Could we fight or would it be futile?

reply to post by Specimen

Comparing our technology to another that is capable of travel vast space travel would be like comparing United states military to terrorists in a cave.

heh... Who was that guy in a cave they couldn't find again?

They made a movie about finding him, but I didn't watch it because I already knew the ending

History teaches us one thing, when a Foreign invader with more advanced technology arrives on your patch, you are doomed.

Like the scene from Braveheart, we should just turn around, hike up our Kilts, bend over and offer our Bums for inspection.
Resistance is futile.

The futility of an action is not as important as the righteousness of an action. Even against odds which, no matter how optimistic one might be, are impossible, one has three choices, and three choices alone. Fight, flight, or hide. If we cannot hide from the destruction we face, if we cannot out pace oblivion, if all we are left with is a choice between kneeling down and waiting to embrace the Reaper and getting to grips with his agents, then I say best to take whats coming on your feet, having made the attempt to cut the thread of at least one foe, if not a hundred, or a thousand, or half a million or more. When the enemy out numbers and out powers you to the point where your oblivion is garunteed, and immediately at hand, I say make every effort to bloody the enemy, make them feel every metre of ground, every life of ours they take, every town they crush and every nation they decimate.

If we must die, if we must be wiped from the face of the galaxy, then I say make the very stars tremble with our death screams, make those who struck against us rue the day they chose to assault us. Never sell a life cheaply, your own, or that of your entire species.

In short...

KILL WITH POWER!

reply to post by Akragon


We would have to have a go at fighting them but frankly, lets face it, we would still end up the victims of Intergalactic buggery by a far superior species (metaphorical rather than literal buggery!).

Unless somehow they were like in Independence Day and somehow have a handy USB we could download a virus onto!

Any invading army, no matter how advanced it is when compared to the ones they are trying to invade, always have to worry about the same things - first theres logistics, second theres the problem where the defense is heavily fortified, third the defense knows the terrain far better than the attacker.

So I think most of us downplay humans when we're facing this "humans vs aliens" scenario. We're a very ingenious and a very aggressive species - these 2 together make it possible for certain things to happen such as, the minute we acquire 2 or 3 of their weapons, in about 2 weeks we would have reversed engineered them and by that time we would have a variant of their weapon that would kill 3x faster and would hurt 2 times more - because we're good at killing and we're damn good at inventing new ways to do it. In a month this would be an aliens worst nightmare... we'd be cruel, savage, brutal and on top of that, psychological warfare would play a very important role because we all know that soon lots of us would be wearing their body parts as adornments, their skin as cool shiny effect for weapons or armor and their heads as trophies around the waste or as shoulder pads - humans didnt change all that much. Such an advanced race isnt prepared for that unless they're the Predator, but if they are, then they're not that hard to defeat.

The logistics would be a problem... we're 7 billion, we're at home, they're not. They would need a supply chain. We could easily make it harder and harder for them.

The only scenario that an invasion could prove successful for an alien race would be total destruction, but that would serve the aliens no purpose.

I'd worry more what would become of us after we defeat the aliens - what will such an event turn us into...? Coming out victorious from that conflict with an inconceivable technological leap, able to travel the stars with a primitive and brutal mind... I think it would change our society and we'd set out to take over everything we set our eyes on and ultimately fall into the same mistake as our wanna-be conquerors... because as you can see right now, our main mistake is we dont learn from history.

reply to post by FraternitasSaturni


All very good points but you have overlooked one very crucial aspect - if they have the technology to cross vast distances of space in crafts (of some description) then why would they even need to come to Earth? They could simply destroy us from afar and we couldn't do a damn thing about it.

Any species that possesses the requisite technology for Deep Space travel would have an awful lot of other tricks up their sleeves, probably some that we couldn't even comprehend until it was too late.

Even if we managed to get hold of some of their tech, who says we would have 2 to 3 weeks to be able to back engineer it? (which i personally think is an extremely optimistic time frame).

Face it, if aggressive aliens turn up we are screwed but at least we would go down fighting.

No. They can disable our nuclear weapons very easily. Search Robert Hastings "UFOs and Nukes" in Google. Ever heard of those massive cigar-shaped UFOs? That's their equivalent of aircraft carriers. They can likely transport entire UFO fleets within those cigars to play with our tanks. They probably have weapons that can paralyze troops instantly. And they can disable electronic equipment remotely (as well as turn it back on...we're not capable of that).

ETs have the logistics and equipment to mount a successful invasion.

Even the US military would pale in comparison to what an advanced ET race is capable of.

Quoting from the Carl Higdon abduction case:

1. His bullet hit some sort of force-field. This bullet could normally transit a whole telephone pole
   
2. The entity used telekinesis to move an object toward him
   
3. Carl instantly found himself within the ET craft, without moving a muscle.
   
4. The elk he was hunting (normally wild beasts) were paralyzed behind an invisible barrier
   
5. The entity pointed a device at Carl's truck (while flying overhead) and made it vanish
   
6. Arrived at another planet nearly instantaneously--163,000 "light miles" away
   
7. According to the ET, Carl's hunting rifle was "primitive"
   
8. Carl consumed a pill that regenerated his health and staved off hunger
   
9. His truck later re-appeared in an area inaccessible by vehicle or on foot
   

We'd be screwed

I remember seeing a ufo show not too long ago where I think it was Dr Michio Kaku that said it would be like a t-rex (aliens) vs bambi(humans) if it ever came to that.

The only thing I can think of that would give humans the chance to win/not lose, is if a different species/race of aliens came to our rescue once they find out about an invading force. Basically a peacemaker type of race that tries to ensure peace in the universe, especially against a weaker race like us humans that is still in early evolution stages.

reply to post by Flavian


Yes like I said, defeat is a possibility but only if their mission is to wipe out everything - but in that case, why would they attack us in the first place, because they would spend resources for nothing.

This would be the equivalent of me coming to your house, kill you and your family, burn your house down for.... nothing. And you say... "doesnt make sense... what... you dont want anything? - nah, just to kill people and burn everything". No, they must want or need something, therefore they need to conquer and capture and need intact assets, even if the only intact asset they need is the planet, and to be honest, we're crazy enough to scorch the planet while fighting them before they can have it. You know we would - the minute we figure what they want, we'd burn it to the ground, we'd destroy it right before their eyes, even if that puts our own future at risk, because our way of thinking is "if we dont destroy it, they kill us and rull over our bodies, if we destroy it, they realize 1) they're fighting for nothing 2) we've nothing to lose, and if we survive, we'll adapt and we think how to correct this, but there will be no "correcting" and no "adapting" if we're all killed, so... scorch the sky, burn the ground, evaporate the ocean, anything they want, make them see we can remove it from existence". Think Russia and Napoleon - we've got a very rich history full of good examples we can use for future reference.

reply to post by FraternitasSaturni


In truth, any invasion from an ET species would effectively be a surprise attack. Presumably we'd have no large-scale first-hand knowledge of intelligent ET life. You write like this is a prepared war scenario. We'd suffer an alien equivalent of Blitzkrieg.

reply to post by RUInsane


The blitzkrieg was stopped in russia in the battle of moscow in 1941 and then in stalingrad. What you know as the "blitzkrieg" was not used at a national level anywhere else.

Why cant you people have faith in humans...? Is it that hard?

This is why millions of us will fight for that glimpse of hope and faith on the human race while millions of you die hopeless, in some god forsaken hole cowering behind some debris waiting for the next air strike to release you from that prison of fear and despair...

The rest of us will keep on, from ditch to ditch, trench to trench, ruin after ruin, city by city, proudly waving that anti-alien racist flag and we'll be keeping those skulls close, because one day when its all over, they'll be one hell of a conversation topic... and cool looking ashtrays.

reply to post by FraternitasSaturni


You are over thinking it, what if they only needed our planet for strategic value the life on the planet could be just wiped out. No reason to keep them around. Like when we bulldoze some trees to pave a road. We could be just that insignificant to them.

reply to post by Skorpy


Maybe... but it was a nice vision, eh?

reply to post by FraternitasSaturni


You describing a situation like the new TV series the Falling sky, where the motherships came and blew everything to hell and installed an imperial overseerer to put down the resistance.

Originally posted by Skorpy
reply to post by FraternitasSaturni

 

You describing a situation like the new TV series the Falling sky, where the motherships came and blew everything to hell and installed an imperial overseerer to put down the resistance.

Is it good...? Sounds interesting at least. I'm never up to date when it comes to tv shows

falling skies is awesome buddy! get watching it.. start from the beginning though, its 3 season deep.

as for the original post, regardless of odds, im Scottish........ WE FIGHT!

reply to post by Akragon

IF a hostile alien race decided to show up on earth.... Could we put up any kind of defence against a civilisation who's weapons are likely hundreds of years more advanced then our primitive guns?

It's not a matter of weapons vs. primitive weapons.

Even if they had the EXACT SAME weapons, we lose. Here's why. Logistics.

Simply put, we have to manufacture war machines here on Earth. Presumably, all of the planet would be well within striking range of their weapons. So, since they'd have interstellar travel, they could theoretically have an orbiting factory around Mars for example, making as many war machines as they could, well beyond our striking range to hit them.

If that weren't bad enough, with interstellar travel, they have nearly unlimited resources, whereas we are stuck with what is here on the planet (and all while being bombed, shelled, etc.)

Our only hope would be some kind of biologic that harms them but not us. (and that could defeat their ability to devise a cure.)

"Could we fight, or would it be futile?". who knows? But maybe, just maybe....

Well certainly you could fight!

You always have a choice even if that choice leads to almost certain annihilation. fact of the matter is that a choice is a choice no matter how bad one of the two possible options might be in a choice. True freedom means being able to see that the worst possible choice is a road as well, even being a poor road.

Certainly there are a million ways humanity can lose against alien civilizations. I can think of billions of ways to destroy a race such as the humans:

Sending in a self replicating enzyme that transforms H2O in a more acid form would be one for instance. Changing the waters of a planet slowly into an acidic form is always fun...

Moving on; There is no reason to assume that aliens would need to send fleets of soldiers to Earth. In fact there is no reason to attack Earth at this moment at all. As long as your race still views trivial things like power as a force rather than a point of view there is no reason to annihilate you guys. Well, not until you develop active ION drive propulsion. The universe can't have another overblown race of egocentric parasites.

The late great sci-fi author Iain M Banks had a term for precisely this scenario (outlined at length in the novel 'Excession'): Outside Context Problem

The usual example given to illustrate an Outside Context Problem was imagining you were a tribe on a largish, fertile island; you'd tamed the land, invented the wheel or writing or whatever, the neighbors were cooperative or enslaved but at any rate peaceful and you were busy raising temples to yourself with all the excess productive capacity you had, you were in a position of near-absolute power and control which your hallowed ancestors could hardly have dreamed of and the whole situation was just running along nicely like a canoe on wet grass... when suddenly this bristling lump of iron appears sailless and trailing steam in the bay and these guys carrying long funny-looking sticks come ashore and announce you've just been discovered, you're all subjects of the Emperor now, he's keen on presents called tax and these bright-eyed holy men would like a word with your priests.....Most civilizations would encounter an Outside Context Problem just once, rather in the same way a sentence encounters a full stop."

His short story 'The State Of The Art' also provides an interesting perspective on how a genuinely star-faring (ie: FTL) culture might view our quaint little planet.