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[MetalSlimeHunt]

Preemptive strikes are correct.  If we go by game theory, there's a few possibilities.  We assume an alien race is hostile and destroy it preemptively with kinetic weaponry.  The cost is intangible because we don't know if the aliens were hostile and we don't know how they would've acted if they weren't.  We assume an alien race is friendly and they are.  The cost is again, intangible because we don't know anything else about them.  Finally, we assume they're friendly and they're not.  In all likelihood they just did the kinetic weaponry thing to us.  Now we're extinct.  The cost is very tangible and infinite, namely the entire species.

Even .00001% chance of hostility is too great a risk when our entire species is on the line, and judging by our own history when it comes to cultural exchange, that's a very conservative estimate.

tl;dr Glass every fucking planet.

Fucking thank you, there's just no emphasizing to some people that aliens aren't a new race of humans to discriminate against, they're aliens to descriminate against.

I am all for universal brotherhood. For septillions of humans not killed by aliens. Why hate the xeno? Better to ask, why not?

To hell with your xenophobia and genocidal tendencies, I for one, support our new mammary-blessed snake waifus.

Heh, all my experience from older versions of Aurora tells me that you're inefficient. What you want to do is shatter their space forces, conduct "precision" strikes on large contingents of troops and military infrastructure (because really, calling antimatter-tipped capital missiles precise is sort of laughable), then land in overwhelming force. Free habitable planets, free shipyards and groundside infrastructure, and hundreds of millions of slaves who'll eventually become useful tax-paying citizens and soldiers through your strict but fair process of assimilation. What's not to love? 

You can't make aliens slaves because slavery is a psychology-based construct of interaction that hinges at its most base upon human emotions. Fear of death, fear of pain, Stockholm syndrome, caring about blood relatives and friends, etc. Hell, we aren't going to need slaves anyway, machines can do all the work with much less chance of underdog uprising and revenge-genocide.

Aliens lack the base processes that define the sense of humanity that all of us, both good and evil, share. Even the homicidal schizophrenic who thinks that you're the reincarnation of Hitler out to steal his Pokemon card collection is a safer companion than the most relatively liberal and universalist alien of the species most similar to humanity. They are not of the same life that spawned all of Earth's creatures (you share 20% DNA with yeast bacteria, you aren't even of the same fucking domain as yeast bacteria you eukaryote construct. You also share >90% DNA with all other humans, a only moderately large text file of GACT makes you not a clone of everyone.), they do not exist on the same medium of brain tissue that you do, and there is no reason for them to want things like life, happiness, and not killing humans.

There can only be one.

[NullForceOmega]

I reject your 40k grimderpness, and I fully acknowledge that ultimately only one power can prevail, but that doesn't mean only one species can prevail.  Ultimately I'm just sick and tired of all the gods be fucked xenos-scum bullshit.  Seriously.  Even said in jest, that's the kind of thinking that turns into 'ethnic cleansings' and other completely mindless garbage.

[EnigmaticHat]

-snip-

You seem to have a very set in stone idea of how space-age interactions with aliens will go.  For all we know, all aliens in existence are microbes, or functionally similar to humans, or massively above or below our tech level.

Also, you (well, Cthulhu, but you agreed with him) are missing the "we attack them when they weren't hostile, and we lose".

[Flying Dice]

Ohoho, just finished that video. T'was great.

[Teneb]

-snip-

You seem to have a very set in stone idea of how space-age interactions with aliens will go.  For all we know, all aliens in existence are microbes, or functionally similar to humans, or massively above or below our tech level.

Also, you (well, Cthulhu, but you agreed with him) are missing the "we attack them when they weren't hostile, and we lose".

No, humanity, you are the ethereals.

Can this be the end to XCOM2? As in, XCOM bascially starts to go to other planets and mimic the ethereals?

[Sonlirain]

From what i herd the DNA difference between a human and housecat is around 11% and 3% between man and a chimp.
So if the aliens gave no shits about the appearence they could as well mistake people for cats and chimps.

And so snakeladies happened! it all makes sense now!

[Teneb]

From what i herd the DNA difference between a human and housecat is around 11% and 3% between man and a chimp.
So if the aliens gave no shits about the appearence they could as well mistake people for cats and chimps.

"Take us to your leader!"
*monkey noises*

[Rolan7]

But if they're hostile and capable of a world-clearing virus or nanovirus, it's preferable to strike first.
In fact, if there's even an infinitesimal chance of being wiped out in such a way, it's preferable to strike first just in case it allows us to survive.  Even if we sacrifice peaceful coexistence and the opportunity to share technology and knowledge.

But as much as I love grimdark settings like WH40K or XCOM, I reject the rational argument in this case.  If a few vessels arrive, I'd vote to establish contact.  Yes, they may be preparing to cleanse the planet with a self-replicating attack system, and then we lose everything.  But many decisions require some degree of trust.  Besides, a first strike is unlikely to succeed in that case anyway.

And if a massive fleet arrives, even non-FTL, a first strike isn't going to save us from intelligent kinetic strikes.  Best to hope they're willing to negotiate.

Ohoho, just finished that video. T'was great.

Aww, I'm really glad you liked it
Sadly the next such event in the US is sold out (it's later this month, too!).  If there are any megaevents like this that someone would like to suggest, I'm all ears.

[Cthulhu]

It's not ethnic cleansing any more than bug spray is ethnic cleansing.  That sounds nasty but it's true.  It's actually even less than that because insects  are closer to us phylogenetically than aliens, who aren't related to us on any level at all.

There's no reason to believe aliens are going to value us for being human the way you're trying to value them and every reason to believe they won't (because, as you pointed out, we exterminate our own species on the regular and have driven huge numbers of other species to extinction.)  By assuming aliens aren't hostile you're wagering the entire human species for the sake of something that isn't even from the same planet, literally.   

I already gave my logic on why we should kill aliens on sight.  This is some cold calculus but it's necessary.  Once relativistic travel enters the picture the stakes become too high for feelings.  If you bet your life savings on an inside straight because your feelings tell you it's the right thing to do you're an idiot, and if you bet your entire species on an alien race being friendly out of some kind of empathy for things that may as well be mushrooms for all they relate to the human experience.

Not-an-edit:  The we lose thing doesn't apply to this level of spacefight.  Viruses and shit are small-time.  The space shuttle, if you were to accelerate it to half the speed of light, would blow off the Earth's atmosphere.  The first strike is the only strike and there's no such thing as a failed attack.  Every attack is fatal, all that matters is who shoots first.  And because this is inherent to the concept of slower-than-light space travel there's no way to get around it.  Every interstellar species is going to reach that point and confront the reality that every ship in its fleet is a planet-killing superweapon and every other species at the same level also has a fleet of planet-killing superweapons and once someone pulls the trigger there isn't a thing in the universe you can do to stop it.

The real answer (and the reason I think we've never seen any evidence of aliens) is to never, ever, let anyone else know you exist.  Avoid all non-critical space travel, don't bother exploring other systems, nothing is worth it when the stakes are infinite.

[Rolan7]

From what i herd the DNA difference between a human and housecat is around 11% and 3% between man and a chimp.
So if the aliens gave no shits about the appearence they could as well mistake people for cats and chimps.

And so snakeladies happened! it all makes sense now!

Counterpoint, housecats don't have opposable thumbs.  Much less large brains, or dedicated arms.  From an objective standpoint, we're at a glance an intelligent species
Of course so are all other primates...  Particularly the small ones...  Unless hairlessness is a galactic signifier of decadent intelligence.

[NullForceOmega]

And I flatly reject your line of reasoning.  Just as I flatly reject the notion that any species that has reached the technological sophistication necessary would automatically be peaceful.  I do not acknowledge monolithic thought processes in any way shape or form, and any assertion that tries to paint in broad strokes an infinitude of potential as being only one thing or another thing is purely monolithic and therefore bullshit.

Actually an edit:  Also, the assertion that every single FTL vessel is a viable planet killer means that very single FTL vessel is also a viable defense against said weapon.

[Cthulhu]

Only by our own standards.  There are species on earth that don't even have brains or arms or thumbs.  We're talking about things that might not even be able to register us as a legitimate form of life, it's very presumptuous to assume they'll see our brains and decide we're worth their time.

And I flatly reject your line of reasoning.  Just as I flatly reject the notion that any species that has reached the technological sophistication necessary would automatically be peaceful.  I do not acknowledge monolithic thought processes in any way shape or form, and any assertion that tries to paint in broad strokes an infinitude of potential as being only one thing or another thing is purely monolithic and therefore bullshit.

Well I reject your rejection.  QED, I win.  See what happens when our only argument is "nuh uh?"

[NullForceOmega]

It is equally presumptuous to determine that they'd rather kill us just 'because aliens'.

[Sensei]

I reject your 40k grimderpness, and I fully acknowledge that ultimately only one power can prevail, but that doesn't mean only one species can prevail.  Ultimately I'm just sick and tired of all the gods be fucked xenos-scum bullshit.  Seriously.  Even said in jest, that's the kind of thinking that turns into 'ethnic cleansings' and other completely mindless garbage.

It's worth saying that, in the WH40K setting, it IS ethnic cleansings and mindless garbage. The Empire are NOT good guys (there are no good guys, if there was anyone in the setting who didn't make you feel a little sick it wouldn't be GRIMDARK enough). It's bad enough that there was a thread in the general discussion forums on the premise "Is the Empire ACTUALLY better for humanity than being conquered by literal demons?" I mean, the emperor requires thousands of literal human sacrifices to stay alive. WH40K fans love to talk in character and make jokes that way, it doesn't mean that that's their real-life way of thinking.

That said, DEATH TO THE XENO, THE MUTANT, AND THE HERETIC! EXTERMINATUS!

[Cthulhu]

I'm not assuming that.  I'm saying that even if the odds are .0000001% that they'd rather kill us, that's too big a risk.

I don't know why being "intelligent" means we should give them the benefit of the doubt, or why that affords them some kind of rights.  We barely afford our own people rights.  You can say you have the right to life, the right to health, the right of way, but all it takes is one drunk dude going ninety to prove that no, there's no such thing as inherent rights.

While we're talking about those, I'd say that if anything you don't have the right to give aliens the benefit of the doubt.  You don't have the right to put the entire species (really the entire biosphere of the planet) at risk for the sake of aliens.  Fuck aliens.  This isn't like black people and white people, this is like black people and rocks.  Their experiences are spaghetti to us, they're so far from our sphere of comprehension as to be basically meaningless.  Who gives a shit if they die?

Real talk.