As if we could even hope to touch an enemy with orbital dominance. :rolleyes:
Unless they're literal space vikings who have ideological or religious issues compelling them to mix it up with us close up on the ground we'd be completely fucked.
http://news.uk.msn.com/exclusives/britain-has-alien-war-weapons-says-former-government-adviser
QuoteBritain has alien-war weapons, says former government adviser
Britain has a stockpile of aircraft, drones and weapons that could be used to fight aliens in the event of an invasion from space, according to the government's former UFO adviser.
In an interview with MSN, Nick Pope, who worked for the Ministry of Defence for 21 years, said that while Britain doesn't have a war plan, it certainly had sophisticated enough weaponry to defend itself.
Mr Pope, whose job it was to advise on the threat posed by other life forms, said that in the event of an attack he expected that we would "quickly adapt our plans for other more current war scenarios."
At present, he said, there was no special organisation like Torchwood, the alien-hunting team from the BBC science fiction series of the same name, but he said he was sure that in the event of attack an operation could be set up quickly and efficiently. World nations would probably pool their technology together like in films such as Independence Day.
Mr Pope said: "We do have several prototype aircraft and drones and other weapons you won't see on the news for another 10-15 years so if we did face a threat from the unknown then even if there is no Torchwood around now, there would be something like it by then and they certainly would have some great kit to help in the fight."
He said: "Look at the Taranis, which is a prototype made by BAE Systems. It looks for all the world like a spaceship in the hanger."
So are aliens a threat?
The official government position is that UFOs offer "no significant defence threat".
However, Mr Pope said what that really means is that "we don't know".
"My colleagues and I said, whatever our official position - the one we gave to the public, media or parliament, - privately, where five per cent of UFO sightings remained unexplained, at the very least there has to be a potential threat."
How would we fight?
"One possibility would be trying to unite all the nations of the world. For those who think that far-fetched, Ronald Reagan once hinted at it in a speech to the UN. He said 'I occasionally think how quickly we would set aside our difference if we faced some alien threat from the other side.'"
So why is the government looking at UFO sightings?
"Between 1991 and 1994, my job at the MoD was to investigate the 200-300 reported sightings of UFOs in the UK each year to see if there was evidence of a potential threat or something of general defence interest.
"One of the things that was interesting was that when people reported seeing UFOs these things were capable of extraordinary manoeuvres and speeds. They were much faster than our military jets so we wanted to find out about the technology and if we could find it useful.
"Defence scientists were very interested in the fact they might have some kind of exotic propulsion system."
So do aliens really exist?
"I am absolutely convinced that elsewhere in the universe there must be other life and I am also convinced that some of that is going to be intelligent. I am open-minded about the possibility that some of that life is visiting us down here but just as our space programme is reaching out to find out what is out there, it seems other life forms could be motivated by the same thing."
What do aliens look like?
"They come in all shapes and sizes according to the people who have seen these things. There is a vast variety of life."
"One of the things being discussed at the Royal Society is that we could be dealing with artificial life - a post-biological universe of cyborgs and robots.
"I suspect there are thousands and millions of civilisations out there.
"We all hope it's just going to be ET-style fluffy aliens as opposed to a terrifying alien invasion."
What one event has convinced you of the existence of alien life?
"It's a case in the UK at Rendlesham Forest, in 1980, in Suffolk between two military bases. It was not a sighting of a UFO in the sky but a UFO that actually landed. Some of the witnesses described a smallish craft.
"It came on a second night and when military personnel examined the landing site they found indentations in the ground and defence intelligence staff assessed the radiation levels with a Geiger counter and found radiation levels at eight times normal.
"We told parliament there was 'no defence significance' but did so with tongue firmly in cheek because you cannot have a UFO land between two defence bases without it being of enormous defence significance."
What would you say to sceptics?
"The believers only have to be right once."
Mr Pope was involved in the British government's programme to declassify and release the MoD's UFO files to the National Archives. He left the MoD in 2006 and now lives in California. He lectures around the world and works with television and film companies to develop new ideas.
He carried out the interview ahead of a live webTV show to discuss alien life forms as part of a promotion for the computer game XCOM: Enemy Unknown. For more information watch the webTV show with Nick Pope.
Quote from: jimmy olsen on October 14, 2012, 10:35:58 PM
As if we could even hope to touch an enemy with orbital dominance. :rolleyes:
Unless they're literal space vikings who have ideological or religious issues compelling them to mix it up with us close up on the ground we'd be completely fucked.
Orbital dominance. Fuck you.
"Boots on the ground" is a universal doctrine. As in the fucking universe.
Quote from: CountDeMoney on October 14, 2012, 10:46:45 PM
Quote from: jimmy olsen on October 14, 2012, 10:35:58 PM
As if we could even hope to touch an enemy with orbital dominance. :rolleyes:
Unless they're literal space vikings who have ideological or religious issues compelling them to mix it up with us close up on the ground we'd be completely fucked.
Orbital dominance. Fuck you.
"Boots on the ground" is a universal doctrine. As in the fucking universe.
If someone controls the orbitals they can just drop rocks on cities until the natives give up.
Quote from: jimmy olsen on October 14, 2012, 10:49:47 PM
If someone controls the orbitals they can just drop rocks on cities until the natives give up.
You're assuming the concept of space vehicles would have the capacity for naval gunfire supp WAIT WTF AM I ARGUING WITH YOU OVER THIS YOU ASSCLOWN
Quote from: CountDeMoney on October 14, 2012, 10:52:08 PM
Quote from: jimmy olsen on October 14, 2012, 10:49:47 PM
If someone controls the orbitals they can just drop rocks on cities until the natives give up.
You're assuming the concept of space vehicles would have the capacity for naval gunfire supp WAIT WTF AM I ARGUING WITH YOU OVER THIS YOU ASSCLOWN
Dude, if you can cross light years in a time frame that's feasible for intelligent life than nudging a few rocks into orbits that will intersect with Earth won't be that hard in comparison.
Quote from: jimmy olsen on October 14, 2012, 10:53:28 PM
Dude, if you can cross light years in a time frame that's feasible for intelligent life than nudging a few rocks into orbits that will intersect with Earth won't be that hard in comparison.
Sez who, assfuck?
Quote from: jimmy olsen on October 14, 2012, 10:49:47 PM
Quote from: CountDeMoney on October 14, 2012, 10:46:45 PM
Quote from: jimmy olsen on October 14, 2012, 10:35:58 PM
As if we could even hope to touch an enemy with orbital dominance. :rolleyes:
Unless they're literal space vikings who have ideological or religious issues compelling them to mix it up with us close up on the ground we'd be completely fucked.
Orbital dominance. Fuck you.
"Boots on the ground" is a universal doctrine. As in the fucking universe.
If someone controls the orbitals they can just drop rocks on cities until the natives give up.
I'm sure they have space liberals who force space America to put space boots on the ground.
Quote from: CountDeMoney on October 14, 2012, 10:54:47 PM
Quote from: jimmy olsen on October 14, 2012, 10:53:28 PM
Dude, if you can cross light years in a time frame that's feasible for intelligent life than nudging a few rocks into orbits that will intersect with Earth won't be that hard in comparison.
Sez who, assfuck?
It's within our capabilities to do it now. A NASA study just said it was feasible to tow a small asteroid into Earth orbit. It would take a while and be expensive, but we could do it.
http://www.popularmechanics.com/science/space/nasa/why-nasa-should-nab-an-asteroid-9890621
Aliens who can travel between stars would be able to do it with much more ease.
Tim, what was the point of you posting this article?
Quote from: Razgovory on October 14, 2012, 11:05:20 PM
Tim, what was the point of you posting this article?
The UK won't need an XCOM satellite.
Will they even join xcom then :o
Quote from: CountDeMoney on October 14, 2012, 10:52:08 PM
Quote from: jimmy olsen on October 14, 2012, 10:49:47 PM
If someone controls the orbitals they can just drop rocks on cities until the natives give up.
You're assuming the concept of space vehicles would have the capacity for naval gunfire supp WAIT WTF AM I ARGUING WITH YOU OVER THIS YOU ASSCLOWN
I think the more pertinent question is "Why are you losing?" :lol: Tim is right.
"Boots on the ground"? What are the aliens here for in your version? Is it a peacekeeping operation? Did the interstellar sanctions on Earth fail?
Quoteaccording to the government's former UFO adviser.
That sounds like a job they'd give to a formerly respected man who has gone slightly nutty in old age. Just to keep him busy and out of the way.
Anyway. Alien invasion is stupid. Its just not going to happen. Ever.
If aliens have reached the level where they're capable of inter-stellar flight then they must be peaceful- or else they'd have killed themselves off before reaching that level.
That, and if there were somehow hostile aliens they would just throw a few rocks at us at near light speed.
So in other words we're not fuckwits so we haven't bothered creating counter-alien weapons, but if pushed by idiotic journalists we'll concur that yes, some of the stuff we already have could be turned against the greens and greys.
Josq, presumably the invading aliens want the planet in somewhat decent shape.
this just doesn't explain why britain has to go to the americans for fighters, helecopters and missiles.
Quote from: Viking on October 15, 2012, 04:33:48 AM
this just doesn't explain why britain has to go to the americans for fighters, helecopters and missiles.
It doesn't need to, because the answer is obvious--their economy was so brutalized by 2 world wars and the loss of the Empire that it can no longer support enough advanced R&D to be at the top of the technology game, nor the industrial capacity to support large-scale military procurement.
Quote from: dps on October 15, 2012, 05:23:30 AM
Quote from: Viking on October 15, 2012, 04:33:48 AM
this just doesn't explain why britain has to go to the americans for fighters, helecopters and missiles.
It doesn't need to, because the answer is obvious--their economy was so brutalized by 2 world wars and the loss of the Empire that it can no longer support enough advanced R&D to be at the top of the technology game, nor the industrial capacity to support large-scale military procurement.
How does this fit with the problem of explaining access to alien technology while still being unable to produce advanced weapons?
Quote from: Viking on October 15, 2012, 05:37:28 AM
How does this fit with the problem of explaining access to alien technology while still being unable to produce advanced weapons?
Are you suggesting they have a spaceship but are having trouble reverse engineering it? :area52:
Quote from: Peter Wiggin on October 15, 2012, 05:42:09 AM
Quote from: Viking on October 15, 2012, 05:37:28 AM
How does this fit with the problem of explaining access to alien technology while still being unable to produce advanced weapons?
Are you suggesting they have a spaceship but are having trouble reverse engineering it? :area52:
The article suggests they have reverse engineered it. I'm saying the facts on the ground suggest that they don't have a space ship. The article is stupid.
Huh, my reading was that the ship landed and took off and left radiation behind to show it was there.
Quote from: Peter Wiggin on October 15, 2012, 05:46:19 AM
Huh, my reading was that the ship landed and took off and left radiation behind to show it was there.
QuoteMr Pope said: "We do have several prototype aircraft and drones and other weapons you won't see on the news for another 10-15 years so if we did face a threat from the unknown then even if there is no Torchwood around now, there would be something like it by then and they certainly would have some great kit to help in the fight."
that's what I was referring to.
That just sounds like terrestrial weapons still in development.
Quote from: Peter Wiggin on October 15, 2012, 05:51:16 AM
That just sounds like terrestrial weapons still in development.
Which makes spending billions of pounds on funding american weapons development pretty pointless.
Quote from: Viking on October 15, 2012, 05:52:45 AM
Which makes spending billions of pounds on funding american weapons development pretty pointless.
Gives Americans more incentive to let British scribes in.
Quote from: Ideologue on October 14, 2012, 11:53:37 PM
Quote from: CountDeMoney on October 14, 2012, 10:52:08 PM
Quote from: jimmy olsen on October 14, 2012, 10:49:47 PM
If someone controls the orbitals they can just drop rocks on cities until the natives give up.
You're assuming the concept of space vehicles would have the capacity for naval gunfire supp WAIT WTF AM I ARGUING WITH YOU OVER THIS YOU ASSCLOWN
I think the more pertinent question is "Why are you losing?" :lol: Tim is right.
"Boots on the ground"? What are the aliens here for in your version? Is it a peacekeeping operation? Did the interstellar sanctions on Earth fail?
I don't buy the premise that intergalactic warfare would involve "orbital dominance", let alone space vehicle-based weaponry or moving asteroids.
Destroying planets for the sake of destroying them is so Dick Cheney. You invade, you take resources by force, you take their women to space-rape them with your tentacles, you move to another planet.
Destroying it does not meet your intergalactic needs.
You all watch too much stupid television.
Quote from: Peter Wiggin on October 15, 2012, 06:00:20 AM
Quote from: Viking on October 15, 2012, 05:52:45 AM
Which makes spending billions of pounds on funding american weapons development pretty pointless.
Gives Americans more incentive to let British scribes in.
its not so much scribes, but accountants
I don't even know why they're discussing this topic with the Brits; they don't possess weapons systems to deal with Argentina, let alone aliens.
Quote from: CountDeMoney on October 15, 2012, 06:11:06 AM
I don't even know why they're discussing this topic with the Brits; they don't possess weapons systems to deal with Argentina, let alone aliens.
We live in a strange world where acquiring the capability to flatten Buenos Aries is easier and cheaper than acquiring the capability to retake the Falklands.
Quote from: CountDeMoney on October 15, 2012, 06:03:50 AM
I don't buy the premise that intergalactic warfare would involve "orbital dominance", let alone space vehicle-based weaponry or moving asteroids.
Destroying planets for the sake of destroying them is so Dick Cheney. You invade, you take resources by force, you take their women to space-rape them with your tentacles, you move to another planet.
Destroying it does not meet your intergalactic needs.
You all watch too much stupid television.
I think you're going too far the other direction, they'd almost certainly want to flatten a few cities to soften resistance. But yeah, the objective is to control the planet, not just to kill humans.
Quote from: Peter Wiggin on October 15, 2012, 04:31:40 AM
Josq, presumably the invading aliens want the planet in somewhat decent shape.
Why would they want that?
There's nothing much here they can't get much easier elsewhere in the solar system let alone the cosmos.
The only ways to make alien invasion feasible are really silly sci-fi plot worth what ifs, like AI and cloning being impossible and they want to harvest our brains or somesuch.
Quote from: Tyr on October 15, 2012, 08:26:52 AM
Why would they want that?
There's nothing much here they can't get much easier elsewhere in the solar system let alone the cosmos.
The only ways to make alien invasion feasible are really silly sci-fi plot worth what ifs, like AI and cloning being impossible and they want to harvest our brains or somesuch.
Oxygen and water are much more readily available here than the rest of the solar system. They might like our atmospheric pressure and temperature ranges better as well. Though I'd agree that alien invasion feasibility is based on a silly sci-fi what if, that being the possibility of ftl travel or wormhole manipulation that makes interstellar travel possible. :P
Quote from: Tyr on October 15, 2012, 08:26:52 AM
There's nothing much here they can't get much easier elsewhere in the solar system let alone the cosmos.
Maybe they're not looking for resources but living space because their homeworld is overpopulated.
Quote from: Peter Wiggin on October 15, 2012, 08:35:54 AM
Quote from: Tyr on October 15, 2012, 08:26:52 AM
Why would they want that?
There's nothing much here they can't get much easier elsewhere in the solar system let alone the cosmos.
The only ways to make alien invasion feasible are really silly sci-fi plot worth what ifs, like AI and cloning being impossible and they want to harvest our brains or somesuch.
Oxygen and water are much more readily available here than the rest of the solar system. They might like our atmospheric pressure and temperature ranges better as well. Though I'd agree that alien invasion feasibility is based on a silly sci-fi what if, that being the possibility of ftl travel or wormhole manipulation that makes interstellar travel possible. :P
The Ort cloud is full of millions of comets. Comets are made of ice. If you want water and oxygen you just need to use them.
Quote from: jimmy olsen on October 15, 2012, 08:48:40 AM
The Ort cloud is full of millions of comets. Comets are made of ice. If you want water and oxygen you just need to use them.
:rolleyes:
Since I apparently didn't make it clear enough, I was saying the same thing as Syt. They presumably want the planet because it is habitable.
W00t! W00t!
Quote from: Syt on October 15, 2012, 08:42:34 AM
Quote from: Tyr on October 15, 2012, 08:26:52 AM
There's nothing much here they can't get much easier elsewhere in the solar system let alone the cosmos.
Maybe they're not looking for resources but living space because their homeworld is overpopulated.
Its unlikely our planet would be habitable for alien life.
And even if it was, these aliens are capable of travelling between star systems. Its unlikely they're reliant on naturally occuring habitable worlds.
It'll be much easier for them to just xenoform somewhere or build a bunch of space habitats.
Alien invasion has too many layers of maybes upon maybes. 1%s of 1%s of 1%s, etc....
You're making an assumption that one technology we don't have would be easier to implement than another that we don't have. That hardly makes somebody else silly for assuming it's the other way around. We can't even manage to regulate our global temperature as of yet.
Quote from: Peter Wiggin on October 15, 2012, 09:01:28 AM
You're making an assumption that one technology we don't have would be easier to implement than another that we don't have. That hardly makes somebody else silly for assuming it's the other way around. We can't even manage to regulate our global temperature as of yet.
They clearly need the technology to build at least somewhat self sustaining space habitats if they can build galaxy travelling space ships.
Terraforming is a 'technology' we have the basics of today. Just look at global warming, and that's without trying.
Something tells me that a world being too big or small or too close or far from their stars or having an atmosphere full of poison gases are bigger obstacles than factories pumping out too much CO2.
Also, I suspect it's a lot cheaper/easier to transport people to a habitable world than the amount of resources it would take to make a barren/toxic/whatever planet livable.
Quote from: Tyr on October 15, 2012, 08:55:58 AM
Alien invasion has too many layers of maybes upon maybes. 1%s of 1%s of 1%s, etc....
As long as it involves tentacle rape and school girl uniforms, there's still always a chance, right? :yeah:
Quote from: jimmy olsen on October 14, 2012, 10:35:58 PM
As if we could even hope to touch an enemy with orbital dominance. :rolleyes:
Unless they're literal space vikings who have ideological or religious issues compelling them to mix it up with us close up on the ground we'd be completely fucked.
Depends. Eventually, they need to send ground troops to hold the place. What is it they want the Earth for? They want the natural resources and need slaves to extract it? Or they don't need us at all?
If they need us alive, we have a chance. If they wipe us out from orbit, you're right, we're fucked.
I'm thinking a scenario à la V is more likely to happen. Technoligically superior army, but limited manpower and can still be defeated if trying to attack openly.
You guys assume a human motive for invading the Earth. If it was an alien it's motives are likely to be alien. Perhaps flying saucers come down and demand access to our top secret chili recipes. Or the alien is just one guy, and he's an asshole and he's doing it for shits and grins. He's just so much more advanced then we are it's like a guy pouring gasoline on an anthill and lighting it up. Or maybe they land on earth and just begin to settle and don't recognize us as sentient beings. They level whole cities without the notion that we are intelligent enough to care.
Authors of Sci-fi usually seem to assume that aliens are essentially people and that we can interact with them in a similar way we might interact with people of another culture. But an Aliens is most likely going to be a different species completely unrelated to any life on Earth. I imagine it would be less like Cortes in Mexico and more like the Great American Interchange. Species competing and causing one another to go extinct but not understanding each other in the slightest.
I dunno, Raz, terrestrial animals don't act like humans, but they do act in ways we can understand. I think a lot of evolutionary pressures will be universal and not dependent upon being carbon based or breathing oxygen or anything like that.
If they leveled our cities and we spotted some strange anomalous energy readings in space we'd send nukes at it. They'd probably realize those were attacks even if their shields naturally thwarted them. And screwing around with lesser beings for kicks is kinda how the ancients imagined their gods, not so hard to comprehend. So your scenarios aren't that implausible, but they don't imply the two species wouldn't understand each other at all.
Well it is a bit difficult to come up with scenarios that the human mind can't comprehend, sorry if my ideas fall short of that. I'm pretty divorced from normal thought, but not that divorced. My point is that we probably couldn't communicate in any meaningful way and their motives might be totally irrational to us.
Do you believe in evolution? I think that process leads to inevitable similarities in a broad sense. For instance, aliens would have to want to live, at least long enough to pass their genes on. They would want resources they needed for survival. They would also take some kind of steps to ensure their survival once they realized humans were a threat.
Aliens capable of interstellar travel would need an understanding of mathematics. That might not be enough to communicate, but it should be enough for them to recognize our sentience, seeing patterns in our communications.
Final thought- we might actually not understand the aliens' motivation in such an encounter. But it would likely be due to incomplete information, and not that it was incomprehensible. Sci-fi authors don't have that problem, they know everything even if the humans in their story don't.
What if the alien we encounter is a robot? What if evolutionary pressures no long motivate an alien's behavior. I mean, evolutionary pressures don't guide us that much. What evolutionary pressure is making Marty stand in line to buy an iPhone?
It's possible that an alien species could understand mathematics at a higher level or simply differently then we can. We wouldn't be able to understand it's mathematics any more then a dog can understand calculus. There could be a physical limitation. One of the interesting things in mental health is how people with certain types of brain injuries are incapable of thinking certain things. For instance, there's a type of illness where you can't see more then one "thing" at a time. The person looks at a room with a table, a clock, and a cat. He can look at the cat and see a cat, and he then look at the table and see the table. But he can't add them together, they can only be understood as individual items. This is called visual agnosia. Now imagine an entire species with some kind of blind spot like this. They get by after a fashion, but can never understand a more complex tool then a sharp rock since anything else requires adding two things together. Imagine how we might appear to such a species, our actions incomprehensible as we go taking several distinct items and magically making them one. Having the aliens understand it as "magic" gives them too much credit. It just happens. They don't understand why, or even that it is happening. They may even forget that you had the component parts of your new tools, you might take a sharp rock, a stick and some sinews and make an axe and they don't realize that the axe, stick, and sinew were separate items after you put it together. Even if you do it right in front of them.
Now imagine an aliens species that has the ability to do things that we simply can't comprehend, that we have similar blind spots. It's possible they could have already visited, but we didn't notice. Some sort of phenomenon that we think we understand could just be aliens passing through we just can't understand them as such. And since we can't even notice them, they don't pay us much mind. Perhaps that pluck us out of space-time from time to time, not like an alien abduction, or a mysterious disappearance, but like we were never there. When they pluck us out space-time our existence in space-time doesn't just end. It never was. That person is retroactively never born. How would we even know such a thing is occurring? Such a thing is impossible to us. Just like the person making the axe in front of those aliens who can't see two things at once.
Quote from: Razgovory on October 15, 2012, 03:58:21 PM
What evolutionary pressure is making Marty stand in line to buy an iPhone?
Bad example, he is a dead end. And heterosexual guys who buy iPhones probably do occasionally parlay it into getting laid. Anyway, Marty's not gonna buy an iPhone if he can't afford food or heating.
While it's certainly
possible that aliens exist who we could not perceive with, for lack of a better word, magical powers, it is less likely and less compelling than aliens who are governed by the laws of physics that we know. Though that hasn't stopped sci-fi writers from writing about that kind as well.
Quote from: Peter Wiggin on October 15, 2012, 04:24:03 PM
Quote from: Razgovory on October 15, 2012, 03:58:21 PM
What evolutionary pressure is making Marty stand in line to buy an iPhone?
Bad example, he is a dead end. And heterosexual guys who buy iPhones probably do occasionally parlay it into getting laid. Anyway, Marty's not gonna buy an iPhone if he can't afford food or heating.
On the contrary; fags are an excellent demographic: not only do they have discretionary income by not having a husband or kids, the need to retain an appearance of progressiveness and hipness at the cost of everything else makes them an excellent marketing exploit.
Plus they are weak willed and easily swayed by shiny things.
Quote from: Ed Anger on October 15, 2012, 06:26:02 PM
Plus they are weak willed and easily swayed by shiny things.
lulz, mah trinket and baubles.
TMI seedy. Don't need to know what you call your junk.
Maybe the aliens are hyper advanced in gender studies instead of physics. Their powers may appear like magic to us.