6 ms·

People need to understand that if you’re being attacked by a FTL capable alien invader, you are so incredibly f**ed that it just does not matter. People don’t

People need to understand that if you’re being attacked by a FTL capable alien invader, you are so incredibly f**ed that it just does not matter. People don’t write popular sci fi novels about realistic alien invasions because they would be so utterly one sided and brief that it simply wouldn’t make a good story.

GalenErso 4y ago
I liked Titan A.E.'s take on that. An alien race (the Drej) attack and destroy the Earth and the Moon, while simultaneously attacking evacuation shuttles. Most of humanity is wiped out in mere minutes. No silver lining. No happy ending at this stage. What's left of humanity is slowly dying in drifter colonies scattered around the galaxy. It takes a miracle, the Titan project, for humanity to be given a new hope again.
phpisthebest 4y ago
I am sorry, if the Aliens are invading we will just have ChatGPT upload a virus to their system while at the same time we fly one on of their space planes with a nuke to take out their mother ship
- rcurry 4y ago
  And, fortunately, the hero’s MacBook Pro will use the same graphics card as the alien mothership, so we’ll display a jolly Roger on their screens right before we set off the nuke.
- moomoo11 4y ago
  Or it’s a node js program and they’re not able to download all the dependencies to counter it so they have to make a parley with us because the only way to stop it is to come to earth and download
rcurry 4y ago
I forget the name of the TV series but there was a great show where aliens had occupied earth and the drones were just completely lethal and unstoppable. It was very realistic, the machines would just show up and instantly frag everyone in sight. The story was about a cop who ended up working for the alien occupiers, I wish I could remember the name of the show.
- sethd 4y ago
  Colony https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colony_(TV_series) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colony_(TV_series)
  - rcurry 4y ago
    Thank you!!!!
stonogo 4y ago
Consider Harry Turtledove's "The Road Not Taken" for a different take.
tzs 4y ago
There was an amusing short story called "The Road Not Taken" about that. In it gravity manipulation technology turns out to be really simple. It is something every civilization (except one) discovers early, like before they reach what on Earth would have been medieval technology level, and then all their technological development is focused on their gravity technology. The one civilization that somehow missed gravity manipulation is Earth. Having missed that we developed a bunch of other technology which everyone else does not have. So when the alien invaders arrive with the FTL ships and release their conquering armies...our automatic machine guns and missiles and tanks and bazookas and such totally outmatch the aliens troops who have flintlock rifles and black powder.
- oneoff786 4y ago
  And how do our machine guns fare against a single ship traveling at the speed of light colliding with the earth?
- lampshades 4y ago
  I wanted to read the story, here's a link: https://www.eyeofmidas.com/scifi/Turtledove_RoadNotTaken.pdf https://www.eyeofmidas.com/scifi/Turtledove_RoadNotTaken.pdf
- krapp 4y ago
  >So when the alien invaders arrive with the FTL ships and release their conquering armies...our automatic machine guns and missiles and tanks and bazookas and such totally outmatch the aliens troops who have flintlock rifles and black powder. That doesn't even make sense. Why would having simple gravity manipulation stop progress on the development of other technologies, particularly weapons? Especially if, as it seems, those weapons aren't mitigated by having gravity manipulation? Literally no one in the universe realized the potential of having gravity manipulation and modern technology?
  - ianburrell 4y ago
    It stopped progress on other technologies because there was no need to develop them. They spent all their time expanding and attacking. I assumed that aliens didn’t develop science or industrialization. The story didn’t go into how they improved FTL or how was distraction.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
agentwiggles 4y ago
I said the same to a conspiratorially minded friend today ... Like dude, if they're aliens who are capable of finding us and then _coming here_ they're not going to be getting shot down by the Air Force. Just think of what kind of technological advancement it would take for _us_ to determine there was life on some planet, and then the subsequent advancement we'd need to actually send something there. And then, imagine actually bothering to do so, when you're at the level of technology that it would imply to have the ability. Why bother?
Udo 4y ago
> People need to understand that if you’re being attacked by a FTL capable alien invader, you are so incredibly f*ed that it just does not matter. This, and I'd raise the bar even further: if we were to be attacked by any alien civilization, no matter if they have FTL or other Clarke tech or even if they have no special tech at all, we're incredibly f**ed. It would be trivial to hurl asteroids at us until we're all dead. It would be trivial to engineer deadly pathogens, or to flood our planet with hunter-killer drones, or to roast the Earth with solar mirrors. And those are just the low tech options. We chose not to colonize the solar system, and thus we have no possible way of countering a civilization even if it was on the same developmental level as us. Maybe we'd be able to mount a counter strike against one alien craft if they're unlucky and don't eradicate us outright. But that's a very big if. However, I sleep well at night knowing that we have so far not seen anyone else out there, and we definitely have not seen a large space ship entering our system. Assuming they're bound to known physics, we'd definitely pick up their deceleration burn as they approach. If someone wants to eradicate us, a risk-free strategy would probably be to bombard us from outside the solar system.
anon_cow1111 4y ago
The odd exception being, halflife (1/2) Apparently those games have a ton of unused lore that actually does a realistic invasion scenario from a dyson-sphere level civilization. So in that case, it was called the "7-hour war" for a reason.
- oneoff786 4y ago
  No half life is very dumb. The aliens invade using largely small arms weapons. It is called the 7 hour war because a guy surrenders on behalf of earth after 7 hours. If anyone imagines fighting alien invaders with small arms they’re already stupidly out of touch.
morpheos137 4y ago
"The Killing Star" is a good one. https://www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/190678 https://www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/190678
hnthrowaway0315 4y ago
It doesn't have to be FTL capable after the crash. Just imagine, you with a rifle, an armor, a good sword and some grenades went back in time to say 20K yrs ago, for sure you are like God to the primitives for a moment but whence you exhausted the resources it's done business. Same thing for aliens, imagine an alien refugee ship capable of FTL but needs a special fuel that it has to collect from deep Earth ocean very slowly, perhaps for a few million years because Earth only has very very few of such fuel. There is not much the refugees can do. They don't have weapons, they still habe to gather food and energy, they can't do a lot of bad things to locals (us)
- htrp 4y ago
  So basically they up in district 9
- oneoff786 4y ago
  That’s dumb sci fi logic though. Aliens don’t need deep ocean FTL fuel. If you can move matter at the speed of light, you have the capability to kill everything on earth very easily.
shrimp_emoji 4y ago
Anyone who's ever started pre-warp in a game of Distant Worlds: Universe[0] knows the hopelessness. Pirates with FTL ships pop in, destroy your outer gas mining stations. You scramble your planetside navy, which begins to burn toward your system's equivalent of Jupiter. They'll be there in 4 months. In a matter of seconds, the pirates zip out beyond the Oort Cloud. Your navy are currently half-way between Earth and Jupiter, and, at that moment, the pirates pop-in next to your Earthside starport and have their way with your home base. You call your navy back, even as you know it'll make no difference. (On the flip side, later, once you unlock warp and can zip across your star system in seconds, you feel like a god. Repeat with interstellar travel.) 0: https://store.steampowered.com/app/261470/Distant_Worlds_Universe https://store.steampowered.com/app/261470/Distant_Worlds_Uni...

GalenErso 4y ago

I liked Titan A.E.'s take on that. An alien race (the Drej) attack and destroy the Earth and the Moon, while simultaneously attacking evacuation shuttles. Most of humanity is wiped out in mere minutes. No silver lining. No happy ending at this stage. What's left of humanity is slowly dying in drifter colonies scattered around the galaxy. It takes a miracle, the Titan project, for humanity to be given a new hope again.

phpisthebest 4y ago

I am sorry, if the Aliens are invading we will just have ChatGPT upload a virus to their system while at the same time we fly one on of their space planes with a nuke to take out their mother ship

rcurry 4y ago
And, fortunately, the hero’s MacBook Pro will use the same graphics card as the alien mothership, so we’ll display a jolly Roger on their screens right before we set off the nuke.
moomoo11 4y ago
Or it’s a node js program and they’re not able to download all the dependencies to counter it so they have to make a parley with us because the only way to stop it is to come to earth and download

rcurry 4y ago

I forget the name of the TV series but there was a great show where aliens had occupied earth and the drones were just completely lethal and unstoppable. It was very realistic, the machines would just show up and instantly frag everyone in sight. The story was about a cop who ended up working for the alien occupiers, I wish I could remember the name of the show.

sethd 4y ago
Colony https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colony_(TV_series) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colony_(TV_series)
- rcurry 4y ago
  Thank you!!!!

stonogo 4y ago

Consider Harry Turtledove's "The Road Not Taken" for a different take.

tzs 4y ago

There was an amusing short story called "The Road Not Taken" about that. In it gravity manipulation technology turns out to be really simple. It is something every civilization (except one) discovers early, like before they reach what on Earth would have been medieval technology level, and then all their technological development is focused on their gravity technology. The one civilization that somehow missed gravity manipulation is Earth. Having missed that we developed a bunch of other technology which everyone else does not have. So when the alien invaders arrive with the FTL ships and release their conquering armies...our automatic machine guns and missiles and tanks and bazookas and such totally outmatch the aliens troops who have flintlock rifles and black powder.

oneoff786 4y ago
And how do our machine guns fare against a single ship traveling at the speed of light colliding with the earth?
lampshades 4y ago
I wanted to read the story, here's a link: https://www.eyeofmidas.com/scifi/Turtledove_RoadNotTaken.pdf https://www.eyeofmidas.com/scifi/Turtledove_RoadNotTaken.pdf
krapp 4y ago
>So when the alien invaders arrive with the FTL ships and release their conquering armies...our automatic machine guns and missiles and tanks and bazookas and such totally outmatch the aliens troops who have flintlock rifles and black powder. That doesn't even make sense. Why would having simple gravity manipulation stop progress on the development of other technologies, particularly weapons? Especially if, as it seems, those weapons aren't mitigated by having gravity manipulation? Literally no one in the universe realized the potential of having gravity manipulation and modern technology?
- ianburrell 4y ago
  It stopped progress on other technologies because there was no need to develop them. They spent all their time expanding and attacking. I assumed that aliens didn’t develop science or industrialization. The story didn’t go into how they improved FTL or how was distraction.

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

agentwiggles 4y ago

I said the same to a conspiratorially minded friend today ... Like dude, if they're aliens who are capable of finding us and then _coming here_ they're not going to be getting shot down by the Air Force. Just think of what kind of technological advancement it would take for _us_ to determine there was life on some planet, and then the subsequent advancement we'd need to actually send something there. And then, imagine actually bothering to do so, when you're at the level of technology that it would imply to have the ability. Why bother?

Udo 4y ago

> People need to understand that if you’re being attacked by a FTL capable alien invader, you are so incredibly f*ed that it just does not matter. This, and I'd raise the bar even further: if we were to be attacked by any alien civilization, no matter if they have FTL or other Clarke tech or even if they have no special tech at all, we're incredibly f**ed. It would be trivial to hurl asteroids at us until we're all dead. It would be trivial to engineer deadly pathogens, or to flood our planet with hunter-killer drones, or to roast the Earth with solar mirrors. And those are just the low tech options. We chose not to colonize the solar system, and thus we have no possible way of countering a civilization even if it was on the same developmental level as us. Maybe we'd be able to mount a counter strike against one alien craft if they're unlucky and don't eradicate us outright. But that's a very big if. However, I sleep well at night knowing that we have so far not seen anyone else out there, and we definitely have not seen a large space ship entering our system. Assuming they're bound to known physics, we'd definitely pick up their deceleration burn as they approach. If someone wants to eradicate us, a risk-free strategy would probably be to bombard us from outside the solar system.

anon_cow1111 4y ago

The odd exception being, halflife (1/2) Apparently those games have a ton of unused lore that actually does a realistic invasion scenario from a dyson-sphere level civilization. So in that case, it was called the "7-hour war" for a reason.

oneoff786 4y ago
No half life is very dumb. The aliens invade using largely small arms weapons. It is called the 7 hour war because a guy surrenders on behalf of earth after 7 hours. If anyone imagines fighting alien invaders with small arms they’re already stupidly out of touch.

morpheos137 4y ago

"The Killing Star" is a good one. https://www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/190678 https://www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/190678

hnthrowaway0315 4y ago

It doesn't have to be FTL capable after the crash. Just imagine, you with a rifle, an armor, a good sword and some grenades went back in time to say 20K yrs ago, for sure you are like God to the primitives for a moment but whence you exhausted the resources it's done business. Same thing for aliens, imagine an alien refugee ship capable of FTL but needs a special fuel that it has to collect from deep Earth ocean very slowly, perhaps for a few million years because Earth only has very very few of such fuel. There is not much the refugees can do. They don't have weapons, they still habe to gather food and energy, they can't do a lot of bad things to locals (us)

htrp 4y ago
So basically they up in district 9
oneoff786 4y ago
That’s dumb sci fi logic though. Aliens don’t need deep ocean FTL fuel. If you can move matter at the speed of light, you have the capability to kill everything on earth very easily.

shrimp_emoji 4y ago

Anyone who's ever started pre-warp in a game of Distant Worlds: Universe[0] knows the hopelessness. Pirates with FTL ships pop in, destroy your outer gas mining stations. You scramble your planetside navy, which begins to burn toward your system's equivalent of Jupiter. They'll be there in 4 months. In a matter of seconds, the pirates zip out beyond the Oort Cloud. Your navy are currently half-way between Earth and Jupiter, and, at that moment, the pirates pop-in next to your Earthside starport and have their way with your home base. You call your navy back, even as you know it'll make no difference. (On the flip side, later, once you unlock warp and can zip across your star system in seconds, you feel like a god. Repeat with interstellar travel.) 0: https://store.steampowered.com/app/261470/Distant_Worlds_Universe https://store.steampowered.com/app/261470/Distant_Worlds_Uni...