I figured it's about time I post something again, prefferabley something that spurs on some posts. I'll use something different: Let's assume that tomarrow we somehow confirm the existance of sentient alien life. Think up what this event is and how it transpires, then tell how the event would be treated and what impact it would have on different aspects human civilization. Try to be as realistic and thorough as possible.

Enjoy!

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(url="http://"http://www.dissectional.com/swf/index.html") Dig a little deeper (/url)
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Well, obviously a great deal would depend on how the contact was made.

Landing - We come in peace
A landing in an area chosen for its conformation value (in front of the UN/White House/Similar) would obviously have a VERY dramatic effect. Humanity would most likely split into two groups - one looking to the aliens to solve all our problems, the other fearing them as "agents of the devil" or "invaders". Politicians would probably try to appease both groups (at least in a Western country, and many Eastern ones).

Most likely, we'd eventually annoy the aliens enough to make them leave, and then debate why they left for centuries.

Landing - Mars Attacks Style
Hollywood to the contrary, we'd most likely NOT be able to hold off an invasion. Given that they'd need sufficient technology to cross an intersteller distance (Earth, if put together as one, would have just below the bare minimum at present), we probably would not be able to fight back, except possibly with nuclear warheads. If we did THAT, most likely we'd pretty much destroy Earth, and it wouldn't matter anymore who won.

We've been here the whole time, watching.
This would be fairly scary, and would probably result in much the same sort of thing as a peaceful landing, although suspicion would be more in the majority.

We've been here the whole time, running things.
This would be almost as frightening as the invasion option. Pretty much, there would most likely be rioting and civil unrest, but it would probably be put down by human military forces under the control of the aliens. After that, hellooo 1984.

Radio
There would be a great deal of interest for awhile, and a great deal of spiritual debate and such, but then people would realize all we could get from this is conformation they exist, and loose a lot of interest. The only major long-term change would be increased expendetures on space exploration, and a serious study of how to stop an alien invasion.

Unless, of course, such broadcasts origionated from a ship in our system, in which case we would try to talk to them, and the hystaria from possibility one would continue for quite some time.

Um, could we borrow some uranium?
If an alien spaceship crashed, it would most likely be taken to a secret government lab for analysis, and we would try our best to imprison (in really damn secret military instalations) any survivors, and dissect and analize any reasonably intact dead aliens.

Other
I'm sure there's SOME method of contact I've left out, but I can't think of it.

Overall Impact
According to most biologists who speculate on this sort of thing, how well we recieve the aliens will depend on how similar to us they look. We'd obviously be MUCH nicer to cute anime chick type aliens than the hideous insectlike type Ripley and Ash fight. Also, they'd obviously be asked about their society. If it is similar to a type that Earth has experienced, how much a given person likes the aliens might well be porportional to how much they like that form of society. If it ISN'T like anything on Earth (eg hive mind), we might feel threatened or frightened, and give them the cold shoulder (or worse).

I'd write more, but I gotta do homework now. Nice to see you posting, Sarg.

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Seen on a Claymore anitpersonell mine: "Do not eat"

(This message has been edited by Fleet Admiral Darkk (edited 12-05-2001).)

Holly crap dark! lol you wrote alot! damn..

well if i met an alien, i'd poke him in the eye(s) and steal his spaceship. After that i'd blackmail the government with the alien space ship, get lots of money, make my own spaceship, and live happily ever after.

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ramble on..
--Jimmy Page
(list)
(*)(1st Class Zacha Admiral and guitar legend throughout the sol system.)

And then... wake up?

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There are only 3 kinds of people: those who can count, and those who can't.

Quite.

There has been a great deal of thought put into this already. To see what other people have thought up for what would happen if we found out another race, I believe that the Planetary society has some information. Earth already has a protocol set up for what we will do when and if we make contact with another alien species, and depending on the type of contact different procedures will be taken out.

Personally, I would really like to see the "We come in peace" style of encounter. One thing though, is it possible that Earth could be in some sort of nature preserve? Earth, being inhabited by a primitive species, barely pierceing the outer envelopes of its planet could be something like *****anzees to some aliens. We're unschooled, barbaric and worthy of scientific study of how primitive sentient life acts. The reason that we havn't heard from or seen any alien life is because we're being tucked away from the rest of galactic society because we're special. And not in a good way. Monkeys are special to scientists because they're good to perform experiments on.

However, the most likely form of contact that there would be would be radio contact, interception of some sort of radio signal from another civilization. And I disagree with Darkk with his statement that if radio contact is encountered, we will be hyped for a while and then die down. I believe that if we discover that we are not alone in the universe, then many things will change in society. Theologies of many many groups will be disproven (HA, humans are NOT all that God made!) and the practice of xenoanthropology will become a hot field. Additionally, we'll probably send out a reponse to the alien society with whatever requests for information on their society, what technologies they may have to offer, and what we may have to offer them. They may even be kind enough to send over a ship or two to help us out.

One final mode of contact that is often shown in sci-fi novels and a couple of games is contact after man has already left Earth. Once we've launched out amongst other stars, humanity will undoubtedly stumble across another alien race, either friendly or hostile. I'll use a couple of videogames for explanation, such as Marathon (which many of you all know). Humanity was more or less alone until they ran into the Pfhor. Unfortunatly, the Pfhor were slavers and otherwise nasty little insect-mens that we had to pummel. A second game by the same company is Halo. The premise behind that is that Humanity encountered an alien race that had came to the conclusion that humans were a blasphemous entity that needed to be cleansed from the universe. Nothing like religious zealotry to ruin everyone's day.

So go download seti@home, and start looking for ET. The sooner we find them, the sooner we can start building our pirate-trading empires.

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Madness takes it's toll; Please have exact change.

If all the time the galaxy had existed was compressed into a day, humanity has existed for less than a nano-second. It is probable that alien races, civilisations, entire empires have been born and died hundreds of times already. The chance of us meeting an alien race in this nano-second of the galaxy's existence, and beyond is almost impossible. Humanity as already indicated it makes short-term decisions and thus will become a short-term race. We will live, prosper, and die.

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There are only 3 kinds of people: those who can count, and those who can't.

The only real restriction to us is getting FTL travel. I believe that any race with FTL travel becomes almost impossible to be destroyed without the influence of another race...unless the distances between suitable colony worlds are so great that it takes years even with FTL travel. It'd be kind of funny to see the Voyager probes arriving in another system that had been colonised 100 years after the launch...

Quote

Originally posted by Joveia:
**If all the time the galaxy had existed was compressed into a day, humanity has existed for less than a nano-second. It is probable that alien races, civilisations, entire empires have been born and died hundreds of times already. The chance of us meeting an alien race in this nano-second of the galaxy's existence, and beyond is almost impossible. Humanity as already indicated it makes short-term decisions and thus will become a short-term race. We will live, prosper, and die.

**

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'Do you want to allow eine DLL-Datei als Anwendung ausführen to access the Internet?' - What happens when you try to run an english program under the german version of Windows

Quote

Originally posted by Talon Karrde:
**. I believe that any race with FTL travel becomes almost impossible to be destroyed without the influence of another race...unless the distances between suitable colony worlds are so great that it takes years even with FTL travel.

**

I have to knock you for that. Can you seriously not imagine any other way but physical destruction by which an alien race can be destroyed?

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There are only 3 kinds of people: those who can count, and those who can't.

Are talking about UTTER and TOTAL destruction that includes (but not limited to) the removal of every single being that belongs to that race? Then even physical destruction is damn hard. A race with FTL that is threatened with such total physical destruction such as another belligerant alien race will probably try to vye for surrender to prevent the utter loss of their species. And with FTL it is another possibility that they will desperately throw themselves into the void in an attempt to reach another system that is far away from their current troubles.
I think it's just almost impossible for an FTL capable species to be totally wiped out anyways. End of the universe is something else entirely, that's the end of everything. What means of total destruction besides physical can you think of? Moreover, what other means that aren't physical exist?

And as a sidenote to that, a bit of sci-fi piece. Arthur C. Clarke wrote a short story about a race of aliens that discovered humanity, and also the fact that the sun which earth orbits is going to explode very shortly. They rush madly to salvage some final specimens of humans before they are totally obliterated. However, they don't find any. At the end of the story as the aliens are heading home somewhat dejected they spot on their sensors a most remarkable thing. Humanity had seen that the sun was failing, and instead of lying quietly down to die, they constructed a fleet of massive ships to brave the interstellar void. A journey that would take generations to reach the next inhabitable planet and one that those that started out would never see. Kinda cool isn't it? The entirety of humanity heading out on sublight speeds to the stars. Really cool except for the whole losing of earth thing. That's bad.

Oh yeah, and here's a quick question. Should astronomers find another habitable planet among the stars, and reaching that planet would take about 60 years to reach earth-time (probably 15-24 due to relativity), who where would volunteer to be a part of a colony ship to travel to that distant world and colonize it?
I would say yes.

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Madness takes it's toll; Please have exact change.

1. Cessation of will. It is quite possible for a species to lose the will to live. They could meet another species which is inimically superior, and lose faith in themselves. They could become oppressed with the bleak world view some humans hold today - 4 score and 5 years on a small green planet, in a vast uncaring universe. They could have discovered the ultimate theory, or everything there is to know. What is the purpose of existence after that.

2. Genetic dismodification. Suggested by Arthur C. Clarke, one of the species in his novels modifies itself to be superior, genetically. Unfortunately, they didn't quite do this right, and ended up corrupting their genetic strains about 50 million years down the track. With no way of curing themselves, they could only die. This is a possibility for humanity even.

3. Social Disintegration. The society of the civilisation might decay, something suggested like in Foundation, a novel by Isaac Asimov. After thousands and thousands of years, they lose the ability to administrate themselves effectively. Their civilisation begins a rapid slide towards chaos, and reversion of technology. This isn't wiping out an entire race though.

I'm sure there are other possibilities.

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There are only 3 kinds of people: those who can count, and those who can't.

I meant humanity. Doesn't matter.

Yes, this is true, but if only 1-2 individuals think clearly and escape, the species can be saved. Kind of like Adam and Eve, but in reverse.

Quote

Originally posted by Joveia:
**1) Cessation of will. It is quite possible for a species to lose the will to live. They could meet another species which is inimically superior, and lose faith in themselves. They could become oppressed with the bleak world view some humans hold today - 4 score and 5 years on a small green planet, in a vast uncaring universe. They could have discovered the ultimate theory, or everything there is to know. What is the purpose of existence after that.
**

Can't say much about that one.

Quote

Originally posted by Joveia:
2) Genetic dismodification. Suggested by Arthur C. Clarke, one of the species in his novels modifies itself to be superior, genetically. Unfortunately, they didn't quite do this right, and ended up corrupting their genetic strains about 50 million years down the track. With no way of curing themselves, they could only die. This is a possibility for humanity even.
(/B)

(ran out of time, must go)

Quote

Originally posted by Joveia:
3) Social Disintegration. <snip>
I'm sure there are other possibilities.
(/B)

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'Do you want to allow eine DLL-Datei als Anwendung ausführen to access the Internet?' - What happens when you try to run an english program under the german version of Windows

actually we would probably just all catch an unknown alien virus from contact and most of the human race would die off, but some would live on to prosper with the aliens hopefullu (90% of the indian population were killed by english diseases)

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Newbie bashing = Tactical destruction of possible future threats = NATO
So why cant i do it?

(reviving old topics, yay ;))
That's actually quite unlikely.
There were two imporant factors at work in most of the historic disease-exploration plauges.

1. The victims AND the spreaders were both products of the same evolutionary tree
2. The victims had not been exposed to anything like this before
3. The spreaders (or humans carrying them around, vid bubonic plauge) were unable or unwilling to remedy the disease

I'll give you #2, but 1 and 3 aren't too likely. Very few canine diseases affect humans (and vice versa). In fact, monkeys get many diseases we can't (thank god, or we'd have an ebola plauge NOW). So it's unlikely that most of their diseases could spread. If they DID, it would be reasonably likely they'd treat them, unless they were totally unethical.

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Seen on a Claymore anitpersonell mine: "Do not eat"

#1 is, of course, unlikely.
However, to discount #3 we have to assume that these aliens have good intentions. You wouldn't expect Pfhor to say "Oops, we gave Bobs a plague and will now cure it," would you? Also, there's a race that actually is a disease in itself.* They wouldn't cure us of themselves, would they?

Remember, everything so far has been going on the assumption that they find us. We can send unmanned probes across the solar system, though, and we still haven't searched everywhere in our system. Say we find a primitive civilization deep inside Europa: Do we contact them? Or leave them there as "curiosities"?

*If you know, you know. Don't ruin it for others. They'll find out in a few months, probably, or have friends who have lost their souls.

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• CCS Sacred Promise (DE H c-3)
o SCS Pillar of Autumn
Our conviction is like an arrow already in flight.
Your life will only last until it reaches you.

Personally, I particularly like the book The Mote in God's Eye as an example of what first contact with a (reasonably similar) alien race might be like. A nice mix of the utterly alien and points of commonality.

I have yet to read a book where the aliens are completely alien... but then, I'm not too extensively read in science fiction.

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Sundered Angel ,
The One and Only
Ares Webboard Moderator, and all-around Nice Guy

(url="http://"http://partners.nytimes.com/2002/02/26/science/space/_26MARS.html")http://partners.nyti...ce/_26MARS.html(/url)

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• CCS Sacred Promise (DE H c-3)
o SCS Pillar of Autumn
Our conviction is like an arrow already in flight.
Your life will only last until it reaches you.

Bugs! Nuke em all!

(Before they nuke us)

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Oh, so it is another bug hunt then...

Lovecraft did a very good job with Aliens being completly alien. The fact that it was put under horror is that because the aliens had value systems so completlyl different from that of humans that they were terrifying in their differences. That, and they considered humans roughly the equivalent of what scientists think of monkeys. Good test subjects.

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"That was quick."
"Well you know, when you don't do it right it doesn't take as long."