What of Earth's Defences?

Originally posted by Shamanator
If we delay or hesitate we wont have them anyway better to make the first strike while the chance is available personally I'd rather go down by taking as many with us as possible and a good offensive might win it anyways especially if we got the mothership before it could launch anything else.

In order for your strategy to work, that means that we'd have to effectively have fired the first shot. You want to be the one to declare war between one dinky little backwater planet and an entire spacefaring civilization?

Let's pretend for just one tiny moment that your plan works. We launch all our nukes, everything we've got, and we wipe out the entire alien fleet within range of our planet. I won't even BEGIN to tell you how mathmatically unlikely it is that a craft couldn't move out of the way of a projectile missile before it traversed the distance and spent its fuel and had to coast the rest of the way (which is what real ICBMs, the only ones that could possibly break orbit, do). Nevermind the incredible lack of any remote sense of preparedness against such a ridiculously primitive attack method on behalf of the aliens, or that their craft is even composed of something susceptable to either kinetic energy or radiation... let's just pretend for a second you just wiped out the whole first alien fleet to be detected by the human race.

Do you seriously think that they would be all there is? Don't you think that if they are capable of casually throwing together a force and sending it towards us, that they would maybe have some friends who would be really really pissed off about your destroying them? Especially when you fired the first shot? What if they weren't even there to fight? What if they were there as a show of force, or what if a fleet were the standard travel packet used for technical, safety, or convenience reasons.

Originally posted by Shamanator

it seems to be a law inflexible and inexorable that he who will not risk cannot win. -JOHN PAUL JONES

"Force is all-conquering, but its victories are short-lived." - Abraham Lincoln.

Originally posted by Shamanator
If you would rather be burnt of the earth or killed by a tailored virus without putting up a struggle thats your decision I would hit them hard and fast with everything available and would not stop till one of us was dead.

Then you would absolutely succeeed, in one way or the other, indeed.

Why even consider fighting off projectiles? If they have mastered faster than light travel, then their technology is lightyears beyond ours. For all we know they can use some projected beam to mess with our gravity and send us hurtling into the sun, or use a weapon that that would interfere with the atomic bonds between the molecules that make us up, or create planet sized balls of anti-matter to annihilate us, or hell, if its resources they want, maybe they'll send mars and mercury and venus crashing into earth, and have one sterilized 'super rich' planet to mine, etc.

Do you seriously think that they would be all there is? Don't you think that if they are capable of casually throwing together a force and sending it towards us, that they would maybe have some friends who would be really really pissed off about your destroying them? Especially when you fired the first shot? What if they weren't even there to fight? What if they were there as a show of force, or what if a fleet were the standard travel packet used for technical, safety, or convenience reasons.

I dont really care why the Aliens are here they have no right to be, this is our solar system and if they want to pass through it Tough. Any right thinking person would realise they are a threat as soon as we detected them and since were not in a position to run we must fight.

I dont believe travel at lightspeed is possible for us or Aliens so if I am right by the time they managed to find out and get here we would have easily 20+ plus years to make new defences and study anything we could salvage. With a bit of luck we would wipe out anything else they sent possibly have learned the location of their own home planet and could prepare a little return visit of our own. Granted this would be no easy feat with current technology but I think we would find a way given the circumstances.

Either way to try and fail is still better than to just lie down and die Aliens will have to learn if you poke a nest you will get stung.

I'd like to think Governments have considered Hypersonic Stealth Nukes and maybe integrated some of the technology of BVR missiles (surely we could cook something up). We may have a few suprises that I cant even guess at to throw at them, also I'd expect every nation on Earth to do likewise and resist until death.

[edit on 19-9-2006 by Shamanator]

Why invade at all?

Send a few small scout ships to collect a few humans, use them to engineer a biological virus with a 100% lethality rate and a 6-12 month incubation period, pack it into baseball-sized probes, and fire them from a light year away into every major population center on the planet.

We'd never see it coming and we'd never know what had hit us. We'd probably never even realize that it was not of Earth origin.

When the alien 'invasion' force arrived, there would be no mess to clean up. The planet would be in good condition, with all native life except humans intact. The few survivors living in remote, isolated locations could be dealt with quickly and easily.

But if they did invade, if you are an alien civilization, why risk your own troops? Drop about 1,000,000 of the biggest, toughest, nastiest predators you can find in the galaxy onto each continent and let them wipe out humanity and any other pesky species you don't want to deal with yourself.

Originally posted by Shamanator
I dont really care why the Aliens are here they have no right to be, this is our solar system and if they want to pass through it Tough.

So what you are saying is that we should spend billions of dollars in research, development, production, and recon, so that the end result is that we sit back, with our fingers on the trigger, and wait for aliens to show up, just so we can shout "git off mah property!" right before pulling the trigger?

Originally posted by Shamanator
Any right thinking person would realise they are a threat as soon as we detected them and since were not in a position to run we must fight.

Any right thinking person would realize our efforts would be much better spent beating them to the punch and spreading out first, but when was the last time we went to the moon? How many right-thinking people out there are there?

Originally posted by Shamanator
I dont believe travel at lightspeed is possible for us or Aliens so if I am right by the time they managed to find out and get here we would have easily 20+ plus years to make new defences and study anything we could salvage. With a bit of luck we would wipe out anything else they sent possibly have learned the location of their own home planet and could prepare a little return visit of our own. Granted this would be no easy feat with current technology but I think we would find a way given the circumstances.

Errr... ...well... sh-t. You got me there. Yeah, I guess that's a possibility. I expect if we declared war on an alien species, pretty much all the Earth's resources would go into the war effort. At that point, anyone would have to throw their lot in with the entire war, or the human race would be exterminated completely. From that point on, generation upon generation of humankind would be raised with one sole purpose, to exterminate another alien race... to commit genocide of such an unimaginable scale that we wipe another species from the galaxy or subjugate it entirely...

...what a wonderful way to begin our intergalactic civilization...(sigh)...

And people wonder why aliens don't just appear over our heads and say "here we are!"

Gimme a break.

If they ever did, we'd have millions of idiots with shotguns pointed to the sky hell-bent on destroying something for the reason of not understanding it. They are fearful simpletons who will be purged from this planet before significant mass-contact is to happen. I'm not holding my breath.

I read a book and the aliens way of killing us off was absolutely flawless.

Some of them landed, used a machine to stop the earth rotating and left.

Now the lack of rotation didn't propel us into the sun or anything like that. We kept orbiting perfectly.

What it did do however, was lock one side of the Earth in permanent daylight, and the other in darkness. The moon crashed into the dark side due to the halting of the rotation, and the day side were affected by a type of radiation which in small half day doses is harmless, but in non-stop exposure kills ovaries and sperm cells.

Humanity wasn't bothered and found a way to extend our lives for centuries.
However, once those centuries were almost up, we went crazy. We formed gangs of vigilantes and Brotherhoods hwo opposed everything in life. Minor crimes (breaching the peace etc) were suddenly executable and we effectively destroyed ourselves before our lifespans ran out.


How could you stop an alien race who could cause our own destruction?
I don't want to be offensive, but the arrogant thinking that "nukes = victory" is ridiculous.
How long will it take for them to get up there? How much will be lost even if they do succeed?
The upper atmosphere will be completely irradiated and, because radiation spreads, it would most probably fall back onto our heads and destroy us.

Lets say the nukes are away. The aliens see them, split their forces in two and make a path between them that the nukes harmlessly float through. With all our nukes floating in space, crashing into asteroids, the aliens are able to just fly down and evaporate/dissolve/shoot/explode us.
Nukes are only effective against beings as primitive as us.

Aliens could just as easily send one ship - a kamikaze ship - which crashes on a military installation.
Our nosey governements, each seeking to become the top of the litter, hope to find some kind of ray gun which could make them famous, rich and strong. They open the ship.

Within the ship are two things: one of these is immediately effective. The corpse of the pilot is infected with an extreme viral agent which spreads through touch, air and liquid.
Upon exposure to our atmosphere it mutates and becomes more deadly.
In an effort to combat the deaths which have started, we hook the ship up to computers, which releases the second thing. As soon as it is online, a computer virus enters the computer, spreads throughout the base until it finds an internet connection. It then spreads to every computer in the world. It shuts down telecommunications, satellite controls, air control centres, hospitals, weaponry, etc etc.
Panic ensues. We begin looting and murdering each other. Friends turn on each other as both think the other is infected.
Once sufficient damage has been done, and we have returned to primitive life, a small fleet lands, and declares our planet Raxyloahdfzazd the Third.
Alien prisoners suddenly land and begin mining our planet, while the remnants of our race slowly die out.


How would you defend against that????

I dont really care why the Aliens are here they have no right to be, this is our solar system and if they want to pass through it Tough. Any right thinking person would realise they are a threat as soon as we detected them and since were not in a position to run we must fight.

What fresh nonsense is this??

Obviously, any aliens capable of travelling here are far superior and could conquer us. Why would they though? If you had the capability of spacetime travel then why would you waste time on one planet? Clearly we are in no direct competition for resources.... whatever their machines run it's much better than mid-east oil!

Have you ever felt the urge to conquer all dogs? No. Doesnt make sense. You co-exist with them and there is some interaction on certain levels. Some dogs like to swim. Some humans like to swim. But on other levels not.... try involving your dog in watching your favorite tv show. I'm pretty sure the dog wont get it.

I think we should be prepared to fight them if need be but not necessarily attack them first. There no reason to believe they are friendly if they do indeed exist. We should be cautious.

I'd like to think that they have no intention of doing any harm and the reason they have been spotted over decades now is that they are the children of the human race.

As the sightings gather momentum it will be because we will be getting closer to becoming sentient beings again ourselves as before and rejoining them once again, roll on 2012 to bear me out

Don't worry, we are allied with the "Greys" they will help us.

Originally posted by JackofBlades
How could you stop an alien race who could cause our own destruction?
I don't want to be offensive, but the arrogant thinking that "nukes = victory" is ridiculous.
How long will it take for them to get up there? How much will be lost even if they do succeed?
The upper atmosphere will be completely irradiated and, because radiation spreads, it would most probably fall back onto our heads and destroy us.

Lets say the nukes are away. The aliens see them, split their forces in two and make a path between them that the nukes harmlessly float through. With all our nukes floating in space, crashing into asteroids, the aliens are able to just fly down and evaporate/dissolve/shoot/explode us.
Nukes are only effective against beings as primitive as us.

Obviously you are first going to have to do a bit of work on the standard nukes noones suggesting we send up unguided ICBM's at the very least were going to add at least some sort of proximity fuse and BVR tracking system my suggestion is even to stealth them and painting them black couldnt do much harm.

The Aliens would give themselves away weeks before they got here wormholes and FTL travel make nice sci fi movies but realisticly they dont exist and would require way to much energy to make themselves useful to either us or Aliens not to mention the whole time dilation problems.

I disagree with saying nukes are useless against them nukes are usefull against absolutely anything thats physical and regardless of their fancy technology it will be blown to pieces.
Theres no reason to assume their technologicly superior to us anyways sure their technology might be diffferent and they might have invested more into space travel they might even have fancy energy deflecting shields... But since we dont use energy weapons who cares.

Originally posted by Scramjet76

Obviously, any aliens capable of travelling here are far superior and could conquer us. Why would they though? If you had the capability of spacetime travel then why would you waste time on one planet? Clearly we are in no direct competition for resources.... whatever their machines run it's much better than mid-east oil!

Aliens might have any number of reasons for coming here and none of them involve anything for our benefit, all species are selfish and have their own agendas.

The Earth could have something valuable we dont even think about yet or even simpler what if Earth is in the right place to make a nice base.

I like how everyones already convinced the Aliens are so superior to us I dont, again just because they can travel through space doesnt make them so. If it's alive we can kill it one way or another I refuse to believe any species is invunerable I like the odds in our favour 1 ship or fleet against a planet we have the advantage as long as we strike them in space.

As for the greys if they exist lets nuke them first.

Excuse me Shamanator but I never said aliens were superior, and as for travelling thru space, well that ain't nothing special, we all do that every single second, hell I stopped using it as a chat up line eons ago

I was thinking...If the govermment knows about the intentions of the extraterrestrial, and we know that they intent to build a starwars project of trillions of dollars, maybe the govermment found a way to defeat or at least to resist in some way to an invasion. If they knew that we didn't stand a chance, why would they bother?

Well, there is one point Shamanator had that, despite the...umm... completely different goals as far as alien contact.

If it got hostile, our governments would certainly take any and all possible stops from the weapons catalogue, and the idea of "we can't use this because it would be too destructive" would probably be put on the back burner. I imagine that technology has advanced way beyond the point of a simple bomb on a rocket. There are probably quite a number of theoretical devices that have been sealed for just such an occasion, but are not implemented because doing so would unleash either a literal or figurative hellstorm of destructive power that might be uncontrollable...

But hey, when you're planet is facing extinction anyway, meh, let's see what it can do. And figuring out a way to toss in our best seeking tech, our best stealth tech, who knows. Maybe there just might be something there that the aliens just haven't thought of because they're a different life form.

But that's assuming they EVER gave us a chance to attack in the first place. My original argument stands: if aliens wanted us dead, and could reach us, we would be dead. It REALLY wouldn't take but one well-placed rock, and you knocked out all sattelites, all power, all infrastructure, all ability to operate a combustable engine, or indeed to breathe for very long without protective masks. Let's not discount the pyroclastic flow of hundreds of volcanos as well as any supervolcanoes that decided to pop because of the sudden change in pressure on the Earth's crust, the massive collateral damage caused by 200 ft. waves along with the possibility of solotons (sp? those "perfect" waves that don't lose their inertia in any normal fashion), and the death of almost all photosynthetic life, and very shortly there after, most herbivores, and so forth, until the food chain has been wiped out...

One rock. That's what it would do. It's not fancy, it's not pretty, it's not even fair play. But there's a crapload of them in easy throwing distance of Earth, and the only technology you need is the ability to shift a lotta mass, and calculate the vector to throw it at. Any...ANY civilization that can travel the stars will have this inherent technology because of the simple fact that if they didn't, they could not move themselves from system to system. If nothing else, they could use their ships to nudge it forward, slowly at first, and then speed up. Once the rock was pushed with the right amount of force, applied slowly, in the right direction, Earth not only has to actually DETECT the rock, which is something like a 1 in 95 chance with the present amount of monitoring that goes into finding NEOs, but there would have to be a succesful mission to eliminate the threat, which let's face it, is a long shot.

Meanwhile, the happy little aliens have just nudged another five rocks at us, because it takes less resources to push them at us than it does for us to stop them. The rocks cost nothing to produce, they can be launched towards ANYWHERE in our orbit around the sun, and they do so much damage for such little cost in energy while at the same time leaving the world largely habitable and with little resistance in a few decades when the dust clears.

So... anyway, back to the point. If we did, in fact, get a chance to attack, if it came to blows with aliens, then there is a very very very slim chance that maybe something will work, and the survival of the planet would definitely be worth fighting for. But I maintain that any alien race that has the intention of killing us will never give us the opportunity to mount a counter-offensive. Which is why if we ever get purposefully contacted from aliens, I'd say we're probably in the clear. Worst case scenario then is the damn aliens take our land, our food, our women, and our children, and make us relocate to some godforsaken rock off in a low-rent district like Planet P, digging ditches for The BrainBug... or something...

The aliens come to invade, supremely confident in their superior technology. They launch an asteroid at us or get ready to englobe the planet for an orbital bombardment thinking we're sitting ducks. Then.......

The planetary defence systems come online, planetwide shields become activated along with the 1000 batteries of mutliterawatt particle beams and laser cannons. Antimatter torpedo batteries take aim at the alien ships and lower down in the defence hierarchy, the HAARP EMF pulse generators, sonic cannons and electrical scalar field weapons systems are at the ready. Along with 100 million troops fully equiped with 100Kw pulse laser rifles, EMF and ultrasonic grenades and whatever else they decide to equip them with. Also unknown to the alien fleet, the stealth, self replicating space mine field englobes their fleet and stops them from retreating.

Just to be on the safe side, the 2000 ships of the 5th Fleet of Earth's Starfleet drop out of hyperspace just beyond the Moon's orbit....waiting.

Message from Earth......" Guess what bugs, you've run into a trap. We're smarter than you thought......"

Aliens may not even expend any kind of energy in an attack.

Supposing they could tractor, say, 3 or 4 large meteors into our gravitational field we're done.
Even if we destroy their ships, we're done. The meteors would be caught by our gravity and accelerate, enter the atmosphere and smash into us.

The resulting damage would be crippling. We always think that one large asteroid would be bad, but if they could drag more than one, what then?

After that it would be a simple case of polishing off the remaining people.

you have gotta be joking. like many other before have said, in space weve got nothing.