Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[Scoops Novel]

Aliens, Russia, whatever - let's dust off that WW3 panic from early 2020.

What would happen?

[Telgin]

Aliens?  They'd have no reason to fight us, but if they did we would lose.  Biological or nanotechnological agents would kill us with impunity.  Or they could drop asteroids on us.  We have no realistic way to resist anything they might do.

Russia?  Or some other nuclear power?  It's possible that it would stay a conventional war on the ground with tanks, guns and aircraft as long as none of the nuclear powers are directly threatened.  It would be an insane waste to launch nuclear weapons and kill yourself and everyone else because of a war being fought on foreign soil like Ukraine.  Sanity checks mean you'd only do this if you thought your existence was credibly threatened.  In such a conventional war, I don't think it's much of a stretch to say that the US and its allies would win most any conflict if they're involved.  Not necessarily easily of course.

It's always possible less sane actors or sane actors working with bad info might launch nukes anyway.  That's uncharted territory but the results would probably be apocalyptic to say the least.  I don't know how good ICBM interception is these days but I sincerely doubt it's good enough to stop enough ICBM nuclear missiles to matter.  Even if it somehow turned into a one-sided nuclear exchange due to missile defenses, the impact on the global food supply and global economy would kill an enormous number of people no matter which nuclear power was wiped out.

[King Zultan]

I'm sure we'd be fine.

[Strongpoint]

Aliens?  They'd have no reason to fight us, but if they did we would lose.  Biological or nanotechnological agents would kill us with impunity.  Or they could drop asteroids on us.  We have no realistic way to resist anything they might do.

Depends. Assuming that laws of physics actually work, the only possible scenario of aliens visiting us is a generational ship (or ships). And they may prefer Earth to settling on other planets of the Solar System. 

[Quarque]

Aliens?  They'd have no reason to fight us, but if they did we would lose.  Biological or nanotechnological agents would kill us with impunity.  Or they could drop asteroids on us.  We have no realistic way to resist anything they might do.

Depends. Assuming that laws of physics actually work, the only possible scenario of aliens visiting us is a generational ship (or ships). And they may prefer Earth to settling on other planets of the Solar System.

A generational ship may  not be the only option. We know that our current understanding of physics must be incomplete so we can't rule out ftl travel yet. If ftl travel is impossible, it would still be far more effecient to travel in some form of stasis so that you don't need to bring tons of food. Either way, if aliens do exist they are almost certainly millions of years ahead of us in development, if not billions. Impossible to predict what they would be capable of, but a war between them and humans would be akin to a war between you and a nest of ants.

[Quarque]

I'm sure we'd be fine.

quote of the day   

[Strongpoint]

Aliens?  They'd have no reason to fight us, but if they did we would lose.  Biological or nanotechnological agents would kill us with impunity.  Or they could drop asteroids on us.  We have no realistic way to resist anything they might do.

Depends. Assuming that laws of physics actually work, the only possible scenario of aliens visiting us is a generational ship (or ships). And they may prefer Earth to settling on other planets of the Solar System.

A generational ship may  not be the only option. We know that our current understanding of physics must be incomplete so we can't rule out ftl travel yet. If ftl travel is impossible, it would still be far more effecient to travel in some form of stasis so that you don't need to bring tons of food. Either way, if aliens do exist they are almost certainly millions of years ahead of us in development, if not billions. Impossible to predict what they would be capable of, but a war between them and humans would be akin to a war between you and a nest of ants.

Stasis ship is merely a more practical version of an STL light ship. What I mean is that it is far more likely that we'll have to deal with a small number of colonists with superior tech that will actually need our resources than with some galactic empire with sci-fi FTL tech.

Our understanding of physics may be wrong, but I wouldn't bet on it. FTL is actually impossible is a reasonable assumption.

[Quarque]

Right. Yes, it is a very reasonable assumption because of the trouble with causality and most depictions of ftl in SF are absolute cringe - I even remember a star wars scene where they shoot some epic ftl laser and people see the ftl beam coming, ugh.

Anyway, all I'm saying is that we can't be absolutely certain yet whether a theory of quantum gravity would allow any sort of ftl.

About nuclear apocalypse, well we know pretty well what that would look like and instead of spelling it out I think I'll watch some puppies on youtube now.

[The_Explorer]

If aliens showed up, they can take all the stupid red hat people with them

[Strongpoint]

Should aliens arrive, I suggest negotiating with them and giving them Russia.

[Scoops Novel]

Divide and conquer would clearly be a successful strategy...

[dragdeler]

If aliens show up I'm with them, what do you want to know folks, I think you should totally aim over there, that button looks kinda dusty I can push it if you just happened to clean your hands.

[MrRoboto75]

[McTraveller]

At the end of the day, getting dematerialized isn't the worst way to go.

[King Zultan]

Can't wait for the part where the aliens come around and shoot everyone including me with a death ray, it'll be fun.