Earth is dying and we found an suitable but inhabited planet...what then?

Not sure where to put this so I'll put it here.

I know the title is misleading but it is quite possible this could happen. A lot of senarios could spell doom for planet Earth i.e. astroids, the Sun becomes a red giant, you get the picture. As a matter of fact, Earth right now, is in a upheaval, and anything is possible. So I'm going to flip the script and reverse your thinking.

So I propose a question to all your brilliant minds. Lets say we found a suitable planet with all the right amenities to sustain life. Problem is, this planet is inhabited by beings of an intelligent race and quite capable of defending their planet from invasion.

Now, the clock is ticking and Earth won't last to much longer. LIfe as we know it will come to an end and the human race will finally go extinct. We are in survival mode and we will do whatever it takes to save our existence. We have seen what aliens would do to us, in movies, tv, and radio. So we know what has to be done to survive, YES, that's right, we have to wipe out this alien race, and colonize the planet. Right?

But wait, maybe these creatures are benevolent and would be happy to share their planet & resources. Do we take the chance to reason and tell them of our terrible plight? Are humans capable of reasoning, when backed against a wall and death is certain, or are we monsters capable of horrible things?

So there you have it folks, you are faced with a big dilemma!

What do we do?

The elites go and we're left here to die......don't know what else to tell you......but is that what you wanted to hear ? Unless we take a ride with the Doctor most of us ain't got a prayer.

Originally posted by Heartisblack
The elites go and we're left here to die......don't know what else to tell you......but is that what you wanted to hear ?

Not really, I was painting a senario not unlike the alien invasion portrayed in movies. I know the elites will survive BUT they will need many of us to do the dirty work. They won't be able to take over a planet without us.

Actually with or without us they are f-ed have you seen one sci-fi movie or heard an abduction story ? Them aliens will kill the elites quickly. Reptilians aren't the head of the universe only the scum.
Aliens are advanced we are the ones left behind as usual

reply to post by chrismicha77


I take a quote from the film 'The day the Earth stood still' - "At the precipice we change." Now I believe when things get that bad all sorts of changes can occur, even though survival mode throws away all sorts of "rational" thinking, for a split second things change and help us move on our way. - think it's likely not everyone will survive, some will be left, I forward you to this section of a game called Mass Effect 2, of a race called the "Drell" who were in a similar situation to us right now.

"Eight centuries ago, the already-arid drell homeworld began its swift descent into lifelessness due to disastrous industrial expansion. At the time, the drell lacked interstellar flight capacity, and with their population bursting at 11 billion they faced certain doom. It was around this time that the hanar made first contact with the drell race. In the following ten years, the hanar would transport hundreds of thousands of drell to the hanar world, Kahje. The remaining billions left on Rakhana would perish on their dying planet, warring against each other for diminishing resources. The drell now thrive co-existing with the hanar."

masseffect.wikia.com...

Jamie.

reply to post by chrismicha77


What happens next is predictable.

We all pile in the ships and go to the new planet and strip it of whatever resources are there and never replenish, in fact we will make it impossible for them to re-grow or replace those resources out of sheer stupidity and lack of foresight.

We will wile away the centuries at war with each other until there is nothing left there but an empty shell of a planet where the bodies are buried and then we will move on to another planet.

Like Locusts.

reply to post by chrismicha77


We would do what the we do for every problem the world faces. Keep throwing young Americans and American tax dollars at the problem till it goes away.

smoke 'em if ya got 'em !

you say they can defend themselves, but we should invade.

so the premise here is "would you go on an intergalactic suicide mission for the elites ?"

nah, I'd go down with mother earth. it won't take her more than 500 years to clense our mess anyway

reply to post by syrinx high priest


I agree with you, I would stay here. F*** the elites, they can shove it.

The scenario makes no sense. With the technology to get to another world and 'invade' we have the run of the cosmos. Space is really rather big, and we could find somewhere empty and suitable even if it meant a long arduous trek.

Its unlikely we would allow ourselves to perish without a struggle in any eventuality. I don't see any scenario where invading another technologically advanced race becomes the least bad option.

reply to post by pandapowerjamie


Great info, thanks!

I'm in awe of some of your posts, really great thinking, and some great ideas so far.

reply to post by chrismicha77


I love your way of thinking and have thought of this myself.
I'd like to ask you to think about something.
What will be the ultimate outcome of humanity?
Really, what is the purpose of anything we do?

We are born...we grow up...go to school....get a job...start a family...retire...then die...and this process repeats for basically everyone.

Now, the elite, the people running this planet...they are born, grow up, then die at some point as well...
Except, during their lives, they try to find ways to be more wealthy by raping this planet of its resourses at any cost.
So no matter what they do...they are human beings as well and and share the same fate as us.

So, I wonder...what was the purpose of any lifeform that came before us?
They are dead and gone or extinct.

When we are dead and gone and extinct...what was our purpose?
The answer...NOTHING!

Even if we survive a billion years as a species...we are just like locusts moving forward...feeding...then dying...
So what if we become spiritual...so what if we become peaceful....so what if we wage war against another planet and take it for our own...so what if we acieve a level of technology that is beyond comprehension...
it doesn't matter!

We eat, excrete and reproduce....We love along the way and enjoy what our senses create for us.
That's all we can ask for.

So what if the aliens take our planet?
Maybe thay can treat it better than we can because....in a million years, it won't matter what we said or did or achieved or fought for in 2011 or any other time.

The law of the universe is, everything must eventually die even if we achieve immortality. Who wants to live forever?
You couldn't take it in the long run, I assure you.

So, if they take our planet...something will take it from them whether it is another species or our dying sun.
Peace.

reply to post by chrismicha77



hmmm....I think the earth is far from dying yet,despite humans misusing the natural resources, not choosing their energy sources wisely, and creating devastatingly destructive weapons of war.

That being said, what benevolent alien species would even think of inviting humans onto their planet?

Originally posted by chrismicha77
Not sure where to put this so I'll put it here.

I know the title is misleading but it is quite possible this could happen. A lot of senarios could spell doom for planet Earth i.e. astroids, the Sun becomes a red giant, you get the picture. As a matter of fact, Earth right now, is in a upheaval, and anything is possible. So I'm going to flip the script and reverse your thinking.

So I propose a question to all your brilliant minds. Lets say we found a suitable planet with all the right amenities to sustain life. Problem is, this planet is inhabited by beings of an intelligent race and quite capable of defending their planet from invasion.

Now, the clock is ticking and Earth won't last to much longer. LIfe as we know it will come to an end and the human race will finally go extinct. We are in survival mode and we will do whatever it takes to save our existence. We have seen what aliens would do to us, in movies, tv, and radio. So we know what has to be done to survive, YES, that's right, we have to wipe out this alien race, and colonize the planet. Right?

But wait, maybe these creatures are benevolent and would be happy to share their planet & resources. Do we take the chance to reason and tell them of our terrible plight? Are humans capable of reasoning, when backed against a wall and death is certain, or are we monsters capable of horrible things?

So there you have it folks, you are faced with a big dilemma!

What do we do?

We would call your son in, give him a little kryptonite, and have him fly us there.. Id think that out of the vastness of the galaxy/universe, there would be plenty of planets that are not inhabited yet. If we did find E.T., I am sure with their superior intelligence/tech, they would be able to show us one that is empty, if they are nice that is. The only question is how would we get there. Even if we have or did have the tech, there sure are a lot of people to move. There would have to be a wormhole/stargate or something cause even at light speed, we wont get too far out there very quickly. But for all we know, the planets or their moons in our own solar system could be livable. I know science and general knowledge says no, but who's to know what the truth really is?

Kinda reminds me of that movie Red Planet, with Val Kilmer. I have not seen the whole thing yet but what I have seen is pretty cool.

*edit* Given our species's love for violence, I do not think they would want to share theirs with us..The movie Avatar comes to mind.


Deebo

I love critical thinking and you guys have made valid points. If there where life after death, why would we even care? Just accept the fait we were handed. I guess it's just our nature to try and survive. Maybe we'll never be faced with that dilemma but we might face an invasion from them. Now that would be fun!

reply to post by Bartibog


That is an epic post. You've really hit the nail on the head, whatever we do won't matter in the future when the last human takes a breath and dies. ETA: When we accomplish something, even if it won't be passed on and matter in the long run, is for the benefit of us while we are here. Until the last person dies, we work to make an impression on them. Whether we're here for five more years, or five thousand more years, what we do will matter as long as we're here.

HOWEVER, keeping with the OP's question, what do we do with a new habitable planet:

It's such a complex task to leave the earth and go anywhere in space that it takes a great deal of engineering. Just to keep six folks in space is a huge task. What would it take to actually leave the local space where we can send resupply vessels? Movies and TV always have the HUGE vessels that travel long distances, but realistically those aren't going to happen since it is such a task for us to get anything to orbit. I'd say the closest thing to reality in the movies would be the ISV Venture Star from AVATAR.




The ISV Venture Star, although a movie creation, was based within realistic physics. It seems realistic enough and doesn't rely on anything extraordinary beyond the anti-matter propulsion and cryo preservation of people. Substituting the propulsion with something like ionic propulsion and some form of nutrition supplementing technology for the cryo seems like a reasonable thought. Here's an excerpt from the designer:

The huge glowing radiators mounted to the engines dissipate their heat, and the enormously long central truss, with its own protective coolers and reflectors, protects the cargo and crew modules from the engines' heat and radiation using the simple rule of r-squared attenuation rather than heavy shielding. (Yes, Jim really thinks about this kind of stuff and explains it very clearly in text and in person.) The ship has a pair of centrifugal-gravity-gen modules for the crew who remain awake for the duration, which has become a pretty typical feature of quasi-realistic ship designs in movies. But one unique feature it has which directly relates to the sub-light realistic travel is a cascade-style shield stack to protect the speeding craft from interstallar debris. Jim's doc completely explains this technology, apparently based on current NASA research, and how it obliterates potentially catastrophic particles by letting them slam through a series of thin, light shield surfaces.

Source

At least, I think that's what the OP was talking about.

reply to post by pandapowerjamie


Good call on the Mass Effect reference.

I feel it would all be dependent on the alien level of technological advancement. If they are more powerful than us then there's no way earth would attack, they'd take the aliens offers I'd imagine. If the Aliens are weak, bye bye!

reply to post by yakuzakid


Elites sell us into slavery!

Good call.

Well I think we would have to hope on the good graces of the planets inhabitants. Alternatively, we could mine asteroids for tons and tons of uranium. Create a small colony on an large (for gravity) ice asteroid like Ceres which may also have some rock areas. Equip the moon with a propulsion devise of some sort. Possibly controlled nuclear explosions on a far side. The reason for the propulsion device would be so either we send the asteroid colony to a inhabital planet or so we can control the distance of the Asteroid colony from our own sun to suit our needs.

The water would provide, oxygen, food and protection from various radiation in space. The colony would be split in two so that if some disease wiped out one the other could continue to survive. Their only contact would be in various space suits while working on the surface etc...but no environmental contact would be allowed just to insure survival.

This Space Roid could then be used to build more and more Asteroid colonies and we would become a spaced based secies that could survive most anythink short of our sun going nova. Even then they could move far enough away to possibly survive then return to orbit whats left of the sun at a distance approriate to the temperatures desired.

reply to post by chrismicha77


Well, that depends on our technology, doesnt it?

Its not a good thought experiment really, when you leave our technology up to the imaginations of the readers. "We can all just jump in our instantaneous wormhole traveling space craft and kill them all with our ACME alien killing beam which can be programmed to only one species leaving all other intact." Is a possible answer.

The answer using our actual technology is that "what then" is that we all die here, on Earth. Just discovering a planet is meaningless if we cant get to it.