attack of real aliens

[TheFaithfulStone]

Or we could just squirt 'em with water pistols. I saw that in a movie once.

Seriously, if aliens come here, they're capable of interstellar travel, and they're hostile, we're pretty much boned.

There are a few possibilities that don't end badly, but the depend on a chain of events that seems... unlikely.

Like they all need to use Macs, so we can upload a virus to them...

TFS

[sanctus]

Are we really sure that we would have no chance? I mean just imagine there could be a scientific breakthrough in the next decade here (maybe unlikely but prove me wrong!) which would permit interstelar travel. Imagine as well that some natural catastrophe happens. So some of mankind would leave with this new technology which doesn't imply new weapons too...

[TheFaithfulStone]

True enough.

But I think that anybody with said scientific break through has got some other one ups on as well.

Let's say that we were facing the RTF from Battlestar Galactica. Basically, they're like mid 21st century tech +gravity generators and wormhole jumps.

They still kick our ass - because they've got the "high ground" of orbit. If we could get UP there and fight 'em we might have a chance, but we can't, so we really don't.

It might take Starbuck and crew a while to utterly exterminate us - but vs anybody with a starship and just a little luck, we're gonna lose.

There's only one "wild card" technology between the Revolutionary War, and a WWII Tank (the internal combustion engine.) And yet, a single tank would pretty much guarantee a win on any 18th century battlefield.

TFS

[CraigD]

Originally Posted by Moontanman

How would the world react if real malevolent aliens decided to attack or planet for their own. to then we would just be a particularly dangerous animal to be exterminated. who would the world turn to for protection? Would it be possible to defeat a superior force that would have limited resources due to the problems of distance in star travel?

This is an intensely fun scenario/question, which somehow I missed for nearly a week. However, as stated – how would we, the world, humankind react – is much less interesting to me, and, I think best considered only after considering an alternate question: If you were a malevolent alien attacker, what would be your tactical plan?

If, like me, you’ve much experience with science fiction gaming, this may seem a routine question. However, this is a space science forum, not a space opera one, so most of that experience need to be thrown out. No deflector-shield-equipped space-battleships with phasers and torpedo blazing are allowed – everything needs to be valid science. In the same vein, let’s assume that any sort of sneaky coup d'état in which the invaders just subvert or replace our heads of government is out. This is a purely military scenario.

As with any tactical question, before responding to it, it’s necessary to set some hypothetical assumptions about the aliens

• They’re roughly biologically human. For example, they’re not computer-based intelligences, nor microscopic planet-sized, or other beings able to comfortable exist in outer space. Like us, they must artificially maintain a comfortable environment around themselves to survive in space, and if these systems fail, they’ll die = Earth wins, Aliens lose
• Considering just the ones attacking, as opposed to their whole civilization, they’re technologically close to us on the Kardashev scale, able to harness power and energy no greater than a few thousand times what we can. Tactics like just yanking Earth out to the Oort cloud, wait a few dozen days for us to freeze to death, then replace it and conquer away aren’t out of the question.
• Clarke’s 3rd law doesn’t apply. Though it may be beyond our ability to imitate, none of the invaders’ technology is, in principle, beyond our practical comprehension. They may have better rockets, antimatter, beamed power, better telescopes, better computers, etc, but nothing so advanced as to be, to us, “indistinguishable from magic” – no time travel, warp drive, quantum-reality twisting gizmos, etc.
• They’re observant enough to have a pretty good idea of our technical and capabilities and behavior. They won’t commit the tactical blunder of them just landing their entire crew on Earth with the hope of awing us into worshipful submission with the equivalent of glass beads (and perhaps space-smallpox).

Given these assumptions, the question becomes equivalent to: if we human beings, advanced enough to be able to travel to a nearby star system, were intent on exterminating an indigenous, barely space-faring, human-like civilization and seizing their planet, how would we do it?

It’s also necessary to set aside question of why a spacefaring race would want to do such a thing, and just accept as a given that they/we do, and are here to do it.

Though the assumptions above leave a huge amount of room for options, leading to a innumerable number of possible strategies, here’s what I’d do:

1. NOT put my fragile biological bodies with their critical life support systems anywhere near Earth, a place I know is infested with creatures capable of launching small vehicles into space, and making fairly impressive explosions.
2. Look to my immediate material and energy needs, using an approach like the one described in this post
3. Do a thorough survey of near-Earth objects
4. Pick the best dozen or so NEOs – small and solid enough to push, big enough to do damage
5. Build motors on them. Use those motors to place them into Earth-intersecting orbits
6. Subject Earth and her inhabitants to a year of three of multiple extinction level events similar to those commonly believed to have killed the dinosaurs
7. Wait for the dust to settle and the fires to go out and move in, taking along some super-duper-malevolent-alien type guns to shoot any remaining humans or other dangerous wildlife (I had to sneak a little space opera in there, didn’t I )

Notice that this plan goes directly to one of the assumptions in Moontanman’s starting post:

Originally Posted by Moontanman

Would it be possible to defeat a superior force that would have limited resources due to the problems of distance in star travel?

After step 2, limited resources would no longer be an issue for the attacker. Though history has examples of military victories by vastly materially inferior forces, on a scale as large as planet conquering, it’s not a good idea to attack an enemy you can’t industrially out-produce.

Switching sides to the defenders, let’s look at their critical issues:

• Detection. If the attackers are careful, and have a good knowledge of our observational capabilities, the whole attack could happen without the defenders every being certain an intelligence was behind it. This raises the interesting question: “if steps 1-5 of the plan above were happening now, would we be aware of it?”
• Defense. Assuming we detect the attack, and recognize it for what it is, how can we stop it?
• Counterattack. Assuming we stop the attack, or possibly even if we don’t, how can we assure the attackers can’t keep repeating it?

I’ll stop here, as the defender’s possibilities are numerous and hard to evaluate. A serious problem to bear in mind, however, is that the inhabitants/invaders distinction may be blurred: in the scenario I paint, the invaders have, in a short time, with their small technological headstart, done what we’d like to do in the next decades or centuries. In a sense, with the completion of step #2, they, not we, own the solar system. Assuming as we do that the invaders are biologically similar to us, the only persistent advantage we’re likely to have is in population size, which, as anyone who’s played king of the hill on a steep, slippery hill can attest, can count for much less than one would think, especially when the hill we’re talking about is Earth’s gravity well.

Although it violates our premise, another idea to consider is that, once having commenced step #2 (“completed” could be a multi-century business), an invader might have everything they want of our solar system, and have little motivation other than sheer malevolent alien meanness to mess with us on our quaint little world. What, do you suppose, the cultural and social impact of this occurring and us being aware of it might be? And, how scientifically certain are we that is has or is not?

[CraigD]

Originally Posted by TheFaithfulStone

Let's say that we were facing the RTF from Battlestar Galactica. Basically, they're like mid 21st century tech +gravity generators and wormhole jumps.

I think we’d best not take BSG or any other entertainment scifi as a model. They “science” of such shows are intended as plot devices, not serious science, and are more disguised WWII war documentaries than scientific future speculation.

They still kick our ass - because they've got the "high ground" of orbit. If we could get UP there and fight 'em we might have a chance, but we can't, so we really don't.

I agree. The “king of the hill” problem is central.

It might take Starbuck and crew a while to utterly exterminate us - but vs anybody with a starship and just a little luck, we're gonna lose.

Actually, if our genocidal visitors from the stars will conveniently load their mortal husks into a nice, crowded metal can/battlestar, and park it in an esthetically pleasing Earth orbit, I think with present day technology, we’d have a better than even chance of victory, possibly without even having to launch a single rocket. I’ve not checked or worked out the details, but a few of our bigger geostationary orbiting satellites carry a good bit of delta-V, and could be put into a very elliptical orbit pretty quickly. A 2500 kg projectile dropping into a low orbit from a geostationary packs a “mere” .03 kilotons of TNT equivalent, but would be a pretty catastrophic for a spacecraft, even a really big one.

There's only one "wild card" technology between the Revolutionary War, and a WWII Tank (the internal combustion engine.) And yet, a single tank would pretty much guarantee a win on any 18th century battlefield.

Claims like this – a fully loaded Nimitz class aircraft carrier in WWII, a single machine gun in 50 BC Gaul, etc. – are common, but warrant careful critical examination. A single, modern tank, for example, unsupported by infantry, can be immobilized with a well-placed iron rod, and destroyed with a few dozen liters of gasoline, or, in a pinch, tar. This isn’t theoretical speculation – modern tanks have on many occasions, such as during the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan, been destroyed by people using tactics and materials available to 1st Centrury BC Gallic footsoldiers. So, I’ll trade you 1 tank for 300 high-quality 18th century Grenadiers in a realistic wargame simulation, anytime

There is, however, a big difference between a spacecraft and a tank, that being the high ground you mention earlier. All the 19th century armies on earth can’t hurt an inflatable Mylar sphere in orbit, and while an inflatable Mylar sphere can’t do much to a 19th century army, a giant spaceship bearing malevolent aliens presumably could. The last 70 or so years of human history have, in terms of this thread’s scenario, been very significant.

[TheFaithfulStone]

I guess I didn't make that clear. It isn't the TANK that gets you the win (but it helps) it's all the things you KNOW about the tank that gets you the win.

The address was really to somebody saying "well what if we invent warp drive or something in the next twenty years."

Mr. 18th Century could figure out how to destroy the tank, and with a little bit of effort he could probably even figure out how to make his own tanks, but he can't because he doesn't have the infrastructure.

If the only thing I have that you don't understand how to make is a stardrive - then, that's a pretty big thing - there's lots of other things you don't understand and can't make and I can.

That's actually quite a bit different than having something like "a machine gun." If I had "a machine gun" I also have all of the other things that go with a machine gun. If I have "a tank" the only thing I've REALLY got that 18th century people wouldn't immediately "get" is an engine. But think about all of the other things that engine buys me. Supply lines that move faster than a horse, the ability to generate electricity from it, and power things like radar, electric fences, and night vision goggles.

That's kinda what I meant - not that having a single tank is a match for a the Continental Army, but that KNOWING how to build one tank opens up a whole WORLD of possibilities. And the only thing they're not going to understand about the tank is the engine.

Similarly, if some other race with even ONE disruptive technology shows up, it's going to ripple into a whole bunch of other areas that we can't really comprehend, and the ability to have one tank means you have the know how to build a thousand tanks, and jeeps, and artillery pieces, and electric generators, and amphibious assault vehicles, etc, etc.

TFS

[Megatron]

Well, I think there is a lot more to invading a planet populated by 6.6 billion people than just having the weapons. Unless we are up against an entity like the Borg, our sheer numbers would give us a chance against their forces and make it completely impossible to overtake the Earth.

There are plenty of examples in history in which the nation or group with less advanced technology overcame those with higher ones. Vietnam is a classic example of this, in which guerulla warfare, jungle and other terrain, and shifting front lines negated the technological advantages the US had.

And then if you go back to WWII on the Eastern Front, the Russians won out of sheer numbers even though the German weaponry was more sophisticated.


Even if they are out in orbit they will inevitably have to invade the planet itself by sending ground troops. They could bring nukes but that would just damage the quality of the planet. And if they were bombing the planet from orbit it would be easy to trace their origin even if they are advanced.

The best way to do it is to limit the number of defensive options we have by use of EMP, bio-weapons, politics, etc.

and to make alliances with a few groups so that more manpower would be available to them.

It would be foolish to do an all out attack against us right away.

[InfiniteNow]

How many billions of ants are there in just a few mounds? Ever concerned yourself much with knocking one down, pouring Amdro, or mowing over them?


Perspective. Scale. Context.

[Moontanman]

Originally Posted by InfiniteNow

How many billions of ants are there in just a few mounds? Ever concerned yourself much with knocking one down, pouring Amdro, or mowing over them?


Perspective. Scale. Context.

I was rereading this thread and I found that you pretty much had the key. Amdro, assuming aliens wouldn't know how to create a bio-weapon against us, nerve gas should be an easier proposition. A nerve agent could probably be created just by listening in on our own transmissions describing our own biology. We have nerve agents powerful enough to pretty much kill everyone on the planet with a very small amount of agent. Dropping it on us from orbit should be fairly easy. so we would go down like insects and they would be Terminex

[freeztar]

Check out this news story from today. This guy wants to form a city council in Denver to prepare for a possible alien invasion. He claims to have seen a "smoking gun" video of an alien that could not have been faked. Apparently some guy (owner of the video) is making a movie with it, so no one can see the video until the movie is finished.

ABC News: Man Claims Alien Skin is 'Smooth' in Footage