What if we Discovered Alien Life

[Xsyne]

It's a short story, and they've got WWI-era weaponry, as I recall. Unless there's two of them. Can't recall the title or the author, though.

That one is Turtledoves World War series. Similar idea, but the aliens there were still more advanced than humans - only far less than they thought.

Edit: thinking of another example - the Zerg from starcraft. Their knowledge of biology is probably vastly superior to ours - but their tech is not
Still, they are dangerous.

The Zerg don't even have technology. They're dangerous because...

Well, they're supposed to be dangerous because they're much, much tougher than people, and because there's just so many of them, but the Starcraft manual gave population figures and there really weren't very many of them.

[Sociobiology]

Slap em' on the back, shake their hand (if they have one, the tail if not) and sit them down on the couch, shove pizza into their hands and play XBOX all night long.
That's how I'd great, while everoyone else likely would be either happy as fuckin' hell, or scarred as shit.

so you are going to attack them, then potentially grab there sexual organs or anus, feed them rotted cow sweat on burnt soggy starch, then make them stare at screen projecting a frequency they might not be able to see, in a part of the spectrum they might not be able to see.

[Sociobiology]

You do know the radio was around before the 1897 right? We've been sending out radio waves for more than 100 years so they could be 100 or so years behind us.

That's still a very small window in the grand scape of things. About 300, maybe 400, years within our current technology amongst civilizations that could easily be millions of years older or thousands of years younger.

you are forgetting that a hundreds of our telescopes work via radio because it gives the best resolution out of all the electromagnetic areas, so any alien species is likely to have radio detecting equipment. the radio part of the spectrum is highest frequency we can project that will not to harm molecular bonds (IE be dangerous), and travels at the fasted speed we know exists, so chances are it will still be a major form of communication for eons.
radio noise would be almost impossible to prevent, our planet is painfully easy to notice just by the unnatural radio noise we emit, even if its incoherent it is still noticeable. so we are sending a message "we are here" whether we want to or not.

[Patriqvinia]

That's still a very small window in the grand scape of things. About 300, maybe 400, years within our current technology amongst civilizations that could easily be millions of years older or thousands of years younger.

you are forgetting that a hundreds of our telescopes work via radio because it gives the best resolution out of all the electromagnetic areas, so any alien species is likely to have radio detecting equipment. the radio part of the spectrum is highest frequency we can project that will not to harm molecular bonds (IE be dangerous), and travels at the fasted speed we know exists, so chances are it will still be a major form of communication for eons.
radio noise would be almost impossible to prevent, our planet is painfully easy to notice just by the unnatural radio noise we emit, even if its incoherent it is still noticeable. so we are sending a message "we are here" whether we want to or not.

That's again assuming that an alien civilization would develop the same way we would, which isn't likely. Considering that many of the nearest star systems are much closer to each other than they are to us, any "nearby" alien civilization would have much more incentive to travel to another star system than to simply look at it (why bother with long-distance, high-res imaging when your neighbor is only a few light years away, or less?); I'm not going to look at Stonehenge with a telescope if I live half a mile away. There's also the fact that whatever the hell makes quantum entanglement happen moves instantaneously and we are already experimenting with ways to implement it in communications technology.

[Sociobiology]

you are forgetting that a hundreds of our telescopes work via radio because it gives the best resolution out of all the electromagnetic areas, so any alien species is likely to have radio detecting equipment. the radio part of the spectrum is highest frequency we can project that will not to harm molecular bonds (IE be dangerous), and travels at the fasted speed we know exists, so chances are it will still be a major form of communication for eons.
radio noise would be almost impossible to prevent, our planet is painfully easy to notice just by the unnatural radio noise we emit, even if its incoherent it is still noticeable. so we are sending a message "we are here" whether we want to or not.

That's again assuming that an alien civilization would develop the same way we would, which isn't likely. Considering that many of the nearest star systems are much closer to each other than they are to us, any "nearby" alien civilization would have much more incentive to travel to another star system than to simply look at it (why bother with long-distance, high-res imaging when your neighbor is only a few light years away, or less?); I'm not going to look at Stonehenge with a telescope if I live half a mile away. There's also the fact that whatever the hell makes quantum entanglement happen moves instantaneously and we are already experimenting with ways to implement it in communications technology.

that is the dumbest question I have heard in a long time.
do you have any idea how long a a few light year long trip would take, years under the best case, and you kinda have to observe something before you can travel there in space, not to mention all the other billions of places further away. this is what the earth looks like from only 6 billion Km away,


you cannot just get in your spaceship and drive and hope you hit a planet.
communication is not the same thing as observation, my original post should have said communication and observation. I cannot communicate with a star no matter how good my technology is, I can however observe it. There is no reason to assume an advanced civilization would not have radio observation since it is the observation of one of the four fundamental forces of the universe.

[Cthag-antil]

The Homo lineage is millions of years old...starting with Homo erectus and leading to Homo sapiens sapiens with many diverging branches on the way..like Homo Neanderthalis.
Chimpanzees and Gorillas it may surprise you to know also descended from the Homo genus.
They are incorrectly taxonomically labelled Panina...they are Homo.

This species is thought to be one of the earliest forms of man.

Its not part of the genus homo...and not an ancestor of the homo genus....but yes closely related.

[Nationstatelandsville]

This species is thought to be one of the earliest forms of man.

Its not part of the genus homo...and not an ancestor of the homo genus....but yes closely related.

Besides, the earliest form of man was the first little bacteria ever born from the ethereal pool on whatever world life first originated. Anyone with a public school education can figure that out using the theory of evolution.

[Cthag-antil]

Extraterrestrial life sending out signals to the cosmos? Please.
If there are any extraterrestrial forms of life, it is most likely unicellular, or maybe simple multicellular organisms.

What a peculiar statement from a multicellular life form inhabiting one of 100 billion star systems in this galaxy alone....

You have no idea just how big your reality is do you?

[Cthag-antil]

Its not part of the genus homo...and not an ancestor of the homo genus....but yes closely related.

Besides, the earliest form of man was the first little bacteria ever born from the ethereal pool on whatever world life first originated. Anyone with a public school education can figure that out using the theory of evolution.

Oh indeed..your ancestors were bacteria like replicating unicellular organisms.

[Nationstatelandsville]

Besides, the earliest form of man was the first little bacteria ever born from the ethereal pool on whatever world life first originated. Anyone with a public school education can figure that out using the theory of evolution.

Oh indeed..your ancestors are bacteria like replicating unicellular organisms.

Yes. Your point?

[Cthag-antil]

Oh indeed..your ancestors are bacteria like replicating unicellular organisms.

Yes. Your point?

There is no point....other than that I was confirming that your species evolved ultimately from pond (oceanic black and white smoker ecologies to be fair) scum....

[Nationstatelandsville]

Yes. Your point?

There is no point....other than that I was confirming that your species evolved ultimately from pond (oceanic black smoker ecologies to be fair) scum....

Possibly from another world, depending on the theory you subscribe to. So that would kind of mean we already discovered alien life, just forgot.

[Cthag-antil]

There is no point....other than that I was confirming that your species evolved ultimately from pond (oceanic black smoker ecologies to be fair) scum....

Possibly from another world, depending on the theory you subscribe to. So that would kind of mean we already discovered alien life, just forgot.

Humans may have been genetically 'interfered' with in the remote past perhaps, maybe they still are being interfered with...but Panspermia is not a theory I give much credence.

[Nationstatelandsville]

Possibly from another world, depending on the theory you subscribe to. So that would kind of mean we already discovered alien life, just forgot.

Humans may have been genetically 'interfered' with in the remote past perhaps, maybe they still are being interfered with...but Panspermia is not a theory I give much credence.

That's highly unlikely. We developed this special brain of ours through evolution, chimps and apes have very similar minds as well.

[Cthag-antil]

Humans may have been genetically 'interfered' with in the remote past perhaps, maybe they still are being interfered with...but Panspermia is not a theory I give much credence.

That's highly unlikely. We developed this special brain of ours through evolution, chimps and apes have very similar minds as well.

Chimps and Gorillas do not really have similar minds...or cranial capacities...despite sharing 98% of the DNA...humans are very peculiar...did you know that you have DNA codons that are not found in any other vertebrates?
Some people have speculated that bacteria have hijacked the human genome in the past and 'spliced' in unusual genes...yet that is even more unlikely.
The evolution of human hairlessness for example is not fully understood...and hairlessness is but one of many aberrations....

[Nationstatelandsville]

That's highly unlikely. We developed this special brain of ours through evolution, chimps and apes have very similar minds as well.

Chimps and Gorillas do not really have similar minds...or cranial capacities...humans are very peculiar...did you know that you have DNA codons that are not found in any other vertebrates?
Some people have speculated that bacteria have hijacked the human genome in the past and 'spliced' in unusual genes...yet that is even more unlikely.
The evolution of human hairlessness for example is not fully understood...and hairlessness is but one of many aberrations....

There is speculation about the hairlessness. I forget what it was, but they presented a good theory in a Discovery documentary about Lucy I believe.

[Cthag-antil]

Chimps and Gorillas do not really have similar minds...or cranial capacities...humans are very peculiar...did you know that you have DNA codons that are not found in any other vertebrates?
Some people have speculated that bacteria have hijacked the human genome in the past and 'spliced' in unusual genes...yet that is even more unlikely.
The evolution of human hairlessness for example is not fully understood...and hairlessness is but one of many aberrations....

There is speculation about the hairlessness. I forget what it was, but they presented a good theory in a Discovery documentary about Lucy I believe.

Hairlessness I believe is related to overheating....a large brain is vulnerable to overheating.

[Nationstatelandsville]

There is speculation about the hairlessness. I forget what it was, but they presented a good theory in a Discovery documentary about Lucy I believe.

Hairlessness I believe is related to overheating....a large brain is vulnerable to overheating.

Huh, that's definitely the theory I saw.

Regardless, humans are not a by product of alien intervention. We are products of our environment.

[Cthag-antil]

Hairlessness I believe is related to overheating....a large brain is vulnerable to overheating.

Regardless, humans are not a by product of alien intervention. We are products of our environment.

That is a statement you cannot possibly verify.

But I admire your faith

[Nationstatelandsville]

Regardless, humans are not a by product of alien intervention. We are products of our environment.

That is a statement you cannot possibly verify.

That is common sense, really. Until demonstrated otherwise, we have no reason to believe otherwise.

[Cthag-antil]

That is a statement you cannot possibly verify.

That is common sense, really. Until demonstrated otherwise, we have no reason to believe otherwise.

Well thats the thing...some geneticists do have reason to believe otherwise

[Nationstatelandsville]

That is common sense, really. Until demonstrated otherwise, we have no reason to believe otherwise.

Well thats the thing...some geneticists do have reason to believe otherwise

Some geneticists. Not the mainstream, some.

Some meteorologist believe tornadoes are caused by wind gods. It means nothing.

[Cthag-antil]

Well thats the thing...some geneticists do have reason to believe otherwise

Some geneticists. Not the mainstream, some.

Some meteorologist believe tornadoes are caused by wind gods. It means nothing.

No meteorologist believes in wind gods...none I have ever heard of.

'Mainstream' means nothing to a scientist....only the facts matter...not the consensus opinion of the uninformed...

[Nationstatelandsville]

Some geneticists. Not the mainstream, some.

Some meteorologist believe tornadoes are caused by wind gods. It means nothing.

No meteorologist believes in wind gods...none I have ever heard of.

'Mainstream' means nothing to a scientist....only the facts matter...not the concensus opinion of the uninformed...

Calling me uninformed? I am. But humans aren't gods. We're just animals with special brains and kicked the shit out of the rest of nature until she yielded to us. Yield Gaea, yield!

[Cthag-antil]

No meteorologist believes in wind gods...none I have ever heard of.

'Mainstream' means nothing to a scientist....only the facts matter...not the concensus opinion of the uninformed...

Calling me uninformed? I am. But humans aren't gods. We're just animals with special brains and kicked the shit out of the rest of nature until she yielded to us. Yield Gaea, yield!

I wasnt calling you uninformed...but science isnt some monolithic orthodoxy as some think it is...it is work in progress...nothing is written in stone....most scientists bicker with each other in every area you can imagine.

Humans are indeed animals...but you're developing godlike powers...with technology.