Stephen Hawking hates the Combines

VirusType2 said:
Lets just hope their ship doesn't run on water or carbon (or stars).
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Or planets.

Doomsday_Machine.jpg
 
Remus said:
It wasn't mentioned because it's not relevant to this discussion. If it was relevant you can be sure I would've brought it up.
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That's kind of the point. We always find the relevance. Always.
 
nurizeko said:
The good thing about space is that it is big and empty so you could probably see a nuke coming at you, aim your hull full of PDG's in its general direction and open up until it is shot down.

Think the new BSG.
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Well, you know, we can always overwhelm any point defense system by, well, firing shitloads of missiles instead of just one.

Apocalypse89 said:
Trying to hit a spacecraft belonging to a civilization advanced enough to invent practical interstellar travel with a 100 megaton nuke, would probably be a bit like trying to destroy a modern aircraft carrier(with a full air wing and escort ships) by ramming it with a medieval wooden ship filled with gunpowder.
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Or you know, it might punch a hole in it. It can't hurt to try.
 
Carbon is the 15th most abundant element in the Earth's crust, and the fourth most abundant element in the universe by mass after hydrogen, helium, and oxygen. It is present in all known lifeforms, and in the human body carbon is the second most abundant element by mass (about 18.5%) after oxygen.
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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carbon

To me, this means a few things.

If hydrogen and oxygen are two of the most abundant elements in the known universe, then water shouldn't be rare. Really it depends on whether a planet has all the right characteristics to keep it. Without our magnetosphere, for example, I'm pretty sure all of Earth's water would have been evaporated by the Sun. A planet far from a star could of course have water in the form of ice.

Another thing is that carbon is extremely common in the known universe, so that means that carbon-based life-forms could be common, especially when you consider that water is probably common as well (which all known life requires).

So, all the elements are there (figuratively and literally) for life [as we know it] to be common in the universe. Certainly, there are countless stars that provide incredibly stable and immense energy for billions of years. Plant life has evolved to harness this energy with their leaves.
 
I'm pretty sure that there are at least thousands of life forms out there, in this galaxy alone.

The question is (if sentient) where their technological level is in comparison to ours, and how we might be able to exploit that fact.
 
DEATHMASTER said:
"To my mathematical brain, the numbers alone make thinking about aliens perfectly rational."

I like this guy. Before having read that even.
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That's always been my view on the subject. The universe is just too vast for life to be created only once.

Bob_Marley said:
IIRC current conventional thinking is that any aliens we come into contact with would be at least 5,000 years in advance of us in technology terms. Which means if they were hostile it'd be the equivelant of a spears against nuclear weapons.
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The picture you got that from in the Image Dump actually said it was more like nuclear weapons against sponges.
 
The universe is ****ing huger than shit, we're alone.

'Like are you god damn kidding me?'
 
51FjK.jpg

​
Now, we do not pretend to have achieved perfection, but we do have a system, and it works. I came here to give you these facts. It is no concern of ours how you run your own planet, but if you threaten to extend your violence, this Earth of yours will be reduced to a burned-out cinder. Your choice is simple: join us and live in peace, or pursue your present course and face obliteration. We shall be waiting for your answer. The decision rests with you.​
 
KineticAesthetic said:
Now, we do not pretend to have achieved perfection, but we do have a system, and it works. I came here to give you these facts. It is no concern of ours how you run your own planet, but if you threaten to extend your violence, this Earth of yours will be reduced to a burned-out cinder. Your choice is simple: join us and live in peace, or pursue your present course and face obliteration. We shall be waiting for your answer. The decision rests with you.​
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Forgot about that episode. Thinking back on it now, I don't know which I would choose. Pick peace and follow the path that they choose, or throw it in their faces and try to someday achieve what they have on our own. I blame Legion from Mass Effect 2 for making me think this way.
 
the cow says moo said:
Forgot about that episode. Thinking back on it now, I don't know which I would choose. Pick peace and follow the path that they choose, or throw it in their faces and try to someday achieve what they have on our own. I blame Legion from Mass Effect 2 for making me think this way.
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Well since in that scenario it's join us or be destroyed, a compromise would be to lie. Play dead for a while, steal technology from them to quickly advance to their level. Then break away/hit back.
 
Its extremely naive (and arrogant) to assume that aliens would have any desire to visit this tiny, backwater planet for any reason. Why would they even want to be here?

Resources? Nope. There are far more resources in abundance in the universe than on our planet. Water abides in huge quantities in interstellar clouds. Silicon, Nitrogen, Carbon, Hydrogen, Helium, and what have you are all found in huge quantities in (presumably much closer) nebulae and on planets all over the universe. It would be the equivalent of the aliens deciding to stock up on supplies at a supermarket, drive to the airport, get in a jet, fly to Mongolia, and then raid a village for cow meat.

Man power? Surely not, if they're an advanced enough civilization to get from wherever they are to here in a reasonable amount of time, it stands to reason they have no need for labor.

Meat? Don't be ridiculous.

Our technology? I highly doubt it.

The planet itself? Maybe, but its also possible (and extremely likely) that our planet would be uninhabitable to any life form which evolved on another planet which wasn't (extremely) similar to Earth. The atmosphere may be poisonous, it may be far too cold or too hot, it could be too dark or too light, it could have too much or too little water or land.

Because they see us as a threat? Nope, sorry. Interstellar war is extremely hard and expensive, and takes a ridiculously long time. Nobody would even attempt it, unless they had an extremely good reason to do so.

It's also pretty naive to assume that aliens are more advanced than we are. They're just as likely to be bacteria as they are to be Klingons. They're even more likely to be long dead.
 
theotherguy said:
It's also pretty naive to assume that aliens are more advanced than we are. They're just as likely to be bacteria as they are to be Klingons. They're even more likely to be long dead.
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I strongly agree with this. Personally I think that life could be very common in the Universe, but intelligent life on the other hand scarce, and intelligent life that pursues technological advancement even more so...
 
theotherguy said:
It's also pretty naive to assume that aliens are more advanced than we are. They're just as likely to be bacteria as they are to be Klingons. They're even more likely to be long dead.
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I tend to agree (as I mentioned) but I think we are talking about alien visitors here, with regards to the thread topic, anyway.

An interesting topic.

There was some film I saw where the ships were living - like giant wales in space. Was pretty interesting.

What film was that? Shit - it could have been Star Trek for all I remember.
 
KineticAesthetic said:
[/CENTER]
Now, we do not pretend to have achieved perfection, but we do have a system, and it works. I came here to give you these facts. It is no concern of ours how you run your own planet, but if you threaten to extend your violence, this Earth of yours will be reduced to a burned-out cinder. Your choice is simple: join us and live in peace, or pursue your present course and face obliteration. We shall be waiting for your answer. The decision rests with you.​
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My answer wouldbe a tactical nuke shoved in his face, but, since they gave us a choice, I'm gonna go alog with Remus.

Of course, it is unlikely, but what if we're the most advanced race in the galaxy? Wouldn't that be awesome? We could be like the conquistadors with other races, killing and exploiting and shit.
 
It sucks that we know so little of the universe and space in general. It's such a fascinating subject but we lack so much knowledge. It is so massive there must be other life out there. Too bad all of us will die before we find out.
 
This thread makes me want to sorta play Spore again.

The Noripod empire is vast, but it needs to be vaster.



Interesting though that aside from a few experiments in uplifting in random parts of the galaxy, my main playstyle was to dump colonies with reckless abandon, and wipe out any sentient life in the way of my uniform tidy looking expanding empire like a property developer casually clears a field/forest to make way for a new housing development. :S
 
15357 said:
Well, you know, we can always overwhelm any point defense system by, well, firing shitloads of missiles instead of just one.



Or you know, it might punch a hole in it. It can't hurt to try.
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That was my point.

A shipful(is that a word?) of gunpowder might damage a modern aircraft carrier, but the system used to deliver it is so slow, primitive, and fragile by comparison that it's likely to be destroyed or simply avoided long, long before it actually reaches its target. You could send a hundred of them and the carrier and any escorts will still easily intercept them all or just move out of the way.

Replace "gunpowder" with "nuke" and "aircraft carrier" with "alien starship" and that gives you an idea of what modern Earth vs. hostile interstellar species would possibly be like.
 
CaldwellDaedalus.jpg


Or you could just beam the nuke on board their ship!
 
Hahaha, that's one of the few Stargate episodes I've actually seen. If they're good, they'll already know about that old trick though; our TV broadcasts emanating out into space will have given away all our most creative and sneaky tricks.
 
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