *really* choose to save 1.9% per year in the long (25+ year horizon) run on groceries if it meant that prices at the store could soar overnight without warning, even if it meant that next year the same goods might be selling for pennies on the dollar? People have better things to do than spend their days researching prices and plan their purchase strategies for things they use daily at spot-market prices.
The reason for subsidies is simple -- it encourages farmers to plant enough to guarantee abundance under nearly any likely scenario, without leaving them trying to sell those same crops during a "good" year for less than they would have made by simply investing the season's crop capital in 6-month CDs and going on vacation somewhere. Gratuitous waste sucks, but shortage & famine is much, much worse.
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That's an interesting point that I hadn't considered. Thanks!
Re:It's our own damn fault (Score:5, Insightful)
Foreign aid is a tiny sneeze compared to military spending when you factor in pensions. Cutting military spending now is the key to cutting pension spending later, provided the cost cutting is accompanied by force reduction and not just compromising quality.
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A lot of our foreign aid is actually homeland security driven, and is something promoted and voted for more by the conservative side of the congress.
Take the whole area around Columbia, for example. The DEA provides drug interdiction helicopters to destroy Cocaine crops. This gives Columbia whole squadrons of assault helicopters, and the people who fly them become some of Columbia's best trained and 'well-bloodied' troops from actual under fire experience. T
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An anwer of "Cut foreign aid" is usually the first sign someone doesn't have a very good grasp of just where our budget goes:
http://www.worldpublicopinion.org/pipa/articles/brunitedstatescanadara/670.php [worldpublicopinion.org]
Asked to estimate how much of the federal budget goes to foreign aid the median estimate is 25 percent. Asked how much they thought would be an "appropriate" percentage the median response is 10 percent.
In fact just 1 percent of the federal budget goes to foreign aid.
In terms of percent GDP, the U.S. is already among the more miserly of the developed nations. And don't forget, giving foreign aid is not done simply for humanitarian feel-good reasons. It is often done to secure political and military co-operation from third world nations.
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Hell, I'd be happy if our defense budget was actually spent on our defense, and not proxy wars on behalf of international corporations.
If Big Oil wants to secure oil reserves in countries hostile to the US they should hire their own army of mercenaries and pay for it themselves.
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For less than 3% of the current US defense budget, you could FULLY FUND NASA!!
Why the HELL is NASA always the FIRST thing talked about when cutting, and Defense always the LAST.
/quote>
What is even worse is that since 1958-2010 NASA only spent $471.23 billion and the defense budget in 2010 was $685.1 billion.
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It is an offense or attack budget. We have nothing to defend against.
Re:It's our own damn fault (Score:4, Funny)
*For less than 3% of the current US defense budget, you could FULLY FUND NASA!!
Why the HELL is NASA always the FIRST thing talked about when cutting, and Defense always the LAST.*
Because they didn't find oil in space ?
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Uh, I'd rather have to rest on, "we're doing better than Chad" for an argument.
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We're no danger to the Galaxy... (Score:5, Insightful)
At our technological level, we pose no danger to anything off this planet.
It would be like saying you'll sterilize a grain of sand to protect the planet.
Such a silly scenario...
If we ever develop interstellar travel that is fast, cheap and practical, maybe then this scenario starts to have legs.
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If they've been travelling around the place, they'll have worked out infection vectors long ago, and most likely be perfectly at home wiping out anything that would cause undue harm to their physiology.
With you on the "What could we do" part.. Read Greg Bear's "Forge of God" for a pretty good view of what an encounter would be like.
Re:We're no danger to the Galaxy... (Score:4, Insightful)
Anyone who has mastered FTL travel will be impossible to stop. They could bounce around us whenever we got close enough to engage.
If they've mastered accelerating physical objects to even a significant fraction of c, then they could wipe us out before we even know about them just by slamming an object (any object) into any point on the earth.
So preparing for a future hostile encounter with aliens where they don't care about our resources or ourselves is pointless. The fight will be over before we've realized it's begun.
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and an "out of the sun" trajectory so we have no idea what's coming.
And that's only if they're feeling generous. They could go all SAW *number whatever* on us and make sure we're fully aware of what's coming for the extra wailing and gnashing of teeth.
*shudder* Okay, I just creeped myself the hell out.
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Nah, somebody watched "The Day the Earth Stood Still" when they were a kid. So I figure if they show up, we just say Klaatu barado nikto and all will be fine.
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Speaking of which, this is a video everyone should watch: George Carlin on saving the planet [youtube.com]
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I don't know that our species is smart enough for space travel....and we do not appear to be getting smarter. It is more likely that we are invaded because other planets are sick of watching our reality TV broadcasts.
We have the Greenpeace idiots, which seem to care more about the planet than our species and individuals.
I just have to say that this seems an odd s
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Re:We're no danger to the Galaxy... (Score:4, Informative)
It's a perfectly normal pattern of behaviour for a species to exhibit, especially an apex predator like mankind.
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Spoken like a true primative unaware @Ffnnllij$##*!. The environmental damage you are causing to @Ffnnllij$##*! is atrocious beyond imagining. Just because you are a developing planet does not excuse your crimes against sentience, non-sentience living and even common quarks. Human, you disgust me worse than the acts of Grivaloud the Liatonajikirous.
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LHC micro black holes (Score:2)
What about those massive black holes that will suck up the entire universe, caused by the LHC?
Micro black holes created by the LHC may be "massive" in that they have rest mass, but they're not "massive" in the sense of sticking around very long before evaporating into Hawking radiation. See the scientific consensus [wikipedia.org].
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Re:We're no danger to the Galaxy... (Score:4, Interesting)
Why the heck is it so popular nowadays for many humans to be so anti-human?
The goal of EVERY species on this planet is its continued survival, us included. Of course, not all species succeed.
WE are only species on the planet uniquely equipped to have even a chance of surviving the inevitable destruction of the Earth. Hell, we would undoubtedly save a few other species while we're at it.
I just don't get this "HUMANS BAD" crap that so many are spewing.
Golden path anyone???
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We might master the atom and fire, but we're still stupid beasts when it comes down to it, as our lifestyle clearly shows. We're still driven by basic animal urges, we just apply them to different things.
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I didn't say environmentalism was the problem, it's the sociopaths hanging off the bottom of it that are the problem.
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On one hand I agree, but on the other I think that's also extrapolating a bit too much of our way of thinking onto an alien species. To us, that kind of future might feel very distant and not in any way written in stone. But a species with a far longer lifespan, or one which doesn't even experience age related death anymore, might not look at things within the same timeframe. And what seems like free will and complex choices in social development to us might seem like little more than easily predictable bli
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They are worried about all the bugs that we send out into space on our probes. The bugs arriving at a different planet will have no natural enemies and can procreate freely and outcompete local life.
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Depends on what you mean by danger. Physical threat, probably not, but what about ideas? Religions, for example...
Yeah. Aliens are dying by the millions because they can't stop laughing so hard that they can't breath and asfixiate themselves.
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Jesus, just what we don't need - an interstellar version of Sarah Palin.
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At our technological level, we pose no danger to anything off this planet.
It would be like saying you'll sterilize a grain of sand to protect the planet.
Such a silly scenario...
If we ever develop interstellar travel that is fast, cheap and practical, maybe then this scenario starts to have legs.
We've made huge strides in the past hundred years, going from first flight to the moon, and we could have gone to mars already if we had the financial means. When you look at the 200,000 year timeline of humans 100 years is just the last little speck, so if I was an alien race looking at man I'd be thinking "WTF they already made it to their nearest moon?! Ok we better do something, no telling where they'll be in another speck or two."
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Our advance rate has improved because we are in a point where the new technology obtained by investigation ease further investigation. Since an alien race technologically superior enough that can attack us will presumibly have the same technology and better, it is not risky to think that their rate of improvement is also equal or superior.
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In something like David Brin's Uplift universe, pre-sapient species (chimpanzees, dolphins, gorillas) are protected at all costs, as they represent the future species that can be developed into the galaxy's next generation of sentient life. A species like ours that has greatly depleted them - and hasn't really done much in the way of technological or social progress (from the view of a spacefaring race) with our intelligent might be considered a lost cause, and could be wiped out to give room for our plane
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Privateers? You mean private enterprises, right?
'Cause I think we could use privateers in space. Arrrr. With me letters of reprisals and letters of marque, I shall cruise the interstellar shipping routes of my nation's enemies in search of plundar.
Re:We're no danger to the Galaxy... (Score:4, Insightful)
So if we start spreading to other worlds, then a spacefaring race that by definition would have spread to other worlds would come to kill us for our spreading to other worlds.
As noble as everyone is trying to make the aliens case sound, it would be as wrong as any other mass genocide has been.
The case of killing us because we're in their way I can understand.
The case of killing us because its a noble thing to do is total bullshit.
Been done (Score:3)
Alastair Reynolds explores this scenario in his Revelation Space series. The inhibitors come to eat anyone that progresses too far to keep a greater threat in check (IIRC).
Fantastic space opera, if you haven't read them yet.
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Also many times in Star Trek, especially in Enterprise when both Xindi and Romulans try to prevent the forming of the Federation.
More hubris (Score:2)
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And how the hell can we affect the entire Milky Way?
Unless the "aliens" are sick of our TV and Radio broadcasts.
Though, that would require the aliens planet to be within 100 light years, which is improbable.
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And how the hell can we affect the entire Milky Way?
Unless the "aliens" are sick of our TV and Radio broadcasts. Though, that would require the aliens planet to be within 100 light years, which is improbable.
Well, I think is too late already.
TFS:
Of course, ETI might just be an aggressive race, so like Stephen Hawking's recent warning, the authors of the study suggest that perhaps we shouldn't transmit too much information into space.
As I said, is too late; even FBI can't help itself to keep quiet [slashdot.org]
On the "bright side": with such a scenario, who the hell will need terrorists to keep the populace in check?
twist? (Score:3)
I thought that was a staple scenario in its entirety. I saw The Day the Earth Stood Still [imdb.com] (both of them [imdb.com]) where the aliens come to say "yo, we've come to save the earth. From you losers".
One twist is where the aliens think they need to save the earth from us, but really we're the good guys in a galactic conspiracy (or bureaucracy), like David Brin's Uplift trilogy [wikipedia.org].
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Arthur C Clarke's more interesting scenario (Score:2)
'Childhood's End' is a book with a superb scenario, without the imagination-less superimposing of human ideas, methods and motivations onto ETs, who, by the way, absolutely must exist, and who do come here regularly.
After decades of writing, speculation, insights and research devoted to this subject, the usual suspects keep coming up with the same tired ideas and human centered dogma. There is a reason for this; they are all paid no matter what the quality of their ideas is, because none of them can be impl
What if? (Score:2)
Aliens where popsicles?
Ffs.
Stuff that matters?
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LOL. Straight to the issue.
What puzzless me more is that obsession with aliens being human-like enough that we can identify their reasoning as we do with people of our species. People has no imagination and things of aliens in human terms: childs (ET), mongol invaders (Independence day, savage animals (Alien), psychos (Predator)...). Really different aliens are not so "popular", because there is less you can write about them (the alien from Dark Star, or many of the aliens from Stanislaw Lem novels).
what's pollution to them? (Score:2)
what's pollution to them? maybe they'd think were actually terraforming since human population is on the rise and will remain at high levels even if all borders were closed and all hell broke loose - as information on how to make food is spread now to every corner of the earth, even if things went bad we would have that know how and steel to make instruments out of, better than ever before.
the article takes the assumption that the human race is sinful and presents that as not just global but as an universal
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What we are to aliens is what ants are to us. We can study, occassionally put a stick or a bait into the stack and watch what happens.
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"From what we've seen of the alien planet, the dominant species is working furiously to increase the temperature of the atmosphere, CO2 levels have risen sharply over the last 200-300 years, not long before we were able to pick up faint traces of unnatural radio transmissions from the area. We can only assume that they're an invading species terraforming the planet, and with no other inhabited planets in sight, we must assume their interstellar travel capabilities (and other technology) are far beyond our c
And they did this... why? (Score:2)
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Forget that. Go to the Ender books and see what happens when an alien species decides to terraform with a virus. Or look at Fallen Dragon, and Gamma Soak. But what we really should be considering is what cultural model would an alien race _have_ to be in order to achieve interstellar travel.
The only reason we haven't got colony ships and space stations is because of money, and the desire to do it. Remove money/funding from the equation, and give a suitable motivation and you can 'bootstrap' yourself like in
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Go to the Ender books and see what happens when an alien species decides to terraform with a virus
If that Ender sent us history books from the future I think we have nothing to worry about, we've got a nice dude on our side
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What is with the Ender's books? I heard of it so I read the first one. It is just like a bad high school movie (shy young boy who has a glorious fate, who is a do-gooder but kills whoever gets in his path because he is "forced to do", and who becomes a world hero by playing video games and not risking anything). I realize it is ideal for nerdsturbation and nerdgasms, but didn't think that alone was enough to suppress critical thinking of so many people.
Gone straight to plaid, right past ludicrous (Score:2, Insightful)
really, the global warming scare factory blew right past hyperactive speed and went straight to plaid.
It is crap like this that makes it hard for many to believe there are is any seriousness in the global warming let alone man causing it or making it worse. I cringed while reading this article. I am not sure if its more of a creepy cringe or just offensive to real thinking
Its time to get the zealots out of the lead roles, they are no more than Bible thumping tent preachers, whats next, snakes?
What bilge (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:What bilge (Score:5, Insightful)
"The perfect storm of magical thinking and self hatred."
Religion called, citing prior art.
Aliens have no free will (Score:3, Interesting)
We fight, of course (Score:2)
"We must meet this threat with our courage, our valor, indeed with our very lives to ensure that human civilization, not insect, dominates this galaxy *now and always*!"
- Sky Marshal Dienes
A 50's Movie (Score:2)
"You know what Earth? We screwed up last time. Say goodbye to all of this...and hello to oblivion."
"Hello Oblivion, how's the wife and kids."
Remember what the term "scientist" used to mean? (Score:2, Insightful)
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Ahem [wikimedia.org].
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I would be hard pressed to come up with a repeatable experiment th
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I am going to be the devils'advocate and suppose that it is just the media spin; after all one guy can be an scientific from 8 to 5 and then go to the bar and speculate about what colour ET's underwear was. As long as they did not claim that they were doing something more than "wildly speculating", it is not so grave.
Anyway, the part (media or participants) who put the enfasis in the science aspect should be feathered, to begin with.
and nothing of value would be lost (Score:3)
the paper describes plenty of contact scenarios, but I like the cherry-picking: only doomsday references are TFS-worthy
Maybe they simply destroy our economy (Score:2)
Just enough to make space travel impractical.
After all, if they are bent on saving the galaxy, this would imply they are peaceful. So rather than nuke us or harvest us for our brains, they simply cause the market to crash.
Seems like a more "humane" course of action to me.
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Re:Maybe they simply destroy our economy
..by lending us a few trillion dollars and then stopping new loans completely plus demanding payments for the old ones?
Nasty bastards those aliens.
No need to worry really ... (Score:2)
we will have exterminated most of ourselves long before we will find find (if at all) the technical ability to get even close to harming any planet other than our own.
If there are aliens and if they are intelligent they probably know that already.
So the only threat we could face is aliens who want to exterminate us for the sheer fun of doing it.
Believe it or not... (Score:2)
This is actually the plot of Plan 9 From Outerspace!
IIRC, the aliens are trying to eliminate the human race because they have developed a weapon of ultimate destruction and threaten the entire galaxy.
Or it might just be an example of bad film... :)
Greg Egan: Quarantine (Score:2)
This is why people don't give NASA enough support. (Score:2)
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Given it wasn't funded by NASA, and wasn't done by NASA, and NASA has no involvement at all. What do you propose NASA do about it?
Ban everyone who is affiliated with NASA from human contact outside of work?
Is this a joke? (Score:3)
This is either a joke or an elaborate ruse by the Tea Party to visually demonstrate government waste...
Highly unlikely (Score:2)
I can't imagine any intelligent lifeforms being unable to see that we're never getting off this planet and will either off ourselves, or sit idly by and let a rogue chunk of rock do the job. Now, if the aliens' leader claimed there were Weapons of Mass Destruction on our planet, that's another story.
It's already happened. (Score:5, Funny)
Aliens did land here to destroy us, but they were small and insect like and the bug exterminator guy killed their entire galactic fleet, thinking they were some "weirdo bug infestation". A second attempt was tried by another species, and aquatic one, but it got ate by sharks. A third one came, land based and they were bigger, but were ate by the wild life. A fourth came and the RF that we are immune to quickly burned out their brains, and they too were ate by wild life.
A mechanical race came and was destroyed by a thunderstorm, when a bolt of lightning struck their ship and it exploded. Of course there have been several small missions which end up in races being consumed by just the biological aspects of our planet. Germs, viruses, and an assortment of microbes tend to make short work of them if they don't use the proper environmental protocols.
Not to mention we are a biological weapon to 99.9999999% of the species in the known universe. Many in the galaxy speculate that the "creator" an extra dimensional entity that instilled the creation codes, was being some kind of a dickhead when he instilled the planetary creation code for this planet. Many speculate and fear that we are doomsday weapon made by said "creator", some want to destroy us, others think we have some special link with the "creator" and should just stay away at least.
Considering we breath poisoned gas, we are mostly water, which is a universal solvent that eats through many species on contact. We live near oceans of water which scare most species. We are larger than most species by far and are physically more capable. We have lived in a constant state of war with each other since before our history, hence we are really good at it and durable, some how we fight each other so hard, yet our species is over populated. Which is a terrifying aspect of us, we breed so fast compared to most species.
Most species pray that we will just kill ourselves off. Others are convinced we will achieve the technology to travel about the universe, hence over running it in a matter of eons. But it's galactic law that nobody gives us any aid, and any species that tries to cultivate us is punished. Often rich juveniles from a species will buzz Planet Earth to impress a mate or mates, only to get shot down, spotted or crash; many escape, but its still risky behavior that if caught gets severe punishments.
Mostly we are immune to solar radiation, in fact we bath in it to get a tan. Our Sun puts out enough EMP to burn up the nervous system of some delicate species before they even get near Earth. Our skin though we think it's thin in contrast to some of the beasts of the planet, is incredible to most species. It's chemical resistant, radiation resistant, and waterproof which baffles everyone. Shooting an Earthling with an alien water cannon only amuses them. They in fact stole several water cannons and reproduce them as toys under the "Super Soaker" line. An Earthling child with a water gun chills the bones of the hardiest of galactic warriors.
Lastly, what we can eat is frightening as well. What we eat and drink frightens most species away alone. Most of them would be on our dinner plate, as a delicacy. Not to mention our waste byproducts are the most foul bits of toxic waste in the universe. They have watched us poke and prod everything on our planet and try to eat it. We have even ate each other, which is a horror that most minds can't comprehend in the universe. Not to mention we skin other species and wear them as clothes and trophies.
Then some have tried to understand us, they have figured out that TV is some form of entertainment to us, not educational, not some history archive. This process drove many species insane. One species was found in some insane collective nightmare after watching Gilligan's Island episodes, they fell into some logic loop and have been catatonic as a species ever since. They have concluded that we as a species are quite insane and it's illegal to attempt to figure us out psychologically.
Its now
Simple (Score:3)
what if we encounter an alien race hellbent on destroying us?
We die.
Seriously, if they can get here we are no threat to them. If they can get here, then they can send a rock big enough for an extinction event.
While alien troops landing, an aircraft battle are fun to watch, there the worst way for a space faring race to destroy the life on a planet.
But again, If there is a galactic civilization, we aren't a threat to them anymore then a primitive tribe of people in the tropical rain forest is a threat to Canada.
If they did show up, our only logic repsonse "You want us to stop doing 'X'? OK."
*CORRECTION* Not funded by NASA (Score:3)
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It already happened - God arrived ...
but humanity lately is turning out to be a bit of a lost cause!
Indeed [venganza.org].
With MAFIAA so dead-set on pirates, no wonder the global warming [wikipedia.org]. But I think FSM still loves us.
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I for one welcome our Snooki eradicating overlords.
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Read the Conqueror [amazon.com] trilogy.
Plan 9 (Score:2)
And of Plan 9 From Outerspace, and The Day The Earth Stood Still.
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You must have flown in from 4chan...
(hides from flamethrower)
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They are the dolphins.
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