Imagine...

[m1omg]

Imagine that some day we willl send some manned mission to the stars because we will discover that there is an Earth-like habitable planet.
At relativistic speeds they will get there after about, say 17 years, and - they would be VERY SURPRISED - that there is an advanced ( I mean as advanced as us or a bit more, not godlike empire) civilization (No folks, we did not recieved any signals because our TV signals are unrecognisable beyond the orbit of Pluto and also that is in case about alien signals).
They will not know their language or even their system of communication.
They would be somewhat warned that they cannot land (for example by warning fire from a defense satelite of the alien civilization shooting into space just near the ship or by some unfriendly sounding or looking signal).
What you will do?
Assuming that there are no 100000 H-bombs on ship prepared to kick the alien asses or basically any defense system on our ship.

[novaderrik]

just land and say the following while offering an energon snack:

"bah weep gronna weep ninny bon".
well, it worked in the old Transformers movie when Kup and Hot Rod ran into the Sharkticons, and later when they met the Junkions..

or, i guess you could send your Zapp Brannigan type person down to seduce the queen.

[m1omg]

I am serious.

[Warren Platts]

I am serious.

You have to make an accomodation. There is no other possibility, except move on, perhaps.

[novaderrik]

i was serious, too..

[Bearded One]

I can understand the other civilization not wanting them to land, at least not at first. Biological contamination and such.

Otherwise, start talking, gesturing texting or whatever it takes to try to communicate with them. Hopefully meaningful communication can occur and friendliness will rule the day. If not, our travelers are screwed

[Half Wit]

I can understand the other civilization not wanting them to land, at least not at first. Biological contamination and such.

There were alien civilizations on islands in the Pacific, for example, that didn't want other people to land, and they weren't worried about biological contamination (well, I don't think they were)...

[Noclevername]

There were alien civilizations on islands in the Pacific, for example, that didn't want other people to land, and they weren't worried about biological contamination (well, I don't think they were)...

Per the OP:

I mean as advanced as us or a bit more,

I assume that means technological advancement, which would probably include having discovered the germ theory of disease.

[Half Wit]

Per the OP:


I assume that means technological advancement, which would probably include having discovered the germ theory of disease.

Well, probably. Assuming they have germs where they live

But I mean only they may resist for other reasons as well, unless we preclude this as part of the definition of advanced

[Van Rijn]

At relativistic speeds they will get there after about, say 17 years, and - they would be VERY SURPRISED - that there is an advanced ( I mean as advanced as us or a bit more, not godlike empire) civilization (No folks, we did not recieved any signals because our TV signals are unrecognisable beyond the orbit of Pluto and also that is in case about alien signals).

Long before we had the capability of sending relativistic spacecraft to other stars, we would have telescopes that would be able to detect a sophisticated civilization.

[m1omg]

Well, probably. Assuming they have germs where they live

But I mean only they may resist for other reasons as well, unless we preclude this as part of the definition of advanced

Certainly they have.
Any Earth-like life start first as bacteria, later some of these these bacteria learn to parazitise on higher organisms and so these bacteria cause diseases.

[m1omg]

Long before we had the capability of sending relativistic spacecraft to other stars, we would have telescopes that would be able to detect a sophisticated civilization.

How would you recognise habitated living planet from wild paradise?
Assuming that that is not planet-city like Coruscant or Trantor.

[Nicolas]

If they do not want you to land (and you understand that demand) I'd say do not land but just orbit the planet and try to make further contact, possibly eventually a deal for a landing. And whatever you do, keep making clear the peaceful purposes and do not specify exactly where you're from unless they demand you to do so, if they turn out not to be too friendly.

But I think that they're friendly and welcoming (and if they don't want you to land, that would be for safety reasons rather than hostility) OR they are unfriendly because they're afraid, but that means they're not planning to get anywhere near the rest of us soon. But of course, it's guessing, who knows there are civs that see any other species that are even remotely advanced as a threat that must be killed to the last one of them. In that case, we're screwed unless they don't find our planet. If they do, well, too bad, we tried to be friends .

But assuming hey're not too hostile, it seems quite realistic to me they would not allow you to just land and get out because of contamination risks. But unless it's daily business overthere to be visited by new civs, I think they would be quite interested. And would work on a way to make a safe landing possible. Possibly by docking onto one of their ships in space (which certainly limits the extent of possible contamination to the spaceship).

[3rdvogon]

But assuming hey're not too hostile, it seems quite realistic to me they would not allow you to just land and get out because of contamination risks. But unless it's daily business overthere to be visited by new civs, I think they would be quite interested. And would work on a way to make a safe landing possible. Possibly by docking onto one of their ships in space (which certainly limits the extent of possible contamination to the spaceship).

If one takes your scenario at face value then remember it is us that managed to travel there and not them to here.

Now it is not possible to read alien minds and their social cultural attitudes and beliefs might well be things we find diffiult to understand but one glaring fact would stand out to them - We would have just done something that they could not yet do. That puts them at a disadvantage. Therefore unless they think so radically different from us it would seem likely that they would like to have a few pieces of our knowledge.

Therefore it would be reasonable to assume that once the have come to accept that we are not out to take over their world or contaminate it then they would probably want to know what we know. The question then is how much should we tell them or give them.

If their civilisation is roughly equivalent to acient Rome then giving them gunpowder - steam engines or even internal combustion engines might be OK but if as your scenario paints they are already beyond that, then should we give them the specs of our relativistic propulsion engines? Would we be happy to try and bring them up to our level I think not before we knew and understood them a lot better.

[Nicolas]

If one takes your scenario at face value then remember it is us that managed to travel there and not them to here.

Now it is not possible to read alien minds and their social cultural attitudes and beliefs might well be things we find diffiult to understand but one glaring fact would stand out to them - We would have just done something that they could not yet do.

You take a small jump in logic here.

If for the first time ever somebody from Italy visits me and I've never been in Italy, it doesn't mean I cannot visit Italy. It simply means I never did it, maybe because I can't, or maybe because I've first gone to more nearby, more interesting, or simply other locations. You automatically assumed the "can not" scenario.

[3rdvogon]

You take a small jump in logic here.

If for the first time ever somebody from Italy visits me and I've never been in Italy, it doesn't mean I cannot visit Italy. It simply means I never did it, maybe because I can't, or maybe because I've first gone to more nearby, more interesting, or simply other locations. You automatically assumed the "can not" scenario.

Well if there were more interesting places for them to have visited nearby then given that basic premise of this thread assumes them to be an industrial city dwelling speciesm, then those other places would interest us also. Furthermore if we could detect the existence of life on their world before we got there then they must have detected the life on ours. It would be less probable that the numbers of life bearing Earth like panets would be so common that they would somehow overlook us. In which case they would either be interested in visiting us or else they are so against the idea of space travel for some reason that they oject to our presence anyway.

[Nicolas]

Again some small jumps in logic here. Because they can technically see us does not mean that they have seen us. It's a large Universe, and they have not necessarily scanned it completely. You don't need an "whoops, overlooked" scenario not to have seen earth, just not enough time to watch all the visible universe and process all data. Or our planet being harder to detect from their planet than vice versa. So if we see them and they're more advanced, doesn't necessarily mean they saw us.

If they have spotted more interesting places, that does not mean we also spotted these places (maybe they're too far away for us to spot, or harder to spot from earth than from their planet).

We can't put this "visiting aliens" thing in a small number of possible scenarios.