Battle: Los Angeles and Alien Invasions

It looks very interesting, thanks OP.

Why would an alien race invade? I think that depends on the race and most of all how advanced they really are.

I propose a grading scale to judge hypothetical alien advancement levels, which might inform us to some degree of what their capabilities might be and therefor their motivations for "invasion"

Level one: 100 - 900 years beyond us. I think these level civilizations might be the most likely ones to invade because they'd probably still be heavily dependent on resources, as are we. As our civilization has aged over the last 1000 years, we've grown to consume much more resources than in the previous 1000 years, and our population has exploded. Their ships might only be capable of limited range starflight - thus limiting them to planets with whatever they need that are within range.

Level two: 1,000 - 9,000 years beyond us. I think that a society this advanced would almost have had to dispose of thoughts of war, except when defense was necessary against a more primative aggressor. And that would be a short engagement indeed!

Level three: 10,000 - 90,000 years beyond our technologies. These might be the creature-builders, the creators who for their own unfathomable reasons manipulate and "uplift" species. If they decided that our evolution wasn't going according their desires, they might just wipe our slate and start over. There would be no possibility of resisting them, and it's doubtless we'd even notice were being killed, it would be so fast.

Level four: 100,000 - 900,000+ years beyond us. Call them Gods. Enough said.

Then there is the other possibility, that the resource an alien invader might crave might be something that is only available here on Earth. Us.

Maybe we taste good.

reply to post by DoomsdayRex


BTW: starred and flagged DDR! Thanks!.

Originally posted by FireMoon
Is it just me that yearns for something as genuinely scary and thought provoking as Quatermas and the Pit? Something with a genuine plot and without the need to have to have everything exploding for 80% of the film?

If i want big things go bang there's the adaptations of the Superheros and stuff like Transformers.

There was a story doing the rounds that Quatermas and the Pit was actually being remade, Hammer sold the rights to all their films to Hollywood, but it was pulled after only a couple of weeks due to a serious fall out over the script and direction it was heading towards.

I had a hope that Battle of LA might be a slightly more sober work something that really did pose a few questions. From the trailer it, sadly, seems to be just another shoot 'em up.

FireMoon, spot on! and starred.

Have you ever seen "The Thing From Another World" released in 1951? Now that was a scary movie!

The original "Alien" was also great - tons of suspense, like when Dallas (Tom Skerritt)
was down in the shaft and Ripley could see that something was coming towards him, and she was yelling "Get out of there Dallas, get out of there!"

Aliens? I don't see any mexicans here.

reply to post by mydarkpassenger

Hi mydarkpassenger,

This just makes intelligent sense to me. I really like the 'level' idea. Great job.

But wouldn't we humans - food to aliens - be counted as a "resource"? Food is a resource, correct.

Well you'd think that, if Aliens genetically created us, we would taste good.

Goddess,

Star

Originally posted by HelionPrime

Morgil: "Earth doesn't have any resources that aren't readily available elsewhere without an indigenous race to overcome."

Spot on... any mineral resource or water could be found easily elsewhere, without the need to hide from us or trade/fight with us.

But here's a theory I've mulled over for many years....
Take a look at the animal kingdom & you'll see a uniform, linear relationship between similar species. Between subspecies, differences are usually very slight until we come to the Hominids, which includes the Human race.

Between our nearest genetic neighbours, the Chimpanzees & us, the difference in DNA is only ~3% but outwardly we are light years apart. In fact, we are so different from any other living organism on Earth that we barely even belong here when you think about it!
Have we as a species arrived where we are by pure chance, or were we assisted? It's my personal opinion that we were, but the question remains... why?

One answer I toyed with is that any advanced civilization capable of engineering an ape into a human would be highly dependant (perhaps totally dependant) on technology to exist; like us but more advanced. Since this civilization is star faring, they would be widespread & have many billions or trillions in their population. The infrastructure required to support such a huge civilization would require an immense army of builders, technicians & menial workers, but that army would have to be sufficiently capable of handling & understanding the high level of sophistication reached within that society. Robots would be pointless, simply because nature does things better & much more efficiently, so the ideal would be a dextrous highly mobile animal with higher intellect, capable of understanding abstracts, complex maths, physical & chemical principles etc.

We do something very similar with livestock… we give them a nice safe place to live, we feed them, vaccinate them against disease & generally take care of our investment until we are ready to harvest. Hell, we even GMO them now!
At that point we corral our herd either by playing on their stupidity, or by coercion or fear to a place that we want them.

In answer to the OPs question, maybe ‘invade’ is too sudden a word?…. What if the invasion started at the beginning? What if invasion is not the objective?

Unfortunately this theory kicks any possibilty of 'disclosure' right out of the park. (clue)

Just a theory though, don’t have nightmares.

edit on 12-11-2010 by HelionPrime because: (no reason given)

Hi HelionPrime,

Nice theory! Come to think of it Human Beings do seem the odd--one-out when compared to the rest.

And, personally, I won't go for Humans that evolved from primates but I am quite enamored with the idea of Humans being engineered from primate's DNA. Now that one act could very well help Humans to blend in with the surrounding environment. In other words, how would Humans be judged if we had nothing genetically in common with anything on Planet Earth? What a great brain teaser! lol

I agree, I think that 'invasion' is "sudden". Why not call it an Alien harvest instead? A harvest that worked like clockwork. So then it would maybe look something like this...

In the beginning ("invasion) hungry Aliens that wanted to appear as gods (but aren't) genetically created Human livestock (and appetizers like insects, monkeys and mice). On the seventh day they feasted upon the fruits of the Earth.

So then a new week begins with the newest being the week starting a harvest year.

Also if Human was to become scarce for a time, it might be smart of the aliens to stock up on food, just like squirrels do for an exceptionally bad Winter. Other than meat and blood, I'm not sure about what Aliens would use a Human body for. Could they use Human hide, entrails, or toenails for something??? Hmm.

Moo,

(Got) Star (Milk)

Maybe they would invade us to free us from the world government? What if they invaded to help us? Sure we wouldn't see it as helping us at first, but the spiritual growth we would receive from the aliens help would be astounding. I think it's plausible. There is our disclosure

reply to post by mydarkpassenger


Couldn't agree more, "The Thing" is also one of those rare films where the original and the remake are as good, in different ways, as each other.

reply to post by mydarkpassenger


I have something (my personal opinion) more to add to your OP.

For level one; their ships may still depend on certain resources to operate; so they need to invade lower civilizations to havest LABOR and RESOURCES. (us with more toys in our disposal). With luck we may somehow push them back with guerilla tactic.

For level two; (malevolent) they just simply want to expand their empire as far as they possibly could. (Star Wars). We can stay alive by hiding in caves or betraying humanity.

For level three; "playing-gods for their amusement." (Zeus and other gods). We are totally, thoroughly, and officially screwed.

For level four; real God, these beings are beyond our imaginations, they are not of this realm anymore, if they wanted they could create and control universes and dimesions, they can mainfest themselves to whatever or whomever they wanted, they could manipulate and twist things from physical to metaphysical. By ascending to that realm of existence, they've already abandoned ideas such as domination or intervention over other lower civilizations.
We just need to pray for mercy.

Originally posted by DoomsdayRex.

Why would aliens invade the Earth?

Does there have to be a reason? Don't we as a species invade others for no reason as well?

Why do you think aliens would want to invade the Earth? Do you think any alien intelligence would want to?

I have no real thought on why they would invade other than just because. I mean why not? I think if it's an intelligent race they wouldn't care about us, esp if they are more advanced than us, unless we had something they wanted. Isn't that why one invades another?

And if aliens did invade, how do you think it would happen? Do you think it is possible for us to even win such a war?

It really depends on the alien race and their technology. I think we could win possibly and I also think we would get outs butts handed to us.



Thanks for post the video. I didn't know there was another alien movie coming out. I can't wait!

reply to post by DoomsdayRex

Why would aliens invade the Earth? Thinking on this, I could not come up with a single logical reason why aliens would want to invade. Of course, I am also looking at it from a human-mindset, with human wants, needs and history.

I'm mildly surprised by this Rex as I was under the impression you're a fiction writer. Maybe 'logical' is the sticking point in your imagination? You've set us all an exercise in creativity and then added a boundary of 'logic.' Why?

Based on the only model we know of, *us,* logic isn't always the dictating factor behind our actions...the logic is often subjective and not really logical.

In the early 80s, Argentina tried to conquer the Falklands Islands and Britain went to war in defence of them. In WW2, Hitler made a crazy attempt to conquer Russia during the Siberian winter. Let's throw Vietnam into the little list of examples too. To paraphrase the Star Trek quote...'It's logic Jim, but not as we know it.'

If we're to imagine conquering aliens, must their technological superiority mean that they are logical, reasonable or superior in their culture? Where has this notion come from? Why should we assume they have higher ideals than a Mongol Horde laying siege to a City State on their way to somewhere else? The Byzantine Emperors made rash decisions and the British Empire also had ambitions based on expansion.

Imagine an advanced civilisation with fundamentalist religious beliefs? Their religion might be spread by the 'sword' in the same way as the Inquisition. An alien race could seek to conquer the Earth purely to propagate its belief systems. I can hardly imagine a worse scenario than an advanced race anchored in fundamental religious beliefs and bigotry.

Then again, there's the possibility of an African Slave Trade scenario. Invading critters come to conquer and ship us off to 'parts unknown' to buttress their political/commercial concerns 'elsewhere.' Perhaps a Roman Empire situation whereby the strong, the beautiful and the intellectuals are transported back to the capitals (worlds?) whilst the remainders are brought into the new culture?

Possibly the 'slash and burn' assault by advanced forces who are merely expanding the outer edges of their empires?

More realistically, we might have nothing worth conquering us for, but our location makes invasion politically expedient. Maybe we become a galactic 'Afghanistan?'

Better still, maybe we were conquered centuries ago in a bloodless coup by alien infiltrators that look just like us? Given their superior knowledge, how hard would it be for them to enter society and rise into positions of power? The machinery that ensures all the good evidence like photos, footage and physical evidence can't be found, or disappears, would be maintained by these embedded agents. They could be immersed in our society as 'bottle-necks' to prevent the flow of information and put the brakes on technological advances that jeopardise their power. Cuckoos and elephants in the room to get metaphorical...

Why would aliens invade the Earth? Thinking on this, I could not come up with a single logical reason why aliens would want to invade.

There really isn't a good reason. Three I can think of....

1) Exterminating us
2) Meat
3) Habitation

For 1), they could just create a virus or something to wipe us out, versus risky combat. For 2), farming would seem a better option. For 3) They'd need to kill us but leave the Earth intact, so perhaps this is the most logical...but it'd have to be quick, decisive, and with minimal destruction.

Thing is though, if they could traverse the stars, they have easy access to pretty much any resource they need. Regardless of the stated reason for any war in history, human warfare has always been about gaining resources. With this motivation gone, we'd have to apply completely new reasoning to figure out why an alien force would invade, as there simply doesn't seem to be anything in it for them, really.

When I was around 8 years old, I used to have a recurring nightmare about aliens invading Earth and capturing us. The dreams were always very clear and vivid and involved huge fleets of flying craft appearing and humans being forced into huge, metal fenced prisons that stood where the buildings used to be. The humans looked hungry and dressed in rags.

Worryingly, I also used to dream about strange, alien looking creatures coming through my bedroom window and taking me away.

For years this worried me, I thought I had been abducted and we were all doomed. Then I realised that it was around the same year that 'Close Encounters Of The Third Kind' movie was released and I must have seen a tv promo that scared the sh# out of me.

Haven't the Aliens read Sun Tzu's The Art of War?

The supreme art of war is to subdue the enemy without fighting.

When the real Aliens come to take over, there will be no fight from us. We will bow down in defeat without a blow being struck.