Space Invaders: A Bizarre Question for You
Offline So, tomorrow, cities across the world glimpse the horrific: giant red vortexes form in the skies over their downtown cores, and flying saucers spew out of them - using some kind of enigmatic (but apparently incredibly hot) particle beam weaponry to vaporize person and skyscraper alike. After about an hour of what can only be seen as remorseless, indiscriminate destruction, nearly every major city on Earth has been reduced to so much drifting steam - and the invaders inexplicably vanish through the same vortexes they came, which close, leaving no trace. Despite some effort to communicate with the attackers, they made no effort to say anything to us at all.
What would you make of it? Atheists, what would your most likely hypothesis be about the possible origins/nature of the attackers (who appeared to defy most known laws of newtonian physics and thermodynamics)? Theists, what would your take be?
I'm writing some dumb sci-fi, and I'd just like to know what actual people might actually think in the wake of such a scenario.
"Natasha has just come up to the window from the courtyard and opened it wider so that the air may enter more freely into my room. I can see the bright green strip of grass beneath the wall, and the clear blue sky above the wall, and sunlight everywhere. Life is beautiful. Let the future generations cleanse it of all evil, oppression and violence, and enjoy it to the full."
- Leon Trotsky, Last Will & Testament
February 27, 1940
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We need to get Will Smith, Bill Pullman, and Jeff Goldblum ready at once to save the world. Also we well have to sacrifice Data(Brent Spinner) to the Aliens in the name of science. Yeah this sounds a bit like Independence Day.
As for the attackers, I would think they are probably bent on recolonizing the earth for themselves and see killing off the lesser lifeforms to make room for themselves as just a bit of messy terraforming. Of course seeing humanity being destroyed would pretty much piss anyone off and I know my immediate goal would be to form a human militia, choose a leader(me of course), stockpile weapons, recruit scientists to discern their capabilities, and plan for the counteroffensive to save humanity. Pretty standard really.
I am sure some people would realize God was a myth and these Aliens were never mentioned in any of their books. Most people however, would still believe, and some would see these events as the beginning of the apocalypse. I am sure you would have a ton of false prophets concerning this very point. If one were so inclined it would be an excellent time to start your own end of times cult. Pretty much for the purposes of gathering a top notch harem, but of course you would have to act under the guise of leading your sheeple into the end according to your adapted worldview(ie cause of the aliens).
If you really wanted to communicate with these people I think you would have to try a variety of different things. Any alien species that can cause the kind of destruction you speak of is far more technologically advanced and therefore, probably has a pretty good reason for not communicating with us about demands or diplomacy. Perhaps, they see us as mere space ants consuming valuable resources that are going to waste by beings that are not half as advanced as they are. Maybe they like to play God and destroy planets because they can...ala Lexx. Or maybe they are a group of teenage aliens who stole their parents spaceships on an intergalactic joyride and just felt like experiencing the thrill that global genocide always satisfies. The possibilities are endless, but I would stray away from too many Independence Day/ War of the Worlds parallels.
“Fear is the path to the dark side. Fear leads to anger. Anger leads to hate. Hate leads to suffering.” Yoda
I think aliens would be the word on everyone's lips, including mine. My lips would also include "very likely" and "other possibilities include invaders from parallel universes" in their repotoir, but it would be impossible to tell. People from our future, but another parallel universe future, coming back in time to destroy us before we invent a contraption that would evolve new technology, but eventually evolving a species of microscopic robots that got into our brains and turned us into mindless jibbering idiots?
Wish in one hand, shit in the other, see which one fills up first.
If they just did a quick strike to knock out our major centers and then departed I would assume it was only a first strike to soften us up.
They would come back in force, and soon, to wipe us out.
"I am an atheist, thank God." -Oriana Fallaci
They're just kicking over an antpile to see how the ants react.
It's all in the name of science.
If they did destroy every major city I don't see any reason why they shouldn't destroy every last human, because they could at the first strike. So i would assume that those aliens didn't want to wipe out every living being on earth. So i would just try to return to my life.
I dunno. Sounds very similar to how we pound on areas we are about to send ground troops into. We hit them with some remote weapons and then send in the marines for wipe up.
"I am an atheist, thank God." -Oriana Fallaci
Well, either if that is so, we wouldn't be able to do anything but die. Any earths defenses would be wiped out. And that's no fakin independence day, we can't upload a virus into aliens mainframe
I'd be looking at those damn aliens and saying "About DAMN TIME!"
After ive had my fill of gloating at the human race (i use "Race" loosely >.> hehe ) I would then do my best to procure as much alien technology as possible for my own uses. It wont be to hard to use (in theory)... and since i dont have any plans to reverse engineer anything, i think i should be good. Next stop... immortality/cryogenic stasis/faster then light travel/nano-tech... anything to help me get the fuck outa here or at least elevate me to a level where the demise of the human race would have no effect on my goals.... but enough about me
Its obvious that any species advanced enough to have portal technology/city destroying particle beams/other crap, would not bother with such an assault, they could easily conquer us in much more subversive fashions (mainly bio-attack) hand full of capsules, could take a year, but not a single alien life lost. In lue of such notions, it would seem inconceivable for such an indep-attack unless that was specifically their goal, in which case i would call them pussies for not having the testicles to wipe out an inferior race
ramble ramble ramble
What Would Kharn Do?
Maybe being the fan of Star Trek I am, I wouldn't be suprised if they seemed to defy some of our scientific laws. I don;t see why they would have to be from a parallel universe or something, they could just be really alien. I would think'oh bugger' and say, : told you so' to the nearest theist.
Psalm 14:1 "the fool hath said in his heart there is a God"-From a 1763 misprinted edition of the bible
Argument from Sadism: Theist presents argument in a wall of text with no punctuation and wrong spelling. Atheist cannot read and is forced to concede.
My first thoughts would be "AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!"
After that, I would start thinking about what happened, and what it implied (if I were by some coincidence still alive).
- They attacked the cities. Why? Their targets were either the cities themselves or the contents of the cities. Either they have an understanding that we as humans built/live in cities, are mortal and they want to get rid of us efficiently, or they think they are achieving an objective to make something in the future easier, and the wholesale slaughter of the human population of Earth was incidental. Maybe they inferred that radio sources mean weapons and wanted them destroyed. Maybe they hate concrete. We'd just be guessing until we saw what happened next.
- If it turned out they were targeting us specifically, I would assume they had some sort of hive mind structure and assumed we did, too (hence the gathering into large collective units); that would make their choice of targets clear, since hive animals are generally not a threat when they are spread out sufficiently.
- If they were targeting the cities, who knows? Maybe they got tired of us mucking up hyperspace with radio interference or something, and would stop when our EM radiation reached a level such that it was almost indistinguishable from background noise.
- Actually, there is no guarantee at all they would even see us as sentient. Their followup actions would help illustrate their opinions of the life on the planet.
- We have absolutely no chance to beat them. They did not recognize our biggest, baddest weapons as a threat (since they didn't target nuclear launch sites or platforms), and so there is probably nothing we can do to keep them from doing whatever they want with the planet. Any "victory" we can eke out will be completely incidental (a la War of the Worlds). We had no warning they were coming, and could not stop them leaving if we tried. They have the tactical advantage, the initiative and firepower superiority, and therefore will win.
- My guesses as to their motivations would be they were acting purely defensively. They were probably seeing us as a threat they were "nipping in the bud" before we could get really dangerous; the same way we give antibiotics for strep throat.
That was fun! Ask another!
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maybe if this sig is witty, someone will love me.
And so I shall:
Rewind that first scenario up until the red vortexes appear in the sky. Now, instead of flying saucers, two to three dozen 8-foot tall humanoid organisms plummet out to the ground, dressed in what look like long, white lab coats and carrying wooden 'wands'. By gesturing with these wands and shouting, "DAWK!" in a variety of tones and patterns, they seem to be able to create and control different forces of energy to incredibly destructive effect (instantly turing a mile of pavement into a stretch of boiling tar or ripping an entire suburb from the Earth and tossing it in every direction).
Fortunately, these beings are subdued by conventional weaponry before they can do truly catastrophic damage. So are even captured 'alive' to be examined in captivity.
What we find upon autopsy of the 'dead' beings is that they have no internal structures or bones at all. They are, essentially, big, walking blocks of ham. They don't even have vocal chords (and certainly no brain) for verbalizing with - their 'mouth' is basically just a deep pit on the bottom of their face.
The creatures have no features on said face other than the 'mouth', yet the ones in captivity plainly act/react as though they can see and hear. They have no genitals of any sort, but behave in an embarassed fashion when their 'lab coats' are removed. The coats themselves are essentially nothing more than plain clothing, made of a material very similar to nylon.
The wooden wands do not appear to have any special properties at all. They are, through and through, just wooden sticks. Without their wands, however, the creatures (despite still making gestures and verbalizing) appear to be robbed of any power. Moreover, they still cannot do anything special when given the wand of another being. They must be given their own wand, and it must still be intact, before they can once again start messing with physical laws.
EDIT: Ack, I forgot to add:
Despite having no internal structures, veins, arteries, etc, the creature somehow 'bleed' a black substance that is high in caffeine and sugar content, and otherwise extraordinarily similar to uncarbonated Cola, when their skin is punctured. They also 'die' if extreme trauma is done to their centre mass or 'head', or if too much of their 'blood' is drained (about 6 litres or so).
Theists - the kicker, just for you:
On the inside left breast of the lab coats, just over where the human heart would be if our anatomy were applied to these beings, there is an embroidered symbol. This symbol looks exactly like the star of david.
So? What do you make of it?
- Leon Trotsky, Last Will & Testament
February 27, 1940
I'm dreaming.
Scenario A: Perhaps these aliens know not with whom they fuck. War has been practically our chief export for the entire history of our species. On the off chance that the portals are difficult to engineer, or control, I would hope we would jump at the chance to have a justified out-group to divert the attention from hostilities amongst ourselves and would use any time wisely.
Through intense study of the alien technology captured and observed, I think if they came back in a generation or two, they would find us advanced much much more than when they left us, their second attack would be brutally repulsed. The third battle would take place in their own system.
Perhaps then we can see if they are willing to listen to diplomacy, and can start talking about reparations in regards to their attacks.
Scenario B: Spam sandwiches
my first thought "Douglas Adams was right, its a vogon constructer fleet"
second thought "where did i leave my towel?"
damn you beat me to it. i wanted to say where's my towel!!!
I'd think they were advanced alien beings who'd been watching us for a while wondering if they could communicate with us and be friends. But then, after Bush got elected for a second term they realized it was hopeless and said, "Oh, geez! Let's just put these creatures out of their misery!"
"The Bible looks like it started out as a game of Mad Libs" - Bill Maher
Sci Fi , Voices from the sky with massive reverb, from some humorous bored aliens could be a cool movie ..... all the world to hear , "I AM GOD and I have been watching you" .... Earthlings freak out, as the aliens laugh ...... I want that movie
Atheism Books.