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[King DZA]

I suppose if humanity proved to be trustworthy they might, whether or not we would be able to comprehend it is another matter entirely.

[Loud Whispers]

I suppose if humanity proved to be trustworthy they might, whether or not we would be able to comprehend it is another matter entirely.

I'd be more worried about them - Attempting to translate ASCII would cause their brains to go into catatonic implosive failure D:

[Mister Always]

Alright everyone, don't get your knickers in a bunch. We don't need no flame war arguing over something that we know so little about.

INITIATING ANTI-DERAILMENT PROCEDURE:
Should aliens exist, I think they would find DF to be a very interesting game, giving them further insight into the complicated minds of humans.

But would they share their awesome logic processing powers?

It might help.

If these aliens have the technology to feasibly visit multiple planets in one of their lifetimes (although their lifetimes might be extremely long from our p.o.v, and if they've developed FTL technology then there's all SORTS of weird time dilation going on), and assuming that if there is at least ONE planet out there with life forms on it (i.e these hypothetical aliens we're discussing right now), it stands to reason there's more. Not all of these planets are going to harbour intelligent life - or at least, not on a level of intelligence that at least exceeds that of, say, a chimpanzee.

Fish are dumb. If you pick up a fish, it will pointlessly struggle itself to death by flopping about, thus expediting the exhaustion of its un-renewable oxygen supply. If we make contact with aliens, we have to prove we're not dumb - i.e, we have to not act like dumb animals, and prove that we're some kind of intelligent. Not as developed as their culture is, what with their intergallactic travel and all that fancy rot, but not a bunch of dumb monkeys.

After this, we'd have to go on to prove that we are also capable of doing stuff. We have to make a good case that we have advanced physicists (they won't know who Newton is, but they'll sure as fuck recognize his laws, and they won't know who Pythagoras is, but show them that whole triangle dealy and they'll figure it out). Cars and bikes and planes are all well and good, but it'd be the equivalent of how we think a chimp is quite clever for using simple tools (sticks) to get ants from a nest. Physics and maths is where it's at.

Next, show them Dwarf Fortress. We'd have to, somehow, explain that it was created by just one man. This proves that we have a good enough understanding of geology, physics, and everything else involved in what makes DF so staggeringly complex that one man can make a simulation of it - albeit a rough one, with some edges that need polishing, but hey, it's one man, and I bet they didn't have just one guy working on that FTL-travel ship either.

See where I'm going with this?

[BackgroundGuy]

...
...
Fish are dumb. If you pick up a fish, it will pointlessly struggle itself to death by flopping about, thus expediting the exhaustion of its un-renewable oxygen supply. If we make contact with aliens, we have to prove we're not dumb - i.e, we have to not act like dumb animals, and prove that we're some kind of intelligent. Not as developed as their culture is, what with their intergallactic travel and all that fancy rot, but not a bunch of dumb monkeys. ...

...See where I'm going with this?

Yup, but I don't think we'd get past that bit.  We don't exactly present the best image as a species.
EDIT: I DO NOT MEAN BAY12.  I mean humans and nations and etc. do not present the best possible image of humanity.  The sheer flammability of this post struck me as I posted it.

[Loud Whispers]

Aaah, but knowing mankind, the first people to meet said aliens would prolly be total morons.

Also, what about aquatic mammals? And who says that the aliens would be anything like Earth-like creatures? I for one am voting for aliens made out of nitroglycerin ;P

And technically... we could just try to out-bouse them, they can travel stars, and we have lasers that can apparently tear the fabric of space.

Also, do we really want DF minded aliens? YESH WE DO.

[Sting_Auer]

Alright everyone, don't get your knickers in a bunch. We don't need no flame war arguing over something that we know so little about.

INITIATING ANTI-DERAILMENT PROCEDURE:
Should aliens exist, I think they would find DF to be a very interesting game, giving them further insight into the complicated minds of humans.

But would they share their awesome logic processing powers?

It might help.

If these aliens have the technology to feasibly visit multiple planets in one of their lifetimes (although their lifetimes might be extremely long from our p.o.v, and if they've developed FTL technology then there's all SORTS of weird time dilation going on), and assuming that if there is at least ONE planet out there with life forms on it (i.e these hypothetical aliens we're discussing right now), it stands to reason there's more. Not all of these planets are going to harbour intelligent life - or at least, not on a level of intelligence that at least exceeds that of, say, a chimpanzee.

Fish are dumb. If you pick up a fish, it will pointlessly struggle itself to death by flopping about, thus expediting the exhaustion of its un-renewable oxygen supply. If we make contact with aliens, we have to prove we're not dumb - i.e, we have to not act like dumb animals, and prove that we're some kind of intelligent. Not as developed as their culture is, what with their intergallactic travel and all that fancy rot, but not a bunch of dumb monkeys.

After this, we'd have to go on to prove that we are also capable of doing stuff. We have to make a good case that we have advanced physicists (they won't know who Newton is, but they'll sure as fuck recognize his laws, and they won't know who Pythagoras is, but show them that whole triangle dealy and they'll figure it out). Cars and bikes and planes are all well and good, but it'd be the equivalent of how we think a chimp is quite clever for using simple tools (sticks) to get ants from a nest. Physics and maths is where it's at.

Next, show them Dwarf Fortress. We'd have to, somehow, explain that it was created by just one man. This proves that we have a good enough understanding of geology, physics, and everything else involved in what makes DF so staggeringly complex that one man can make a simulation of it - albeit a rough one, with some edges that need polishing, but hey, it's one man, and I bet they didn't have just one guy working on that FTL-travel ship either.

See where I'm going with this?

and if they DON'T like us, and see us as a food source due to how primitive we are compared to them, we could kindly ask them to insert our consciousnesses into a computer that simulates a dwarf fortress world 10 times larger than the current largest setting, and have all of us be able to interact in this realm as overseers of individual forts.

F*** yeah.

[Andal]

The likelihood of a hypothetical alien species being able to comprehend an entirely foreign communication structure and set of language patterns is small enough to make the possibility of their comprehension of a human computer game next to, um, 0.

This is if we even resemble life as they see it. We are only a conglomeration of (mostly) carbon, oxygen and hydrogen. To be blunt, first contact with a highly advanced alien species would probably involve them stripping our planet of valuable resources and leaving us to die horrible deaths (or processed into constituent elements for further use), or disinterest with the small chance of a few specimens being collected for examination, if they pay attention to us at all.

[King DZA]

I would imagine they would look upon humans and DF with the same sort of interest that one has watching a child play with a toy.

They would smile as they saw how we interacted with the little virtual worlds, that turned the violent and savage tendencies of humanity into a fun game, while including various beings from our native legends and myths.

[DrGravitas]

Should we find that extraterrestrials have hauled a physical form some 118.3 light years (the median distance to known extra-solar planets; that's 695.44 trillion miles by the way) they're going to have a hell of a lot more important things to do/see than Dwarf Fortress. The vast majority of people on this planet do not know what DF is. Even the majority of video game players don't know what DF is.

Barring that, given a what would be a severe lack of commonality, we'd be best to compare such an encounter to an animal taking a shine to a human and trying to share some inedible bit of whatever serves to sate their hunger; a nice gesture, to be sure, but ultimately set aside as a trinket or curiosity at best. What if they don't even have the concept of myths, stories, or playing. Sure, there's the similar concept of practice, but what gibberish sort of understanding would DF present in that context?

[Mister Always]

Yup, but I don't think we'd get past that bit.  We don't exactly present the best image as a species.
EDIT: I DO NOT MEAN BAY12.  I mean humans and nations and etc. do not present the best possible image of humanity.  The sheer flammability of this post struck me as I posted it.

Any scientifically minded alien species would not immediately condemn us as a species because of international conflicts. If they're as intelligent as we are, it stands to reason they'd had some scuffles amongst themselves as well. I'm getting the impression you think only humans kill their own - guess what, chimpanzees? They totally murder the fuck out of other chimpanzee tribes, too. Violence is not simply a question of "good and evil", nature and evolution come in to it a fair bit. And politics have muddled it by a stretch as well.

Aaah, but knowing mankind, the first people to meet said aliens would prolly be total morons.

Also, what about aquatic mammals? And who says that the aliens would be anything like Earth-like creatures? I for one am voting for aliens made out of nitroglycerin ;P

And technically... we could just try to out-bouse them, they can travel stars, and we have lasers that can apparently tear the fabric of space.

Also, do we really want DF minded aliens? YESH WE DO.

What are you basing that statement on, exactly? If aliens DID come to visit us, they wouldn't land in the ass-end of southern North America and beam up Bubba Joe, who's just on his way to go bone his cousin. They'd look for a large settlement, which tends to be where smart folks live.

The fish was just an example. The point is, the animal would be scared, and would be trying to GTFO as soon as the alien came near it. Humans (and possibly some of the higher primates) would be wary, but inquisitive.

Try to keep in mind this won't be Independence Day. We're not going to launch a missile into just the right spot to bring the entire ship down, and we're not going to hack into their computers with a Macintosh (I dare say the OS' wouldn't be compatible). We've been to the moon, and we've sent some unmanned machines to near planets. These aliens are advanced enough to find us from incredible distances away - it won't be a case of rockets vs. lasers, it'll be a case of spoon versus hydrogen bomb. (We're the guy with the spoon. The aliens have the hydrogen bomb. A metaphorical hydrogen bomb, that is, it's a comparison.)

The likelihood of a hypothetical alien species being able to comprehend an entirely foreign communication structure and set of language patterns is small enough to make the possibility of their comprehension of a human computer game next to, um, 0.

This is if we even resemble life as they see it. We are only a conglomeration of (mostly) carbon, oxygen and hydrogen. To be blunt, first contact with a highly advanced alien species would probably involve them stripping our planet of valuable resources and leaving us to die horrible deaths (or processed into constituent elements for further use), or disinterest with the small chance of a few specimens being collected for examination, if they pay attention to us at all.

Let's assume, for a second, that these aliens aren't sentient clouds of plutonium, and that they don't communicate by directly telepathing their thoughts into their fellows' minds. I know it's unlikely (near damn impossible, in fact) that they'll be ANYTHING like us, but we won't know until we see them anyway.

Why, WHY, would a scientifically minded species immediately destroy millions (billions, probably, if we're counting insects) of alien species upon finding it? If they're looking for us, it's for the same reason we're looking for THEM - they want to know if they're alone in this universe or not. Ruling out the possibility of them being carbon copies of those Cricket guys from Hitchhiker's, they probably won't be omnicidal maniacs that can't stomach the thought of life existing outside of their own cosy little ball of rock.

[Mr.Elendig]

Toady probably is an alien. That would explain the twisted, sick and mysterious ways df works.

[Urist Imiknorris]

Toady probably is a god. That would explain the twisted, sick and mysterious ways df works.

[Mister Always]

I love how there's actual discussion about alien lifeforms in this thread, and also some chuckleheads who can't seem to conceive of anyone doing anything more complicated than they can.

Good fuckin' show.

[Loud Whispers]

I love how there's actual discussion about alien lifeforms in this thread, and also some chuckleheads who can't seem to conceive of anyone doing anything more complicated than they can.

Good fuckin' show.

And they say only the English get irony and sarcasm... Or maybe it just doesn't translate well on the internet 

[Mister Always]

I love how there's actual discussion about alien lifeforms in this thread, and also some chuckleheads who can't seem to conceive of anyone doing anything more complicated than they can.

Good fuckin' show.

And they say only the English get irony and sarcasm... Or maybe it just doesn't translate well on the internet 

1. That is not what irony means, God damn it.

2. Not "getting" sarcasm doesn't apply on the internet. Sarcasm is alluded to by tone of voice, facial expression, and a few other thing. The second thing you said is almost true - it's not that it doesn't translate well on the internet, it's that it doesn't, unless you're being completely obvious about it. Allow me to demonstrate:

Yeah, of course I don't understand sarcasm! Also, your use of the word "irony" was so totally right there.