We have a lot of these 'aliens invade earth' films with massive ships, impenetrable shields and death rays that incinerate everything in its path. Does it never occur that we could be those aliens in the future. Much like Columbus discovering America?
Any thoughts on humans being the genocidal aliens?
"Why are aliens always more advanced than us??"
How else would they manage to get here? it's not like it's a walk in the park traversing deep space.
You're a load in my pants Al - Officer Dan
*Any thoughts on humans being the genocidal aliens?*
Try "Warhammer 40,000".
I'm Eternal1976 and I approve this message.
Advanced ok, but always this ridiculous advanced...it's just annoying.
Ich bin kein ausgeklügelt Buch, ich bin ein Mensch mit seinem Widerspruch.
Conrad Ferdinand Meyer
IIRC The Orson Wells War of the World, the aliens weren't that advanced, in turn they were almost at the same level but in a different branch. What I mean is that, yes they had technology we didn't (walking tripods, and heat rays), but at the same time we had technology they didn't (Airplanes and flight in general). The walkers didn't have shields and even one of them was shot down by artillery fire. Technically the aliens trump card was chemical warfare where they used the black smoke which poisoned and killed anyone who breathed it in, which was used to wipe out cities and military fronts.
It's been awhile but I believe that since they didn't have the knowledge of flight, their method of getting to Earth was to load their walkers into giant tubes and shoot them sort of like a giant bullet at Earth from Mars. It was said there was giant green flashes erupting from Mars before the tubes landed which I take for sort of a muzzle flash from whatever launched the tubes. It's been awhile so my recollection of it may not be entirely accurate.
I didn't bother to read every post here, but to answer the question in the title of this thread - if the aliens have been able to get HERE, they are obviously more advanced than us regarding technology at least.
Oh, and dcdw21 - you're right about the War Of The Worlds. They were shot here in giant cylinders.
by PresidentBaltar (Mon Nov 22 2010 20:19:01)
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"The closest dwarf star galaxy is about 40,000 LIGHT YEARS away."
So what? Proxima Centauri is the closest star at only 4 light years away.
"If an alien race traveled from there at the speed of light, it would take them 40,000 years to arrive at earth."
Or, only 4 years from Proxima Centauri.
"That means they would have achieved light speed, and left their home planet while we were still cavemen trying to figure out how to use fire."
Or, while Bush was president.
"Not only that, but they would have to have the technology required to survive space travel for such a length of time"
4 years?
"Imagine the type of energy required to travel such a vast distance (read: unlimited energy)."
The Voyager 1 spacecraft, launched on Sept. 5, 1977, is 11 billion miles away from the sun, and is using no energy at all, other than inertia ( read: no energy )
"Also, it means that their civilization would have to have been in existence MUCH longer than ours"
Well, at least 4 years longer.
"We as a civilization are not even close to being able to do something like that. Our space shuttles travel approximately 4000 miles per hour."
The Helios missions to the Sun both reached a velocity of 153,800 mph.
"Don't even get me started on if the aliens could travel through space via wormholes or faster than light."
Why not? I want to see some more wrong information from you.
"You see, the movies get it wrong. They create weaknesses in the aliens to create hope for the audience."
Destruction by the fusion reaction of a nuclear warhead is not a "created weakness". It's a fact.
"If aliens were to really arrive here - we'd better pray that they're merciful and don't instantly destroy or enslave us. We would not stand a chance."
Well, not unless we had nuclear warheads.
"We would be like ants trying to fight gods."
Thank god ants don't have nuclear weapons.
[deleted]
Since Mars is a lot closer to Earth than other star systems and doesn't require FTL travel to get here in a reasonable amount of time, the relative parity in technology is more realistic.
shareIt makes sense that they're so much more technologically advanced than us because they would have to be to be travelling around the universe invading other planets. For all we know, they've been doing this for millennia.
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1. Because smart villians and monsters are scarier than dumb ones.
2. Because not being at the top of the food chain is scary.
3. It's scary when you don't know what your enemies are capable of.
An interesting alternative take on this is covered in Larry Niven's "Banquo's Ghost" where the aliens are much less advanced than us but happened to stumble upon FTL travel. They turn up shortly after our sub-lightspeed probes reach their planet and are here to watch when the data starts coming in several years later.
shareHere's a good plot for a movie- an alien ship arrives made out of wood. Inside, the aliens are armed with cross bows and witch doctors.
shareHere's a good plot for a movie- an alien ship arrives made out of wood. Inside, the aliens are armed with cross bows and witch doctors.
As has been mentioned by others, in order for a civilization to travel across light-years of space their technologic level would have to be greater than ours.
Also, there is at least a fairly good chance that such a civilization is predatory.(like us)
hahahaha
Cross brows if their lucky. They come to invade us and we find them huddled up in the corner of their flying wooden box looking scared out of their minds next to a pile of rocks that they brought to throw at us.
Not all are. Just the ones with intergalactic travel methods.
Im the Alpha and the Omoxus. The Omoxus and the Omega
Hmm, you could perhaps make a distinction between the techonologies they and we use.
With FTL of course they would be more advanced - we don't have it.
But who is saying that their weapon and armor technology is superior?
Maybe their weapons are based on different uses and facts of their world and thus is more effective against their own kind than us?
Or although they are to some extent violent etc. they don't comprehend violence as explicit as we do or don't have the creativity to develop the selfdestructive kind we can (nuclear weapons - destroy your enemy - dance in the Fallout).
You have the possibility that it is not a whole race that invades us but a little fraction - like some settlers thinking that they could just overrun some native americans really quick.
Then there is the chance that we adapt and use their technology to their dismay (throw away the bow - take the rifle).
Who knows - it could be that some of their own race (or another) just supply us with what we need because they want to make a quick buck, I am certain they will get whatever they want - if it is burgers, flowers or virgins, we don't care.
There are enough ways to tell the story different - I am just too sick of the indestructable foe (that at the end sucks out of sheer luck - same in this movie - you would think they would know their technology and just sort out an ORANGE BRAIN).
I catch myself to often telling myself "Yeah forget the story, they will win yadayada, yeah romance, last *beep* go on...where is the last stand? Some explosions should come now - ah there they are. Yay. Oh we lost, something really new. Oh and now they start failing in all their omnipotence. Ah. Endcredits. Another SciFi waste."
Obviously they're more advanced, or they wouldn't be able to cross interstellar space. That ability necessitates command of colossal energies and extremely strong materials, so any nonsense about 'well they might have more advanced spaceflight but that doesn't mean their military is powerful' is wishful thinking that doesn't reflect how engineering and science grow. It suggests that each discipline develops in isolation, although Earth's space and military technologies evolved in parallel, so if you apply that to the level of interstellar travel, then by compariosn our weapons will be quite feeble.
Those people saying that these aliens are too advanced seriously need to read some hard sci-fi, or even moderately intelligent sci-fi shows, such as Babylon 5, where humanity finds just how far down the galactic food chain it is.
Too advanced!... LMAO!
Oh *beep* another brainiac who thinks his view is everything. :P
So of course the aliens have to feel, think and develop like we do.
Ohhh how could I think different...wait there was some word...I think it was "alien"?
Nah that is just my imagination.
They HAVE TO EVOLVE just like us. Gnihihi. Yeah.
Not to forget that the weapon technologies alone in different countries of the world developed totally different (history too!), but what am I saying.
I bow down to your omnipotence.
Babylon 5!... LMAO!
A nice line in strawman and ad hominem fallacies you've drawn there, with a dose of petulant and infantile sarcasm thrown in..
Not to forget that the weapon technologies alone in different countries of the world developed totally different (history too!), but what am I saying.
Oh kitchenwannabe (better stay there) if I ram a knife in you physics will tell you that you can have a nuke and it will matter not while you squeal with your last breath "i haz nukes".
The fact that our little aliens are using impossible technologies from a physical point in nearly every movie is lost on your feeble mind that wouldn't even be used as a toilet dispenser in an alien ship.
English is not my mother language and I am very certain that your lower intellect isn't able to reproduce a "hello" in the two other languages I can speak.
Another possibility - civilisations decline and fall, technologies are lost and rediscovered. We are still not entirely sure how the Egyptians built the Pyramids with the technology available at the time, or how the ancient Britons moved the blocks of Stonehenge 200 miles from the quarry science tells us they came from. I'm not saying aliens did it, I'm just pointing out our own civilisation lost that particular technology and arguably never rediscovered it.
It's already been established that even at light speed, it would take a substantial amount of time to get here from any but the closest star systems, so any alien civilisations reaching us realistically travelling significantly slower than light and a far greater distance would have been travelling for generations. Maybe hundreds of generations, maybe thousands.
Perhaps, like pyramids, their civilisation was once advanced enough to design and build faster than light starships and send them on their way, but the civilisation collapsed at some point during the journey. If they remember where they came from at all maybe it is just as a myth or a legend, with their data records corrupted and any written records being recorded in a 1000 year old language no-one understands any more.
Maybe you would have a fleet of starships arriving each one having evolved independently, so you end up having primitive aliens warring with each other, unaware they come from the same place, with the more advanced Earthlings watching on in bemusement?
By sheer virtue of the fact that they can bridge the gap between stars. Something that we're still quite some way from.
Does it never occur that we could be those aliens in the future. Much like Columbus discovering America?
Any thoughts on humans being the genocidal aliens?