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Author Topic: What has, and would happen, realistically, at first contact?  (Read 39298 times)

kaijyuu

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Re: What has, and would happen, realistically, at first contact?
« Reply #45 on: August 27, 2012, 05:09:36 pm »

Heh, one of the better parts of Independence Day was in one scene they had a news report going on the background while the saucers were hovering over the city. The newscaster calmly reported that no one should fire their guns at the aliens, lest they start an interstellar war.

If aliens did show up and hover menacingly over us, you know some idiot's going to pull out a shotgun and fire pointlessly at them.
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For, in order that men should resist injustice, something more is necessary than that they should think injustice unpleasant. They must think injustice absurd; above all, they must think it startling. They must retain the violence of a virgin astonishment. When the pessimist looks at any infamy, it is to him, after all, only a repetition of the infamy of existence. But the optimist sees injustice as something discordant and unexpected, and it stings him into action.

NobodyPro

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Re: What has, and would happen, realistically, at first contact?
« Reply #46 on: August 27, 2012, 05:20:32 pm »

I remember reading this one short story where the alien race had discovered gravitational technology and hadn't needed to progress beyond black powder weapons to conquer other races. They landed on earth, declared themselves king (or something) and their redshirts were promptly fucked up by automatic weapons.
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lordcooper

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Re: What has, and would happen, realistically, at first contact?
« Reply #47 on: August 27, 2012, 05:28:51 pm »

Scenario 1: We're actually far more advanced than the aliens and stumble across them in a few thousand years.  We'd probably wipe them out :(
Scenario 2: They're far more advanced than us and have a 50,000 year headstart on their equivalent of tvtropes.  They are all permanently glues to their computer screens.

Ill just drop this here, for relevance, and just in case.

Spoiler: Huuuuge Image... (click to show/hide)

Read this, it actually raises some very interesting points.
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kaijyuu

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Re: What has, and would happen, realistically, at first contact?
« Reply #48 on: August 27, 2012, 05:42:06 pm »

Well, "sapient" has a really shitty definition. Our "sapience" could be extremely mundane to an alien species. If they come along and look at our big cities and whatnot, what's to stop them from thinking "oh, one of these invasive species. Let's wipe them out before they ruin their planet's biodiversity."

HA HA TOO LATE ALIENS
Independence day:
'whoa whoa whoa! what are you doing?'
'Trashing the place!'
'well yeah, I can see that, but why?'
'Maybe if we fuck up the earth enough they'll leave!
As much crap as that movie gets for its cheesiness, it actually had some intelligent scenes.
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Quote from: Chesterton
For, in order that men should resist injustice, something more is necessary than that they should think injustice unpleasant. They must think injustice absurd; above all, they must think it startling. They must retain the violence of a virgin astonishment. When the pessimist looks at any infamy, it is to him, after all, only a repetition of the infamy of existence. But the optimist sees injustice as something discordant and unexpected, and it stings him into action.

Flying Dice

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Re: What has, and would happen, realistically, at first contact?
« Reply #49 on: August 27, 2012, 06:37:15 pm »

I remember reading this one short story where the alien race had discovered gravitational technology and hadn't needed to progress beyond black powder weapons to conquer other races. They landed on earth, declared themselves king (or something) and their redshirts were promptly fucked up by automatic weapons.
The Road Not Taken.
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Loud Whispers

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Re: What has, and would happen, realistically, at first contact?
« Reply #50 on: August 27, 2012, 06:56:39 pm »

I remember reading this one short story where the alien race had discovered gravitational technology and hadn't needed to progress beyond black powder weapons to conquer other races. They landed on earth, declared themselves king (or something) and their redshirts were promptly fucked up by automatic weapons.
The Road Not Taken.
That's quite interesting, what if not only are they biologically different, but also technologically different? I find it quite amusing that both would view each other as the technological superior.

Also "As a result, the scientific method was abandoned and their technological development ground to a halt."

Note to self, must find Gordon Freeman and give gravity gun for sake of humanity.

LordBucket

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Re: What has, and would happen, realistically, at first contact?
« Reply #51 on: August 27, 2012, 08:06:52 pm »

Quote
Re: What has, and would happen, realistically, at first contact?

I've been asked to visit this thread, and I've glanced through the 5 pages that have sprung up overnight, and unfortunately I don't really have a lot to add.

It's like asking what would probably happen if water were put into contact with something. Kind of depends on the what it's put into contact with. A piece of wood is likely to give a very different reaction than, say...a handful of sodium powder. We can probably make good guesses how we'll react. And the reaction is likely to be varied. The militaries of the world are likely to react differently than your average baby boomer who grew up watching ET.

In any case, if you want a personal guess...I think it likely that a lot of the speculation, the "let's say you're the first human to make alien contact" info sheet, and a lot of the rest probably won't be very relevant. For the simple reason some have mentioned: Space Is Really Big. Any species able to get to us stands a pretty good chance of being a Sufficiently Advanced Race.

If anyone has been following the old people technophobes thread, you'll see the obvious connection. There are people who don't believe that we ever landed on the moon. There are people who find it a little bit scary to realize that their kids are playing computer games with people on other continents. And even over the course of that discussion, there have been a few instances of a technology being mentioned...and one of our very own bay12ers (who are generally, I would say, above average in terms of science and technology awareness than the average person) not believing that such things existed.

So what happens when the "alien" shows up wearing a human body, without ever having bothered with a ship, because he simply materialized the body on the planet he wanted to visit without bothering to cross the distance? And he speaks every human language on the entire planet, is capable of "hearing" radio and television transmissions just as easily as speech, can communicate telepathically with anyone on the planet just by directing his focus to them. And might be doing it with thousands of people simultaneously independently of what his body is doing. Or maybe he materialized a hundred bodies and operates them all simultaneously. And some of them are operating a hundred years ago, and in the future, and he perceives time as a singular whole rather than a sequence of events?

How are people going to react to that? It doesn't fit with the classic first contact scenario, but any of that might be on the table. There's nothing "magical" of "fantastic" about any of this. Just imagine what might happen if, just as an example, a modern air force carrier were to be transported to, say...1000 AD. Would the aircraft be perceived as anything other than dragons, or chariots of the gods? Would marines in combat uniforms be recognized as human, or merely "humanlike" creatures? When a man can speak into a headpiece that far all the natives know if just an antenna like a bug has, and then two minutes later missles fire descends from the heavens...what would they think?

Are they going to think "oh, yeah...just humans from the future with some better chariots and stuff." Or are they going to think these creatures to be gods? That's a thousand year difference in technology. How might modern humans perceive aliens with technology a thousand years ahead of ours? The difference might be about the same.

Many humans may have difficulty adapting. And...from their point of view, it's possible they may be hesitant to get involved because they know how difficult it could be.

It may well be that we're not talking about a "first" contact scenario at all, but rather...a second or third or fourth contact scenario. And they're holding back because they learned to be cautious after unintentionally starting the egyptian, hindu and other religions.

Itnetlolor

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Re: What has, and would happen, realistically, at first contact?
« Reply #52 on: August 27, 2012, 08:09:24 pm »

What are the odds that aliens are already amongst us and either look like us (are in disguise), or are some of us (other humans in a cosmic coincidence), or they have already inter-mingled with us throughout the ages, we're part them, and aren't aware of it?

I mean, I've been thinking this for a good amount of time, but what are the odds the little (green/grey) men (or Sectoids) are none more than bio-machines to go into dangerous zones, or to act as a safety medium for psychic aliens as to not get infected by us and our pathogens. If you're a superior intelligent species that has done a fair bit of spacefaring, I think mutual personal safety would come first (not infecting oneself as well as infecting those you contact with). Wouldn't want to sneeze out the existence of an entire planet.
« Last Edit: August 27, 2012, 08:13:22 pm by Itnetlolor »
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Eagle_eye

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Re: What has, and would happen, realistically, at first contact?
« Reply #53 on: August 27, 2012, 08:14:06 pm »

the odds of pathogens for us working on aliens, or vice versa, are just about nil. Evolved totally separately.
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Loud Whispers

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Re: What has, and would happen, realistically, at first contact?
« Reply #54 on: August 27, 2012, 08:31:20 pm »

the odds of pathogens for us working on aliens, or vice versa, are just about nil. Evolved totally separately.
Which is what would make such a thing absolutely devastating. Cross species pathogens can be a =/= I hope you live in madagascar situation. So no, not nil. Very possible unless both civilizations took necessary precautions, or were radically different. All it would take is one virus that loves spreading spehss toxins throughout your body to mess things up like crayfish.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apollo_11#Splashdown_and_quarantine

Askot Bokbondeler

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Re: What has, and would happen, realistically, at first contact?
« Reply #55 on: August 27, 2012, 08:41:08 pm »

virus and the like would be impossible. carbon based extraterrestrial organisms capable of dissolving and digesting common organic molecules that don't come coated with a substance that evolved specifically to protect them from said organisms might be somewhat dangerous... but i'm not sure such a blunt agent could be sneaky enough to fit in that scenario

is there any patogenic agent that crossed plant, fungi, and animal kingdoms? cuz these would be much more likely than spehss virus, like muuuuuuuuch much more likely, and i'm not sure they exist either
« Last Edit: August 27, 2012, 08:44:29 pm by Askot Bokbondeler »
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Facekillz058

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Re: What has, and would happen, realistically, at first contact?
« Reply #56 on: August 27, 2012, 08:48:43 pm »


Note to self, must find Morgan Freeman and give gravity gun for sake of humanity.

FTFY
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Nilik

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Re: What has, and would happen, realistically, at first contact?
« Reply #57 on: August 27, 2012, 09:18:03 pm »

I saw a "documentary" about this exact thing a while ago. It started out promising but took a turn for the absurd at the end, but one point it made that stuck with me is that if we are dealing with a species that's looking for resources, they'll be looking for something rare. And the rarest substance in the universe, as far as we know, is organic matter. Proteins. People, animals and planets.  So basically there is a non-zero possibility that they really would want to eat us all.
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EveryZig

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Re: What has, and would happen, realistically, at first contact?
« Reply #58 on: August 27, 2012, 09:27:53 pm »

Which is what would make such a thing absolutely devastating. Cross species pathogens can be a =/= I hope you live in madagascar situation. So no, not nil. Very possible unless both civilizations took necessary precautions, or were radically different. All it would take is one virus that loves spreading spehss toxins throughout your body to mess things up like crayfish.
IIRC, the reason why the cross-continental plagues were so devastating was that viruses and bacteria evolve much, much faster than humans do under all but the most extreme conditions (such as massive die-outs from plagues). Because of this, diseases can evolve to infect humanity in general while humans must adapt to each specific disease in particular. Therefore, a disease can be quite well adapted to infect humans (including isolated islanders), while those islanders would be poorly adapted to stop against that disease. An alien disease, on the other hand, would not be adapted to humans at all.
(I don't know how well a non-parasitic 'bacteria' that happens to like the chemicals and temperature in the human body would do, but it would not have the same massive advantages cross-continental diseases have, and human bodies are fairly good at rejecting foreign bodies in general.)
An alien virus in particular would have basically no chance of infecting us, as viruses depend on very specific manipulations in the host DNA and as such can only spread between organisms with a genetic common descent, which aliens would not have with us in all but a few extremely improbable scenarios.

On the other hand, I would speculate that significant damage might be done by a primitive invasive organism that harms people indirectly, such as an alien rock mold that produces poisonous gas.

I saw a "documentary" about this exact thing a while ago. It started out promising but took a turn for the absurd at the end, but one point it made that stuck with me is that if we are dealing with a species that's looking for resources, they'll be looking for something rare. And the rarest substance in the universe, as far as we know, is organic matter. Proteins. People, animals and planets.  So basically there is a non-zero possibility that they really would want to eat us all.
Finding complex organic matter is rare, but making it is likely fairly easy for an advanced civilization. So aliens would only want to eat us if they want new things to eat, like some sort of fanatical food tourists.
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Askot Bokbondeler

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Re: What has, and would happen, realistically, at first contact?
« Reply #59 on: August 27, 2012, 09:39:17 pm »

On the other hand, I would speculate that significant damage might be done by a primitive invasive organism that harms people indirectly, such as an alien rock mold that produces poisonous gas.
yeah, like those nasty cyanobacteria that filled our atmosphere with a very poisonous gas, causing a mass extinction a bajillion years ago
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