Most efficient ways to conquer earth

[Casualnaut]

One word: wait.

Eventually humans will kill each other, society will collapse, and it will just become a game of fly-swatting the remaining humans.

[Starstruck69]

1 hour ago, KerBlitz Kerman said:

 

First you appear benevolent, make them like and appreciate you. Then you orchestrate something to say wipe out their food on exchange for the farmland. They can no longer grow crops, which you grow for them. They can't afford to attack you, so you gradually hire humans to go to the stars with you. Bam they get enslaved. Then you take over military centers and Gov't centers, orchestrate some news which while true leads them to not trust each other. This way you're not fighting several alliances, rather large amounts of individuals. Then you take over population centers and control the WORLD!!!

 

As aforementioned on this thread, give them say a vaccine, when it's really a temporary cure not a disease prevention device but make it so we literally can't duplicate it. This means we have to have them, but hate them.

Edit: Remove engineered virus from humans removed from homeworld and say inject them with a explosive device (which you implant in an area of the heart/brain to make it unremovable) so they can't run away. Also sterilize all who make it offworld

Edit 2: **** I'm out of 'reactions'.

Edited 1 hour ago by KerBlitz Kerman

 

Sterilization might be a bit harsh.. But i guess don't want the little blighters breeding off world heh...

[KerBlitz Kerman]

9 hours ago, Starstruck69 said:

Sterilization might be a bit harsh.. But i guess don't want the little blighters breeding off world heh...

Heck, we are a dastardly species. As expressed by David Weber in his book Out Of The Dark it is likely that we will be capable of understanding that we, however badly if we are now, should be grateful we are not all dead. This means if they must quell a rebellion, the members are limited to the amount of humans brought in from the breeding/major population centers.

[kerbiloid]

Social networks.

Just let them in and don't disturb.

[Spaceception]

On 5/25/2019 at 8:32 AM, micha said:

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.

Hah, @ChrisSpace and I are working out ideas for a book idea of mine that does this. Very simply, we're advanced enough to figure out the threat and begin building up forces, while the aliens in question didn't know about us until they started seeing technosignatures, so they deduce they should build up as well just in case with what they have available.

[Spacescifi]

On 6/27/2019 at 7:57 AM, Terwin said:

Using inconsistent/impossible races in science fiction is a time-honored tradition, I was just pointing out a few of the more jarring impossibilities in the race you described so that you can either try to address them or try to keep them out of the spot-light to help readers maintain their suspension of disbelief.

Ironic.

Some will say scifi aliens are'nt realistic (human) enough. Others say scifi aliens are act too human (realistic).

Based on my earlier comments in another post about not liking scifi aliens that act just like humans, I think you know what direction I will inevitably take.

Middle of the road.

[natsirt721]

If you're interested in this topic, I suggest reading the books Footfall by Niven/Pournelle and The First Formic War trilogy by Johnston and O.S.Card, plus Ender's Game and Speaker for the Dead by O.S.Card (for more perspective). Both give interesting and unique approaches to alien psychology and tactics when it comes to conquering the Earth. It also gives both aliens the upper hand and forces the humans to react, because lets face it - if they are coming to us, they're at least 50 years (optimistically) but probably a century or two more technologically advanced than we are (Footfall bends the rules a bit here, but that a plot point so I won't go into it).

I'll drop another projectrho link, because goddamn it's so useful. The page on Aliens page is a good place to start for physiology, and from there you can check out tech levels and contact scenarios. For any aspiring sci-fi author or rocket enthusiast that website is a goldmine, I highly recommend reading into any topics you have questions about.

<br>

To the point at hand, there is really only two reasons for aliens to 'conquer' earth. They either want the biosphere (colonization), or they want slaves. The former has some implications about the biosphere the aliens evolved in, which is a goldmine for plot elements. That latter implies something about the needs of the aliens, which can also be useful. The question you have to ask yourselves before asking questions like this is 'why'. If your 'why' isn't compelling enough, the conquest is going to seem totally contrived and the entire premise of the story will collapse. That being said, if you can build a strong enough case, the 'why' can be pretty much anything you want - but the further from those basic reasons you diverge, the stronger your case will have to be. Here's some bad reasons for conquest, and why.

• They want our water.  Water is one of the most abundant resources in the universe, being composed of simple elements hydrogen and oxygen. Sure, we have a ton of it, but a) at the bottom of a hefty gravity well (if they aren't planning to bring it somewhere, then they want our biosphere) and b) no long-lived decision-making culture is going to choose to fight a war, tens of lightyears from home, against us on our own turf rather than just go somewhere else unless they're certain of victory.
• They want our mineral resources. See above. Cheaper, easier to access minerals are all over the asteroid belt (and presumably equally available in other, uninhabited systems), there is no reason to come fight us for our mostly-depleted stock here on Earth.
• They see us as an existential threat.  There are two solutions to this, and neither ends well for us, nor in conquest. If they're interstellar aliens (and they probably are) they can afford to build a planet-cracker kinetic warhead. Even at a few percent c, it doesn't take much mass to destroy the biosphere and obliterate modern society. Optimistically for us, that sets us back a few centuries, if we survive at all. Alternatively, if they're uncertain about their ability to hit us with a planet-cracker, then a crewed vessel with a few hundred gigaton nuclear bombs will almost certainly get the job done. Neither makes for a particularly compelling novel.

The thing about inter-species war is that, if there are at least two species, there are probably a lot more. Species are not going to make risky decisions about interacting with others when one of the outcomes is the annihilation of your entire genetic pool. Game theory kicks in here, and again, I'll point to one of the links above for working through that and the implications that you have to accept.  

[Spacescifi]

32 minutes ago, natsirt721 said:

If you're interested in this topic, I suggest reading the books Footfall by Niven/Pournelle and The First Formic War trilogy by Johnston and O.S.Card, plus Ender's Game and Speaker for the Dead by O.S.Card (for more perspective). Both give interesting and unique approaches to alien psychology and tactics when it comes to conquering the Earth. It also gives both aliens the upper hand and forces the humans to react, because lets face it - if they are coming to us, they're at least 50 years (optimistically) but probably a century or two more technologically advanced than we are (Footfall bends the rules a bit here, but that a plot point so I won't go into it).

I'll drop another projectrho link, because goddamn it's so useful. The page on Aliens page is a good place to start for physiology, and from there you can check out tech levels and contact scenarios. For any aspiring sci-fi author or rocket enthusiast that website is a goldmine, I highly recommend reading into any topics you have questions about.

<br>

To the point at hand, there is really only two reasons for aliens to 'conquer' earth. They either want the biosphere (colonization), or they want slaves. The former has some implications about the biosphere the aliens evolved in, which is a goldmine for plot elements. That latter implies something about the needs of the aliens, which can also be useful. The question you have to ask yourselves before asking questions like this is 'why'. If your 'why' isn't compelling enough, the conquest is going to seem totally contrived and the entire premise of the story will collapse. That being said, if you can build a strong enough case, the 'why' can be pretty much anything you want - but the further from those basic reasons you diverge, the stronger your case will have to be. Here's some bad reasons for conquest, and why.

• They want our water.  Water is one of the most abundant resources in the universe, being composed of simple elements hydrogen and oxygen. Sure, we have a ton of it, but a) at the bottom of a hefty gravity well (if they aren't planning to bring it somewhere, then they want our biosphere) and b) no long-lived decision-making culture is going to choose to fight a war, tens of lightyears from home, against us on our own turf rather than just go somewhere else unless they're certain of victory.
• They want our mineral resources. See above. Cheaper, easier to access minerals are all over the asteroid belt (and presumably equally available in other, uninhabited systems), there is no reason to come fight us for our mostly-depleted stock here on Earth.
• They see us as an existential threat.  There are two solutions to this, and neither ends well for us, nor in conquest. If they're interstellar aliens (and they probably are) they can afford to build a planet-cracker kinetic warhead. Even at a few percent c, it doesn't take much mass to destroy the biosphere and obliterate modern society. Optimistically for us, that sets us back a few centuries, if we survive at all. Alternatively, if they're uncertain about their ability to hit us with a planet-cracker, then a crewed vessel with a few hundred gigaton nuclear bombs will almost certainly get the job done. Neither makes for a particularly compelling novel.

The thing about inter-species war is that, if there are at least two species, there are probably a lot more. Species are not going to make risky decisions about interacting with others when one of the outcomes is the annihilation of your entire genetic pool. Game theory kicks in here, and again, I'll point to one of the links above for working through that and the implications that you have to accept.  

 

War is overrated. Even in fiction. Not so cool when it hits home personally in real life. Only fun to watch from afar 

How is this for a concept?

In 2001 aliens show up. After language barriers are surmounted they tell us why they came.

They want our stuff. And they are willing to work for it. We want their stuff, because hello? Starships! FTL!

Since our money has no value on their worlds and their money has no no value on earth, they make a proposition.

Groups of aliens of various races will agree to work on earth so they can buy stuff with human money on earth.

Groups of humans will agree to work on alien worlds to buy alien tech, goods and services.

There is one catch. An alien or human is not allowed to bring foreign goods back to their homeworld unless cleared by alien central command.

Which means humans could do the scifi thing. Just not on Earth.

 

Results? Cultural shocks and hilarity ensues without fail. Plenty of story material right there.

Edited June 30, 2019 by Spacescifi
2001

[kerbiloid]

They don't want to conquer the Earth.

Vice versa, they want to help you by enlightening with The Genuine Doctrine_{, dirty pagans.}

[Guest]

5 hours ago, natsirt721 said:

 they're at least 50 years (optimistically) but probably a century or two more technologically advanced than we are 

Hmm, the idea that they would be anywhere near our level of development is pretty optimistic imo. A century or two is an insignificant blip of time even on our own planet, where life is concerned. We could very well be met by aliens so far beyond our understanding that there’s no common ground... while that would probably make a bad story that is probably more realistic than an alien race being within 100 or so years of ours developmentwise. Indeed, that might be less time than takes the trip itself to get here. And they probably wouldn’t even know we are here since I don’t think we’ve even been broadcasting TV for that long. 

At a one year orbital period, Earth is not very detectable... it would likely be beyond our current planet finding abilities, so an alien race close to our level of development, to even know we were here would need to be very close astronomically speaking (probably under 100 lightyears away) 

and given a similar level of development to us, perhaps the potential to average a fraction of the speed of light... 10% max? If they are similarly bound by the rocket equation and assuming they have technologies like fusion drives, they would likely need 10years to traverse every lightyear or thereabouts, for them to arrive at our solar system after noticing the EM emissions of our society, they would probably have to be right next to us, literally within the nearest handful of stars.

There would seem to be 2 likely scenarios for an alien attack against humanity.

-One is that we are living in the alien’s backyard, literally right next to their civilisation and they are of a similar level of development to us (within a century or so... If they were close and also super advanced/old one would think they would have visited our planet already on a holiday or something... >_<)

-Two they are more advanced than we can imagine or hope to have any effect against.

Edited June 30, 2019 by Guest

[kerbiloid]

I believe, it's highly unlikely that two civs can appear and evolve so sinchronously.

Most probably, one of them is always much older than another one, and as we've benn found, this is not us.

So, in case of a contact we're anyway funny monkeys.

Unless the Elder Ones have populated several stars with captured humans, so they evolve more or less synchronously everywhere.

Edited June 30, 2019 by kerbiloid

[Guest]

25 minutes ago, kerbiloid said:

I believe, it's highly unlikely that two civs can appear and evolve so sinchronously.

Yer, it would seem to be highly unlikely that would they would arise next to each other, but that’s also the only way we would face a threat from a similarly developed alien race. So I guess we can sleep easier? >_<

(unless we are on the brink of some FTL breakthrough... if so the universe just became a lot more interesting @_@! And dangerous D:)

Anyone here read these? https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moreau_series one of the main plot points is a nearby alien race of a similar level of development to ours trying to covertly subvert our expansion into space. 

Was a pretty good trilogy !

Edited June 30, 2019 by Guest

[ChrisSpace]

On 30 June 2019 at 1:27 AM, natsirt721 said:

To the point at hand, there is really only two reasons for aliens to 'conquer' earth. They either want the biosphere (colonization), or they want slaves. The former has some implications about the biosphere the aliens evolved in, which is a goldmine for plot elements. That latter implies something about the needs of the aliens, which can also be useful. The question you have to ask yourselves before asking questions like this is 'why'. If your 'why' isn't compelling enough, the conquest is going to seem totally contrived and the entire premise of the story will collapse. That being said, if you can build a strong enough case, the 'why' can be pretty much anything you want - but the further from those basic reasons you diverge, the stronger your case will have to be.

In the scenario @Spaceception and I are working on, it's neither of those. Centuries ago, the colonisation fleet (which was exiled from it's home solar system due to a system-wide interplanetary war) began to set sail towards Earth because it was the only planet within a hundred ly or so that was fully habitable for them, no terraforming required. When they got closer they started to pick up radio transmissions and they started to detect industrially-produced gasses i the planet's atmosphere. This made Earth even more of a target since all that infrastructure (power plants, mines, factories, logistics hubs, airports, etc etc) could be taken over and used by the fleet's species instead.

Needless to say, things don't go as planned in the novel, but the concept remains the same.

[natsirt721]

15 hours ago, ChrisSpace said:

began to set sail towards Earth because it was the only planet within a hundred ly or so that was fully habitable for them, no terraforming required

That's exactly what I mean when I say 'they want the biosphere'.