So when the aliens invade....

[Ellipsis]

What will be the biggest challange with our dealing with the invasion?

Unity probably...people have siad that if this where to ever happen that humanity would unite (for one the first times) under a single banner to fight off the threat (...although we will probably be wiped out before the end of that)...or would we? A game recently released C&C 3:TW speculated that becuase of religous reasons and deep distrust that the two factions in question would NOT unite even though human surivival was in question...

So would humanity unite even under these EXTREME circumstances?

(Any theories about media and goverment responses would be nice...maybe even a fake thread telling INTPc we are being invaded....)

[eyebyte_atWork]

The biggest problem???

inter-stellar illegal immigration

[attila_the_hunny]

The biggest problem???

inter-stellar illegal immigration

Those fucking Mexicans. Jumping a fence just ain't enough.

[Ellipsis]

The biggest problem???

inter-stellar illegal immigration


explain please....???

[eyebyte_atWork]

explain please....???

Its called a joke.

[attila_the_hunny]

Its called a joke.

:lol:


I have a weird Scientology vibe from this thread.

[Ellipsis]

Its called a joke.

.....no comment......

(blinks with second set of eye lids...)

[demagogic_schizoid]

It would depend on the character of the invaders. If they had some appeal to them, some charm, or were like humans, they could probably win some support from groups with grievances agaist the staus quo, just like Hernan Cortes and his conquistadores got the support of the Tlaxcalans, or just like some Russians under Stalin saw Hitler as a potenial liberator (even though he viewed Russians as untermenschen). So it depends on them as much as us. If they are hyper intelligent plankton, I can't see them getting much support, and people will unite as the status quo would seem like the lesser evil - better the devil you know. However, if they can appear to be like humans, or have some qualities we percieve as admirable, maybe they will get ome support, or even be welcomed as liberators and Gods (the Aztecs originaly thought Cortes was a God).

It might be a joke but i's a damn ood thead. I've imagined this scenario before. It would be fascinating. Would people rally round like the British against Hitler or the Argentines int he Falkvinas? Or wold they be divided like the Iraqis? Who knows.

[attila_the_hunny]

I am glad 'aliens' is now spelled correctly. I was worried they'd feel disrespected that we have called them something they do not idenify with--and fucking up that spelling, too.

[HilbertSpace]

This is all just a government planted smokescreen to get you guys to ignore the zombie threat.

[hereandnow]

This is all just a government planted smokescreen to get you guys to ignore the zombie threat.

They've already arrived. Most are located in and around 7-11's.

[attila_the_hunny]

This is all just a government planted smokescreen to get you guys to ignore the zombie threat.

I'm glad I live in TX, then--I totally got my shot gun thang going on.

[Ellipsis]

It would depend on the character of the invaders. If they had some appeal to them, some charm, or were like humans, they could probably win some support from groups with grievances agaist the staus quo, just like Hernan Cortes and his conquistadores got the support of the Tlaxcalans, or just like some Russians under Stalin saw Hitler as a potenial liberator (even though he viewed Russians as untermenschen). So it depends on them as much as us. If they are hyper intelligent plankton, I can't see them getting much support, and people will unite as the status quo would seem like the lesser evil - better the devil you know. However, if they can appear to be like humans, or have some qualities we percieve as admirable, maybe they will get ome support, or even be welcomed as liberators and Gods (the Aztecs originaly thought Cortes was a God).

It might be a joke but i's a damn ood thead. I've imagined this scenario before. It would be fascinating. Would people rally round like the British against Hitler or the Argentines int he Falkvinas? Or wold they be divided like the Iraqis? Who knows.

Quite excellent point...actually I was trying to relate it to current events....Iraq is the big one...as you see there are many similarities (too bad Bush doesn't have a third eyeball or something....though you never know...)

[Ellipsis]

I'm glad I live in TX, then--I totally got my shot gun thang going on.

Shotgun didn't help the guy in MIB much (the guy who got his skin hijacked....) though it might help....

Ao any other theories??? (or fake posts?)

[SensEye]

So would humanity unite even under these EXTREME circumstances?

Probably, but it also probably wouldn't do us a damn bit of good. Interstellar travel requires some serious advanced science (if it's even possible). One could presume a hostile alien species who could accomplish this could anal probe an abductee or two and whip up a biological weapon that would wipe out humanity in short order. Assuming there are no moral reservations (they're hostile, so why would there be) we're hooped.

This is the main reason I don't believe in UFO's. Aliens capable of interstellar travel have no need to skulk. They would either be friendly and say hello, hostile and kick our ass, or indifferent and not come to visit.

[demagogic_schizoid]

Quite excellent point...actually I was trying to relate it to current events....Iraq is the big one...as you see there are many similarities (too bad Bush doesn't have a third eyeball or something....though you never know...)

what would happen would be, IMO, that society would re-group into factions to meet the situation. This is what always happens. People IMO identify themselves with a faction, and it is through that faction that they relate to the wider world. The faction allies itself with other factions, constantly re-alinging itself in some cases, and when it switches sides or leans one way or another, it takes it's followers with it (picking some up and losing some on the way, but retaining the bulk).

I'm reading about the Balkans now. When the Nazis were invading that region, there was all sorts of deal-brokering and treachery. The Serbs were viewed as sub-human by the Nazis, so even fascist Serbs didn't really have the choice to become allies with them (the govt. was originally pro-nazi, but it only had 5% popular support, so it was kicked out. then when the nazis invaded, the govt. became collaborationist, but the vast majority of Serbs were not). So you got two factions, the Partisans, who were a mutli-ethnic communist force, and the Cetnik, a traditionalist, royalist, Serb nationalist resistance. They both fought the Nazis, and they hated each other. They both tried to cut deals with both the Nazis and the Americans and British to gain power at the expense of the other. However, they didn't go so far as to stop opposing the invasion of their country - they pushed alliances as far as they could. This is how the game works - politicsis using one htreat against another. This is how the comunists managed to get the support of Britain and America -when the liberal capitalists saw that the Communists were the best soldiers, they supported them as the best probability of defeating the Nazis. And the commnists gave a bit of ground too.

Then you had the Croats. their Ustase forces and government were Catholic fascists, and as Catholics they counted on the support of Italy and by implicaton Germany in their struggles against the Serbs. However, they didn't want to be occupied by the Italians either, as they were Croat nationalists - they pushed the Italian alliance as far as they could, always walking a tight-rope, trying to avoid occupation. However, at the same time, they also had in some ways more in common with the western capitalists than the communists did, so although they were pro-fascist and anti-America and Britain, they were also always aware that they were a counterbalance to communist power inthe region, which could be of use to those same groups. There were strong Conservative Catholic infuences in Britain and America who supported the war effort, but at the same time wanted to see more of an allance with Catholic conservatves abroad rather than the alliance of convenience with communism. The muslims were a similiar case - tending to be pro-nazi and threfore anti-Britain/US, but at the same time, a counter-balance to the communist threat.

And let's not forget that the communist troops of Tito also pledged to put aside their differences with the Nazis should the Allies land on Serbian territory.

So the whole thing is fascinating. Everyone puts on a front of unity and patriotism, but really it's a game of chess between different factions, and playing enemies off against each other. Every example ofinvasion/imperialism/colonialism I've seen has been the same. It never works out as evil invaders vs plucky resisters.

If these invading aliens operaged like humans, I think the scenario would be the same. If not, well, I don't know, that's more sc-fi than politics.

oh yeah the reason I chose the Balkans is because it's like a mini-world

[Ellipsis]

Probably, but it also probably wouldn't do us a damn bit of good. Interstellar travel requires some serious advanced science (if it's even possible). One could presume a hostile alien species who could accomplish this could anal probe an abductee or two and whip up a biological weapon that would wipe out humanity in short order. Assuming there are no moral reservations (they're hostile, so why would there be) we're hooped.

This is the main reason I don't believe in UFO's. Aliens capable of interstellar travel have no need to skulk. They would either be friendly and say hello, hostile and kick our ass, or indifferent and not come to visit.

INTPs are pretty indiffrent and still visit....

Now about the technology tree...you never know how that would have turned out....my personal belief is that certain technologies are related but others are completly unrelated...and certain discovries can be made by idoits( who do not discover but merely use...example: most of the human population) thus space travel might just be an odd technology that is completly unrelated to our current knowelge and much other knowelege thus such aliens might be using bullets like the rest of us.....

demagogic_schizoid

Intresting...I am a croat...so that was a nice bit of history for me to relate to...I am also ultra confused by the whole thing that happened then...

Anyway...some good points are made there...but I don't know if this would be the case if the aliens in question had no wish to communicate with us...or if we had already lost ( and where basically fighting a guerilla war) any historical examples of that?


Side note: I bet there is probably I plan drawn up somewhere in the US or UN or NATO or some other place actually depicting what steps would be taken if such an invasion were to happen....(wonder how classified it is...or if a goverment would even know/acknowelege its existance...)

[xNTP]

According to social psychologists who study group dynamics, superordinate goals tend to create unity (cooperation) between 2 groups. So, if there was a goal that both groups maintained (stay alive), I would expect unity. If one of those groups had a different goal (kill the others and prepare for Armageddon and the return of some divine something-or-other) then you might not get that unity.

One thing to think about, though, is whether people would rebel against their government. Assuming that religious leaders are more fanatical than their constituents (at least on AVERAGE) you might expect some dissent WITHIN the renegade group. Who knows.

Either way, I think the biggest challenge is LASERS.:laser: (or maybe STDs from all the inter-human last-minute fucking that will surely occur...good news for the premature ejaculators?)

[Arcades]

A book series, children of the damned I think it was called, had an intresting take. The idea was the for a species to develope to the point to explore space they had to become civilised to the point that they shuned violence. In the series the earth was attacked by one faction of this intersteller war/ideas and it gave humanity the excuse it had been looking for for ever. It have humanity a non human target to take out its agression on. Pretty much earth got enough warning to prepare for the invasion with help from the second faction, when they invaders attacked almost every section of humanity had no problems killing them all, then takeing the new tech to go into space and start to take the war to the invaders. The series is all about the (good) factions' reservations about ever helping humans, and the (bad, not so much evil) factions absolute horrer about what has been let out into the universe.
On the flip side, humanity comes togeather in a way never experianced before. Beacuse of the external threat to vent our species agression on, the earth became an amazingly peaceful place. Alot of the series revolves around the oddity in our ability to be highly agressive one second and compleatly peaceful in another.

[Anonymous]

Assuming that we could actually fight them on a semi-level field, our biggest challenge would probably be understanding them. Know thy enemy and all that.

Oh, and Arcades, that book sounds interesting, but the closes thing I could find was this (http://www.amazon.com/Damned-ugly-children-Andrew-Glaze/dp/B0007DUO9M/ref=sr_1_6/102-5653256-2629759?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1177523088&sr=1-6).

[earwax]

What will be the biggest challange with our dealing with the invasion?

Learning Spanish. I mean I can order a combination plate and a beer now. And I can count change... Other than that I'm fairly lost.

[Ellipsis]

Learning Spanish. I mean I can order a combination plate and a beer now. And I can count change... Other than that I'm fairly lost.


All I can say is??.

[earwax]

All I can say is??.
Humor is really lost on some of y'all isn't it.

I bet eyebyte and atilla got it.

[C.J.Woolf]

Learning Spanish. I mean I can order a combination plate and a beer now. And I can count change... Other than that I'm fairly lost.
Pretty damn clever of them to land south of the border and walk north, thus bypassing our air-space defenses.

[demagogic_schizoid]

Pretty damn clever of them to land south of the border and walk north, thus bypassing our air-space defenses.

I think you forgot the Minutmen and the soon to be built Wall of Arizona.No aliens will get through that.

However if they go to Spain the Socialist govt. will probably give them an amnesty after 5 years so they can move freely within the EU. And if they could invade London, why would they waste time on some colonial bakwater across the pond?:devil:

[SensEye]

Assuming that we could actually fight them on a semi-level field, our biggest challenge would probably be understanding them. Know thy enemy and all that.

Oh, and Arcades, that book sounds interesting, but the closes thing I could find was this (http://www.amazon.com/Damned-ugly-children-Andrew-Glaze/dp/B0007DUO9M/ref=sr_1_6/102-5653256-2629759?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1177523088&sr=1-6).I think he means this. (http://www.amazon.com/Call-Arms-Damned-Book-1/dp/0345375742/ref=sr_1_1/103-3997894-2822226?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1177546086&sr=1-1)

Another book with a similar theme to the OP is Harry Turtledove's Worldwar/Colonization series. Low tech (i.e. sub-light, takes many years to get here) aliens invade during WWII. The main plot is that the aliens send a probe back in the middle ages and launch an invasion/colonization fleet several hundred years later. Technology evolves very slowly in their society so the don't expect much to have changed from swords and spears when they get to Earth.

[Arcades]

yup, thats the series. The first book is the best, the other two are kinda meh.

[libertarianjim]

I for one welcome our new alien overlords.

[Ellipsis]

I for one welcome our new alien overlords.

All hail!!!!! Wonder what they will do with all the INTPs? Extermination? Or just let them slowly die off....

[Someshta]

I for one welcome our new alien overlords.

Did you say overlords? You mean protectors...

Seriously, though--there are other options we haven't explored yet. (In this thread, at any rate.) What if some benevolent species had gifted this technology to an alien race that then was able to use it, but had no clue about its inner workings? This theme has come up in books over and over. Some kind of Precursor race or something. In this case, their level of technology might be well below ours. Also, what if the aliens showed up and were so, well, alien to our way of thinking that we were never able to have meaningful interaction with them?

As far as the humans--insurgents--whatever, I think that another life form showing up here would be a very polarizing event. Just because they are here, even if they are here with cruel intent, doesn't necessarily mean we would feel threatened enough to band together toward a common cause. People like to live in denial, right?