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Of course aliens could do that, but would they? The evidence so far says that humans in possession of a superweapon, at least, don't annihilate one another sim

Of course aliens could do that, but would they? The evidence so far says that humans in possession of a superweapon, at least, don't annihilate one another simply because of the possible threat of superweapon acquisition posed by the other - otherwise we would have annihilated the Russians and/or Chinese in the 40s and early 50s. At any rate one would think that aliens would at least understand the concept of mutually assured destruction and realize that we would not destroy them if they were capable of retaliating in kind...

stcredzero 16y ago
The premise of _The Killing Star_ is that relativistic weapons wielded by star faring civilizations can make first strike the only viable opition. If you can't see them coming, and if they can wipe you out with the first strike, then there is no Mutual Assured Destruction. There's only a first mover advantage of apocalyptic proportions. No warning + no survivors = no retaliation = no MAD. Also, the historical evidence is that we've been dangerously close to nuclear war on too many occasions for comfort.