Why would aliens invade earth?

[ultimaterandombanana]

Just think for a moment that you are an alien race that has come to invade earth. What do you think your main reason would be, and why?

MY reason would be to harvest life itself into fossil fuels or something like that.

[Winter Man]

They're a race of food fanatics, travelling from planet to planet just to taste new meats.

[Camacha]

I do not think they would, unless we have something of value that could not be obtained elsewhere in the vast galaxy (I doubt it) and they are confident they are so much more developed we can not make a fist. Rule one of predatorial behaviour is not to take prey that bites if you can avoid it. Why on earth (heh) would you attack a planet with a technological and (somewhat) intelligent species if there are free resources anywhere else?

The only logical reason would be something only life can provide and to be honest, that is not much. DNA can be built without invading a planet - we do that in the lab already - and I am not sure what other unique resources it could provide.

[frizzank]

Most resources on earth are abundant everywhere in the universe. Except for one, sentient life.

While regular life may be relatively ordinary, sentient life may be a little harder to come by in the universe. Our relative smarts and adaptability may make us a valuable resource for more advanced civilizations as a cheap slave labor force. They would view us as no more advanced as we do our beasts of burden like cows and horses, and would be treated as such.

[ZedNova]

Maybe they have to leave because of a war on their home planet, not knowing that earth is inhabited but travelling in generation ships at sub-light speeds for so long that it's easier to kill humans than travel somewhere else.

Edited December 20, 2013 by ZedNova

[maccollo]

I saw this documentary on national geographic about a hypothetical alien invasion. The motivation was that the machines (the aliens were machines btw) attacked earth because they wanted to harvest our biomass.

I thought that was incredibly stupid because....

1: Fossil fuels will not be get you very far in interstellar space.

2: Titan

I'd wager that the would just have set our for earth on generation ships, in the belief that earth did not have a global civilization, perhaps based in information from probes that checked out the earth before we were as noticeable as we are now. When they arrive and find our a global civilization popped up in the time it took them to get here they would have no choice but to land anyway, because they hedged their bets on this planet and don't have the resources to turn back.

[-Velocity-]

They wouldn't. Anything that can be found on Earth can be found in greater abundance, with easier access, elsewhere. The very fact that Earth has remained untouched for billions of years speaks loudly to the lack of aliens and/or motivation to invade.

Edited December 20, 2013 by |Velocity|

[-Velocity-]

Most resources on earth are abundant everywhere in the universe. Except for one, sentient life.

While regular life may be relatively ordinary, sentient life may be a little harder to come by in the universe. Our relative smarts and adaptability may make us a valuable resource for more advanced civilizations as a cheap slave labor force. They would view us as no more advanced as we do our beasts of burden like cows and horses, and would be treated as such.

Why travel 100 light-years to enslave a primitive, unruly population that is ill-suited to life in space or anywhere but Earth, when you could just mass produce perfectly adapted, vastly superior, and unquestionably loyal robotic "slaves" in your space-based factories right there in your home system? Sorry, but I can't see how what you're saying really makes any logical sense.

Edited December 20, 2013 by |Velocity|

[Minecrafter1]

Well, ironically, the only thing of value to these aliens would be best left untouched. What is unique about the earth? Well, it's full of life, presumably life that is unique to Earth's history itself. As far as raw materials are concerned, there is so much else in our solar system to mine and collect from first. Also, we are at the bottom of a gravity well and have an atmosphere : much easier and more convenient to harvest low gravity objects in a vacuum. (especially since engines and mass drivers work so much better in vacuum)

If I were aliens, I would declare our planet as a nature reserve and only swat "escapees" from our planet in the same way I would tranq elephants escaping from a zoo. I'd also occasionally collect samples from the planet or send tourists (the tourists would, like tourists to our zoos, be careful not to disturb the wildlife). Maybe their tour buses are invisible or they are nanoscale or hidden from our dumb animal senses some other way.

[jwenting]

Lebensraum...

Same reason most human expansion/colonisation campaigns were waged.

[Godot]

Why travel 100 light-years to enslave a primitive, unruly population that is ill-suited to life in space or anywhere but Earth, when you could just mass produce perfectly adapted, vastly superior, and unquestionably loyal robotic "slaves" in your space-based factories right there in your home system? Sorry, but I can't see how what you're saying really makes any logical sense.

Not to forget that a race that is developed enugh to master interstella travel also should bedeveloped enough to perform genetic manipulation (well, the alien equivalent of genes that is) in order to create slave races perfectly tailored to the task they are about to fulfill

[-Velocity-]

Not to forget that a race that is developed enugh to master interstella travel also should bedeveloped enough to perform genetic manipulation (well, the alien equivalent of genes that is) in order to create slave races perfectly tailored to the task they are about to fulfill

If they are a community of different kinds of intelligences, it seems to me like they might have adopted a sort of Bill of Rights for all sapient beings, giving anything smart enough to be self aware and make decisions for itself legal protection for its rights, disqualifying humans from service if they do not wish to be servants. We are already starting down that path ourselves, with ever-increasing pressures on the courts to grant limited personhood to dolphins and the great apes. At risk of sounding like a broken record from a few days before, I think it is critical that we shed our racist and xenophobic past as we go into what is likely to be a post-human/trans-human era. Here's something I wrote several months ago-

We are, quite likely, on the cusp of creating the first non-human intelligences. We know of two ways it will be possible-

Machine intelligence- the first computers that are equal in processing power to the human brain should come online within a decade or two. After that, with the biggest roadblock to creating self-aware, sentient machines removed, the creation of a true machine intelligence becomes only a software problem. That may be understating it a bit, and it relies on the currently scientifically-accepted view of how intelligence probably works. But still, assuming the scientists are right, we are just around the corner from a computer that, running the right source code, will become the vessel of a truly sentient, self-aware, intelligent machine.

Genetic uplift- it is undoubtedly possible to modify the genome of a non-human animal to increase its intelligence; after all, the human brain is coded for in nothing but our DNA, so there's no reason that with, for example, some edits to the genome of the dolphin, we could create a creature that is MOSTLY dolphin, but has the intelligence of a human being or even smarter. It is certainly possible, and at the rate that the science of genetics is improving, we can even get started on creating such a creature very soon, if we chose to do so. Heck, we could start TODAY.

So we likely stand on the cusp of creating the first non-human intelligences. True machine intelligence seems likely to be achieved within the next 100 years, and probably a lot sooner than that. If we can create an intelligence that is as smart as a human, there is no foreseeable reason we cannot create an intelligence that is SMARTER than a human. How will that superior intelligence view us? We want that superior intelligence to treat US with respect, and give us our freedoms and let us retain or legal personhood, don't we?

This is why I feel it is extremely important to grant the most intelligent of the non-human species on this planet at least a limited form of legally-recognized personhood. I feel it is an issue that could be vital to the future human race!! After all, if we don't grant rights and personhood to those species that are just below us in terms of intelligence, how can we then expect any hypothetical superior intelligences to treat HUMANS as persons, and not "just animals". It is IN OUR OWN SELF INTEREST to claim the moral high ground while we still can! If we’re going to make a super intelligence, we naturally will imbue it with moral judging power- after all, we have a strong incentive to create an intelligence that values life. If we’re going to imbue it with morals that include the respect for lesser beings (humans), it is only fair that we should demand the same behavior from ourselves.

Consider the view of an unbiased observer, when comparing naturally-evolved vs. intelligently designed entities, especially, say, humans vs. some hypothetical machine super intelligence. Wouldn’t it be natural to group naturally emergent entities- those who owe their intelligence to the blind hand of Darwin- together in the same group, and set those who were actually designed with the purpose of intelligence apart? So humans would fall more easily into the “just an animal†category.

So we need to set up legal protections for all sapient beings, regardless of what they are, both for the protection of non-humans AND humans. The idea that non-human intelligences are evil and will by default want to destroy us is just a ghost from our xenophobic and racist past.

Edited December 20, 2013 by |Velocity|

[SargeRho]

I can think of 3 major reasons.

1: Survival. Their homeworld might have become uninhabitable, and there are no colonisable planets in their solar systems, and we're the closest one they know of.

2: Ressources. They have become so advanced, that they no longer live on planets, but go from star to star and harvest everything.

3: Intervention. They're militant space vegans.

[Dispatcher]

They're actually escaped convicts from other worlds, looking for places to hide.

[DaveofDefeat]

They probably hacked into the internet and decided that invading us was for the good of the galaxy.

[Scotius]

Or they've watched "Independence Day" and "Avatar", got scared of us - bloodthirsty abominations, and decided to wipe us out with preemptive strike. If our world will end in fire of alien laser cannons, blame Hollywood

[optimusjamie]

Lebensraum...

Same reason most human expansion/colonisation campaigns were waged.

This was just what I was thinking.

[Helix935]

1. use us for slaves because they either lack the technology to create a new organism instead or we are cheaper to use

2. dissolve us to use the lift over genetic material to evolve and improve themselves

3.turn us into basically bio-diesel for their ships

4. harvest our entire solar system for a Dyson sphere/ ring world

[Drunken Hobo]

A religious war? Even a hyper-intelligent spacefaring species could be religious fanatics, and roam the universe ridding it of infidels.

They could be agents of Lord Xenu, and don't like the way a certain crazy sect have been talking about him...

(Apologies to the Squad lawyers).

[Spartwo]

Maybe all those miss universe victories were true and they're eliminating the competition.

[Starglider]

Reasons...

1) They want planets with Nitrogen/Oxygen atmospheres, that are warm enough for liquid water. Yes there are annoying inhabitants, but an engineered virus can take care of most of that, and the survivors can be shipped off to a reservation/zoo, or killed outright.

2) Xenophobia.

3) Fear of humanity advancing very quickly and thus becoming a threat in the near future; better to squash the problem now than to wait until its worse.

[WhiteWeasel]

What about them just being sadists? Like how people hunt for sport or burn ants with a magnifying glass.

[Devo]

The irony is aliens have been on this planet living amongst you for a very long time.

[LaydeeDem]

There will be no invasion, but the reason for alien hostility will be the same reason we will be to them. Either they eliminate us or risk us eliminating them. An object the mass of a fully fueled space shuttle traveling at a fraction of the speed of light has enough force to eliminate most forms of life on earth. It's not xenophobia, It's survival. Species death is too large a risk.

[MBobrik]

IMHO there are no rational reasons, leaving only various irrational motives like

- territorial expansion for expansion's sake. want to have yet another planet, not caring about whether it is already occupied or not or whether it will be actually of some use to you

- xenophobia - exterminate us because we are not them.

- religious zeal (essentially the same as above, only with a lot god talk)

- food harvesting/slave trade because some rich degenerates somewhere in the galaxy prefer "natural" flesh to identical grown in a test tube (or living slaves to robots )