"If WE Invaded An Alien Planet?" Topic

AD 2200 . . .

It is not Earth, but air is breathable and there is plenty of water.

There are resources we desperately want, but no unified government to negotiate with.

We encounter no resistance prior to landing and no visible technology once we land.

How would WE go about invading, if we assumed that they have a lower technology?

CC
PS. Let's try to keep this from turning into a CA board topic, please.

I give it 10 posts before it goes CA.

We would liberate it?

We introduce them to cable television and microwave meals and then just take over the planet while they're watching American Idol and eating Salisbury steak.

Heck, it's working on earth why should I change a formula that works for me?

One post…

Anyway. I imagine that we'd probably just go off and find some land or territory where we wouldn't directly interfere with the local population. If we had a disagreement, I'd like to think we'd sit down at the bargaining table. A lower technology culture will no doubt be very inclined to give up some resources in return for help in the technology department. This is all assuming that the alien culuture follows a developmental model very similar to that of humans.

Damnit, I hit submit too soon. >_<

Assuming they shot at us, as humans might be inclined to do, we'd probably just disable whatever technology they use to fight us, either through superior armor or weaponry. I'm wagering they'd give up once we showed them we aren't out to kill them all.

j/k.

I assume that we would probably NOT invade but work through a very thorough trade policy. Invading a planet would devour considerable resources, whereas if we established a suitable trade and visitation policy, it would be cheaper and more effective.
If we are able to even Travel through space cost effectively by the year 2200, invasion certainly is something we couldn't manage.
If the other planet was more undeveloped I think our natural instinct to help other people would provoke a 'missionary' approach that would either cause laws for restricting interference, or monitoring closely.
Hopefully whatshisface Biblical Savior of Mankind wouldn't try anything stupid a'la Marklars…

Mr. Green

We would probably not regard the aliens as a civilization or people and as wildlife at most. What do we normally do when say mosquitoes interfere with getting our hands on natural resources here on earth? We drain swamps and use pesticides. On an alien world we would probably set up some wildlife preserves and research the indigenous life, but as long as we wouldn't recognise the aliens as being a civilization, they would be ignored and, if necessary, exterminated if a nuisance. No reason to CA-isize this.

Follow similar patterns as here on earth. Start with trade missions, mining outposts etc. Friction between settlers and locals. Troops sent in to protect humans. Small bush war with mobile columns of light infantry (and allied locals?) patrolling agains the bands of hostile locals.

dont forget the hordes of Missionaries

So, you guess a very long process or within a human generation?

CC

What if they are edible and very tasty and extremely nutritious?

Thereīs always some trigger happy human around. Some small rivalries would begin. Maybe there would be a war like in vietnam. The high technology human marines, or spetznaz, or bersaglieri, or whatever against the local natives who know their land good enough to spice it with nasty traps which canīt be detected by up to date tracking systems.

We encounter no resistance prior to landing and no visible technology once we land.

It's a trap! it's always a trap! Don't ever land on the planet!! Now you're vulnerable.

If you can't nuke them from orbit use an orbiting ship shaped like a large bagel to selectively open small holes in the atmosphere and burn them like ants. Then send in some redshirts without any technology or knowledge to poke the ashes with locally grown sticks. Then wait a generation to see if the redshirts get attacked, or get sick from the environment, or mutant into monsters. If everything is cool then land and plant a flag.

sounds like ewoks vs. storm troopers.

Ants have a form of civilization,we kill them,Bees have a form of civilization,we kill them.Many,many creatures here on our own Earth have forms of civilization and we kill them without the slightest thought,I think creatures on another planet don't stand a chance!!!

Just remember that the ants and bees still have us outnumbered :-)

Im sure we woul dintroduce the natives to….. small pox!

Leave us alone you lot! We like to come in peace, not pieces…

You're all looking at the macroverse, but what about the microverse? If we can't eliinate the "Common Cold", then how would we vaccinate against what we can't see?

Anyone remember a little story by Herbert G. Welles..?

The common cold has been I.D.ed as over 200 different variants,It's gone from one BIG enemy to an entire alliance of different invasion forces!

If we were only after resources and not out to colonize, we would probably set up shop and just take what we wanted. Some kind of security detachment would keep the locals under control. If we were feeling kind or benevolent we would attempt to restore the planet through some environmental restoration projects.

If we were out to colonize we would create parks or reservations for the locals to live on. If that did not work we would probably opt for extermination in a subtle way that would not show up on the 6:00 news.

Close to what Dragon Gunner says. We'd just go in & set up shop. Tell the locals we're just passing through. If they get upset we can just make treaties, break them, move them to reservations and rule through brutality and fear!!!!
Put some guy named Jackson in charge. That should do it.

That sounds too American dosen't it?

We'll most likely do what we did to the Indians.

"We'll most likely do what we did to the Indians."

What? Make fun of Bollywood?

The common cold has been I.D.ed as over 200 different variants,It's gone from one BIG enemy to an entire alliance of different invasion forces!

Would that be called "The Coalition of the Illing"?

We should prove if we have the right antibiotics before we take just one breath in an entirely alien biological environment.

true, maybe their cold is worse…wipe out the human race.

"I assume that we would probably NOT invade but work through a very thorough trade policy."

Yes, we'll take their natural resources, and in exchange we'll offload our garbage scows. Whatever they can find that they think is useful or valuable, they can keep! ;)

We should show our military planners the movie, "Signs" and tell them "don't do it this way!"

If in AD 2200 we could travel to another habitable and inhabited planet via a worm hole or whatever . . .

Would we have manned landings or send only androids?

If androids, would they be fully automated, or remotely operated from orbit (like ROVs)? Why or why not?

If Earth was becoming inhabitable, would we observe some sort of prime directive with the alien world, or would we just plunder what we needed, justifying it in the name of our survival?

CC

Just ask the American Indians.

We'll offer them some beads and trinkets, assume we've purchased the planet, and expect them to vacate.

It's obvious we don't want to send Americans there. We all know the Americans are the only culture in human history to ever deal "unfairly" with a "native" culture.

Yes!!! It happened and it happened EVERYWHERE on this planet, and from time indefinite.

Past that . . .

Would it matter what they looked like? What if they looked "humanoid"? What if they were completely un-humanoid-like (like cephalopods, insect-like, amphibian, or something)? Would we bother to decipher their means of communication?

CC

Bomb them with Kudzu until they give up.

Aren't we already "invading" mars and the other planets in the Solar system?

No, no, we haven't found life yet apparently.
Perfect for politicians, I can hear it now:
"If such a supposed advanced race would want their homeland protected, why didn't they say so?"

Go ask the Indians (any variety), Australian aborigines, the New Zealand Maori, the Africans, the Chinese for heaven's sake…

The only ones left alone are those with nothing of value (and that includes arable land).

"500 years ago you used to have this entire continent for your people, and now you have this nice casino. Ain't progress swell!"

We would probably make ourselves bankrupt by introducing the 'inland revenue', benefits payments, NHS, tax credits, housing benefits,jobseekers allowance and be inundated with asylum seekers.

Obvious, we send 'mobile infantry' armed with small arms and flak jackets to run around the planet shouting incoherently and polishing their jut jaws. No tanks, no air support, no artillery.

Failing that, pick any colonial adventure you like from the last 300 years as a model. For the less subtle, biological & chemical weapons, concentration camps and use of massed automatic weapons fire all seem to work quite well against natives. For the more subtle a complex network of local alliances, onesided trade, finance & military support agreements also work quite well, as does the provision & production of narcotics.

Hmmmmmmmm…..IF there was other 'habitable planets'…with any sort of 'life' on them…(intelligent/sapient) or not…would we have the 'right' to even THINK about 'landing' there…?

Wasn't there a scifi movie were the 'martians' returned one of our 'viking probes' with a life form aboard…to try and communicate with us/convince us NOT to invade THEIR planet??? (or keep sending probes there???)…Didn't the same thing happen in 'Martian Chronicles' and almost destroyed BOTH civilizations for all intents and purposes???

Don't want to get TOO political/CA here…but doesnt' our history show,(at least so far)…that the 'meeting' of two civilizations/intelligent species…USUALLY results in 'negative consequences' for one or both???

Maybe that's why 'ET' didn't STAY…what if HUMANITY/Earth was the 'primative culture'…? Even with all our 'tech', etc…imagine a culture 1000 years ahead of us…coming in and swapping us some 'old cold-fusion reactors' for the SOUTH POLE or Greenland…and setting up THEIR version of STARBUCKS?/Las Vegas???

or Humanity was put on 'preserves'…(as was hinted at in the series 'The White Mountains'???)

Remember the tripodal aliens who lived in the City of Gold and Lead? the one kid's 'master' mentioned his 'people' were coming back and going to 'terraform' earth..but he hoped that they'd be able to save some of their 'pets'…in cities/domes like the aliens were using to live on earth in at that time. They planned to change the earth to THEIR needs and try to keep 'some' of earth life in 'domes' on the 'new world'???

Could humanity really 'survive' as a species…full, open contact with an ADVANCED civilization…who ended up 'protecting us from ourselves'…(Like the OVERLORDS from Childhood's End????)…

Yes, I know this thread is about us landing on other worlds…but if a tribe of pan-pacific 'primatives' tried to land in San Francisco…and 'make deals'…etc…what do you think would happen to them??? Really?

Or turning a tribe of 'cavemen' loose in New York during Rush Hour???? How do you think HUMANITY would react to knowing that we are the lower rung on the food chain/civilization scale? Could our 'pride' survive it or would we try 'the Mouse that Roared' approach to get 'noticed'???

Great RPG fodder though….

Sgt DWW

"Didn't the same thing happen in 'Martian Chronicles' and almost destroyed BOTH civilizations for all intents and purposes???"

The Martians were destroyed as a functioning civilisation by persecution and disease, earth was destroyed by WW3 & the human colonists became the new Martians. Usual cheery Ray Bradbury stuff.

There has been a ton of science fiction around these topics, although as with most sci-fi, more a commentary on contemporary problems than a prediction of the future.

yeah, even going past the history of powerful nations expanding into less powerful cultures, and trying to ignore the nasty discussions that come forth, you cannot ignore the simple fact of the wheel of history.

Nothing we do is different from what was done before. The only change is the technology, the speed, the distance, etc. This would be no different that MANY different history cultural crashes in our past. In order to figure out what happened you would merely have to compare which culture most closely matched the proper lineup of technology, considerations for others, original intent of the discovery party, and the like.

For example, the Spanish in the New World originally intended simple conquest and plunder. So when they met the foe they attacked.

The British in their many colonies intended peaceful coexisting and colonies, so when they met the people they negotiated and moved in.

In order for the relationship to change you have to have a change in the importance of the place itself. Example: the British in South Africa had lots of good mining, so were not at all interested in relaxing. The British in India however, got tired of fighting Afghanis for what they were getting out of it. They never had anything big and mighty enough in China or India to expand over, so simple trade took over and they coexisted happily. For all European nations, the New World was too gosh darned big and rich so of course they all argued over it, and colonized as fast as the powers that be at the time could or would do.

So you give us more information to compare it to a relative historical period and you can really extrapolate some serious data.

And don't forget the Ancient era too, although the biggest difference between the last five hundred years and the exploration and colonization from the time before was the Ancients tended to more often try to crush the people they met, either through violence or by trying to squash their culture.

<<What if they are edible and very tasty and extremely nutritious?>>

What if they were the main ingredient in best energy bars in history? What if they promoted fast weight loss, eternal youth, disease immunity, vitality and perfect muscle tone (as long as they were consumed)?

LOL!!!

Would those be "Greytorade Bars" or something like that?

CC

"What if they promoted fast weight loss, eternal youth, disease immunity, vitality and perfect muscle tone (as long as they were consumed)?"

Come to think of it, this was an "Alien Nation" episode that involved extracting Newcomer/Tenctonese "spartiary glands" (and, in the process, killing the donor) to provide humans with many of those benefits you mentioned:

link
link
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tenctonese

CC

I wonder if we would have the heart to fire upon these cuties:

TMP link

CC

PS. Maybe if we kept it off the media?

Sorry. This should have been the link included above:
TMP link

CC

The waggamaephs look tasty! I wouldn't have any problems shooting them.

If we encountered an alien race we'd have to just hope they were more "humane" than we are.

There are however some hopeful precedents from history. The Britich Empire covered a large chunk of Terra Firma without too much in the way of genocide. Even the Aboriginal peoples of Australia and the Native peoples of America do still exist. Great wrongs were done to them but our ancestors did not eradicate them.

So my plot goes like this.

Initial meetings

Trade established

Earth people begin extraction of valuable resources from new world.

Native species starts to get a bit cross about it.

War ensues, mass slaughter of natives using high tech weaponry

Natives are largely moved to poor/ecomonically unviable tracts of land or used as poorly paid labour

Peace

Natives discover the joys of the Terran Legal System and sue our asses

Aliens "own" earth…