Most efficient ways to conquer earth

[Spacescifi]

I once read that war is just another form of politcs. Politcs involve measures taken to get what a goverment wants, whether when dealing with other governments or it's citizens (no mods I am not going to discuss political issues).

When negotiations fail, out come the knives, or, war.

That said, when fictional aliens wanna conquer earth, I think they should have something they hope to gain.

For example, if rulership over mankind is desired, exterminating large amounts of the population that refuse to submit is probably a bad idea. Unless your weapons are so precise that you won't do any damage to human allies. And also if you can effectively protect ALL your human allies. Doing that is for the most part impossible unless the aliens in question are verging on godhood. Even superman or a whole army of supermen cannot be everywhere at once to save people.

If all the aliens want is resources or even slaves, it becomes a lot easier. Demonstrate orbital supremacy and do some orbital bombardnent of the ocean as a warning shot. If that won't get humans to cow to your demands, more bombardment on the right targets likely will. Bombarding civillian targets is a bad idea if it can be avoided.

Did not work so well for Germany in WW2. It only earned them the wrath of the british.

How about you? What effective ways to conquer earth would you recommend for fictional aliens?

 

Edited May 24, 2019 by Spacescifi

[ARS]

Want to send a message to the whole Earth that you're awesomely powerful, and probably egotistic and evil, too? Just fire up your biggest space laser cannon or longest-range missiles and use them to deface the Moon by blasting your face or INSERT YOUR MESSAGE HERE onto it. After all, the Moon has no weather or pesky tourists to mess it up... so any mark left on it, even if it's just etched into the dust, will probably remain there until the Moon itself is destroyed. Your message will be set in stone, pardon the cliché. It doesn't have to be the Moon. Any sufficiently large and prominent landmark will do. In a pinch, you can use graffiti, as long as it's large graffiti; but lasers, or missiles carving are more stylish. The next logical would be stating your demand to humanity. If they refuse, blow up a chunk of the moon to "persuade" them

[Spacescifi]

45 minutes ago, ARS said:

Want to send a message to the whole Earth that you're awesomely powerful, and probably egotistic and evil, too? Just fire up your biggest space laser cannon or longest-range missiles and use them to deface the Moon by blasting your face or INSERT YOUR MESSAGE HERE onto it. After all, the Moon has no weather or pesky tourists to mess it up... so any mark left on it, even if it's just etched into the dust, will probably remain there until the Moon itself is destroyed. Your message will be set in stone, pardon the cliché. It doesn't have to be the Moon. Any sufficiently large and prominent landmark will do. In a pinch, you can use graffiti, as long as it's large graffiti; but lasers, or missiles carving are more stylish. The next logical would be stating your demand to humanity. If they refuse, blow up a chunk of the moon to "persuade" them

LOL. I would laugh hard if in a fictional work the aliens used an orbital laser to write a message on the white house lawn while the government is still debating how to respond.

The message would read: MEET OUR DEMANDS FIRST. ONLY THEN WILL WE SERIOUSLY CONSIDER YOUR REQUESTS. WE ARE SERIOUS. VERY. VERY. SERIOUS.

Edited May 24, 2019 by Spacescifi

[kerbiloid]

Burn the crops and feed the cities.

[DDE]

The question that needs to be answered first and foremost is not "how" but "why".

Following that, you're able to set the acceptable threshold for collateral damage.

With that, you have a CONOPS to which you can start tailoring your combat capability.

17 hours ago, Spacescifi said:

Did not work so well for Germany in WW2. It only earned them the wrath of the british.

And this is where we get to the concept of "learned helplessness".

The Blitz did not go unopposed. The British air defense network retain functionality throughout all of it - mostly because Luftwaffe switched to silly attacks against urban centers after the Brits began their bombing campaign. Instead, you should look at Japan and Iraq.

In order to produce compliance, the carnage must appear inevitable, the options for countermeasures non-existent. You need a - pardon the term - bombastic opening campaign that quickly eliminates all options for retaliation, stripping the enemy of any agency.

Ever wonder why the Doolittle Raid was a thing despite its telling name?

7 hours ago, kerbiloid said:

Burn the crops and feed the cities.

Calm down [snip].

Edited May 25, 2019 by Gargamel
Portions Redacted by Moderator

[kerbiloid]

1 hour ago, DDE said:

mostly because Luftwaffe switched to silly attacks against urban centers after the Brits began their bombing campaign.

As always, the terrorizing of civilians gives nothing.
Because an armed man can ignore the opinion of a crowd of civilians, and armed men are not civilians.

1 hour ago, DDE said:

You need a - pardon the term - bombastic opening campaign that quickly eliminates all options for retaliation, stripping the enemy of any agency.

See my suggestion above.

Edited May 25, 2019 by kerbiloid

[micha]

If I'm truly alien, the life on Earth, while probably interesting from a scientific perspective, would likely be completely incompatible with my own physiological requirements.

As such the most efficient way to conquer Earth would be bioforming it to suit my requirements (I'm assuming that the Earth's physical properties are more or less in line with my requirements).  So, engineer bioagents/nanobots to wipe out native life, then seed my own. Can even send those autonomous agents ahead on un"manned" probes so that by the time I arrive, Earth is ready for colonisation.

The thing about aliens taking over the Earth is somewhat laughable though, unless some new physical principle emerges which makes interstellar travel not only possible, but also so cheap/easy that taking over already populated planets becomes easier/cheaper than terraforming suitable "nearby" planets or just building space habitats.

The only possible reason I can fathom for aliens to take over Earth is if Earth (or, more to the point, Humans) posed an existential threat to them. Which, based on our history, is quite likely if we're ever about to discover the secret of interstellar travel without having also substantially matured our society. I certainly wouldn't want to risk a warmongering bunch of primitives let loose on the galaxy.

[SuperMiiBrother]

My plan for world domination is wait for a total nuclear war, Then we'll all die and I can rule the world!

Wait a minute...

[Starhawk]

This thread been moved to Science and Spaceflight.

KSP Moderation Team

[DDE]

On 5/25/2019 at 3:32 PM, micha said:

The only possible reason I can fathom for aliens to take over Earth is if Earth (or, more to the point, Humans) posed an existential threat to them. Which, based on our history, is quite likely if we're ever about to discover the secret of interstellar travel without having also substantially matured our society. I certainly wouldn't want to risk a warmongering bunch of primitives let loose on the galaxy.

Ah, yes, the notion that our propensity to use violent force is immaturity.

A notion that flies in the face of our escalating ability and willingness to cause carnage and deliberate suffering on an ever-greater scale as we advance technologically and culturally.

HeinleinRant.txt

And from there your comment ends up self-contradictory. Almost all major wars in human history were, at least on paper, an effort to eradicate existential threat. It’s likely aliens will be just as militant as us, if not more.

It’s even possible - if scandalous - that the decline of militarism, tribalism and xenophobia in developed sub-planetary socio-cultural units that are at the same time also undergoing a demographic transition to below-replacement birthrates is actually the Great Filter.

Edited May 29, 2019 by DDE

[Scotius]

3 hours ago, DDE said:

Ah, yes, the notion that our propensity to use violent force is immaturity.

A notion that flies in the face of our escalating ability and willingness to cause carnage and deliberate suffering on an ever-greater scale as we advance technologically and culturally.

Untrue. Data do not confirm this statement:

https://ourworldindata.org/war-and-peace

[micha]

3 hours ago, DDE said:

And from there your comment ends up self-contradictory. Almost all major wars in human history were, at least on paper, an effort to eradicate existential threat. It’s likely aliens will be just as militant as us, if not more.

Which is exactly what I said - aliens can see us as an existential thread (either directly, or indirectly via resource sharing) and preemptively wipe us out.

And as you alluded, there is a strong notion that any aliens which achieve a highly technological society are most likely the dominant lifeform on their planet.  To achieve that they are likely to also be the alpha predator and hence highly competitive, at least historically, outside their own social grouping or species.

That's not to say that those historical tendencies can't be tempered through long stable societies though and that mutually-beneficial coexistence outside their historical groupings doesn't outweigh the original competitive nature.

You can compete against others and try to get a larger piece of a pie (which may even get destroyed in the process), or work together and make a bigger pie.

[Guest]

First of all, aliens will be alien. Don't think Klingons. Think Mi-Go (and that's about as close to human as you can get!). Think Solaris. You've all missing the point. Human perspectives, ideas, logic, mathematics, human anything does not apply. Aliens don't need to have a "society" of any sort or an ecology in any way similar to Earth's (predator and prey mechanics may not apply). Clark Ashton Smith had some good alien invasion stories. Also to keep in mind, we're going to be as alien to them as they are to us. Their methods of "warfare" shouldn't make sense to a human, nor should they be particularly optimal, at least at first. "Inscrutable" is the word to keep in mind at all times when writing aliens.

If you want a more regular interplanetary/interstellar war, then go with human on human. Martians coming to Earth in flying saucers might well be colonists with a chip on their shoulder. Then it's much more straightforward. Humans will fight if they think it'll get them where they want to be. Modern era of peace is an anomaly brought about by domination of nuclear weapons which don't really have a counter. A lot of political wrangling goes into maintaining this state.

BTW, effective orbital bombardment is hard and all but requires nukes to be as effective as people think. Kinetic bombardment sucks unless you have a TW-level reactor, though you can have some luck with conventional artillery shells and missiles. 

Edited May 29, 2019 by Guest

[Thor Wotansen]

31 minutes ago, Dragon01 said:

First of all, aliens will be alien. Don't think Klingons. Think Mi-Go (and that's about as close to human as you can get!). Think Solaris. You've all missing the point. Human perspectives, ideas, logic, mathematics, human anything does not apply. Aliens don't need to have a "society" of any sort or an ecology in any way similar to Earth's (predator and prey mechanics may not apply). Clark Ashton Smith had some good alien invasion stories. Also to keep in mind, we're going to be as alien to them as they are to us. Their methods of "warfare" shouldn't make sense to a human, nor should they be particularly optimal, at least at first. "Inscrutable" is the word to keep in mind at all times when writing aliens.

I disagree.  Any life form that wins at evolution long enough to develop space travel has quite a few things in common with humans, like a drive to survive and proliferate it's genetic code in whatever form that takes.  Math is math, and the only difference will be the symbols used to describe it.  Physics also dictates the types of weapons that are viable, although we might learn a thing or two.  Generally speaking, if they come in force with a bunch of huge warships bristling with weapons, they want us alive, if we get annihilated by a relativistic kill missile, we won't likely notice.

[Guest]

Relativistic weapons aren't realistic unless dealing with a Type II civilization. All that energy it has needs to be put there in first place (indeed, this is a serious considerations with all weapons, which tends to make space battles a lot more interesting than most people think). That is a nontrivial concern. You're basically building a relativistic starship that doesn't slow down. The latter part makes it easier, but not terribly so. And quite frankly, if you can afford to throw around fully functional relativistic starships, then you probably have better ways of killing a planet.

In general, it seems like you're assuming too much. "Drive to survive and proliferate"? What if it's all one being, for instance? Aside from that, even if we can speak about such things, the ways they could go about it are endless. Math is math, but there's a lot of it, and lot of different approaches to handle it. And what symbols? What if the alien race (or the alien) has no need for writing, for whatever bizarre reason? Abandon all your assumptions about biology. We are an extremely particular arrangements of organic molecules, evolved along one path, in more or less one environment. Change just one of those, and you end up with something utterly otherworldly. Change all three, and you end up with something barely recognizable as biology.

Just about the only thing they're likely to share with humans is using water as a solvent and carbon as a base, because they're so darn good at it, and ridiculously commonplace as well. Ammonia may work, but at very low temperatures (you need hydrogen bonds, and they're rather wimpy in ammonia), silicon may also work at really high temperatures. That's about as far as physics takes you.

Edited May 29, 2019 by Guest

[FleshJeb]

17 hours ago, DDE said:

Ah, yes, the notion that our propensity to use violent force is immaturity.

"Violence is the last refuge of the incompetent." --Isaac Asimov

[Spacescifi]

10 minutes ago, FleshJeb said:

"Violence is the last refuge of the incompetent." --Isaac Asimov

Yes and no. It depends. If negotiation is possible I go with Asimov. If not, choosing to be subject or fight is a tough choice. In some cases though, there is neither an option to negotiate nor submit and not face extermination.

If a nation is facing total extermination by the equivalent of space villains, then I hardly think Asimov would think that taking defense measures is incompetent. Even if that means violence.

That said, humans wll fight over all sorts of things... sometimes even trivial matters.

Fictional aliens? Might not fight over the same things nor for all the same reasons that we do.

For example, eating anothet animal's food is enough reason to fight.

Humans? Words alone and insults are all it takes.

Sticks and stones will break my bones but words will never hurt me can ACTUALLY be true for fictional aliens. If you wish it to be.

Edited May 29, 2019 by Spacescifi

[micha]

2 hours ago, Dragon01 said:

First of all, aliens will be alien. Don't think Klingons. Think Mi-Go (and that's about as close to human as you can get!). 

One of the first assumptions of Science is that local principles hold generally, otherwise we can't make any predictions outside our immediately measurable sphere. 

For example, we assume the universe is expanding due to the redshift of distant galaxies. And that is based on our understanding of light under local conditions. What if there are properties of light which redshift it over time/distance instead? Or even more simply just the amount of gas and dust inbetween us and distant sources. But we can't measure that as we don't have the capability to set up long distance experiments (ie, millions of lightyears). (I'm sure far cleverer people than me have actually considered this and there are perfectly good answers, I'm just using this as an example of how we generalise local principles in science)

So yes, biology will be extremely varied. And behaviours of that biology as well. We see a ridiculous amount of variation on Earth.  But anything which we will classify as life will be recognisable, even if very exotic, by definition. There is also a strong argument for convergent evolution, although admittedly we only have one example of an ecosystem.. But I do agree that it's unlikely going to be bipedal humanoids..

It will be very interesting if we ever find aliens.

[Thor Wotansen]

Alien races might be very alien, however, there are some things that stand true, regardless of how different they might be.  No alien race will attempt to conquer earth without a very good, logical reason.  If they intend to keep us humans alive, then they will have some form of communication, and will likely have already figured out how to communicate.  If they want the resources of our planet for some reason, they would get far more stuff by blowing the planet into tiny pieces.  The only reason aliens approach earth with a large armed force is to intimidate us into accepting what they have to say with very little question.  The only thing that makes earth special is life and unbound oxygen.

[Cunjo Carl]

Oh! I watched a documentary about all this as a kid!

[Guest]

Your assumption is, again, of them thinking like humans. They won't. They might just start xenoforming our planet without any regard for what lives on it (that's something humans could do, too). It may look like an invasion to us. Aliens won't be thinking like humans, so anything is possible. Their "reason", if they need one at all, might be so obscure that we humans might never grasp it. TBH, humans could also attack for, say, religious reasons (inscrutable to anyone not raised in that religion), so I wouldn't say you need a compelling justification. 

Mining actually sounds like a good reason, if it wasn't for the fact most of Earth's stuff is more easily available elsewhere. Blowing up the planet into chunks is pretty much impossible with energies available to anything short of a Type II civilization. Really, the problem with a spacefaring civilization attacking a habitable planet of any kind for resources is that picking the deepest gravity well in a given solar system short of the gas giants is a pretty silly thing to do. An atmosphere might hinder or help (the latter if you've got nuclear or fusion airbreathers), but either way, 10km/s to get back orbit is rather steep compared to, say, Mars, or any of Jupiter's moons. Unless, of course, the big kicker is that you need an oxygen-based atmosphere to breathe, with a composition close to Earth's. Then, the planet suddenly starts looking very attractive, because you can potentially work without spacesuits. It'd actually take a technology level at low end of that required for interstellar travel, but that could happen.

37 minutes ago, micha said:

So yes, biology will be extremely varied. And behaviours of that biology as well. We see a ridiculous amount of variation on Earth.  But anything which we will classify as life will be recognisable, even if very exotic, by definition. There is also a strong argument for convergent evolution, although admittedly we only have one example of an ecosystem.. But I do agree that it's unlikely going to be bipedal humanoids..

It will be very interesting if we ever find aliens.

Convergent evolution requires similar environments. This we will never find, because Earth has been utterly transformed by its own biosphere. A different biosphere will transform its own world in a different manner. There's a lot of random chance involved here, and it's almost certain it will never go exactly the same way twice.

Things will be easy to classify as life by simple exclusion - there aren't that many complex things in the universe that aren't alive. So if there's something that's got water and carbon and acts weird, there's a good chance it's living, at least by some definitions. Life isn't really that difficult to recognize, though there might be some debate until someone takes a close look.

Edited May 30, 2019 by Guest

[micha]

38 minutes ago, Dragon01 said:

Convergent evolution requires similar environments.

I'd argue "similar requirements" and we're arguing about aliens which have developed spaceships.
And again, while the detailed biological/chemical conditions will be unique, they'll be roughly similar. It'll be a planet, unless you're positing space-based lifeforms. We've come up with several potential alternatives to carbon-based chemistry which could support life, but the carbon/water based chemistry is actually, from an energy perspective, the best. And for higher lifeforms you need even more energy so you've got aerobic lifeforms.  This all means a roughly earthlike planet.

But even if you use an exotic chemistry as the basis of your alien life, it'll still have the same basic requirements in order for us to classify it as life. Energy intake and procreation for starters.

Next if you're talking a technological lifeform you need locomotion and environmental manipulation. There's a strong argument that anything above stone-age level technology can only be developed on land as you need metals and for that you need a sufficiently localisable source of heat for smelting and working it.
For locomotion on land you probably need something like legs (although a "foot" like a slug/snail also works). For (fine) manipulation you need something generally capable of grasping.

At the end of the day, life is not just constrained by chemistry but also physics. So we can make some educated guesses as to the parameters of potential aliens.

[Guest]

25 minutes ago, micha said:

This all means a roughly earthlike planet.

No, it doesn't. Water remains liquid over a large range of temperatures and pressures. That and easily available carbon is all you need. Even a pressure cooker like Venus would be a candidate, if it had enough liquid water. Indeed, due to high temperatures, chemical reactions could occur at an increased rate, which could make life more likely to form. Of course, there's a chance that it'd stop being a pressure cooker very soon due to life changing the atmosphere. That's the real problem. Changes snowball. Once you have life form X, it'll start multiplying, and without competition, it'll likely cause an enviromental change peculiar to this specific type of organism. This happened on Earth, and based on that, we can infer that this could happen on other planets, though it would be a different organism doing that, resulting in a different environment. Or not, resulting in a world even more utterly bizarre. If some enterprising organism didn't "figure out" it could efficiently make energy from sunlight better and poison the competition at the same time, Earth would've been a very different world indeed, with no trace of atmospheric oxygen, high CO2 content and Venus-like conditions, possibly inhabited by descendants of archea.

Aquatic creatures could develop technology. It would just be different from ours. Completely different. "Stone age" is a human invention. Locomotion, likewise, is not a requirement for technology, either. Even on Earth, we have single organisms that resemble entire forests. Alien forms could have prehensile members that they could use tools with. Carnivorous plants exist, and indeed, would be prime candidates for developing prehensile members. Really, a Pando-like carnivorous forest that learned to use thrown stones, then bow and arrow to better kill animals that wander into it, in order to eat them, doesn't really sound that far fetched. In some alternate reality that sort of thing could have developed on Earth (it still could, though trees, particularly something like Pando, evolve extremely slowly, making it less likely). Of course, some sort of locomotion would be needed if the alien were to travel in space, but an inventive enough alien of that sort would probably find a way. Even on an otherwise Earthlike planet, the evolution would take a completely different course, since not only is it a statistical process with a propensity for getting stuck in local minima, it also changes the very environment it's working in. It's a very dynamic, very random system. Convergent evolution would be a remarkable accident, though lesser cases would likely be commonplace (Earth's biosphere did try a lot of possibilities itself).

Edited May 30, 2019 by Guest

[Brotoro]

I would think that the only reason aliens would want to conquer Earth is to live here, as part of an long-term campaign to spread their lifeforms around the Galaxy. In which case it would probably be best to clear out the existing ecosystem and replace everything with your own planet's  lifeforms (which must enjoy an Earth-like planet...otherwise you wouldn't choose Earth for this project). And the easiest way to exterminate the local fauna and flora would be biological agents...since there are probably enough differences in biochemistry between us and them to easily find compounds that hurt us but are not harmful to them. Dump in the alien equivalent of bacteria that make the nasty compounds and let them do the work. If the humans look like they will catch on fast enough to combat the bio attack, you could blast their research facilities from orbit to slow them down.

You wouldn't need really advanced tech for this... interstellar slow boats controlled by AI (could take centuries to make the trip) and carrying all your lifeforms either frozen or in multigenerational habitats as needed could do the job. 

[kerbiloid]

7 hours ago, Dragon01 said:

Human perspectives, ideas, logic, mathematics, human anything does not apply.

What is "human mathematics"? Do they have 2+2=5?

7 hours ago, Dragon01 said:

Think Mi-Go (and that's about as close to human as you can get!). Think Solaris.

The brainmushrooms and brainocean unlikely are the evolutionary mainstream in this galaxy.
I would expect something more dull and usual. like klingons.

8 hours ago, Dragon01 said:

Their methods of "warfare" shouldn't make sense to a human

If they are much higher than humans. Otherwise, physics is same, trademarks may differ.

7 hours ago, Dragon01 said:

What if it's all one being, for instance?

Then they will think slooowly. Because of distances between their common neurons. Between one's eye and another one's brain, too.

8 hours ago, Dragon01 said:

Aliens don't need to have a "society" of any sort or an ecology in any way similar to Earth's (predator and prey mechanics may not apply).

They need. Because a society and ecology are just terms for the entropy redistribution. Dissipate here to concentrate there.

7 hours ago, Dragon01 said:

What if the alien race (or the alien) has no need for writing, for whatever bizarre reason?

Then they are google. We have one, too.

7 hours ago, Dragon01 said:

Abandon all your assumptions about biology.

Chemical elements are the same. Biology just describes their distribution.

7 hours ago, Dragon01 said:

We are an extremely particular arrangements of organic molecules, evolved along one path, in more or less one environment.

But alternatives look even more rare.

6 hours ago, FleshJeb said:

"Violence is the last refuge of the incompetent." --Isaac Asimov

Words of a man who was probably never struggling for limited resources. Like one well and two families living in a desert. Or one crown and two princes. _{Oops, sorry, wrong forum.}

5 hours ago, Dragon01 said:

They might just start xenoforming our planet without any regard for what lives on it (that's something humans could do, too).

If they can, it isn't a "war". It's a "disinsection" of a planet being colonized. But this is an extremal case.

5 hours ago, Dragon01 said:

Aliens won't be thinking like humans

Do they take bribes? Do they compete for posts?

4 hours ago, micha said:

But even if you use an exotic chemistry as the basis of your alien life,

then Earth looks like a chemical hell for them, and they will avoid visiting it at any cost.

3 hours ago, Dragon01 said:

. Even a pressure cooker like Venus would be a candidate, if it had enough liquid water.

The water doesn't matter if the proteins get cooked because it's hot, or chemical reactions almost stop because it's cold.
So, the real temperature range is more narrow.

Also, no fire - no metals, no technics. This means they should be of nearly our normal temperature. So, the set of chemical reactions is similar.

3 hours ago, Dragon01 said:

"Stone age" is a human invention.

No, it's just a usage of existing compounds with no ability to chemically transform them. Octopuses and crows can do this, too.

3 hours ago, Dragon01 said:

Locomotion, likewise, is not a requirement for technology, either. Even on Earth, we have single organisms that resemble entire forests.

A technoforest? Where?

3 hours ago, Dragon01 said:

Carnivorous plants exist, and indeed, would be prime candidates for developing prehensile members.

Just a primitive standalone gravity trap with a tiny droplet of glue.