If Hostile Alien/Extraterestrial exist. Are We Ready to defend ourselves?

Originally posted by Mindship
Starflight, especially FTL, is going to require such extraordinary technology, that by the time we have it we will likely have become unimaginably advanced in other areas as well, eg, medical, nano, AI, etc. I can't imagine that an FTL race would send down its people prior to a thorough evaluation of our environment--indeed, they would make such an eval before they even set off for our world: very soon (next 50 yrs, if not less) we will be able to detect specifics about extrasolar worlds, eg, atmospheric composition, and from there infer details about that planet's biosphere. And they won't have to send down troops: they could send robots, nanoscale to megascale. I mean, the options available to a civilization capable of FTL starflight, IMO, are just too many to even enumerate.

The best comparison I can think of is: imagine an aircraft carrier sending out UAVs for multipurpose operations against islands whose inhabitants' best weapons are bows and arrows.

I really don't see any contest here.

i don't agree with that idea. even for us there are things that we are incredibly advanced in, while we're lacking in other areas. if you went 200 years back in time and told someone that we have created transportation that can take fly and move four times faster than the sound of your voice can reach their ear, and then in the same breath tell that person that every year a million people die from cancer, theyd laugh in your face. "surely," they'd say, "surely, if your society is so incredibly advanced that you can achieve faster than sound speeds, then surely you've designed a full-proof cure to cancer and most sicknesses?!" now, im sure you can list a hundred and one reasons for why we haven't created a full proof cure for cancer yet, but it doesnt matter. the point is that not all aspects of science grow evenly. the implication that FTL travel=bullet phasing shields+ultra bacterial adapters is crazy speculative.

Originally posted by AthenasTrgrFngr
i don't agree with that idea. even for us there are things that we are incredibly advanced in, while we're lacking in other areas. if you went 200 years back in time and told someone that we have created transportation that can take fly and move four times faster than the sound of your voice can reach their ear, and then in the same breath tell that person that every year a million people die from cancer, theyd laugh in your face. "surely," they'd say, "surely, if your society is so incredibly advanced that you can achieve faster than sound speeds, then surely you've designed a full-proof cure to cancer and most sicknesses?!" now, im sure you can list a hundred and one reasons for why we haven't created a full proof cure for cancer yet, but it doesnt matter. the point is that not all aspects of science grow evenly. the implication that FTL travel=bullet phasing shields+ultra bacterial adapters is crazy speculative.

yes, but FTL has military applications itself that would unbalance any conflict.

any dogfights between earth and alien ships might as well be between an aircraft carrier and a rubber dingy

launching even garbage through a FTL cannon would cause more damage to Earth's defense infrastructure than nuclear arms.

Not to mention the range that such a cannon would have

i know, i addressed that earlier 😛

my bad

dont feel bad, im just making stuff up as i go

tends to work for me 😉

Originally posted by inimalist
I don't know

I think you would have to be arguing that the aliens would have never looked for the military applications of whatever technology they did have.

For instance, in the rocket example you describe, you have also described interplanetary missiles.

For a "hostile" alien race to have not even considered the military applications of the technology they invented for other purposes almost poses an inherent contradiction to the OP, these aren't explorers or the "bug" species from SC or Alien, the OP insinuates this is an intelligent species looking to exploit Earth's resources. From this alone, we can insinuate that they are at a certain level of industrialization.

Neither hostility nor desire for resources implies industrialization. All living things can be seen as having those qualities.

But we can also have a technological species that can't really beat us. A very patient, long lived race on a low gravity, low resource planet could develop a weak rocket engine and some life support technology. They could easily be in space before they even have computers, especially if their patience means they take a long time to see the need for faster ways to compute things.

Now if we assume a traditional sci-fi alien empire, sure we all die. But that's sort of like asking what would happen if we were invaded by wizards.

Originally posted by inimalist
launching even garbage through a FTL cannon would cause more damage to Earth's defense infrastructure than nuclear arms.

Are we sure of that? The object's kinetic energy would either be imaginary, in which case we don't really know the effect, or infinite, in which case the weapon would destroy the universe the first time it was fired.

Originally posted by inimalist
Not to mention the range that such a cannon would have

Um... exactly the same as a normal cannon?

Originally posted by AthenasTrgrFngr
i don't agree with that idea. even for us there are things that we are incredibly advanced in, while we're lacking in other areas. if you went 200 years back in time and told someone that we have created transportation that can take fly and move four times faster than the sound of your voice can reach their ear, and then in the same breath tell that person that every year a million people die from cancer, theyd laugh in your face. "surely," they'd say, "surely, if your society is so incredibly advanced that you can achieve faster than sound speeds, then surely you've designed a full-proof cure to cancer and most sicknesses?!" now, im sure you can list a hundred and one reasons for why we haven't created a full proof cure for cancer yet, but it doesnt matter. the point is that not all aspects of science grow evenly. the implication that FTL travel=bullet phasing shields+ultra bacterial adapters is crazy speculative.

I agree very much that not all aspects of science grow evenly. That was my point too, actually, but coming from the opposite direction. My feeling is, interstellar propulsion will lag behind most other areas if only because FTL theoretically requires unimaginably immense power sources (there is a much larger difference between, say, genetic manipulation or communication technology today and genetic/communication technology 50 years ago than there is a difference between spacecraft propulsion today and spacecraft propulsion 50 years ago). I can only imagine what energy like that would do in weapon form, or their robotics or bioweaponry...

(I'm pressing this only because after observing inimalist's and Digi's mind-numbing debate in another thread, I'm feeling like I want one too, and unfortunately this is the best I can muster. 😕 )

Originally posted by Rogue Jedi
So did Bill Pullman.

I believe it is safe to say that the invading aliens behave similar to virus.
These invading aliens go from planet to planet to take all the resources and occupy the planet for centuries and after the hostile aliens got all the resources (water, metals, recorded videos of how the war take place, samples of human dna and animals [to be stored in their archives/lab as their specimen]) then and only then they can destroy the baren planet.

Also let us assume that the UFO's that we are seeing right now are their probes studying us. (some accounts of UFO's are said to be piloted by aliens according to history channel)

Edit: took the time to read all posts. My feeble mind is blown away by your opinion

Originally posted by Symmetric Chaos
Neither hostility nor desire for resources implies industrialization. All living things can be seen as having those qualities.

But we can also have a technological species that can't really beat us. A very patient, long lived race on a low gravity, low resource planet could develop a weak rocket engine and some life support technology. They could easily be in space before they even have computers, especially if their patience means they take a long time to see the need for faster ways to compute things.

Now if we assume a traditional sci-fi alien empire, sure we all die. But that's sort of like asking what would happen if we were invaded by wizards.

Are we sure of that? The object's kinetic energy would either be imaginary, in which case we don't really know the effect, or infinite, in which case the weapon would destroy the universe the first time it was fired.

Um... exactly the same as a normal cannon?

lol

no, you are totally right

I just think it is hard to come up with a reason that a supposedly hostile species with the cognisense to know it needs to seek out resourses, has never considered military applications of its technology.

if we are able to kill one of them, we would take their weapons, study it and use it against them (but we cant mass produce it in such a short period of time or during the human vs alien war, should we win against them only then we can replicate/mass produce their weapons)

Originally posted by StarCraft2
These invading aliens go from planet to planet to take all the resources and occupy the planet for centuries and after the hostile aliens got all the resources (water, metals, recorded videos of how the war take place, samples of human dna and animals [to be stored in their archives/lab as their specimen]) then and only then they can destroy the baren planet.

Also let us assume that the UFO's that we are seeing right now are their probes studying us.

Originally posted by StarCraft2
I believe it is safe to say that the invading aliens behave similar to virus.
These invading aliens go from planet to planet to take all the resources and occupy the planet for centuries and after the hostile aliens got all the resources (water, metals, recorded videos of how the war take place, samples of human dna and animals [to be stored in their archives/lab as their specimen]) then and only then they can destroy the baren planet.

Also let us assume that the UFO's that we are seeing right now are their probes studying us. (some accounts of UFO's are said to be piloted by aliens according to history channel)

So they're technologically above us, probably. Certainly they have extremely fast, highly maneuverable probes that are invisible to any method of identification other than being spotted visually. With that capability it would be difficult for them to lose the war.

We can put this in more obvious terms. Imagine the damage that could be done by terrorists with an invisible bomb. Now imagine they could also instantly place that bomb anywhere they want and that they had hundreds of them.

Pretty bad, eh?

There's also some numbers we can look at.

The highest speed I can find for a UFO in the atmosphere after a few seconds on Google is 340,000 kph. Let's say it's tiny, the size of a modern UAV and with similar weight.

900 kg * 340000 kph = 8x10^12 joules.

Or freindly neighborhood Boom Table suggests that if these things choose to crash they've blow themselves apart with far more power than any non-nuclear weapon we have.

And remember, those aren't weapons, just probes.

so its pretty much boils down who has the better tech.

and yes this thread as i said on the first post. inspired by independence day.

Originally posted by StarCraft2
so its pretty much boils down who has the better tech.

and yes this thread as i said on the first post. inspired by independence day.

well, yes

if there is such a huge difference in technology that any of our weapons would be useless, then yes, technology is probably the most important factor.

The aliens in independence day were really stupid.

Originally posted by inimalist
The aliens in independence day were really stupid.

Surely I hope our military leaders are not using movies, TV shows and games as examples of what a real invasion would be like, expecting that human ingenuity will save the day. In that vein, War of the Worlds was more realistic in that mankind was helpless from start to finish. In WOTW, the aliens were stupid in another way: not studying--hell, apparently not even anticipating--microbial life (we showed better awareness just in going to the moon: having our 'nauts quarentined when they came back, just in case, even though everything we know about the moon today still suggests it is a dead place).

At least the 1953 Martians had some excuse: they were first arriving on Earth at invasion time. The 2005 "Martians" had their machines here for god-knows-how-long.

2001: a space oddessy probably shows the best difference in capability between our tech and advanced/starfaring alien tech. We couldn't even discern what their stuff was for until it did something, let alone how it worked or how we could defend against it.

"A thousand miles below, he became aware that a slumbering cargo of death had awoken, and was stirring sluggishly in its orbit. The feeble energies it contained were no possible menace to him; but he preferred a cleaner sky. He put forth his will, and the circling megatons flowered in a silent detonation that brought a brief, false dawn to half the sleeping globe."

Star-Child ftw.

Now suppose that those UFO's are just hoaxes and we have not really encountered aliens yet. UFO's are just light shows to make money off from UFO shows and stupid people who watch them.

suppose that when we make our first contact with aliens when we humans are also technologically advanced (military wise) able to travel far to other solar systems/moons/galaxies just like in 5th element, and the aliens are also able to do so.

we make our first contact by our probes and alien probes meet/send signals. then alien probe destroyed ours thus categorizing them as hostile.
how are we going to prepare for this war? if this scenario happens. (human and aliens are able to travel far, and technologically advanced but both races have different means of killing each other)

Originally posted by StarCraft2
Now suppose that those UFO's are just hoaxes and we have not really encountered aliens yet. UFO's are just light shows to make money off from UFO shows and stupid people who watch them.

suppose that when we make our first contact with aliens when we humans are also technologically advanced (military wise) able to travel far to other solar systems/moons/galaxies just like in 5th element, and the aliens are also able to do so.

we make our first contact by our probes and alien probes meet/send signals. then alien probe destroyed ours thus categorizing them as hostile.
how are we going to prepare for this war? if this scenario happens. (human and aliens are able to travel far, and technologically advanced but both races have different means of killing each other)

This requires even more speculation. Realistically, we don't know exactly where technology is going to take us or what is technically possible/feasible. If you're willing to define what superscience beyond FTL travel is available and how exactly FTL travel works in the setting then we can make a few guesses.

Originally posted by Symmetric Chaos
This requires even more speculation. Realistically, we don't know exactly where technology is going to take us or what is technically possible/feasible. If you're willing to define what superscience beyond FTL travel is available and how exactly FTL travel works in the setting then we can make a few guesses.

its a hypothetical q. my guess is that we are able to travel in a speed of lite or very close to speed of light by harnessing some kind of reusable energy but i could be wrong.
lets assume that traveling at a speed of lite or close to speed of lite is viable just for the sake of arguement/answering the original q