NationStates Jolt Archive

"Get off our planet, bitches!"

LOLLOLOL OL TIME WARPZ

Damn Aliens coming down and taking our Jobs!

But seriously I have no idea how I would react. Probably ignore them, seeing as there is no obvious way to communicate with mutual understanding.

Just a question I've been considering for some time now.
How would you react if we finally had contact with aliens; if we actually knew there was intelligent life in the Universe other than our own?
(Well, most people think we're intelligent. I don't...)

Also, eating the aliens is not an option. (Reference to a thread I can't find about some Russians who supposedly found an alien, in reality a sea creature of a type I can't remember, and ate it.)

Now let's try it with a condition: they've landed, they don't appear to be hostile and they're quite happy to wander around the planet staring at us. The only problem is that they don't speak English. Or any other human language, for that matter.
Your reactions now?

Ilaer

Foreigners who don't speak my language wandering around? How is that any different from a normal day in New Jersey?

Damn Aliens coming down and taking our Jobs!

But seriously I have no idea how I would react. Probably ignore them, seeing as there is no obvious way to communicate with mutual understanding.

Stupid major time warps...

Anyway...
When I thought about it, I decided that the only way to communicate at all would be with mathematics. Perhaps if we have a screen showing the number 1, then a single block pops up, then the number 3, and three blocks pop up, and then the fraction one third, showing one block splitting into three equal ones.
As mathematics would be essential for the development of any intelligent species, I think they'd pick up on it and, although it'd take a while, we'd eventually build up our shared vocabulary on things.

Ilaer

Foreigners who don't speak my language wandering around? How is that any different from a normal day in New Jersey?

Try Blackpool. It's got the second largest non-native population in the world. Houston in Texas is first.

Ilaer

I'd probaby set up a giant "I told you so" bill board.;)

"Say moosey doom!"

I do believe it was "Moosey fate."

"Mankind has made contact with aliens!"
*changes channel*
"Contact was made aroun-"
*changes channel*
"Say moosey doom!"
*slides into comfortable chair*
Me: Ahhhh much better.

I would take my eyes out and eat my ear with my own mouth without using my hands.

No, just kidding. I would make a exclusive contract with the aliens and star them in a porn movie. I would get freaking rich. If they ask me what sex is, Ill tell them its a very effective way to bond with our culture.

Even if the aliens are freaking ugly, if they have tentacles it will work.

Anyway, if one of those aliens entered my room and started to look at me, I would freak out, get into a berserk mode and kill them with my hands. All of this, of course, after pooping my pants.

try to learn their language and learn to use their technology.

"what does this button do?" :D

"Mankind has made contact with aliens!"
*changes channel*
"Contact was made aroun-"
*changes channel*
"Say moosey doom!"
*slides into comfortable chair*
Me: Ahhhh much better.

I don't even understand this one. Mainly because of the 'moosey doom'.
Care to elaborate?

*chuckles slightly at the entire post, though*

Ilaer

DOOM: Repercussions of Evil

John Stalvern waited. The lights above him blinked and sparked out of the air. There were demons in the base. He didn't see them, but had expected them now for years. His warnings to Cernel Joson were not listenend to and now it was too late. Far too late for now, anyway.
John was a space marine for fourteen years. When he was young he watched the spaceships and he said to dad "I want to be on the ships daddy."
Dad said "No! You will BE KILL BY DEMONS"
There was a time when he believed him. Then as he got oldered he stopped. But now in the space station base of the UAC he knew there were demons.
"This is Joson" the radio crackered. "You must fight the demons!"
So John gotted his palsma rifle and blew up the wall.
"HE GOING TO KILL US" said the demons
"I will shoot at him" said the cyberdemon and he fired the rocket missiles. John plasmaed at him and tried to blew him up. But then the ceiling fell and they were trapped and not able to kill.
"No! I must kill the demons" he shouted
The radio said "No, John. You are the demons"
And then John was a zombie.

I do believe it was "Moosey fate."

Sorry, it's been a while since I saw it. *tear*

It's a cartoon called Invader Zim and the post demonstrates how little I would care about the real aliens. :p

I would take my eyes out and eat my ear with my own mouth without using my hands.

No, just kidding. I would make a exclusive contract with the aliens and star them in a porn movie. I would get freaking rich. If they ask me what sex is, Ill tell them its a very effective way to bond with our culture.

Even if the aliens are freaking ugly, if they have tentacles it will work.

Anyway, if one of those aliens entered my room and started to look at me, I would freak out, get into a berserk mode and kill them with my hands. All of this, of course, after pooping my pants.

Ever seen those scary hentai pop-ups with thousands of tentacles? You'll make an absolute fortune!

try to learn their language and learn to use their technology.

"what does this button do?" :D

Oh, great... So JuNii starts a galactic war by accidentally pressing the mothership's 'Self-Destruct' button.

Ilaer

Sorry, it's been a while since I saw it. *tear*

It's a cartoon called Invader Zim and the post demonstrates how little I would care about the real aliens. :p

Ah. Thank you for explaining.

Ilaer

I'd point at a tree and scream "tree" until they figured it out.

If it took more than a week, I would stalk, slay and eat every single one of them.

Sorry, it's been a while since I saw it. *tear*

It's a cartoon called Invader Zim and the post demonstrates how little I would care about the real aliens. :p

"Why is there bacon in the soap!"
"I made it myself!"

Oh, great... So JuNii starts a galactic war by accidentally pressing the mothership's 'Self-Destruct' button.

Ilaer
If it wasn't supposed to be pressed, why make it all big and shiney and red and flashing and...

I'd point at a tree and scream "tree" until they figured it out.

If it took more than a week, I would stalk, slay and eat every single one of them.

I said no eating them...
Other than that, your method works.
*thumps up*

Ilaer

Demons in space. Demons IN SPACE.

Just because they are demons, doesnt mean they cant be aliens too.

God dammint, if even mexicans can be aliens, why demons cant be too?

DOOM: Repercussions of Evil

John Stalvern waited. The lights above him blinked and sparked out of the air. There were demons in the base. He didn't see them, but had expected them now for years. His warnings to Cernel Joson were not listenend to and now it was too late. Far too late for now, anyway.
John was a space marine for fourteen years. When he was young he watched the spaceships and he said to dad "I want to be on the ships daddy."
Dad said "No! You will BE KILL BY DEMONS"
There was a time when he believed him. Then as he got oldered he stopped. But now in the space station base of the UAC he knew there were demons.
"This is Joson" the radio crackered. "You must fight the demons!"
So John gotted his palsma rifle and blew up the wall.
"HE GOING TO KILL US" said the demons
"I will shoot at him" said the cyberdemon and he fired the rocket missiles. John plasmaed at him and tried to blew him up. But then the ceiling fell and they were trapped and not able to kill.
"No! I must kill the demons" he shouted
The radio said "No, John. You are the demons"
And then John was a zombie.

That's demons. Not aliens. Demons.
We're talking about aliens. Not demons. Aliens.

Ilaer

That's demons. Not aliens. Demons.
We're talking about aliens. Not demons. Aliens.

Ilaer

This time they're one and the same.

I'm also surprised that DOOM has a pretty good storyline, not the movie of course.

I said no eating them...
Other than that, your method works.
*thumps up*

Ilaer

Awesome.

Muslims will breathe a collective sigh of relief as something shows up to take over as the "3b1l 0th0r" in the mind of Bushevik-minded folks in the West.

Meanwhile, counting on the same basic human ignorance and fear of the unknown, I would start buying stocks for Fabrique Nationale.

That's demons. Not aliens. Demons.
We're talking about aliens. Not demons. Aliens.

Ilaer

quick... send a warning to John Hurt! :p

Awesome.

Congratulations.
I meant 'thumbs up', by the way...
This doesn't reflect well on my official NBCyIPsW party title...


Still demons. Just replace the word demon with alien. :D


Ilaer

http://www.collectormania.com/imagegallery/c7images/dalek.jpg

Aliens are our friends! Take pictures of them, and stare at them with a stupid expression on your face.

http://www.collectormania.com/imagegallery/c7images/dalek.jpg

Aliens are our friends! Take pictures of them, and stare at them with a stupid expression on your face.

Hmmm... That Dalek looks like he's going to suck something out of that child, much like the Daleks extracted information from that Torchwoord person in the episode Doomsday.
He'll end up dead. I know it.

Ilaer

Edit: That reminds me: why are there so many time warps on this thread? I've never seen as many on other ones...

That Dalek looks like he's going to suck something out of that child

I actually just lol'd.

Edit: That reminds me: why are there so many time warps on this thread? I've never seen as many on other ones...

Its because aliens are involved, and they hold the secret to the seventh dimention. Since I´ve patented the invention already, I can say that buying it from them was my first option, and the porn comes second.

Because you cant go wrong with porn.

I actually just lol'd.

Why?
*feel free to sig it if you want to...*
:D

Ilaer

I'd hang out with the aliens, try to become their personal tour guide to planet earth, do my best to establish communication if I can. Meanwhile I'd try to get a genetic sample so we could get a basic idea about them.

I actually just lol'd.

He sigged it. I'm happy.
That's now two quotes of mine which have been sigged.

Its because aliens are involved, and they hold the secret to the seventh dimention. Since I´ve patented the invention already, I can say that buying it from them was my first option, and the porn comes second.

Because you cant go wrong with porn.

How ironic that the explanation should be involved in a time warp...

Ilaer

He'll end up dead. I know it.


That'll teach him to stand in front of a Dalek and grin at it. That way he'll know not to do it again.

*nods*

I turn them into an army of evil, and take over the world. Or, failing that, recruit them to my circus.

That'll teach him to stand in front of a Dalek and grin at it. That way he'll know not to do it again.

*nods*

*nods in agreement*

I turn them into an army of evil, and take over the world. Or, failing that, recruit them to my circus.

I can imagine the queues...
One problem: what if they ask for a wage increase? How will you say no?

Ilaer

*nods in agreement*



I can imagine the queues...
One problem: what if they ask for a wage increase? How will you say no?

Ilaer

How can they ask?:p

I don't suppose hiding under the bed hoping the aliens will leave is an option?

Just a question I've been considering for some time now.
How would you react if we finally had contact with aliens; if we actually knew there was intelligent life in the Universe other than our own?
(Well, most people think we're intelligent. I don't...)

Also, eating the aliens is not an option. (Reference to a thread I can't find about some Russians who supposedly found an alien, in reality a sea creature of a type I can't remember, and ate it.)

Now let's try it with a condition: they've landed, they don't appear to be hostile and they're quite happy to wander around the planet staring at us. The only problem is that they don't speak English. Or any other human language, for that matter.
Your reactions now?

Ilaer

Well, we all know that alien contact is happening on April 5th, 2063, and we know who the aliens are. And I'd say we just blow them all up.

How can they ask?:p

How'd you recruit them?

Ilaer

How'd you recruit them?

Ilaer

With a pointy stick. Duh.;)

I don't suppose hiding under the bed hoping the aliens will leave is an option?

Well, it is, but probably not an advisable one...
After all: what if they have a compulsive dislike of those who hide under the bed?

Well, we all know that alien contact is happening on April 5th, 2063, and we know who the aliens are. And I'd say we just blow them all up.

?

Ilaer

With a pointy stick. Duh.;)

So they bite your head off.
Smart. Real smart.

Ilaer

With a pointy stick. Duh.;)

The Emperor's Pointy Sticks?

?

Ilaer:rolleyes:

http://images.wikia.com/memoryalpha/en/images/thumb/1/11/Vulcan.jpg/180px-Vulcan.jpg

:rolleyes:

http://images.wikia.com/memoryalpha/en/images/thumb/1/11/Vulcan.jpg/180px-Vulcan.jpg

O... k...
0_o

Ilaer

Just a question I've been considering for some time now.
How would you react if we finally had contact with aliens; if we actually knew there was intelligent life in the Universe other than our own?
(Well, most people think we're intelligent. I don't...)

Also, eating the aliens is not an option. (Reference to a thread I can't find about some Russians who supposedly found an alien, in reality a sea creature of a type I can't remember, and ate it.)

Now let's try it with a condition: they've landed, they don't appear to be hostile and they're quite happy to wander around the planet staring at us. The only problem is that they don't speak English. Or any other human language, for that matter.
Your reactions now?

Ilaer

Shoot them before laws are enacted preventing extraterrestrial genocide.

Well, it is, but probably not an advisable one...
After all: what if they have a compulsive dislike of those who hide under the bed?

Perhaps...

But the aliens could be scary! I need to have the option of hiding under my bed to avoid them!

Or I could go in the other direction and buy a gun...

Just a question I've been considering for some time now.
How would you react if we finally had contact with aliens; if we actually knew there was intelligent life in the Universe other than our own?
(Well, most people think we're intelligent. I don't...)

Also, eating the aliens is not an option. (Reference to a thread I can't find about some Russians who supposedly found an alien, in reality a sea creature of a type I can't remember, and ate it.)

Now let's try it with a condition: they've landed, they don't appear to be hostile and they're quite happy to wander around the planet staring at us. The only problem is that they don't speak English. Or any other human language, for that matter.
Your reactions now?

Ilaer


Interesting question. About 2 1/2 years ago, someone came to my nation claiming to be an alien. Called himself "alien gypsies". We conversed briefly and then he left. I watched him in other regions. He seemed to be self-consistent and not (too) crazy. I even kind of liked him -- he made me think about the way things are -- and he was interesting enough I kept one of his telegrams. I noticed that the nearly universal reaction was to assume he's a hoaxer. A lot of people were not only disbelieving but hostile and abusive, despite the fact that he was polite.

Of course he wasn't really an alien (or was he?) But it has me thinking. If a real alien ever did come here, and instead of trying to stand out he tried to fit in, but didn't try to hide that he's an alien, would we believe it? Or would we call him a liar and get hostile?

So did anybody else see him? And what do you think: would we do any better with a real alien if he tried to act like one of us than we did with this gypsies guy?

I expect proof from anyone claiming to be an alien. If they dont offer proof, they are just crazy.

Yet, I´ve never seen anyone claiming to be an alien, nor Napoleon.

Well, we all know that alien contact is happening on April 5th, 2063, and we know who the aliens are. And I'd say we just blow them all up.

and spare them the agony of Rock-N-Roll and Whiskey? yeah, they'll thank us for that.

I would call bank of America and alert them. I'm sure they would give them credit cards...lmao

Shoot them before laws are enacted preventing extraterrestrial genocide.

You simply shoot them before they're declared people. Technically it's not murder unless they're a person.

Ilaer

Interesting question. About 2 1/2 years ago, someone came to my nation claiming to be an alien. Called himself "alien gypsies". We conversed briefly and then he left. I watched him in other regions. He seemed to be self-consistent and not (too) crazy. I even kind of liked him -- he made me think about the way things are -- and he was interesting enough I kept one of his telegrams. I noticed that the nearly universal reaction was to assume he's a hoaxer. A lot of people were not only disbelieving but hostile and abusive, despite the fact that he was polite.

Of course he wasn't really an alien (or was he?) But it has me thinking. If a real alien ever did come here, and instead of trying to stand out he tried to fit in, but didn't try to hide that he's an alien, would we believe it? Or would we call him a liar and get hostile?

So did anybody else see him? And what do you think: would we do any better with a real alien if he tried to act like one of us than we did with this gypsies guy?

That's an interesting tale. I remember a Bravenet website once which was set up by a self-proclaimed 'alien'; whether or not the website founder actually was an alien or not, they were consistent and very courteous towards everyone, even the most abusive. It was interesting because there was even a picture on the website proclaiming to be the alien.
I believe it was a very well-constructed and harmless hoax, but it was amazingly well-done and very interesting nonetheless.

Ilaer

How would you react if we finally had contact with aliens; if we actually knew there was intelligent life in the Universe other than our own?
Contact is a lot different than conversation. There're fossils on this world so strange we can't even tell which end is up and have a difficult time communicating with most terrestrial life. Alien life might not even be recogonized as life, certainly not life as we know it.

"Nowhere in space will we rest our eyes upon the familiar shapes of trees and plants, or any of the animals that share our world. Whatsoever life we meet will be as strange and alien as the nightmare creatures of the ocean abyss, or of the insect empire whose horrors are normally hidden from us by their microscopic scale."
-Sir Arthur C. Clarke, 1962

(Well, most people think we're intelligent. I don't...)
I'm one of them.

Also, eating the aliens is not an option. (Reference to a thread I can't find about some Russians who supposedly found an alien, in reality a sea creature of a type I can't remember, and ate it.)
Eating it may be out the question but killing it would probably be the action taken.

From The Killing Star by Charles Pelligrino and George Zebrowski (you really should read this book):
The great silence (i.e., absence of SETI signals from alien civilizations) is perhaps the strongest indicator of all that high relativistic velocities are attainable and that everybody out there knows it.

The sobering truth is that relativistic civilizations are a potential nightmare to anyone living within range of them. The problem is that objects traveling at an appreciable fraction of light speed are never where you see them when you see them. Relativistic rockets, if their owners turn out to be less than benevolent, are both totally unstoppable and totally destructive. A starship weighing in at 1,500 tons impacting an earthlike planet at "only" 30 percent of lightspeed will release 1.5 million megatons of energy -- an explosive force equivalent to 150 times today's global nuclear arsenal...

I'm not going to talk about ideas. I'm going to talk about reality. It will probably not be good for us ever to build and fire up an antimatter engine. According to Powell, given the proper detecting devices, a Valkyrie engine burn could be seen out to a radius of several light-years and may draw us into a game we'd rather not play, a game in which, if we appear to be even the vaguest threat to another civilization and if the resources are available to eliminate us, then it is logical to do so.

The game plan is, in its simplest terms, the relativistic inverse to the golden rule: "Do unto the other fellow as he would do unto you and do it first."...

When we put our heads together and tried to list everything we could say with certainty about other civilizations, without having actually met them, all that we knew boiled down to three simple laws of alien behavior:

1. THEIR SURVIVAL WILL BE MORE IMPORTANT THAN OUR SURVIVAL.
If an alien species has to choose between them and us, they won't choose us. It is difficult to imagine a contrary case; species don't survive by being self-sacrificing.

2. WIMPS DON'T BECOME TOP DOGS.
No species makes it to the top by being passive. The species in charge of any given planet will be highly intelligent, alert, aggressive, and ruthless when necessary.

3. THEY WILL ASSUME THAT THE FIRST TWO LAWS APPLY TO US.

From Run To The Stars by Michael Scott Rohan (1982). The heroes have discovered the Dreadful Secret that the BC world government is hiding: explorers have discovered the first known alien species, and BC is sending a huge missile to kill all the aliens.
"Alien," muttered Ryly, and coughed rackingly, unpleasant in the confined space. "The Colony - people, that was different, but - Bellamy, hey, hold on. Think a minute. So what you say's true - couldn't the BC still be right? I mean, these're aliens, man! Better we'd never contacted them, but now they've found us - hell, we can't trust them! We can't be sure! It's the human race at stake."

"Ye're sayin' that genocide - worse than that, even - that ye like the idea?" demanded Kirsty.

"Hell, no, think I'm Stalin or somethin'? Like I said - better we'd laid low, shut up, kept to ourselves, safe, Earth and the Colony both. But these things, we can't afford to take a risk with them! Better the missile cleans the mistake off the slate, things quiet down an' we're safe again. I don't like it, I hate it - but then I'm not so wild about some of the things you feel you were justified in doin' either..."

Now let's try it with a condition: they've landed, they don't appear to be hostile and they're quite happy to wander around the planet staring at us. The only problem is that they don't speak English. Or any other human language, for that matter.
Your reactions now?
Hold them and take their ship for study. Making contact is one thing, getting from here to even the closest star in a reasonable amount of time is next to impossible except maybe for a craft capable of relativistic velocities. With those kinds of speeds and a big enough ship you can crack a planet in half or traverse the interstellar medium, it's all up to guy at the wheel. Assuming there is a guy at the wheel.

A peaceful, mutually beneficial treaty post-contact: Excited out of my mind!

War post-contact: Scared shitless...then comes the guerilla fighting!

Try Blackpool. It's got the second largest non-native population in the world. Houston in Texas is first.

IlaerNew York and Los Angeles have higher percentages of non-native populations than Houston...

Houston: 29.1%
New York: 36.6%
Los Angeles: 40.3%

New York and Los Angeles have higher percentages of non-native populations than Houston...

Houston: 29.1%
New York: 36.6%
Los Angeles: 40.3%

I have an old source then.

Ilaer

You simply shoot them before they're declared people. Technically it's not murder unless they're a person.

Ilaer

Exactly. Kill them all.

My thought is that if the aliens were carbon-based like us, disease would be the first concern on both our minds. I started to write a story about a post-contact world in which the visitors accidentally introduced a mutagenic virus that has since divided the human race into a number of separate species often no longer capable of interbreeding, but it hasn't really gone anywhere... I might come back to it later.

If the aliens weren't carbon-based (or maybe carbon-based in a way very different from us), that most likely wouldn't be a concern. It's a little tricky to think of what else there could be, though... silicon? Nitrogen-boron? Metallic?

:eek:

*pokey pokey*

Make Alien Babies.

Just a question I've been considering for some time now.
How would you react if we finally had contact with aliens; if we actually knew there was intelligent life in the Universe other than our own?
(Well, most people think we're intelligent. I don't...)

Also, eating the aliens is not an option. (Reference to a thread I can't find about some Russians who supposedly found an alien, in reality a sea creature of a type I can't remember, and ate it.)

Now let's try it with a condition: they've landed, they don't appear to be hostile and they're quite happy to wander around the planet staring at us. The only problem is that they don't speak English. Or any other human language, for that matter.
Your reactions now?

Ilaer

Q1: Finally, someone who isn't a moron/ a greedy pig (hopefully).

Q2: Try to communicate with Binary Code (or some other programming language/crossover tongue) and then ask what they are doing.

Well, I guess we'd have to find a way to communicate with them. If they're carbon based, or if their computers use similar processes for communicating with each other, we would probably be able to derive a means of communication without too much difficulty. If they're something else, it'll be a hell of a lot harder.

Or, if we're lucky they've either been studying our languages from afar for the past century or so or they've invented some kind of universal translator that can render languages in to others.

Or, if we're lucky they've either been studying our languages from afar for the past century or so or they've invented some kind of universal translator that can render languages in to others.

If not the Babel fish. Those things are badass.

If not the Babel fish. Those things are badass.

That would be pretty epic.

That would be pretty epic.

And then they pull out the Improbability Drive...

/nerderie

Well, I guess we'd have to find a way to communicate with them. If they're carbon based, or if their computers use similar processes for communicating with each other, we would probably be able to derive a means of communication without too much difficulty. If they're something else, it'll be a hell of a lot harder.

Or, if we're lucky they've either been studying our languages from afar for the past century or so or they've invented some kind of universal translator that can render languages in to others.
There's plenty of life on this planet that humans cannot communicate with like termites and gators. What makes you think humans could ever communicate with aliens from a different planet? What makes you think it'd even be recognized as alive?

Really, what makes something alive? I once heard life defined as anything that consumed matter/energy to function, grew, and reproduced, but by that definition fire would be considered alive and a sentient super computer would not.

Sir Arthur C. Clarke made a famous observation about space explorers discovering aliens. If one considers the millions of years of pre-history, and the rapid technological advancement occurring now, if you apply that to a hypothetical alien race, one can figure the probabilities of how advanced the explorers will find them. The conclusion is "we will find apes or angels, but not men."

Why? Consider the history of Planet Earth. Let the height of the Empire State building represent the 5 billion year life of Terra. The height of a one-foot ruler perched on top would represent the million years of Man's existence. The thickness of a dime will represent the ten thousand years of Man's civilization. And the thickness of a postage stamp will represent the 300 years of Man's technological civilization. An unknown portion above represents "pre-Singularity Man", the period up to the point where mankind hits the Singularity/evolves into a higher form/turns into angels. Say another dime. Above that would be another Empire State building, representing the latter 5 billion years of Terra's lifespan.

If you picked a millimeter of this tower at random, what would you most likely hit? One of the Empire State buildings, of course. So, assuming only one civilization develops on a planet, chances are the first-in-scout starship Daniel Boone will discover mostly planets that are currently empty of alien civilizations (but they might have an almost 50% chance to discover valuable Forerunner artifacts or other paleotechnology).

As a matter of terminology, a long-extinct star faring alien civilization are commonly called "Forerunners", "Precursors", "Ancients", "Elder race", "Progenitors", or "Predecessors". Their thousand year old ruins are sobering, but their high-tech artifacts are generally far in advance of current tech levels and are of course both incredibly valuable yet incredibly dangerous. Archaeologists who stumble over such remains have a tendency to be killed by pirates, and their artifacts stolen.

The Cometeers by Jack Williamson. Not quite angels. Quite the opposite, in fact. If you only use the section with an alien civilization, you have a ruler and two dimes worth of apes and angels, and a postage stamp worth of near Human civilization. Ergo: apes or angels, but not men.

As a side note, one can use the time between apes and angels for the "average lifespan of a technological civilization". Insert this into the Drake equation along with a few other guesses and you can calculate the average distance between alien civilization homeworlds. (and of course the distance between Terra and the closest aliens).

---
Example: The planet Earth will have a life-span of roughly ten billion years. Mankind (Homo sapiens) appeared on Earth approximately 100,000 years ago. The bronze age began about 5300 years ago. The Industrial Revolution began about 250 years ago.

When will we humans evolve into angels? Vernor Vinge thinks the Singularity will happen no later than the year 2030. But I'll be generous and use 500 years from now, using John Barnes' rule of thumb. How long will the angels last? No idea. For lack of anything else, let's say 100,000 years from now, placing us current humans midway between apes and angels.

Now, assuming that the Daniel Boone only visits planets that be hosts to alien species, and assuming that each planet will only produce one alien species (which is a very questionable assumption), this means that the chance of discovering a living alien species is about 200,000/10,000,000,000 = 0.00002 = one chance in 50,000.

The poor Daniel Boone will on average have to visit fifty thousand planets in order to find one alien species. (Of course the Daniel Boone will probably be targeting planets about the same age as Earth and using other strategies to drastically reduce the number it will have to visit.)

Now, say that somehow the Daniel Boone manages to visit enough planets to discover 267 alien species. What level with they be at? Doing the math, 133 in 267 will be angels, 126 in 267 will be cave men, 7 in 267 will be on par with ancient Egypt, and only one in 267 will be a technological species. Keeping in mind that in this case, "technological" means it has technology ranging from steam power to something out of Star Wars (the 1760's to the 2500's).

The Daniel Boone will encounter 126 planets full of cave-man level aliens that they can play "Chariots of the Gods" with, and will have to avoid 133 planets with god-like species eager to put our intrepid explorers into giant petri dishes for their experiments with primitive life forms.

So you see, even if there were alien life out there, chances are we'd never find anything like us, not just because it'd be different biologically, but because it'd be at a very different point in its advancement. If it's too primitive then it might never be found and if it were then trying to talk to it would be like trying to talk to fungi or fish. If it's too advanced it might try to turn dogs into zerglings or be long gone, the only remnants of the dead civilization being strange devices and crashed starships. Even if it's out there it either can't get the message across, doesn't want to, or would sooner stick a needle in your eyes and shoot your head full of coke and gasoline to see what happens than talk to you.

There's plenty of life on this planet that humans cannot communicate with like termites and gators. What makes you think humans could ever communicate with aliens from a different planet? What makes you think it'd even be recognized as alive?

We can kind of understand them in the sense that we can correlate some sounds and behaviors to certain actions or conditions. However, that's a lot different from being able to communicate.

If they're intelligent, we might be able to communicate using scientific concepts like the structure of common compounds, but there's no guarantee that they have similar ideas regarding the structure of matter. The same is true of computing; they might have a totally alien number system that functions on totally different programming languages.

Our best bet is that they are more advanced than us and have already deciphered our language. If they're less or equally advanced, we're probably not going to be able communicate.

Really, what makes something alive? I once heard life defined as anything that consumed matter/energy to function, grew, and reproduced, but by that definition fire would be considered alive and a sentient super computer would not.

There really isn't a good definition of life, especially since advances in robotics, neural networks, artificial intelligence, and other fields are producing artificial organisms that have all of the major aspects of biological organisms, and in the near future we're going to have artificial life that is capable of doing the same or more than biological life. Hell, the Blue Brain is already showing unexpected patterns like those seen in thinking organisms and it only has maybe 100,000 simulated neurons.

I mean, a computer virus is for all intents and purposes similar to a biological virus. Its code has similar instructions to RNA, and polymorphic viruses share a similar ability to mutate their code in order to evade detection, just like viruses and bacteria do with their antigens to evade biological immune systems.

So you see, even if there were alien life out there, chances are we'd never find anything like us, not just because it'd be different biologically, but because it'd be at a very different point in its advancement. If it's too primitive then it might never be found and if it were then trying to talk to it would be like trying to talk to fungi or fish. If it's too advanced it might try to turn dogs into zerglings or be long gone, the only remnants of the dead civilization being strange devices and crashed starships. Even if it's out there it either can't get the message across, doesn't want to, or would sooner stick a needle in your eyes and shoot your head full of coke and gasoline to see what happens than talk to you.

That's true. Also, we have to take in to account scale; even if a civilization has been scanning the skies for a billion years, they will have scanned barely 5% of the visible universe in that time let alone the things that lie beyond what they can see. Humans have been putting out signals for maybe 120 years (being generous), or 0.00000012% of that time.

The only way they might have a chance is either serendipity or FTL travel, and it's entirely possible that they might use FTL or similarly advanced tech to simply leave the visible universe or leave the universe entirely. It's even possible that they created our universe with the intent of developing new intelligent species (a variant of the zoo hypothesis).

Chances are, we're a lot more likely to create new species of intelligent life ourselves through interstellar travel and technology (think cyborgs, artificial life, humans evolving in to new species due to isolation, genetic engineering and environmental conditions, etc.) than we are to encounter them naturally.

Just a question I've been considering for some time now.
How would you react if we finally had contact with aliens; if we actually knew there was intelligent life in the Universe other than our own?
(Well, most people think we're intelligent. I don't...)

Also, eating the aliens is not an option. (Reference to a thread I can't find about some Russians who supposedly found an alien, in reality a sea creature of a type I can't remember, and ate it.)

Now let's try it with a condition: they've landed, they don't appear to be hostile and they're quite happy to wander around the planet staring at us. The only problem is that they don't speak English. Or any other human language, for that matter.
Your reactions now?

Ilaer

Well, seeing as I live in Australia, I'd imagine they'd all be rounded up and shipped to detainee camps in Nauru for processing.

Well, seeing as I live in Australia, I'd imagine they'd all be rounded up and shipped to detainee camps in Nauru for processing.

I like this line of thinking...although I would prefer to eradicate them immediately. Maybe keep a few for military research, find out about how they work so we can get to work finishing off the rest of their kind.

I like this line of thinking...although I would prefer to eradicate them immediately. Maybe keep a few for military research, find out about how they work so we can get to work finishing off the rest of their kind.
Then you should move to Australia. All sorts of 'aliens' get treated this way.

I like this line of thinking...although I would prefer to eradicate them immediately. Maybe keep a few for military research, find out about how they work so we can get to work finishing off the rest of their kind.

Sounds like a rather stupid thing to do. Pissing off a species far enough ahead of us that they can succesfuly travel interstellar space seems like a bad idea.

If they come in peace we will demand that they surrender.

If they come for war, then we will surrender.

Sounds like a rather stupid thing to do. Pissing off a species far enough ahead of us that they can succesfuly travel interstellar space seems like a bad idea.

Yeah. There's pretty much no way that any aliens will communicate with us unless they're a hell of a lot more advanced, and that means that they could annihilate, assimilate, or annex us without any difficulty. Even if we manage to destroy their initial contact, they'll return with a hell of a lot more to teach us a lesson.

DOOM: Repercussions of Evil

John Stalvern waited. The lights above him blinked and sparked out of the air. There were demons in the base. He didn't see them, but had expected them now for years. His warnings to Cernel Joson were not listenend to and now it was too late. Far too late for now, anyway.
John was a space marine for fourteen years. When he was young he watched the spaceships and he said to dad "I want to be on the ships daddy."
Dad said "No! You will BE KILL BY DEMONS"
There was a time when he believed him. Then as he got oldered he stopped. But now in the space station base of the UAC he knew there were demons.
"This is Joson" the radio crackered. "You must fight the demons!"
So John gotted his palsma rifle and blew up the wall.
"HE GOING TO KILL US" said the demons
"I will shoot at him" said the cyberdemon and he fired the rocket missiles. John plasmaed at him and tried to blew him up. But then the ceiling fell and they were trapped and not able to kill.
"No! I must kill the demons" he shouted
The radio said "No, John. You are the demons"
And then John was a zombie.

Wow, that's better written than the actual novels.

If they come in peace we will demand that they surrender.

If they come for war, then we will surrender.

All good options, the important thing is I'm meeting new people.

Kill the aliens, reverse engineer their technology, unit mankind under my banner and take the great Terran Jiahd to the stars to enslave or wipe out all nonhuman life.
Resist or serve bitches.

The assumption that a planet will only evolve civilization-capable organisms once is an intriguing one... and it raises a philosophical question: if sapience is as big a survival advantage as we crack it up to be, how come it has only evolved once? Other survival strategies, many of substantial (if not quite equal) complexity, have covergently evolved numerous times. So why not sapience? Perhaps it's simple probability (it just doesn't happen that often, there are a lot of things that have to go right, etc.) but the sobering possibility is that civilization may not, in the long run, be a good means of survival...

Kill the aliens, reverse engineer their technology, unit mankind under my banner and take the great Terran Jiahd to the stars to enslave or wipe out all nonhuman life.
Resist or serve bitches.This is why SETI & shit like that won't ever work. Anything clever enough to figure out how to contact us, or even get here, is far too smart to actually do it.