How a Alien race would construct and build?

I think overlooking bio is a huge oversight. A advanced race may not grow ships but they certainly could grow habitats in fact if we ever venture into deep space plants are still great air scrubbers just think if you could get a tree to grow in any shape you wanted no fasteners needed. Getting spiders to weave ropes or clothing would be stronger and lighter than any we could manufacture.

Other than that I will go with something that is still Sci Fi. Star Treks molecular materializers. I believe all that it needed was large quantitys on energy.

Originally posted by NotAnAspie
Very interesting question, OP.

I think any answer will depend on what you consider an alien race.

Take the underground non human races that are supposed to exist here on earth from the past, which would actually not be alien but from this world and hiding underground for a time. Or perhaps former inhabitants of this planet who went to...let's say the moon or mars, who traveled space but not very much further than us... maybe just within the solar system. If they haven't gotten much further than us, then maybe their tech is not that far past our own... but just slightly different here and there.

Or maybe you are talking about a true alien race that is from another solar system.

An ancient non human earthly race may not be technologically advanced at all...or even an inter dimensional one. Maybe they have a completely different biology that allows them to live in such a way that they have no need for technology but their being is very adapted by their will or something and they can achieve things we would see as a supernatural power... even if it is natural to them. Or maybe it is a race that has both unusual abilities AND tech... so maybe their tech would be different just based on what they are able to achieve naturally.

however, if you are talking about a technologically advanced race that has traveled a light year or more, through the interstellar medium... then I would say you might want to consider that a whole new ballgame.

Some of the weakest aspects of human technology is the fastening and the manufacturing. Face it, something that is nutted and bolted together is not going to withstand the same forces that something which is made more whole or streamline is going to withstand. Humans are at least at the point that they recognize this. Welding attempts to face down many of these draw backs, but I believe a race exists... regardless of origin, that is naturally capable of intricate and intense energy manipulation and can perhaps achieve a type of flawless fusion of elements on a level we are not yet able to achieve and this would be superior to fastening for many reasons in certain designs...such as space flight and aerodynamics.

that's not to say all non-human races could surpass this... We don't know how many are out there and some may not even be as advanced as humans... no matter where they came from..
the two things i am trying to present is the consideration of deep space flight that would make it a necessity to have something more advanced to keep it from falling apart in extreme conditions... AND... my personal belief that it's not just about what one could do with their hands that makes them an advanced race, but a more intricate understanding of energy... a natural ability to see things more clearly on a micro and macro level, concerning science and what things consist of and how to achieve a desired result...including chemistry, alchemy and frequencies of energy and how to use them.

It is my personal belief that certain non human species have special abilities but I'm not inclined to try to describe exactly what that entails... I couldn't possibly know the full scope, but from what I know personally... I do believe they could very well be telepathic, cause frequency reactions in people who are close enough to them to present some kind of danger as a form of self protection, can read the subtlest of energy cues and may very well be engineering and mechanical specialists of an exclusive level.

edit on 17-8-2013 by NotAnAspie because: (no reason given)

k getting back onto the topic. basically the question I have is do "they" Have the use or need of the helix and what the helix encompasses as far as pulling things together? Helix being a basic screw.

reply to post by proob4

He claimed they crated up saucers that was flawless in construction and when the door on them closed you could not see any evidence of where it was.

Doesn't this imply a seamless form of construction that would prohibit the use of screws?

Originally posted by proob4

Originally posted by NotAnAspie
Very interesting question, OP.

I think any answer will depend on what you consider an alien race.

Or maybe you are talking about a true alien race that is from another solar system.

An ancient non human earthly race may not be technologically advanced at all...or even an inter dimensional one. Maybe they have a completely different biology that allows them to live in such a way that they have no need for technology but their being is very adapted by their will or something and they can achieve things we would see as a supernatural power... even if it is natural to them. Or maybe it is a race that has both unusual abilities AND tech... so maybe their tech would be different just based on what they are able to achieve naturally.

however, if you are talking about a technologically advanced race that has traveled a light year or more, through the interstellar medium... then I would say you might want to consider that a whole new ballgame.

Some of the weakest aspects of human technology is the fastening and the manufacturing. Face it, something that is nutted and bolted together is not going to withstand the same forces that something which is made more whole or streamline is going to withstand. Humans are at least at the point that they recognize this. Welding attempts to face down many of these draw backs, but I believe a race exists... regardless of origin, that is naturally capable of intricate and intense energy manipulation and can perhaps achieve a type of flawless fusion of elements on a level we are not yet able to achieve and this would be superior to fastening for many reasons in certain designs...such as space flight and aerodynamics.

that's not to say all non-human races could surpass this... We don't know how many are out there and some may not even be as advanced as humans... no matter where they came from..
the two things i am trying to present is the consideration of deep space flight that would make it a necessity to have something more advanced to keep it from falling apart in extreme conditions... AND... my personal belief that it's not just about what one could do with their hands that makes them an advanced race, but a more intricate understanding of energy... a natural ability to see things more clearly on a micro and macro level, concerning science and what things consist of and how to achieve a desired result...including chemistry, alchemy and frequencies of energy and how to use them.

It is my personal belief that certain non human species have special abilities but I'm not inclined to try to describe exactly what that entails... I couldn't possibly know the full scope, but from what I know personally... I do believe they could very well be telepathic, cause frequency reactions in people who are close enough to them to present some kind of danger as a form of self protection, can read the subtlest of energy cues and may very well be engineering and mechanical specialists of an exclusive level.

edit on 17-8-2013 by NotAnAspie because: (no reason given)

k getting back onto the topic. basically the question I have is do "they" Have the use or need of the helix and what the helix encompasses as far as pulling things together? Helix being a basic screw.

See my post. It answers this question very clearly. first, who are THEY?

You have to answer this first, then the rest is common sense.

A race that has traveled through the interstellar medium would be very unlikely to use screws for reasons I made very clear.

Secondly, When it it comes to the question of who are THEY... If you are talking about greys for example, who I believe very much exist and have certain abilities that I tried to make clear, and the answer I clearly gave is that they somehow have that ability to do things I already described in my post and are RENOWN for their engineering. Removing the weakest links in design is the next step in technology... that's common sense. Now do I think ANY alien race has that ability. Of course not. I was speaking from a personal viewpoint on a particular race.

You didn't even read the post, did you? The answer is RIGHT THERE.

In almost ALL design, fasteners are the weakest links.

I don't know what part of that you think is off topic. It's all over the topic... and for that matter, also pointing out the fact that the topic needs to be clarified if you want it answered because you don't even specify what you mean by alien. Like one answer is supposed to fit all. How very short sighted to think an answer could fit any alien race.

I clearly answered the question. Maybe you're just blind or something.

reply to post by NotAnAspie


It's not that you didn't answer the question, it's that the answer was buried amongst a lot of randomness that had little to do with the topic.
And wouldn't alien be a relatively generic term to describe any entity foreign to our current understanding of biology and intelligence? Why be specific about the race in question when there is still no true definition of what aliens exist beyond (or within) our world?

OK... For those who need the KISS method employed in a post, I will try again and I hope you know what that stands for and isn't affection.

Comes from other star + Made with screws = Fally Aparty... duh.

Mr Grey man = mind reading, astrophysicist, geneticist, maker of things that go BOOM, works long and hard in basement doing engineery type stuff with high level of alchemy and extra brain voltage. Likes to screw but doesn't necessarily need one.

Large headed man eating eight legged creatures from Saturn = How the hell should I know?
I've never seen one but but maybe they just thrive off of sucking people's brain cells out from across the solar system one by one on a molecular level so that the victims can only have one single thought at a time or their mind just shuts down and have no need for screws either.

Originally posted by Thorneblood
reply to post by NotAnAspie

 

It's not that you didn't answer the question, it's that the answer was buried amongst a lot of randomness that had little to do with the topic.
And wouldn't alien be a relatively generic term to describe any entity foreign to our current understanding of biology and intelligence? Why be specific about the race in question when there is still no true definition of what aliens exist beyond (or within) our world?

edit on 17-8-2013 by Thorneblood because: (no reason given)

Yeah... maybe... If you count on your fingers and stuff.

I guess I should have kept it at Yes or No for those who's eyes have been rendered to blurry by this evenings activities.

Fine.

Yes and No.

There, that better?

Sure...

If you wanna be a dick about it..

Man I have spent so many years of my life pondering this exact thought. It is too late for me to really dive into this so I will post later. But I for one definitely feel like all the nuts and bolts and screws and tools we use seem so primitive in my opinion. Great Post!

In my own very humble opinion, given this vast, possibly infinite universe I can imagine that there are as many "alien" species as you could possibly imagine, using as many machining techniques as you can dream up. From caveman-like primitives using vines and leather thongs to lash vegetation together, to beings that are so advanced that their exotic methods seem like magic to us. And everything in between, yes, even including the humble screw , maybe even pondering the same question you're asking.

reply to post by proob4


Good thread, I suspect that a normal alien race if sentient and none hive mind would likely build much as we do, there tools though would reflect there method of manipulation and there architecture there aesthetic principle's and requirement's, However it is not beyond possibility to hypothesis a race whom use natural secretions or even bio engineered living construction techniques, for the more advance the concept of a universal constructor (A device that build's atom by atom into any required form) may actually become a feasible method but it will all likely have begun with a simple method of placing one object on top of another and the realization that a shelter could be constructed by such a method.

However for a hive mind things are quite different as there drones may be of limited intelligence and even if not there architecture as well as likely being organic or semi organic may be hive like in construction.

Then there may be an entire class of entity that we can not perceive for whom construction is irrelevant.
Or extra dimensional entity's whose architecture may be beyond our ability to appreciate it.

S+F.

I was cutting a piece of watermelon with a very sharp knife. As I removed the sections something jumped out at me. I had seen these type of clean cuts before. Then it hit me. Tiahuanaco, Puma-Punku, Ollytaytambo. They all show extremely smooth, flat, prefect cuts. They used lasers. That's why no debris was found. Those devices can be seen in the hand of the Atlantean giants on the pyramid of Kulkucan. What better way to sculpt hard granite, than vaporizing it on the spot? Finding ore would be a breeze if you could just melt the rock surrounding it.

Its funny we always think of alien civilizations being so much more advanced but I was thinking one day of a crazy funny scenario.

So the aliens aren't stupid. They have conquered their planet with their advanced weaponry and their skyships.
They have also perfected the engine drive system to enable them to travel to a distant planet with thoughts of dominating it.

They enter Earths atmosphere in ships made of wood and proceed to launch their massive weapons. Throwing stones.....

A couple kids with flaming arrows take them out

First of all, that is a cake. Second of all, it represents the Zerg, who have a completely different method of construction -

The drones you see mining there will morph and grow into a fully-functional, living building. Hopefully not a spawning pool at 6.

The buildings are connected through a neural network in the creep.

Much older tech but I guess leaked to us, growing organic crafts on the vine from seeds. Talk about GMO.

They continue to grow in space, so you don't have to spend trillions on this or build extra large ones, so if you have the initial seed (which may even be crystal for all I know, I've wondered on that), and the tech, this would be a very cheap way to produce a craft or a base.


2010 Mercedes-Benz Biome Concept

This tells me the black ops already have this low level cosmic tech and are growing things in space.

Originally posted by Unity_99
Much older tech but I guess leaked to us, growing organic crafts on the vine from seeds. Talk about GMO.

They continue to grow in space, so you don't have to spend trillions on this or build extra large ones, so if you have the initial seed (which may even be crystal for all I know, I've wondered on that), and the tech, this would be a very cheap way to produce a craft or a base.

2010 Mercedes-Benz Biome Concept

This tells me the black ops already have this low level cosmic tech and are growing things in space.

Thats one cool car. It seems a lot of posters are trending towards organic manufacturing as a means aliens would build. Thanks for the post.

I feel that a race advanced enough to travel through vast distances in space, would use a form of construction we haven't even discovered yet.

I HIGHLY doubt they would use anything even close to what humans use. That is to say...made to break down, so you have to dish out more money for a new one. Cars are the perfect example. For all we know we are perfectly capable of constructing things that will NEVER break, but greed rules this planet.

See here's the thing. Allmost everyone has said that if a alien race can get here they would hve superior technology higher than ours that we cannot understand. My post title is how aliens would build things. Why is everyone on the alien ship bandwagon? I had in mind not just aliens ships but homes, furniture, transportation heck maybe even their cooking utensils?

I think most of the posters let their inflated ego's or despotism go wild here and kinda missed the whole point on my post.

let me reiderate. Would, could or should a Alien race be simular in how we manufacture/build things?

I thought about adding my 2cents about self-assembling methods of manufacturing but everybody beat me to it . Self assembly could be nano-machines, proteins, or even larger automated systems.

I will just add one other point. We have been attempting, for the last 20 years, to generate self-assembling integrated circuits. There was a big push by IBM in the mid 1990s. This would replace photolitography and chemical vapor deposition and wouldn't require a clean room.

At the same time we still have people that craft weapons, straight razors, and other tools with a forge, anvil and hammer.

So I suspect a hypothetical advanced species would use a variety of low-tech and high-tech methods. However, I think self-assembling tech would likely constitute the bulk of manufacturing.

I also would like to touch on a response by NthOther in this thread.

Originally posted by NthOther
If they do it anything like we do it, they'd first have to enslave their population with an economic system that forces them to commodify and sell their labor in order to procure a means of exchange for life-sustaining goods.

People aren't going to spend their lives on Phobos mining dilithium if they don't have to, you know. I think people sometimes forget that almost all of our technology is the result of social coercion on a global scale. It's for that reason I have a hard time believing that any technologically advanced extraterrestrial species is a benevolent one.

...if they do it anything like we do it.

I disagree about the technical advancement. I believe many of the critical advancements made over the last 600 years were a result of passionate people that enjoyed what they were doing.

Originally posted by compressedFusion
I thought about adding my 2cents about self-assembling methods of manufacturing but everybody beat me to it _javascript:icon('

'). Self assembly could be nano-machines, proteins, or even larger automated systems.

I will just add one other point. We have been attempting, for the last 20 years, to generate self-assembling integrated circuits. There was a big push by IBM in the mid 1990s. This would replace photolitography and chemical vapor deposition and wouldn't require a clean room.

At the same time we still have people that craft weapons, straight razors, and other tools with a forge, anvil and hammer.

So I suspect a hypothetical advanced species would use a variety of low-tech and high-tech methods. However, I think self-assembling tech would likely constitute the bulk of manufacturing.

I also would like to touch on a response by NthOther in this thread.

Originally posted by NthOther
If they do it anything like we do it, they'd first have to enslave their population with an economic system that forces them to commodify and sell their labor in order to procure a means of exchange for life-sustaining goods.

People aren't going to spend their lives on Phobos mining dilithium if they don't have to, you know. I think people sometimes forget that almost all of our technology is the result of social coercion on a global scale. It's for that reason I have a hard time believing that any technologically advanced extraterrestrial species is a benevolent one.

...if they do it anything like we do it.

I disagree about the technical advancement. I believe many of the critical advancements made over the last 600 years were a result of passionate people that enjoyed what they were doing.

Again let's forget about space travellers. Let's just say that hypothetically there are alien races, somewhat ahead, same or behind us technologically? The whole I idea I put on page 1 of this thread is basically about fasteners and building concepts and methods. Would, could or should they use the very same or simular methods described? All the organic and other futuristic stuff is great idea's but I wanted to have adiscussion if basic's like screws or even a nails, (forgot to mention that in OP) and other methods described are simular as our own. Are these basic concepts universal?

Considering what else would, could, should be used to attach, assemble, fit, bond materials together and build stuff? Is the helix that is used in Bolts, screws, clamps, machinery also universal?

This is the question/concept I basically was after as a disscussion in the beginning.