Established Member
such ideas have been explored in science fiction before.
the benefit is something new to stimulate the senses, art, stories, music.
I have some sympathy with the idea. I can see how cultural pursuits may be of increasing importance to advanced civilizations - but then it might just be anthropomorphising Aliens a bit too much.
Senior Member
I am reminded of the Holodeck from ST:TNG....when exploring the Galaxy simply isn't "stimulating" enough, the crew plays "pretend".Originally Posted by mutleyeng
Somewhat related to the above...they've become so "jaded" with their existance, they're going to travel many multi lightyear distances for "stimulation"?the benefit is something new to stimulate the senses, art, stories, music.
I'm sorry, I just don't see it as being rational.
Order of Kilopi
Silly tangent, but imagine how insulting it would be to see undeniably alien activity around the moons of Jupiter or Saturn? A swarm of alien craft loading materials from a moon for weeks on end, completely ignoring Earth... I can't really think of anything more insulting, except perhaps adding an Earth flyby on their way out of the solar system.
Solfe
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'That was tops! Who's not good at math? I was all, "Four!"' - Finn, Adventure Time.
Order of Kilopi
They want original ideas and concepts, alien takes on universal, and not so universal concepts, something to assuage jaded pallets, something exotic.
Order of Kilopi
To boldly go where no alien has gone before.
Et tu BAUT? Quantum mutatus ab illo.
Established Member
Im not sure you can really apply rationality to an idea about Alien psychology.
If you ask the question, why would they come, you are just fumbling in the dark to come up with any explanation. I see it to be as good a guess as any ive heard.
Established Member
What if they want Earth so they can settle it? I mean, if we found another planet comparable to ours wouldn't we want to settle it?
Another possibility is they are at war with another race, and we just happen to be on the frontlines. So they fight eachother for control of this planet to prevent the other from settling it. If one of them wins they would settle it, and turn it into a staging area to launch future invasions of the loser's territory.
Order of Kilopi
Not exactly. More like raiders from a society where newness is the only commodity worth going for.
Order of Kilopi
For a civilization advanced enough to have conquered all physical needs and challenges, it might not be such a project. Just program your nanoswarm to gather up enough space debris to build and fuel a starhip, put yourself into hibernation, and wait out however many centuries or millenia in stasis.
STARGAZING: All I see are the lights of a billion places I'll never go. --Howard Tayler, Schlock Mercenary
Order of Kilopi
There also the non-silly idea of upload AIs--the concept of digital computer simulations or emulations of biological intelligent beings. If hypothetical aliens were like this, then there would be no need to muck around with hibernation or stasis. An AI being could travel subjectively instantly at lightspeed, from one CPU complex to another one light years away.
Established Member
...put yourself into hibernation
An alien intelligent reptilian civilization can do that naturally....in the event that such alien civilization exist, of course.
Order of Kilopi
It sounds as if you think my idea is "silly". Is that what you meant?
STARGAZING: All I see are the lights of a billion places I'll never go. --Howard Tayler, Schlock Mercenary
Order of Kilopi
No, and I'm sorry if you thought I had implied anything of the sort.
I simply was stating that the idea of upload AIs is non-silly. I did not mean to imply anything about other concepts.
Order of Kilopi
All right. I also think uploading may eventually become possible, though if so I doubt such beings will physically travel for entertainment-- it'll probably be easier to program randomised scenarios for that purpose.
STARGAZING: All I see are the lights of a billion places I'll never go. --Howard Tayler, Schlock Mercenary
Established Member
I seriously cracked up at this.Silly tangent, but imagine how insulting it would be to see undeniably alien activity around the moons of Jupiter or Saturn? A swarm of alien craft loading materials from a moon for weeks on end, completely ignoring Earth... I can't really think of anything more insulting, except perhaps adding an Earth flyby on their way out of the solar system.
Insulting isn't even the word... infuriating? Frustrated beyond madness? There aren't words to describe how (ticked) off I would be if they just scooted through without even saying "sup"...
Last edited by Jim; 2012-Jul-30 at 01:10 AM. Reason: language
Established Member
I like this idea. I've wondered, in a civilization spanning multiple star systems with members who posses cheap cloning tech and advanced neuro-transfer like tech, one could effectively travel bodily from world to world. Dump a body on world A, transfer your mind as information at the speed of light, and pick up a new body on world B.
Would a civilization with this capability still cling to biological bodies? It seems that with a good health insurance plan you could probably store a data back up of your mind... so the risk of death should be minimal. Maybe the visceral experiences of the flesh would be worth it.
Order of Kilopi
See "Digital to Analogue" by Alastair Reynolds. The AI doesn't seem to be alien, but just something nasty that humans do to each other.
Solfe
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'That was tops! Who's not good at math? I was all, "Four!"' - Finn, Adventure Time.
Established Member
I did want to reply to the OP, though I notice they've been banned.
Since the thread is still going though I think I'll take a shot at it while addressing a couple of logical problems that were brought up right off the bat.
So, the problem; What the heck would a species capable of interstellar travel need to "invade" Earth for? If they can get here they can get whatever they need without needing to get rid of us... so why bother?
The solution is that perhaps Earth real estate is a rare commodity. We do not know how common the conditions on Earth itself are. We could be sitting on a rare jewel. What if Earth is not unique, but just truly rare in its ability to foster such a rich variety and density of life. Perhaps the invaders come from another one of these rare jewel worlds... and perhaps they don't like to share.
EDIT: I didn't post my method... d'Oh!
So, probably a virus or cancer delivery system of some kind... Human specific. The invaders would be here for the planet and all its biological splendor and fine weather after all... dont want to mess that up with asteroids, nukes, or broad spectrum biocides...
Order of Kilopi
An immortal race long ago seeded Earth with life designed to evolve a specific end-result. They've now come back to collect their bounty; oysters. Because the aliens look really good in pearls. Any other lifeforms that happen to crop up are a side-effect.
(As you can tell, this one is silly on purpose.)
STARGAZING: All I see are the lights of a billion places I'll never go. --Howard Tayler, Schlock Mercenary
Established Member
Ah, but what a wild success! Not only did they create the pearls, but one of those "side-effects" harvests and crafts them into jewelry, ready made for the prospecting E.T.'s
Order of Kilopi
Or maybe, they only came along a few million years ago, and bred a local arboreal mammal to grow larger and larger brains. Because brains are delicious. ; )
STARGAZING: All I see are the lights of a billion places I'll never go. --Howard Tayler, Schlock Mercenary
Established Member
Poor whales
Order of Kilopi
Another screwball idea: What if the "invaders" are just like Donkey in the Shrek movies? Completely harmless, won't compete with us, very quick to get out of the way, never stop talking, etc. but they simply won't leave.
"But, uh, I don't have any friends. And I'm not goin' out there by myself. Hey, wait a minute! I got a great idea! I'll stick with you."
Solfe
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'That was tops! Who's not good at math? I was all, "Four!"' - Finn, Adventure Time.
Order of Kilopi
I've read a SF story based on just that idea. The aliens are friendly and generous, but they're just annoying. Eventually humans take the gift of the FTL drive from them and move to increasingly distant stars to get away from their "neighbors".
STARGAZING: All I see are the lights of a billion places I'll never go. --Howard Tayler, Schlock Mercenary
Order of Kilopi
Actually, I kinda think it's silly, depending on what you mean by uploading and AI. Do you mean mind-uploading, cause then it wouldn't be an artificial but synthetic or perhaps some other term denoting digital but real. Anyways, semantics aside, I'm not confident it can be done. Nor am I confident that we can construct actual AI either.
Et tu BAUT? Quantum mutatus ab illo.
Order of Kilopi
Humans are capable of interstellar travel. Would we go to a planet that we think is habitable? I think so. Would we have enough supplies to pacify a planet-full of similarly advanced lifeforms with that vessel's crew and passenger? I'm doubting it.
Et tu BAUT? Quantum mutatus ab illo.
Order of Kilopi
Was that a Simak book?
Solfe
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'That was tops! Who's not good at math? I was all, "Four!"' - Finn, Adventure Time.
Established Member
Hmmm... maybe I am wrong, but by the context of the thread I assumed it would be obvious that the level of interstellar travel proposed should be considered far beyond anything humans are currently capable of.
This is certainly non-specific enough to encompass a very wide range of speculative tech levels. Perhaps the ET's in my scenario are only a few hundred years more advanced, perhaps a few million. In either case, I didn't suggest pacifying the population... I suggested infecting them (poisoning would work too). This should be relatively easy for a species not too far more advanced than us, hell, I'm pretty sure we could do it to ourselves.
Furthermore, upon reading your reply again I wonder if you intended to quote me at all. What did my post have to do with what Humans would do or are capable of?
Finally, I don't see any point to drawing contradictory conclusions about what ET's would do based on human motives and capabilities... especially in a ridiculously speculative thread like this.
Member
How about, they decide to invade and pacify us before we can develop a relativistic kill vehicle/bomb and discover the location of their homeworld/colonies. We are pretty good at building weapons (as are they, probably), what if they thought that paranoia might lead us to build relativistic bombs triggering an interstellar cold war. Rather than risk such a war turning hot, they might just decide it's in both our species best interests for them to forcibly quarantine us to Earth and prevent us from acquiring technology that could be used to build relativistic kill vehicles. To keep us happy and reduce the possibility of revolt they could offer to transport a limited number of colonists to suitable extra-solar worlds on the condition that they keep their population below certain levels and don't attempt space travel themselves. Rather than an invasion it might be a voluntary submission to their rule.
Order of Kilopi
I had a similar idea. Aliens start mining the solar system, and don't pay us so much as a by your leave.I seriously cracked up at this.
Insulting isn't even the word... infuriating? Frustrated beyond madness? There aren't words to describe how pissed off I would be if they just scooted through without even saying "sup"...
Yeah, infuriating would be one adjective I would use.
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