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 Pouncey wrote:

 AnomanderRake wrote:

 Pouncey wrote:
...(Drake Equation was solved...

(I can't stop giggling at this.)

(The Drake Equation is a thought experiment that doesn't work very well for trying to get hard numbers, simply because our sample size of one civilization gives us zero answers about common elements necessary for intelligent civilizations to arise. R, f(p), and n(e) (rate of star formation, fraction of stars that have planets, and fraction of planets with the necessary conditions to support life) are doable from here. f(l), f(i), f(c), and L (percentage of planets that could develop life that do, percentage of life-developing planets that develop intelligent life, percentage of intelligent civilizations that release signals into space, and the timeframe in which they do so) are all guesses made off of no actual data.)

You make a good point. I talk a big game but I'm actually pretty ignorant of the reality.

Mostly I just like listening to Cinema Sins. : P

They have good points about sci-fi movies. Like how often the aliens are defeated because their species' weakness is essentially "Allergic to Earth" which makes invading Earth pretty stupid if they can't handle living here.

Honestly science fiction that attempts to take the 'science' part seriously is incredibly hard to film, simply because the realities of it all are really, really boring. The best 'science fiction' usually goes and throws the 'why' out the window (the less exposition you need before things start happening the better. In an ideal world burn the exposition and move on, but writers have this thing about opening narrations...), goes for internal consistency over realistic physics (pulling 'the aliens were allergic to earth!' out of your bum is one of the cardinal sins of writing because it was pulled out of the writer's bum more so than because it's inconsistent with reality, build up to it), and then just gets on with it.

 Pouncey wrote:

I differ from Hawking a bit.

Personally, I believe that aliens have zero interest in ever setting foot on any planet with life already existing on it. Diseases are horrific enough when they jump the species barrier, jumping the planet-of-origin barrier could lead to the extinction of entire species. It's just safer not to go anywhere with life on it.

So when they need to expand their territory, they would choose barren, lifeless worlds to terraform, of which the universe has a great many. Natural resources are so plentiful throughout the universe and unclaimed territory is enormous, so they would likely never run short.

I like to believe that any species that founds an interstellar civilization also has a fundamental respect for life strong enough that they simply would refrain from launching wars of conquest on primitive planets like ours that offer no threat of any sort, and they would just deem Earth a wildlife preserve.

I also believe that they would question what would've happened to themselves had their own world been colonized by aliens, and decide to not inflict that fate on any new planets. They may even provide any habitable planet its own sizable territory in case any life does develop a civilization. Space is so vast, they can probably afford to do this.

Seriously, space is so big, there's absolutely no reason to ever invade a place like Earth. Any species suitably violent to launch a xenocidal war would've wiped itself out when it developed nukes.

I must say it's refreshing to hear an optimistic view of alien life I would agree that, provided the universe is as plentiful as needed to prevent conflict, it's likely that any alien races we could possibly meet would be peaceful.

Not to say that I think it's a dead cert though. Just because aliens value life, doesn't mean that they'd value ours. For an example of how something very noble at heart could lead to warfare, check out the Yuuzhan Vong.

 AnomanderRake wrote:

 Pouncey wrote:

 AnomanderRake wrote:

 Pouncey wrote:
...(Drake Equation was solved...

(I can't stop giggling at this.)

(The Drake Equation is a thought experiment that doesn't work very well for trying to get hard numbers, simply because our sample size of one civilization gives us zero answers about common elements necessary for intelligent civilizations to arise. R, f(p), and n(e) (rate of star formation, fraction of stars that have planets, and fraction of planets with the necessary conditions to support life) are doable from here. f(l), f(i), f(c), and L (percentage of planets that could develop life that do, percentage of life-developing planets that develop intelligent life, percentage of intelligent civilizations that release signals into space, and the timeframe in which they do so) are all guesses made off of no actual data.)

You make a good point. I talk a big game but I'm actually pretty ignorant of the reality.

Mostly I just like listening to Cinema Sins. : P

They have good points about sci-fi movies. Like how often the aliens are defeated because their species' weakness is essentially "Allergic to Earth" which makes invading Earth pretty stupid if they can't handle living here.

Honestly science fiction that attempts to take the 'science' part seriously is incredibly hard to film, simply because the realities of it all are really, really boring. The best 'science fiction' usually goes and throws the 'why' out the window (the less exposition you need before things start happening the better. In an ideal world burn the exposition and move on, but writers have this thing about opening narrations...), goes for internal consistency over realistic physics (pulling 'the aliens were allergic to earth!' out of your bum is one of the cardinal sins of writing because it was pulled out of the writer's bum more so than because it's inconsistent with reality, build up to it), and then just gets on with it.

:: nods :: The really good sci-fi needs text descriptions which would be tough to show on video.

Loved Baen sci-fi when I was younger.


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 Ynneadwraith wrote:
I must say it's refreshing to hear an optimistic view of alien life I would agree that, provided the universe is as plentiful as needed to prevent conflict, it's likely that any alien races we could possibly meet would be peaceful.

Not to say that I think it's a dead cert though. Just because aliens value life, doesn't mean that they'd value ours. For an example of how something very noble at heart could lead to warfare, check out the Yuuzhan Vong.

S'fine. I'm sure humans would start the war anyways the moment it became clear the aliens did not possess any terrestrial religions.

 Pouncey wrote:
Yeah, a sci-fi movie where humans are the aggressive jerks invading a helpless alien planet would be great. Bonus points if the humans are defeated.

I am a bit misanthropic though, so I'm tired of humans winning in movies all the time, and I wanna see alien protagonists kick human butt for once.

Avatar.

 Anfauglir wrote:

 Pouncey wrote:
Yeah, a sci-fi movie where humans are the aggressive jerks invading a helpless alien planet would be great. Bonus points if the humans are defeated.

I am a bit misanthropic though, so I'm tired of humans winning in movies all the time, and I wanna see alien protagonists kick human butt for once.

Avatar.

I did see that, yes...

I enjoyed it the first time around, but never wanted to watch it again. Apparently that wasn't an uncommon response.

Are there any other examples?

 Pouncey wrote:

 gummyofallbears wrote:
QFT.

I have never thought of it that way, and considering even hostile planets like mars have a capacity to allow life on earth to survive, it isn't too far fetched.

There is definitely a chance that a united society like your vision exists, but there is also a chance that there is an alien empire built on fear and control, very Orwellian.

And obviously both can exist.

Theoretically, space is literally only getting bigger so it is very possible that an alien species will just spectate us like a terrarium in their room.

Topics like these are why I want to pursue Astrobiology instead of cosmology

Generally NASA engineers who are presented with the question of whether humanity could relocate to a terraformed Mars wonder why the heck you wouldn't just fix Earth if you have the capacity to terraform a planet.

No doubt that a wide variety of alien species exist, there are likely trillions of civilizations with the capacity to become interstellar civilizations in existence right now (Drake Equation was solved, and there are likely 7 civilizations similar to ours in the Milky Way, multiply that by the literal trillions of galaxies out there...

Of course, no one's saying all alien civilizations would be the same. Humanity would be the kind to wage a religious war against aliens who offend our sensibilities, like in Warhammer 40k fiction.

Galaxies are spreading out, yes, but the amount of matter and energy remains finite. You may also want to look into the "heat death of the universe."

Personally I lack the ability to study formally due to crippling social anxiety problems that have plagued me since I was a teenager.

(~2 trillion to be as exact as possible)

I am very familiar with the heat death theory, and it is one that intrigues me very very very much.

And I agree about the terraforming of mars, certainly I wasn't proposing that we move to mars or whatever, but theres a reason that curiosity can't drill in certain parts of the planet after all, Its a very cool idea to me






Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Pouncey wrote:

 Anfauglir wrote:

 Pouncey wrote:
Yeah, a sci-fi movie where humans are the aggressive jerks invading a helpless alien planet would be great. Bonus points if the humans are defeated.

I am a bit misanthropic though, so I'm tired of humans winning in movies all the time, and I wanna see alien protagonists kick human butt for once.

Avatar.

I did see that, yes...

I enjoyed it the first time around, but never wanted to watch it again. Apparently that wasn't an uncommon response.

Are there any other examples?

District 9

Publicity campaign by Arther C Clarke

The Second Renaissance

The Word for World is Forest by Ursula K. Le Guin

The Forever War by Joe Haldeman

The Day the Earth Stood Still

Those where what I can think up now, I think Publicity campaign is the one with the major human ass kicking (but I haven't read/seen these works for a long time)

 gummyofallbears wrote:
District 9

Publicity campaign by Arther C Clarke

The Second Renaissance

The Word for World is Forest by Ursula K. Le Guin

The Forever War by Joe Haldeman

The Day the Earth Stood Still

Those where what I can think up now, I think Publicity campaign is the one with the major human ass kicking (but I haven't read/seen these works for a long time)

Point taken, thank you.

 Pouncey wrote:

I differ from Hawking a bit.

orly


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 Anfauglir wrote:

 Pouncey wrote:
Yeah, a sci-fi movie where humans are the aggressive jerks invading a helpless alien planet would be great. Bonus points if the humans are defeated.

I am a bit misanthropic though, so I'm tired of humans winning in movies all the time, and I wanna see alien protagonists kick human butt for once.

Avatar.

Pocahontas with happy ending.

 Pouncey wrote:



If they have no concept of war, why would they ever invade Earth? Surely they'd send a diplomatic envoy should they wish to interact with us, not an army?

Well, maybe if they're after the Earth's resources, they might want humanity gone. Though I suppose they could give humanity the means to go somewhere else.

 Pouncey wrote:


I am a bit misanthropic though,

Typical dragon!

 agnosto wrote:
cardboard cutout characters is a sure way for it end badly

So you're saying Rogue Trader's Battle for the Farm would not make a good movie?

 koooaei wrote:

 Pouncey wrote:

I differ from Hawking a bit.

orly

For example, I do not have ALS.


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Tyranno wrote:

 Pouncey wrote:



If they have no concept of war, why would they ever invade Earth? Surely they'd send a diplomatic envoy should they wish to interact with us, not an army?

Well, maybe if they're after the Earth's resources, they might want humanity gone. Though I suppose they could give humanity the means to go somewhere else.

Why would they want Earth's resources? They have access to interstellar travel, they could just mine our asteroids and take water from Europa and we wouldn't be able to do a damned thing about it other than send radio messages, "Hey, that stuff's ours, can you please stop?"

 Pouncey wrote:


I am a bit misanthropic though,

Typical dragon!

I'm not an Otherkin. I only RP a dragoness, I am fully human in real life.


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nareik wrote:

 agnosto wrote:
cardboard cutout characters is a sure way for it end badly

So you're saying Rogue Trader's Battle for the Farm would not make a good movie?

Inquisitor Obi-Wan Sherlock Clouseau might run into copyright issues...

Pouncey wrote:
Why would they want Earth's resources? They have access to interstellar travel, they could just mine our asteroids and take water from Europa and we wouldn't be able to do a damned thing about it other than send radio messages, "Hey, that stuff's ours, can you please stop?"

It doesn't make sense, but that's what happens in some Hollywood alien invasion movies.

Pouncey wrote:
I'm not an Otherkin. I only RP a dragoness, I am fully human in real life.

It's a joke.

Pouncey wrote:

Inquisitor Obi-Wan Sherlock Clouseau might run into copyright issues...

Doubtful, homages or references probably don't fall under plagarism.

For that make, The Asylum make very obvious cash-ins for years and nearly all lawsuits against them have failed.

If copyright were 1/10 the be-all, end-all its often mistaken for, Nintendo would be successful of ridding themselves of rule 34 of Nintendo characters instead of being the laughing stock of people who make it.

Tyranno wrote:

Pouncey wrote:
Why would they want Earth's resources? They have access to interstellar travel, they could just mine our asteroids and take water from Europa and we wouldn't be able to do a damned thing about it other than send radio messages, "Hey, that stuff's ours, can you please stop?"

It doesn't make sense, but that's what happens in some Hollywood alien invasion movies.

Not sure why there's a "but" in that sentence, when it should've been replaced by "and therefore"

Pouncey wrote:
I'm not an Otherkin. I only RP a dragoness, I am fully human in real life.

It's a joke.

Ah.

Pouncey wrote:

Inquisitor Obi-Wan Sherlock Clouseau might run into copyright issues...

Doubtful, homages or references probably don't fall under plagarism.

For that make, The Asylum make very obvious cash-ins for years and nearly all lawsuits against them have failed.

If copyright were 1/10 the be-all, end-all its often mistaken for, Nintendo would be successful of ridding themselves of rule 34 of Nintendo characters instead of being the laughing stock of people who make it.

Explains all the Samus Aran stuff happily existing.

Also did you know there's a decent quantity of Warhammer 40k rule 34 artwork out there?

There's a sizable quantity of everything Rule 34 artwork. It made finding reference images for The Eight incredibly difficult.

 Pouncey wrote:


Why would they want Earth's resources? They have access to interstellar travel, they could just mine our asteroids and take water from Europa and we wouldn't be able to do a damned thing about it other than send radio messages, "Hey, that stuff's ours, can you please stop?"

Provided the resources they're after are the same as the resources we use.

What if they wanted our biological diversity? Life appears to be rare in the universe. If their experimentation on life involves melting it all into gloop, then we'd have a problem.

Also, it's a common fallacy that a culture that is technologically superior to us is all-powerful. They may very well be technologically superior to us in the field of interstellar travel, but that's no guarantee that the rest of their technology would be similarly advanced.

Don't get me wrong, it's extremely likely that they would be insurmountably more advanced, but it's not a certainty.

What if they are otherwise at a similar technological level to us today, but there were derelict starships from some long-extinct spacefaring race in their solar system. Too technologically advanced for them to reverse-engineer in time to avert some sort of disaster, but offering them a handy way to jump over to the next viable planet (Earth!!!).

Fantastically slim chance, but still a possibility.

 Ynneadwraith wrote:

 Pouncey wrote:


Why would they want Earth's resources? They have access to interstellar travel, they could just mine our asteroids and take water from Europa and we wouldn't be able to do a damned thing about it other than send radio messages, "Hey, that stuff's ours, can you please stop?"

Provided the resources they're after are the same as the resources we use.

What if they wanted our biological diversity? Life appears to be rare in the universe. If their experimentation on life involves melting it all into gloop, then we'd have a problem.

Also, it's a common fallacy that a culture that is technologically superior to us is all-powerful. They may very well be technologically superior to us in the field of interstellar travel, but that's no guarantee that the rest of their technology would be similarly advanced.

Don't get me wrong, it's extremely likely that they would be insurmountably more advanced, but it's not a certainty.

What if they are otherwise at a similar technological level to us today, but there were derelict starships from some long-extinct spacefaring race in their solar system. Too technologically advanced for them to reverse-engineer in time to avert some sort of disaster, but offering them a handy way to jump over to the next viable planet (Earth!!!).

Fantastically slim chance, but still a possibility.

There is always a chance that the space fairing society doesn't have advanced weaponry or communication skills, but they do have interstellar travel because reasons

There is a chance for anything to happen, and there is a no definite way for us to know what is more likely, we do have a really really small sample size.

 Pouncey wrote:


Not sure why there's a "but" in that sentence, when it should've been replaced by "and therefore"

Agreed

 Pouncey wrote:


Also did you know there's a decent quantity of Warhammer 40k rule 34 artwork out there?

...I'm not surprised!

 Ynneadwraith wrote:

 Pouncey wrote:


Why would they want Earth's resources? They have access to interstellar travel, they could just mine our asteroids and take water from Europa and we wouldn't be able to do a damned thing about it other than send radio messages, "Hey, that stuff's ours, can you please stop?"

Provided the resources they're after are the same as the resources we use.

What if they wanted our biological diversity? Life appears to be rare in the universe. If their experimentation on life involves melting it all into gloop, then we'd have a problem.

Life's not THAT rare, because as rare as it is, the universe is god damned enormous.

What biology experiments could they possibly have conceived that would require liquefying all organic matter on a planet?

You're starting to sound paranoid.

Also, it's a common fallacy that a culture that is technologically superior to us is all-powerful. They may very well be technologically superior to us in the field of interstellar travel, but that's no guarantee that the rest of their technology would be similarly advanced.

Don't get me wrong, it's extremely likely that they would be insurmountably more advanced, but it's not a certainty.

What if they are otherwise at a similar technological level to us today, but there were derelict starships from some long-extinct spacefaring race in their solar system. Too technologically advanced for them to reverse-engineer in time to avert some sort of disaster, but offering them a handy way to jump over to the next viable planet (Earth!!!).

Fantastically slim chance, but still a possibility.

If they decide to wage war on an entire planet, their military hardware is undoubtedly advanced beyond our comprehension. Not even the USA could hope to take on the entire world and win.

So basically their UFO stuff about their equivalent of Roswell would be real for them, instead of a conspiracy theory like it is for us in real life?


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Tyranno wrote:

 Pouncey wrote:


Not sure why there's a "but" in that sentence, when it should've been replaced by "and therefore"

Agreed

There is actually a genre of movie that is completely representative of reality. Documentaries.

All other genres inherently involve blatant breaches of reality, because reality is not often entertaining.

 Pouncey wrote:


Also did you know there's a decent quantity of Warhammer 40k rule 34 artwork out there?

...I'm not surprised!

Considering what Rule 34 literally states, the revelation that anything whatsoever has pornography derived from it should not be of any surprise to anyone.

Rule 34 is literally, "If it exists, there is porn of it." And yes, it applies to fictitious things.


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 gummyofallbears wrote:
There is always a chance that the space fairing society doesn't have advanced weaponry or communication skills, but they do have interstellar travel because reasons

There is a chance for anything to happen, and there is a no definite way for us to know what is more likely, we do have a really really small sample size.

If they saw no need to invent weapons of any sort, but they're the kind of species that uses tools to the extent that they create starships, they're pacifistic enough that the concept of killing off an entire species on purpose should be abhorrent and perhaps traumatizing.

Hmm... perhaps there is an incredibly simple method of FTL travel that we simply never discovered, and the aliens will come for us with flintlock pistols and sabres, thinking that because we have no FTL we must be practically stone age.

 Pouncey wrote:

 Ynneadwraith wrote:

 Pouncey wrote:


Why would they want Earth's resources? They have access to interstellar travel, they could just mine our asteroids and take water from Europa and we wouldn't be able to do a damned thing about it other than send radio messages, "Hey, that stuff's ours, can you please stop?"

Provided the resources they're after are the same as the resources we use.

What if they wanted our biological diversity? Life appears to be rare in the universe. If their experimentation on life involves melting it all into gloop, then we'd have a problem.

Life's not THAT rare, because as rare as it is, the universe is god damned enormous.

What biology experiments could they possibly have conceived that would require liquefying all organic matter on a planet?

You're starting to sound paranoid.

Assuming that they can move across these vast distances. It's certainly rare enough in our locality that we haven't spotted any sign of it yet.

Remember, that the universe may be huge, but it has also been around for a very, very long time. If intelligent life is a flash in the pan compared to the the size of the universe, it massively reduces the chances that two intelligent species exist at the same time, let alone one of them also being capable of interstellar flight.

You're also applying a lot of assumptions that alien life would think in any way similar to how we do. As gummy said, we have a very small sample to be working from of what aliens might be like...

There was a book about that, some alien race discovered space travel conquered the other aliens who did have ships.

The thing is all those races never discovered black powder. They were fighting eachother with medieval era weapons, but with space ships. You can guess how poorly things went for them when they've reached modern age Earth.

 Verviedi wrote:
Hmm... perhaps there is an incredibly simple method of FTL travel that we simply never discovered, and the aliens will come for us with flintlock pistols and sabres, thinking that because we have no FTL we must be practically stone age.

Simple?

According to our knowledge of physics it's actually flat-out impossible to travel FTL and our best spaceship would take 2,000 years to make it to Alpha Centauri, our closest neighbour.

We have a theoretical design for a probe that would be able to make the trip to Alpha Centauri and report back to us in 20 years, but it involves using a laser to propel it with enough G-forces that no human crew could possibly survive.


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 Ynneadwraith wrote:

 Pouncey wrote:

 Ynneadwraith wrote:

 Pouncey wrote:


Why would they want Earth's resources? They have access to interstellar travel, they could just mine our asteroids and take water from Europa and we wouldn't be able to do a damned thing about it other than send radio messages, "Hey, that stuff's ours, can you please stop?"

Provided the resources they're after are the same as the resources we use.

What if they wanted our biological diversity? Life appears to be rare in the universe. If their experimentation on life involves melting it all into gloop, then we'd have a problem.

Life's not THAT rare, because as rare as it is, the universe is god damned enormous.

What biology experiments could they possibly have conceived that would require liquefying all organic matter on a planet?

You're starting to sound paranoid.

Assuming that they can move across these vast distances. It's certainly rare enough in our locality that we haven't spotted any sign of it yet.

Remember, that the universe may be huge, but it has also been around for a very, very long time. If intelligent life is a flash in the pan compared to the the size of the universe, it massively reduces the chances that two intelligent species exist at the same time, let alone one of them also being capable of interstellar flight.

You're also applying a lot of assumptions that alien life would think in any way similar to how we do. As gummy said, we have a very small sample to be working from of what aliens might be like...

The universe is simply so vast that alien civilizations undoubtedly exist, they're just, in all likelihood, far enough away we can't contact each other. It won't be like Star Trek though, and even WH40k's setting has too many technologically-advanced civilizations in the Milky Way in all likelihood.

That said, earlier this year there was a report that we may have discovered an actual Dyson Sphere, though of course no one had confirmed it.

You want a real glimpse into how big the universe is? If you're in the northern hemisphere, look at the stars on a clear night. Then realize that the vast, vast majority of those are not in fact stars, but galaxies.

Yeah, you want a good view of the Milky Way, you have to go to the Southern hemisphere. The northern hemisphere of Earth faces away from the center of our galaxy, and Earth is pretty much on the outer edge of the Milky Way.

The Milky Way, from Earth, looks like this:

https://images4.alphacoders.com/153/thumb-1920-153318.jpg

And the vast majority of stars are so dim we can't even see them at all.


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 Bobthehero wrote:
There was a book about that, some alien race discovered space travel conquered the other aliens who did have ships.

The thing is all those races never discovered black powder. They were fighting eachother with medieval era weapons, but with space ships. You can guess how poorly things went for them when they've reached modern age Earth.

There was a Chris Bunch book I once read where alien civilizations decided that their own technology was so powerful that they couldn't war with each other without wiping out entire planets (Iike MAD during the Cold War) so whenever they wanted to go to war, they kidnapped low-tech armies from relatively primitive planets, equipped them with high-tech versions of their native weapons, and had them fight each other. The book followed a Roman Legion that had been kidnapped in such a manner, the Roman Legion having been chosen for being highly-trained professional soldiers. They weren't armed with guns, just their standard weapons and armor made with highly-advanced technology. Like how if you made a sword or suit of armor for battle in the modern day, it would be way, WAY better than anything the Romans actually had, because every step of the production process in the 21st century, even how we mine the metals needed, is so much more advanced than what they could do then that we really have no data on the effectiveness of weapons, as we simply cannot replicate them now the way they were made then.

That's right. Modern swords, compared to medieval swords, are so high-tech that there is no real comparison in how good a weapon it is.

The story "15 Hours". That's the story you make into a film.

Human Protag, Alien Enemy, Plenty of expositional Imperial Propaganda, and then it goes grim dark for the finale.

Would make an excellent film to start with.

 Pouncey wrote:
There was a Chris Bunch book I once read where alien civilizations decided that their own technology was so powerful that they couldn't war with each other without wiping out entire planets (Iike MAD during the Cold War) so whenever they wanted to go to war, they kidnapped low-tech armies from relatively primitive planets, equipped them with high-tech versions of their native weapons, and had them fight each other. The book followed a Roman Legion that had been kidnapped in such a manner, the Roman Legion having been chosen for being highly-trained professional soldiers. They weren't armed with guns, just their standard weapons and armor made with highly-advanced technology. Like how if you made a sword or suit of armor for battle in the modern day, it would be way, WAY better than anything the Romans actually had, because every step of the production process in the 21st century, even how we mine the metals needed, is so much more advanced than what they could do then that we really have no data on the effectiveness of weapons, as we simply cannot replicate them now the way they were made then.

You're probably thinking of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ranks_of_Bronze by David Drake. They didn't get advanced weapons or armor by scifi standards, just copies of the low-tech stuff they already had. And determining how effective ancient weapons is not an impossible goal. We have existing examples of ancient weapons and armor, and people still make them with ancient methods. Maybe we can't do it with 0.00000000001% accuracy, but for all practical purposes the information is available.

 Peregrine wrote:

 Pouncey wrote:
There was a Chris Bunch book I once read where alien civilizations decided that their own technology was so powerful that they couldn't war with each other without wiping out entire planets (Iike MAD during the Cold War) so whenever they wanted to go to war, they kidnapped low-tech armies from relatively primitive planets, equipped them with high-tech versions of their native weapons, and had them fight each other. The book followed a Roman Legion that had been kidnapped in such a manner, the Roman Legion having been chosen for being highly-trained professional soldiers. They weren't armed with guns, just their standard weapons and armor made with highly-advanced technology. Like how if you made a sword or suit of armor for battle in the modern day, it would be way, WAY better than anything the Romans actually had, because every step of the production process in the 21st century, even how we mine the metals needed, is so much more advanced than what they could do then that we really have no data on the effectiveness of weapons, as we simply cannot replicate them now the way they were made then.

You're probably thinking of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ranks_of_Bronze by David Drake. They didn't get advanced weapons or armor by scifi standards, just copies of the low-tech stuff they already had. And determining how effective ancient weapons is not an impossible goal. We have existing examples of ancient weapons and armor, and people still make them with ancient methods. Maybe we can't do it with 0.00000000001% accuracy, but for all practical purposes the information is available.

That's the one yes. My apologies to Mr. Drake, I often find it difficult to remember who wrote each book I've read.

Also, correct, they didn't get high-tech equipment by sci-fi stuff, just well-made versions of their ordinary equipment, since keeping low-tech equipment is the point in the book.

Fair enough on the recreation standpoint, but I want to point out that should the modern day Earth take on a medieval-era civilization and not use guns and bombs, the swords and compound bows we use would be made with modern techniques.

However, I think the most serious reasons not to invade a planet are first and foremost:

1. Avoiding native pathogens. Ever seen what happens when a pathogen jumps the species barrier? Wanna see what happens if one jumps a planet-of-origin barrier? No? Me neither.

2. Can you, like, actually bring enough soldiers in your star navy to occupy an entire planet? They're kinda big, you know.


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Also, now that I think of it, the long-term occupation of a planet would prove tricky long after the war was over. You could get around the pathogens by having your armor so well-contained your soldiers are practically wearing hazmat suits, but what would your troops eat?

What would your soldiers eat? Not local cuisine, since you have no idea what local foods are toxic to your species. You'd need to keep up a supply train of rations for every one of your soldiers from a friendly planet until you can get agriculture going. If your species needs some sort of animal meat due to being carnivorous, you still need to grow your own plants, since those food animals need to eat too and Earth cuisine could be just as toxic to them. Then you'd need to keep supplying your own fertilizer, and eventually you'd come to the conclusion that supplying your forces with food would be like keeping millions of people fed on space stations without easy resupply, since you can't allow any of your plants or animals loose on Earth, because they can't be allowed to interact with native Earth species. You'd end up recreating a small portion of your own planet on Earth or in close orbit, at which point why not just go terraform a barren planet anyways, since it'd be the same damned amount of effort and you wouldn't have to go to the trouble of shipping millions of soldiers to another star system and fighting a war with people who have nukes?


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Oh god, I just realized something.

Any civilization that invents FTL travel has the power to destroy entire planets.

All they have to do is take a big mass of metal the size of a house, attach an FTL drive to it, and ram it into a planet at full speed. Due to the relativistic velocities, the projectile goes THROUGH the planet, and the planet is destroyed in the process. Not just all life, the planet itself is shattered by the force of the impact.

And all they have to do to make more powerful guns than us is apply FTL drives on a smaller scale to their projectiles and a lower speed.

Boltguns would be pathetic, because their weapons could go through an Abrams the long way.

They don't need gunpowder to outgun us, just a knowledge of physics and the very technology they'd need to invade us in the first place.

And if they show up at all, they've disregarded every reason I've given to avoid planets with life.

If aliens show up in our solar system, we are beyond fethed.

That's why Hawking said he hopes we find them, and they don't find us. If they find us, the only possible reason we'd know about it is because of a scenario that means we're all about to die.

 Pouncey wrote:

 Verviedi wrote:
Hmm... perhaps there is an incredibly simple method of FTL travel that we simply never discovered, and the aliens will come for us with flintlock pistols and sabres, thinking that because we have no FTL we must be practically stone age.

Simple?

According to our knowledge of physics it's actually flat-out impossible to travel FTL and our best spaceship would take 2,000 years to make it to Alpha Centauri, our closest neighbour.

We have a theoretical design for a probe that would be able to make the trip to Alpha Centauri and report back to us in 20 years, but it involves using a laser to propel it with enough G-forces that no human crew could possibly survive.

I know it's impossible, but it's fun to think "what if we were wrong?". Say, there's a rock on some alien world that functions as a magnetic monopole, and allows them to easily get into space without a need for fuel by abusing that rock's magnetic properties. I just love the mental image of Victorian space pirates.

 Pouncey wrote:
Oh god, I just realized something.

Any civilization that invents FTL travel has the power to destroy entire planets.

All they have to do is take a big mass of metal the size of a house, attach an FTL drive to it, and ram it into a planet at full speed. Due to the relativistic velocities, the projectile goes THROUGH the planet, and the planet is destroyed in the process. Not just all life, the planet itself is shattered by the force of the impact.

And all they have to do to make more powerful guns than us is apply FTL drives on a smaller scale to their projectiles and a lower speed.

Boltguns would be pathetic, because their weapons could go through an Abrams the long way.

They don't need gunpowder to outgun us, just a knowledge of physics and the very technology they'd need to invade us in the first place.

And if they show up at all, they've disregarded every reason I've given to avoid planets with life.

If aliens show up in our solar system, we are beyond fethed.

That's why Hawking said he hopes we find them, and they don't find us. If they find us, the only possible reason we'd know about it is because of a scenario that means we're all about to die.

I don't think a single projectile, even at near-c velocities, would destroy a planet entirely unless it was miles across. Now, at .95 c, a lump of metal the size of a person would still be way more powerful than any nuclear weapon we've ever built, and would cause widespread devastation, but would be unlikely to actually shatter the whole planet. It even happens in the first book of Ian Douglas' series Star Carrier. Earth is hit with a near-c impactor launched by an alien ship. Humans manage to stop all but one of the projectiles, but the one that gets through lands in the Atlantic Ocean and causes large tsunamis (think Deep Impact). One thing I've always liked about those books is the somewhat more realistic physics than other sci-fi. The major stretches are ships generating black holes for propulsion, and the Alcubierre drive for FTL travel.

Funny how a thread about a 40k movie has turned into a discussion about whether or not aliens would want to invade Earth. Of course, I just fed that side discussion, so I'm not complaining...

 Verviedi wrote:

 Pouncey wrote:

 Verviedi wrote:
Hmm... perhaps there is an incredibly simple method of FTL travel that we simply never discovered, and the aliens will come for us with flintlock pistols and sabres, thinking that because we have no FTL we must be practically stone age.

Simple?

According to our knowledge of physics it's actually flat-out impossible to travel FTL and our best spaceship would take 2,000 years to make it to Alpha Centauri, our closest neighbour.

We have a theoretical design for a probe that would be able to make the trip to Alpha Centauri and report back to us in 20 years, but it involves using a laser to propel it with enough G-forces that no human crew could possibly survive.

I know it's impossible, but it's fun to think "what if we were wrong?". Say, there's a rock on some alien world that functions as a magnetic monopole, and allows them to easily get into space without a need for fuel by abusing that rock's magnetic properties. I just love the mental image of Victorian space pirates.

It's considered impossible due to the increasing energy requirements of acceleration combined with the fact that all massless things travel exactly at the speed of light. Without mass, you have zero resistance to being moved. Things without mass traveling at the speed of light suggests that it is literally impossible to go that fast if the object has any mass whatsoever, as it would have some resistance to being moved.

Literally, there is not enough energy in the entire universe to propel so much as a single atom to the speed of light.


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 ZergSmasher wrote:

 Pouncey wrote:
Oh god, I just realized something.

Any civilization that invents FTL travel has the power to destroy entire planets.

All they have to do is take a big mass of metal the size of a house, attach an FTL drive to it, and ram it into a planet at full speed. Due to the relativistic velocities, the projectile goes THROUGH the planet, and the planet is destroyed in the process. Not just all life, the planet itself is shattered by the force of the impact.

And all they have to do to make more powerful guns than us is apply FTL drives on a smaller scale to their projectiles and a lower speed.

Boltguns would be pathetic, because their weapons could go through an Abrams the long way.

They don't need gunpowder to outgun us, just a knowledge of physics and the very technology they'd need to invade us in the first place.

And if they show up at all, they've disregarded every reason I've given to avoid planets with life.

If aliens show up in our solar system, we are beyond fethed.

That's why Hawking said he hopes we find them, and they don't find us. If they find us, the only possible reason we'd know about it is because of a scenario that means we're all about to die.

I don't think a single projectile, even at near-c velocities, would destroy a planet entirely unless it was miles across. Now, at .95 c, a lump of metal the size of a person would still be way more powerful than any nuclear weapon we've ever built, and would cause widespread devastation, but would be unlikely to actually shatter the whole planet. It even happens in the first book of Ian Douglas' series Star Carrier. Earth is hit with a near-c impactor launched by an alien ship. Humans manage to stop all but one of the projectiles, but the one that gets through lands in the Atlantic Ocean and causes large tsunamis (think Deep Impact). One thing I've always liked about those books is the somewhat more realistic physics than other sci-fi. The major stretches are ships generating black holes for propulsion, and the Alcubierre drive for FTL travel.

Funny how a thread about a 40k movie has turned into a discussion about whether or not aliens would want to invade Earth. Of course, I just fed that side discussion, so I'm not complaining...

I based that statement on having read Randall Monroe's article about what would happen if you slammed a giant diamond into Earth at near the speed of light.

I'll find and link it.

http://what-if.xkcd.com/20/

Its worth noting that not only is the entirety of Earth converted to plasma before we even knew it was going to happen, but two other planets in the solar system are "scoured" by the effects of the planet exploding, and debris from the impact is detectable by alien scientists on their own planets hundreds of lightyears away.


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Also, this is what happens if you launch a baseball at 90% of the speed of light within an atmosphere:

http://what-if.xkcd.com/1/

Seriously, any civilization capable of propelling a planetary invasion fleet of starships at near the speed of light has access to weaponry so powerful that it makes everything humanity has at its disposal, including the Tsar Bomba, look like nothing. It doesn't matter if they have firearms or not, their weapons make firearms look like a sharpened rock tied to a stick in terms of destructive potential. Them BREAKING the speed of light to go at FTL velocities requires a mastery of physics so superior to our own that we cannot even fathom the ways they have devised to kill people and break things, the same way a Roman Centurion would have no clue what the hell a nuke was or how it worked.

The idea we ever win in these situations in movies requires the aliens to be so ludicrously underpowered they should never have been able to reach us in the first place.

 Pouncey wrote:

 Verviedi wrote:
Hmm... perhaps there is an incredibly simple method of FTL travel that we simply never discovered, and the aliens will come for us with flintlock pistols and sabres, thinking that because we have no FTL we must be practically stone age.

Simple?

According to our knowledge of physics it's actually flat-out impossible to travel FTL and our best spaceship would take 2,000 years to make it to Alpha Centauri, our closest neighbour.

We have a theoretical design for a probe that would be able to make the trip to Alpha Centauri and report back to us in 20 years, but it involves using a laser to propel it with enough G-forces that no human crew could possibly survive.

'According to our knowledge of physics' is the thing you want to look at in that sentence What if our knowledge of physics has missed something fantastically obvious?

 Pouncey wrote:

 Ynneadwraith wrote:

 Pouncey wrote:

 Ynneadwraith wrote:

 Pouncey wrote:


Why would they want Earth's resources? They have access to interstellar travel, they could just mine our asteroids and take water from Europa and we wouldn't be able to do a damned thing about it other than send radio messages, "Hey, that stuff's ours, can you please stop?"

Provided the resources they're after are the same as the resources we use.

What if they wanted our biological diversity? Life appears to be rare in the universe. If their experimentation on life involves melting it all into gloop, then we'd have a problem.

Life's not THAT rare, because as rare as it is, the universe is god damned enormous.

What biology experiments could they possibly have conceived that would require liquefying all organic matter on a planet?

You're starting to sound paranoid.

Assuming that they can move across these vast distances. It's certainly rare enough in our locality that we haven't spotted any sign of it yet.

Remember, that the universe may be huge, but it has also been around for a very, very long time. If intelligent life is a flash in the pan compared to the the size of the universe, it massively reduces the chances that two intelligent species exist at the same time, let alone one of them also being capable of interstellar flight.

You're also applying a lot of assumptions that alien life would think in any way similar to how we do. As gummy said, we have a very small sample to be working from of what aliens might be like...

The universe is simply so vast that alien civilizations undoubtedly exist, they're just, in all likelihood, far enough away we can't contact each other. It won't be like Star Trek though, and even WH40k's setting has too many technologically-advanced civilizations in the Milky Way in all likelihood.

That said, earlier this year there was a report that we may have discovered an actual Dyson Sphere, though of course no one had confirmed it.

You want a real glimpse into how big the universe is? If you're in the northern hemisphere, look at the stars on a clear night. Then realize that the vast, vast majority of those are not in fact stars, but galaxies.

Yeah, you want a good view of the Milky Way, you have to go to the Southern hemisphere. The northern hemisphere of Earth faces away from the center of our galaxy, and Earth is pretty much on the outer edge of the Milky Way.

The Milky Way, from Earth, looks like this:

https://images4.alphacoders.com/153/thumb-1920-153318.jpg

And the vast majority of stars are so dim we can't even see them at all.

I'm aware of how big the universe is not just in space, but in time as well. Awe-inspiringly big Intelligent spacefaring life with the capability to travel interstellar distances faster than the speed of light might be fantastically common (relatively speaking), but if they only pop up every millennia or so, and die out (for whatever reason) every couple of hundred thousand years then there's even less of a chance that we'd ever get to meet them.

Also, if we pick up radio signals from another inhabited planet, the chances are that the alien civilisation we've discovered is long-since extinct.

 Pouncey wrote:
That's right. Modern swords, compared to medieval swords, are so high-tech that there is no real comparison in how good a weapon it is.

Yeah I remember reading something about a story of a Norse hero straightening his sword with his foot. Sounds like a feat of strength, but what it probably means is that the quality of steel at the time was so poor that a sword could be straightened by standing on it...

There's also a bit of a misconception around katanas if memory serves me. The quality of steel in Japan at the time was actually relatively poor, and the construction techniques used to make a katana were to try and make a usable blade from the poor quality materials. Very, very clever stuff, but it was far from the 'ultimate sword' that people tend to think it was...

 Pouncey wrote:
Seriously, any civilization capable of propelling a planetary invasion fleet of starships at near the speed of light has access to weaponry so powerful that it makes everything humanity has at its disposal, including the Tsar Bomba, look like nothing. It doesn't matter if they have firearms or not, their weapons make firearms look like a sharpened rock tied to a stick in terms of destructive potential. Them BREAKING the speed of light to go at FTL velocities requires a mastery of physics so superior to our own that we cannot even fathom the ways they have devised to kill people and break things, the same way a Roman Centurion would have no clue what the hell a nuke was or how it worked.

The idea we ever win in these situations in movies requires the aliens to be so ludicrously underpowered they should never have been able to reach us in the first place.

That's assuming that this hypothetical FTL works by accelerating things faster than the speed of light.

What if it works by a device that folds space, so you simply walk through a gate on your planet onto the surface of another one?

Of course, any species that is capable of such a device is also likely capable of producing enough energy to make whatever the hell offensive weapon they like, so we're probably equally screwed (provided technological development follows a broadly similar path to what we've experienced).

As for the folding space thing, I love the depiction in Pratchett/Baxter's Long Earth series. Basically, a scientist somewhere invents a device that allows people to 'step' one dimension to the 'west' or 'east' (relative terms to describe 5D space using 4D terminology), and posts it on the internet for everyone to use. The device itself consists of a 3-way switch, a host of other cheap electrical gubbins and a potato.

It's an utter flight of fancy, but if something similar to that is the trick to FTL travel, there's no reason any race would have to be technologically advanced to do it.

There's an assumption that if there's something that we can't do at the moment, it must take a more advanced society to accomplish it. It could equally just be a society that thinks just a little differently to us

 Ynneadwraith wrote:
'According to our knowledge of physics' is the thing you want to look at in that sentence What if our knowledge of physics has missed something fantastically obvious?

Extremely doubtful we've overlooked anything that would make interstellar travel easy and simple.

I have heard of a brand-new idea in physics that might make it possible though. Negative mass.

The problem with going at the speed of light is with mass, really. If we could somehow entirely remove mass from our vessels and everything on and in them, we could go the speed of light, and in fact would have no choice in the matter as the only way to stop going at the speed of light would be to return mass to our vessels.

If we can manipulate mass like that, theoretically we might be able to push mass lower than 0. If we did that, then we could travel faster than light by activating our engines, since we'd have a negative resistance to being moved.

An interesting effect of that though, is that even though we'd have no mass to add gravity from the relativistic velocities, we'd still have to deal with the effects it would have on time. At lightspeed, we would be effectively frozen in time and would interpret traveling literally any distance whatsoever as teleportation, even though the actual journey to another star system would take years to an outside observer watching us from Earth. If you go faster than light, time outside the vessel appears to start going backwards. If you go fast enough, you arrive at your destination before you left, and effectively we just invented a time machine too, and can effectively put ourselves in stasis by traveling at the speed of light exactly whenever we want to return to the present. Or future, for that matter.

Assuming that they can move across these vast distances. It's certainly rare enough in our locality that we haven't spotted any sign of it yet.

Remember, that the universe may be huge, but it has also been around for a very, very long time. If intelligent life is a flash in the pan compared to the the size of the universe, it massively reduces the chances that two intelligent species exist at the same time, let alone one of them also being capable of interstellar flight.

Actually, our own generation of stars are the very first in the universe's existence that are capable of supporting technologically-advanced civilizations. Previously the heavier elements our technology relies on to function did not exist yet.

And it's almost certain there are other civilizations like ours out there, they're just so far away we can't communicate with them. We may have spotted a Dyson Sphere though.

You're also applying a lot of assumptions that alien life would think in any way similar to how we do. As gummy said, we have a very small sample to be working from of what aliens might be like...

Fair enough.

I'm aware of how big the universe is not just in space, but in time as well. Awe-inspiringly big Intelligent spacefaring life with the capability to travel interstellar distances faster than the speed of light might be fantastically common (relatively speaking), but if they only pop up every millennia or so, and die out (for whatever reason) every couple of hundred thousand years then there's even less of a chance that we'd ever get to meet them.

Uhh, you might want to run the math on how many alien civilizations that would lead to if you think they're being created 200 times faster than they're dying out.

Maybe look up what a "millennium" is, as well.

Also, if we pick up radio signals from another inhabited planet, the chances are that the alien civilisation we've discovered is long-since extinct.

We've had radio IRL for about 100 years. Our radio signals have reached a 100 lightyear radius around Earth. Our closest neighbour is Alpha Centauri, and it's only 4.3 lightyears away.

That's assuming that this hypothetical FTL works by accelerating things faster than the speed of light.

What if it works by a device that folds space, so you simply walk through a gate on your planet onto the surface of another one?

How'd they get the gate to the second star system, exactly? And why do you want to fold space in the atmosphere of a planet you intend to live on?

Also, maybe look up what FTL stands for too.

Of course, any species that is capable of such a device is also likely capable of producing enough energy to make whatever the hell offensive weapon they like, so we're probably equally screwed (provided technological development follows a broadly similar path to what we've experienced).

As for the folding space thing, I love the depiction in Pratchett/Baxter's Long Earth series. Basically, a scientist somewhere invents a device that allows people to 'step' one dimension to the 'west' or 'east' (relative terms to describe 5D space using 4D terminology), and posts it on the internet for everyone to use. The device itself consists of a 3-way switch, a host of other cheap electrical gubbins and a potato.

It's an utter flight of fancy, but if something similar to that is the trick to FTL travel, there's no reason any race would have to be technologically advanced to do it.

If any human actually figured out an easy way of interstellar travel that actually worked in real life, we would be exploring other star systems by now and you'd be browsing photos of alien planets on the Internet taken by human explorers who went there and brought pictures back.

There's an assumption that if there's something that we can't do at the moment, it must take a more advanced society to accomplish it. It could equally just be a society that thinks just a little differently to us

You realize that all of the authors thinking up these stories are in fact humans positing ideas that, by definition, humans came up with, right?