Just Another Alien Invasion
Prologue: Part 1
NASA Jet Propulsion Lab Pasadena, California June 5th 201X
A bald headed science fiction author looked up from his place at the table to his compatriots and the occasional scientist seated in. A foot long scale model of a spaceship was in the middle of the round table. Gesturing at the paper in front of him which was covered with complex calculations he began his program.
“As you can see gentlemen this is our proposal for a state of the art military starship, unlike the stuff you see at your average summer action movie this is based on proven and already used principals. Notice here at the front, the part where you would normally expect to see windows or a cockpit of some kind? This section contains little of importance other than a few sensors and cameras and armor of course.” One of the authors across the table raised his hand.” So where are the weapons then? I hope you don’t expect to use it as a ramming vehicle.”
The first author motioned to a few orbs on the surface of the model which rather close to a cylinder with a some bits glued on,” This vehicle contains a single laser in the center that will fire out of multiple apertures allowing for almost three hundred sixty degrees of cover, which as you know will be very useful in three dimensional space. It also contains hard points to carry nuclear missiles on the outside. Of course the most important part of this ship is the crew area and propulsion. The ship is mostly automated but a crew of 5 will be needed for some functions and combat,”
He paused to mutter under his breath about not being able to use a computer for all the systems,” We have placed the cabin deep inside the midsection of the ship surrounded by water and armor to block radiation and provide maximum protection,” He said this while poking the middle of the model which looked vaguely thicker,” we are thinking about moving it off center to make it easier to jettison.”
He moved on ,”and finally at the back we have these large radiators right before the engines, after all there must be some way to get rid of the heat……”
-10 minutes later-
“So you are saying that if an alien life forms actually existed we could detect them very easily because of the heat radiating from their exhaust?”
“Yes of course, not to mention that their weapons would also need to release heat when used along with power systems. While I understand that you may believe that aliens would have reason to invade earth the amount of resources to send a large enough force would be staggering to our knowledge of space travel. For starters if you wanted to send a massive ship filled with soldiers a large portion of the ship would be devoted to oxygen or its equivalent plus food and water. And for all the supplies you need more fuel and reaction mass to move, plus more fuel for the mass of the fuel. It gets more and more expensive and complex as you go. Not to mention that if the aliens could find everything they need in an uninhabited system, it is not as if an invasion fleet will come looking to steal our petroleum Ha Ha.”
“Or water.”
“Oh please let’s not waste time on that one!”
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The beginnings of what I hope to be my first full length story in ASB.
It involves many explosions and a complete ignorance of the laws of physics , thermodynamics and biology.
This is the first part of a story I posted on Alternate History.com I am doing it as a parody of Summer Scifi Blockbuster (Specificly Transformers , Independence Day and Signs)
Any help with ideas would be appreciated.