Gaming aliens.

[PB666]

All right this is not a novel topic at least, its more of a thought experiment, so let me set up the premises.

Lets just say deep thought, your massive computer that calculates the meaning of everything has estimated that there is about one sentient race on every X number of stars, lets just say X is  a big number more than 1000, in parts of the galacies about the same density as our sun. So you now know they are out there because DT is never wrong, except that one time it gave the answer 42. All sentients a knowledgable in game theory. And once a culture is space worthy,meither in thier own or adjacent systems aliens do not penetrate systems unless for trade or conflict resolution. 

Now, next premise, your culture has never detected any alien civilization or cultural artifact as such. As per fact you dont know if some alien culture is 100 or 1000 light years away. 

Third premise your culture has the ability to detect sentient telecommunication in the next star system but no further, it has the ability to send probes to those sysytem but no further due to that limit of about 6 light years. 

Forth it is just on the verge of sending colony ships (handwaving) to about 10 ly in distance. 

Game theory suggests that two players, be it you or aliens will try to take steps so that thier share is the best, i think it would be valuable resources, since colonization is expansive. 

The first step taken in the game is that you probe proxima centauri, find a suitable planet to land on and probe the entiresystem with directed/highly focused em radiation of various wavelengths to see if there is a response. With nobresponse the colony ships are en-route. 

Fifth applying uncertainty principle, while you are much more likely to close encounter colonizing sentients than homeworld sentients, for the sake of argument the next star system simultaneously does or does not have alien colonizers in progress until your colonizers reach the system. So in the instance below a rare contemporary attempt to colonize proxima centauri can be applied to any attempt to colonize but at low, say 1/1000 frequency.

The next step you are an alien attempting to colonize proxima centauri unaware or Earth or its intention, what is your next move. 

1. Upon seeing the ship try to avoid all contact, assuming the star was approaching Earth you flee to another system. There are more fish in the sea for you. 

2. Continue on with plans hoping Earth turns around and returns, realize the errors of their ways. 

3. Try to destroy the ships transmitter covertly and then degrade the colony ship so that it looks like a failed mission hoping that Earth morale falls and does not repaet. 

4. Contact Earth and recommend a sharing treaty, after which the new planet is called new poland. (ominously named)

5. Share but no contact or treaty, let the best colonizer win. Sensing you noticed them and they did not notice you, you land on the other side of the planet, or a moon or some other satellite and attempt to mske it look like you have been their longer. 

6. Overt attack in which Earth is informed.  We're the king of this mountain!

Now for the success of alpha centauri there is a 80% chance of colonizing the next star from there versus the other sentient. As an Earthling you really need this colony, as an alien its just another feather in the cap. For earth Therefor it opens up almost double the available colonizable stars to you. For both, Each sentient has other stars it can colonize and based upon densities of aliens such choices will generally have no encounters. 

And so this is a expansive game setup, there are no bad choices just higher and lower risk/reward scenarios.

As a alien would you attempt to block a colony that is much more vital to them than to you, would you use covert or overt means, would you negotiate. As an Earthling, would you risk miffing a more well traveled and distributed species whike other colonization options are on the table, would you suspect covert operations are at play, would you have preemptove measures for looking for other colonizers, ongoing with your colonization mission (remembering the time component with different comoving soace times is plastic, no one could be quite sure who succesfully colonized first from great distance, so the only objective measures are local interactions to proxima) 

This is enough to get the argument of whether or not we make first contact or not. 

 

[magnemoe]

Interesting.
1 is the obvious downer here, you don't get an colony and earth will discover you in some time anyway.
2 and 5 is much of the same, except that in 2 earth abort the colonization, note that turning around without restocking is unlikely.
3 I don't get if you destroy the transmitter and capture ship and crew or destroys the ship, capture is an benefit in that you will learn a lot about humans and human technology but is harder to pull off. Both has risk if earth finds out depending on how its handled.
Another benefit is that the even if Earth try again you would have an larger base, both easier to defend and an stronger card in negotiation.
4 sounds like an plan, could be done anytime too, could be various treaties from just drawing borders up to cooperation. 
6 is high risk unless you know you could win, would be very stupid without plenty knowlede about Earth, stupid to start an war you could not win. An second scenario is 3 then saying proxima centauri is yours and attack anybody trying to enter.
 

[PB666]

15 minutes ago, magnemoe said:

Interesting.
1 is the obvious downer here, you don't get an colony and earth will discover you in some time anyway.
2 and 5 is much of the same, except that in 2 earth abort the colonization, note that turning around without restocking is unlikely.
3 I don't get if you destroy the transmitter and capture ship and crew or destroys the ship, capture is an benefit in that you will learn a lot about humans and human technology but is harder to pull off. Both has risk if earth finds out depending on how its handled.
Another benefit is that the even if Earth try again you would have an larger base, both easier to defend and an stronger card in negotiation.
4 sounds like an plan, could be done anytime too, could be various treaties from just drawing borders up to cooperation. 
6 is high risk unless you know you could win, would be very stupid without plenty knowlede about Earth, stupid to start an war you could not win. An second scenario is 3 then saying proxima centauri is yours and attack anybody trying to enter.
 

I forgot to add you could move to a kuiper belt in the system and restock hydrogen in the fusion drive and choose another destination or move on. As you added,  their are advantages to stealing others technology by force or stealth, but it could come at a price if they find you carrying around near copies of technologies and their ship( s) disappear, you could have a cold war and that could spread with future encouters because of alliances. For a species technologies would be highly proprietary,,so you don't want to share unless something more useful is given in exchange. 

So no effort is made in the system to look for contemporary colonizers, but at some point, discovering some uninhabited system, with both sides choosing a maximum avoidance scheme such an encounter will occur. There is no need to take risk until the limit of the local expansion bubble is reached. 

[kerbiloid]

It will take a wall of text to answer. Sorry.

Let them land and camp.
Burst their orbital ship. (Obviously, once the attack begins, their ship will be automatically sending maydays to their homeworld, so no p.3. is possible at all.)
Land next to their colony.

Tell them about a dreadful race of space griefers, which are hunting all the spaceships, colonies and homeworlds they meet.
Griefers were charging you, but you have happily avoided them for some time. Angered (as always), they destroyed the colonists' mothership.
Ask the colonists to help you with hiding your ship from those beasts.

Invite their leaders on board of your ship.
Co-operate with them and send a video conference to both of your homeworlds, tell about the griefer race, Make a cooperative selfie.
Connect to their homeworld and let them talk with their people in their language  Do not try to disturb them.
Phone your compatriots again and explain them, what the hell it was and who were those griefers ("We!"), and what are these strange speaking animals near your ("Meat!").
(The colonists anyway don't understand you language. Just keep smiling. Or not — if you have five-inch long teeth.)

Tell the colonists that you've spent your fuel and can't return back to your planet (it's 100 l.y. from here).
Ask them to allow you to visit their planet. As you want to please them, you can take ten of them with you — i.e. back to their planet.

Let the colony stay there. Without their ship — as griefers (i.e. you, but they don't know about that) had destroyed it.

Approach their homeworld planet, Make a contact. Let your new friends present you to their compatriots.
Meet, greet, cheer-party-dance. Tell them about the space griefers again. Exchange with books, souvenirs, movies (i.e. collect the cultural samples).

Tell them that your ship is damaged and you need a new ship to return (and to take their delegation) to your planet.
But there is a problem: your ships require much fuel, as usually you make them from asteroids. Yes, of course, you can teach them how to do this.

So, you need to receive a (relatively small passenger cruise ship (for you and their delegation) and a large tanker with fuel.
This tanker will stay in Kuiper belt to avoid any danger for their planet.

Also explain them that SETI is a pretty bad idea, as only bad guys are always ready to answer their call. (Ask Stanley Twiddle for details.)
(If you wouldn't, this animals could shout around about your interstellar party and appeal some kind of real griefers (not you).)

Then you and they wait several months/years until both of the ships arrive.
Small ship approaches to the planet and starts self-testing before somebody can board it.
Meanwhile you can get them to the tanker (parked in the Kuiper belt) with your old ship. Of course, they agree.

You take their tourists (honourables, famous scientists, artists, i.e. all kinds of elite-schmelite) — as much as you can place inside your old ship, filling every inch of its space.
(You are going to get them just to Kuiper belt and back, so who doesn't like this, may stay home. Of course, nobody will stay.)

Once you get on board of your large "tanker", all of them get captured, frozen and placed in hybernation chambers. I guess, it's obvious.

Then you sit down in front of your video cam, skype their planet and shout: "Look! Griefers! Mua-ha-ha!" and press any key.
The small ship orbiting their planet, bursts — as if it were full of antimatter. Occasionally, it was.

You check their planet system searching for extraplanetary bases, ships, so on. Gathering the survivors, you add them to you frozen collection.

You return to your homeworld and deliver your guests (the most informed and competent representatives of their civilization) to the Zoo University, with floppy disks full of their books and movies.
Your scientists wake them one by one and study their disappeared civilization.

Meanwhile you return to the planet where their colony is placed and before the griefers can reach them, you either evacuate them to some useless desert moon and make a zoo, or make a zoo right in situ.
(Of course, don't tell them that this is your zoo, let them think this is their colony. Don't forget to tell them that griefers exploded their planet and they are the only survivors.)
Later you can take some of them and mutate into something useful for you.

So, you gain even more things at once than if you weren't met those original ship.

Edited June 17, 2016 by kerbiloid

[PB666]

1 hour ago, kerbiloid said:

It will take a wall of text to answer. Sorry.

Let them land and camp.
Burst their orbital ship. (Obviously, once the attack begins, their ship will be automatically sending maydays to their homeworld, so no p.3. is possible at all.)
Land next to their colony.

Tell them about a dreadful race of space griefers, which are hunting all the spaceships, colonies and homeworlds they meet.
Griefers were charging you, but you have happily avoided them for some time. Angered (as always), they destroyed the colonists' mothership.
Ask the colonists to help you with hiding your ship from those beasts.

Invite their leaders on board of your ship.
Co-operate with them and send a video conference to both of your homeworlds, tell about the griefer race, Make a cooperative selfie.
Connect to their homeworld and let them talk with their people in their language  Do not try to disturb them.
Phone your compatriots again and explain them, what the hell it was and who were those griefers ("We!"), and what are these strange speaking animals near your ("Meat!").
(The colonists anyway don't understand you language. Just keep smiling. Or not — if you have five-inch long teeth.)

Tell the colonists that you've spent your fuel and can't return back to your planet (it's 100 l.y. from here).
Ask them to allow you to visit their planet. As you want to please them, you can take ten of them with you — i.e. back to their planet.

Let the colony stay there. Without their ship — as griefers (i.e. you, but they don't know about that) had destroyed it.

Approach their homeworld planet, Make a contact. Let your new friends present you to their compatriots.
Meet, greet, cheer-party-dance. Tell them about the space griefers again. Exchange with books, souvenirs, movies (i.e. collect the cultural samples).

Tell them that your ship is damaged and you need a new ship to return (and to take their delegation) to your planet.
But there is a problem: your ships require much fuel, as usually you make them from asteroids. Yes, of course, you can teach them how to do this.

So, you need to receive a (relatively small passenger cruise ship (for you and their delegation) and a large tanker with fuel.
This tanker will stay in Kuiper belt to avoid any danger for their planet.

Also explain them that SETI is a pretty bad idea, as only bad guys are always ready to answer their call. (Ask Stanley Twiddle for details.)
(If you wouldn't, this animals could shout around about your interstellar party and appeal some kind of real griefers (not you).)

Then you and they wait several months/years until both of the ships arrive.
Small ship approaches to the planet and starts self-testing before somebody can board it.
Meanwhile you can get them to the tanker (parked in the Kuiper belt) with your old ship. Of course, they agree.

You take their tourists (honourables, famous scientists, artists, i.e. all kinds of elite-schmelite) — as much as you can place inside your old ship, filling every inch of its space.
(You are going to get them just to Kuiper belt and back, so who doesn't like this, may stay home. Of course, nobody will stay.)

Once you get on board of your large "tanker", all of them get captured, frozen and placed in hybernation chambers. I guess, it's obvious.

Then you sit down in front of your video cam, skype their planet and shout: "Look! Griefers! Mua-ha-ha!" and press any key.
The small ship orbiting their planet, bursts — as if it were full of antimatter. Occasionally, it was.

You check their planet system searching for extraplanetary bases, ships, so on. Gathering the survivors, you add them to you frozen collection.

You return to your homeworld and deliver your guests (the most informed and competent representatives of their civilization) to the Zoo University, with floppy disks full of their books and movies.
Your scientists wake them one by one and study their disappeared civilization.

Meanwhile you return to the planet where their colony is placed and before the griefers can reach them, you either evacuate them to some useless desert moon and make a zoo, or make a zoo right in situ.
(Of course, don't tell them that this is your zoo, let them think this is their colony. Don't forget to tell them that griefers exploded their planet and they are the only survivors.)
Later you can take some of them and mutate into something useful for you.

So, you gain even more things at once than if you weren't met those original ship.

But unfortunately they use black fusiform probes that orient themselves point first at any unknown object, they also use asteroids as probes and monitor your deception, some of these probes send a laser signal back to their home planet from deep space, once the loses are realized they reanalyze the data before your ships have a chance to reach thier homeworld, they then move resources to a colony you are not aware of. They then create and send  a cesium nuclear war head the size of a small asteroid to Earth, it denoates sterilizing all higher lifeforms on earth, they bide their time with all Earth colonies. 

Their low risk strategy is to destroy the perception of trickery, whether real or not. Their probes as stated in the OP can monitor the direction from which colony ships entered the system so that they are aware that Earth is the likely source, but they would also use your directive to uncover potential 'fiction' species in that direction just to make sure they are wiped out. 15000 years later the 'alien-form' earth and colonize it. 

Game over.

 

[kerbiloid]

42 minutes ago, PB666 said:

some of these probes send a laser signal back to their home planet from deep space

I've mentioned their signals twice, by the way. First - their "Mayday, we're under attack!", then a video conference where all are cuddling and kissing.
All what can realize their probes: we're approaching (yes, we know), something (ray? maybe) hits their ship (yes, we told about that). What a luck: greifers' ray missed us, what a pity: it hits their own ship.

47 minutes ago, PB666 said:

they then move resources to a colony you are not aware of

They can move their civilization at once? Why did they need that puny colony ship and why haven't they enslaved us before?
Of course, you're joking, don't confuse me.

But of course, you're right. After you take off, your sterilization ship would arrive and finish with potential hideaways.

49 minutes ago, PB666 said:

small asteroid to Earth, it denoates sterilizing all higher lifeforms on earth, they bide their time with all Earth colonies. 

Mmm... Oops. I thought, the Earth was our target.
Nevermind, that doesn't matter.

50 minutes ago, PB666 said:

Their low risk strategy is to destroy the perception of trickery, whether real or not.

This low risk strategy will be the most expensive one and should fail. They will run out of funds charging every stone passing by.

55 minutes ago, PB666 said:

15000 years later the 'alien-form' earth and colonize it. 

150 year later genetically modified cyborg warriors made of those colonists will return on your ship and re-colonize the remains of their homeworld in the name of your civilizations.
No 15000s would be.

[PB666]

2 hours ago, kerbiloid said:

I've mentioned their signals twice, by the way. First - their "Mayday, we're under attack!", then a video conference where all are cuddling and kissing.
All what can realize their probes: we're approaching (yes, we know), something (ray? maybe) hits their ship (yes, we told about that). What a luck: greifers' ray missed us, what a pity: it hits their own ship.

They can move their civilization at once? Why did they need that puny colony ship and why haven't they enslaved us before?
Of course, you're joking, don't confuse me.

But of course, you're right. After you take off, your sterilization ship would arrive and finish with potential hideaways.

Mmm... Oops. I thought, the Earth was our target.
Nevermind, that doesn't matter.

This low risk strategy will be the most expensive one and should fail. They will run out of funds charging every stone passing by.

150 year later genetically modified cyborg warriors made of those colonists will return on your ship and re-colonize the remains of their homeworld in the name of your civilizations.
No 15000s would be.

Cyborgs are also susceptible to radiation sickness, so .... you have to wait until the radioactivty has sufficiently decayed. 

We are playing quantum mechanics on a grand scale here, you have to imagine that Eathlings and aliens are Earthlings or aliens at the same time, with any first contact you neither know how big or small a race is or how many allies that they have other than what you see you are unaware of other defenses or offenses. To be interstellar colonizers must have master fusion energy so that also means they have mastered atomic physics, including weapons. Certainly as an Earthling you are not going to war on first contact proxima, but you might if you had 10 colonies, but as an advanced alien race why would you expose yourself when you could research the enemy covertly and find either his potential, for touchy-feely races or his weaknesses for roadkiller races. The Earthling alien contrast is simply for the sake that we are starters and the aliens are most probably not, so its an unbalanced dance. 

OK, so now you have created a counter defense strategy whereby you survive, somehow by colonizing outside of their SOI and then counterstrike, but Earth will still remain dead. 

The prospect of game theory then in space is not to alert others and gather intelligence as much as you can, only announce ones presence when neccesary. This is not neccesarily always the case, because if you had 1000 stellar colonies you could just send termination ships to this system and all the plausible Earth colony systems, but then if that were the case we would prolly already be dead, so we have to assume that whatever is out close by would give us half a chance before they eliminated us. 

Another prospect of course is the spritual species, something like the ancients in SG1 whereby they connect the sentients that can get along into a network, although the show had its logical weaknesses, they tend not to realize that parasite species are never the predominant biomass in nature. One assumes the strategy is to let species to progress and then determine if they are suitable for the network otherwise isolate them so that they can never network themselves, and hope that a compatable sentient evolves opin their system. 

I think a forward looking IS sentient is prolly more concerned  with what happens when andromeda merges with our galaxy and what will be the fate of the resulting galaxy once it has a supermassive black hole at its core. Such a forward looking sentients might be more concerned about options and want to keep networked sentients around to use whatever unique cognative talents they might have. 

The prospect might also exist that they might create a Monarch race collectively, something that has the composite features of many races but could survive for a billion years traveling to the most suitable galaxy in search of new homes as the current galaxy ages. Such a race might have a multipart lifespan that includes a single cell dormant stage capable of being frozen and regrown in a test tube for a generation before constituting a breeding form that then gives birth to a full sentient, just as a monarch goes through several life phases on its migration from mexico to canada and back. 

The flip side is if you are a race voted out of the network you might decide to take a longrange stealth existance to build up forces and attack exclusive sentient consortiums. 

For earth i think any space agency realizing that there is a four year lag (assuming no but hoping for FTL communication) in communication, would hesitate acting on partial information, no contact, no treaties, generally avoiding, seeing if resources are available. Such a space agency would have directives in place for any alien encounters. A generational fusion power ship would probaly try to hide and use resources to create probes. With three stars it would be easy to hide, and use of probes that observe and return and do not communicate except when in laser range. They might choose to colonize other objects, since planets around proxima are likely to be inhospitable, they might construct another one or two colonizer ships, then discretely leave after sending a message pribe back to Earth with all suitable info and a Silence directive. If their colony ship is too old they might retrograde all it motion so that the spent hull falls into a alpha centauri. Alternatively they could creat a ruse sending a decoy to another system and then start sending unintelligible signals, like we are angry you setlled in our territory, grandstand rattle sabers and see if they leave, try to make peace  or respond. Of course then you would have to make other decisions. 

Centauri- a is a traveling system, it will come close and then travel far away from us, it might be best to take on non-offensive strategies that inhibit an eventual attempt to reach Earth. 

[kerbiloid]

1 minute ago, PB666 said:

Cyborgs are also susceptible to radiation sickness, so .... you have to wait until the radioactivty has sufficiently decayed. 

If you serialize them in vats, they're expendables. If not — also expendables, just more expensive.

15 minutes ago, PB666 said:

with any first contact you neither know how big or small a race is or how many allies that they have other than what you see you are unaware of other defenses or offenses

As every time IRL, btw. Less range, same bet.

If they were so tough, we couldn't steal them up.
Ok, say, we lose this (battle)ship in an offensive reconnaissance action.
If their race is aggressive and widespread, such skirmish was unavoidable in any case, so we just have attacked first and probed into their defenses.
If not — we'll just apologize and tell that we had lost several ships, supposedly by an alien attack. We were afraid, we are sorry. They depict a believing, maybe take some palladium as a bribe. Ceasefire.

But if/as we have appeared to be able to take their mothership down, that means no Vorlon-style drones around.

37 minutes ago, PB666 said:

if you had 1000 stellar colonies you could just send termination ships

In turn, if they were 1000 stellars we would either already know about them, or dirty cavemen before them.
In any case, they should decide what happens when we meet. Our doings would mean nothing.
As after attacking their ship our ship is still alive, probably they're not so tough.

45 minutes ago, PB666 said:

 with what happens when andromeda merges with our galaxy and what will be the fate of the resulting galaxy once it has a supermassive black hole at its core.

I highly doubt if any significant life will survive this merge, btw.
Yes, there are large distances between stars, direct collisions would be rare.
But instead of stable spiral structure there will be a chaotic mix of gravitational fields and gas clouds.
So, star formation regions would appear here and there, giving birth to short-living giants, eliminating everybody with radiation from supernova bursts.
Not much vault places as ours would survive.

56 minutes ago, PB666 said:

A generational fusion power ship would probaly try to hide and use resources to create probes.

In original plan. Then they say:
"Hey, we still haven't met anybody in that universe. Let's not look like maniacs, this is an expeditionary ship, not a stealth ironclad. We should be happy we've found funds for this project, let's not look insane."
 

In case of Ancient Greater Ones, they would decide on their own, no matter what we do.
Being millions years old they had lost their human-like morality many millenia ago and follow their own motifs,

[PB666]

1 hour ago, kerbiloid said:

If they were so tough, we couldn't steal them up.
Ok, say, we lose this (battle)ship in an offensive reconnaissance action.
If their race is aggressive and widespread, such skirmish was unavoidable in any case, so we just have attacked first and probed into their defenses.

A rather not intelligent move, if their race is widespread then you would want tonspread in a direction away from them and aboid contact until you had adequate offenses. There are no battleships in the colonizations, just pluripotent colony ships that can berepurposed for small skirmishes. You can divert colonization to access resourses between the systems kuiper belt and oort cloud, and retrn with a battleship, but if they have noted you, they may simply start a colony on proxima prime and use the in orbit resources to do the same. 

So lets just suppose the sentient is part of a network, and they decide based on first contact behavior to caste you as a intouchable, delegated to be a single system species, basically sabatoging all future attempts to leave IS, when the great collision occurs Eathlings are doomed to be fried by local supernovae. Again you don't know their attitudes or capabilities. Or you could be a hostile race and you could end up being the equivilent of the fascist italian army during WWII, subserviant to an even more militaristic superpower, a puppet. 

 

1 hour ago, kerbiloid said:

If not — we'll just apologize and tell that we had lost several ships, supposedly by an alien attack. We were afraid, we are sorry. They depict a believing, maybe take some palladium as a bribe. Ceasefire.

and they would gladly give you increasingly radioactive ceasium in return, during these types of conflict traditionally you have to give back what you took and then some.  Since aplha-centauri is what we took, that being our first, we would have only to give Mars or some other colonized satellite, and they might just take Earth. Game over. 

You were starting to think wisely a couple post back by suggesting the building of mechanized outpost with efficient humans, why would you attack a potentially greater race before you had build up those resources and had adequate solar system defenses. Again you have to remember that proxima is right next to earth, but at one sentient per every 8000 stars or so,mthat alien species had to travel and inhabit many of 20 systems along the way, since you are not 10 stars away from earth you have to assume they traveled much more greatly, but you cannot be confident, so that any aggressive action you take can immediately endager Earth unless you have built up large numbers of colonies that can counter strike, in a mutual assurred destruction pattern. Likewise they do not know how far Earthling have traveled. 

1 hour ago, kerbiloid said:

But if/as we have appeared to be able to take their mothership down, that means no Vorlon-style drones around.

Ah but they could be building more powerfulships in the kuiper/oort region, and you,mthinking you have hands down defeated them will be quite surprised when they launch a cold-blooded  attack. Toro toro toro.

1 hour ago, kerbiloid said:

I highly doubt if any significant life will survive this merge, btw.
Yes, there are large distances between stars, direct collisions would be rare.
But instead of stable spiral structure there will be a chaotic mix of gravitational fields and gas clouds.
So, star formation regions would appear here and there, giving birth to short-living giants, eliminating everybody with radiation from supernova bursts.
Not much vault places as ours would survive.

In original plan. Then they say:
"Hey, we still haven't met anybody in that universe. Let's not look like maniacs, this is an expeditionary ship, not a stealth ironclad. We should be happy we've found funds for this project, let's not look insane."
 

In case of Ancient Greater Ones, they would decide on their own, no matter what we do.
Being millions years old they had lost their human-like morality many millenia ago and follow their own motifs,

I see that you are fatalistic, best your sentients not go into space,  the point of seeing a great clamity coming millions of years in the future is that you can plan for means of survival, either by escaping or finding pockets that will most likely survive. 

The colony ships prime directive is to find potentially resourcable material for colony building or ship duplication, not appearance to aliens. Secondary objectives would to be investigate new life. Game theory dictates the interaction, not every sentient species will survive, somewhere in there militaristic explorers might find a place, but non strategic expansion and interactions will generally be race ending. 

 

[kerbiloid]

7 hours ago, PB666 said:

There are no battleships in the colonizations, just pluripotent colony ships that can berepurposed for small skirmishes.

Such kind of things is called Armed merchantman.
And we can remember Age of Discovery which is very similar to what you describe. Most of those gentlemen used armed tradeships, not battle cruisers.
(Btw, this is one more argument why those losers had no guard&recon stealth drones, and their mothership was destroyed by a short attack).

7 hours ago, PB666 said:

So lets just suppose the sentient is part of a network, and they decide based on first contact behavior to caste you as a intouchable, delegated to be a single system species, basically sabatoging all future attempts to leave IS

Let's suppose that they in turn suppose that we're a strange and aggressive network civilization occupying a half of galaxy. A mirror assumption.

Would it be wise for them to attack us (and to infuriate the Emperor of Bulge, Edge and Magellanic Clouds, whose miserable minions we are) ? No.
So, in any case they won't doom us at once. First they try to contact us just to know exactly: what the sort of scum we are and who's our bigboss.

Or maybe we're their lost beloved siblings, frightened and trembling. Would it be wise to attack us without any courtesy? No.

Or maybe we are stupid agressive savages which they can use against their own enemies? Would it be wise for them to lose such possibility? No.

If they are a network civilization and have planet killers, that means they had already battled many times, and one battle more is not an unthinkable thing for them, just a one more cause to make acquaintance..

Also, "When a diplomat says Yes, he says Maybe. When he says Maybe, he says No, When he says No, he's not a diplomat."

Such things as interstellar war are not a one-time decision. Such things have great intertia. Nobody makes such decisions at once, automatically, after one sad incident.

7 hours ago, PB666 said:

You were starting to think wisely a couple post back by suggesting the building of mechanized outpost with efficient humans, why would you attack a potentially greater race before you had build up those resources and had adequate solar system defenses.

That's exactly what Earth nations do for many millenia. And "foe/friend" relations are being changed twice per century.
Why to treat a wise network interstellar civilization as an horde of angry goblins?

7 hours ago, PB666 said:

Ah but they could be building more powerfulships in the kuiper/oort region

1. That's why we called a large battleship to the Kuiper belt.
2. If our first ship (the one which had attacked first) has seen that their homeworld is a mighty dungeon surrounded by orbital fortresses, we'll think "Oops", say "Sorry" and ask them for peace. (See above about palladium).
Sure, a wise and great civilization which they are, will be glad to adopt miserable stupid us instead of making a war.

7 hours ago, PB666 said:

I see that you are fatalistic, best your sentients not go into space,

When I was a pupil and invented space battleships, my yachts looked like dreadnoughts.
Later I've understood that things are much simpler.

Btw. According to numerous "UFO feat. Airforce" descriptions, usually they greet unknown spaceships with a burst of gunfire, and they in turn answer with electromagnetic impulse. Yet nobody dies, more or less.
Dunno, are some of these stories true (I don't have some definite opinion on this question), but this vividly demonstrates that my suggestion is a normal, commonly accepted way to offer to each other.
While the way you describe a wise interstellar civilization looks like a train made of cars welded together, instead of tractive connections.

Edited June 18, 2016 by kerbiloid

[PB666]

7 hours ago, kerbiloid said:

Such kind of things is called Armed merchantman.
And we can remember Age of Discovery which is very similar to what you describe. Most of those gentlemen used armed tradeships, not battle cruisers.

I don't recall the Mayflower, Pinto, or Santa Marie being significantly armed. We are after all talking about colonization ships not merchant ships, so thats sort of altering the game. You would not have merchant ships in an area before there were merchants so i would toss this supposition out as being irrelevant. During the period following initial colonization the Spanish had armed patrol ships that traveled the gulf coast and Florida looking for interloping colonist, like the French, but that is only because they had spies within other countries that let on to these activities. Pirates also became a big a couple if hundred years after American colonization. During the pacific age of colonization along the Northern Pacific there was a notice of wife stealing where men of certain Native American tribes  travel great distances to steal wives.

Large weapons represent mass, which lowers the ultimately the interstellar speed and the number of humans or aliens that can be taken, genetic diversity is more important than arms. I dont recall that Apollo spacecraft were armed, nor any of the Mars landers, so .......you are going to have tio keep that argument. 

Quote

Let's suppose that they in turn suppose that we're a strange and aggressive network civilization occupying a half of galaxy. A mirror assumption.

You mean like the Grox. I defeated the grox. I basically 'cesium' bombed 10000 star systems with a single ship, fantasy of course. The grox are very elusive until you enter one of there occupied planets, remember you have to search to find them. Aside from that if they were strange and aggressive you would already know before you left, probably, and second they would not be using colony ships, they would have military outpost ships, or you would see mining ships that were armed. Again, this is where stopping before entering a system, harvesting materials from protocomets and building probes is advantageous, properly designed probes would note the design of ships and observe intent while being so small as to be much harder to detect. An intelligent being would already surmise whether you are passive colonist or militaristic before engaging in an encounter as i said they would use probes to gather information. By the time they set you into a caste the odds that you would be such a race would be low risk to them. Anyway in the attempt to isolate your system they would soon find out.

I can give you some examples, you next colony ship is pushed off-course by some mysterious force and wanders through Interstellar space like the Botony Bay, never to intercept a colonizable system. There is a sudden unexpected overheating in a large number of fusion reactors that suddenly causes them to explode during you deceleration causing the ship to barrel strait through the destination system again into the void of IS space. There are stealthy ways to make you think IS colonization is two risky. The Network could even remotely trigger WWIII on your home planet sending the population back warring period for such a long period such that easy fossil fuels are depleted. So you don't exactly have to see that the Network is doing anything, just that after a fractious encounter your space ambitions suddenly become immensely harder.

Quote

So, in any case they won't doom us at once. First they try to contact us just to know exactly: what the sort of scum we are and who's our big-boss.

They would not doom you at once or hardly at all, they would tie your shoe laces together while you were in red-faced warrior mode and watch you stumble about and falter,musing the IS equivalent wording to sophomoric.

Quote

Or maybe we're their lost beloved siblings, frightened and trembling. Would it be wise to attack us without any courtesy? No.

Attack, no cripple, ensnare, put a few ballast stones, etc. You have to keep in mind that individuals in a network would only use the atomic option with an agreement by all, otherwise they become recognized as impulsive, just as you have been recognized as impulsive, because then you would be considered to have an innate threatening behavior. They would use a policy like containment, which has been applied to Cuba, N. Korea, Syria, Iran. If you were recognized as this kind of civilization then that's how they would prolly deal with you. 

Quote

Or maybe we are stupid aggressive savages which they can use against their own enemies? Would it be wise for them to lose such possibility? No.

They simply contain you to a single system, at least until they are ready to expose their might to you and negotiate with you.  More than likely you would become mercenaries drafted individually like the Romans did when they captured slaves.

Quote

If they are a network civilization and have planet killers, that means they had already battled many times, and one battle more is not an unthinkable thing for them, just a one more cause to make acquaintance..

Unfortunately, planet sterilization is the maximum that network councils will allow, blasting the surface off of a home planet is not allowed without full consent of the council and generally done for multi system pests that are aggressive existential threats. Single system species are simply sterilized or contained, again if you are a Network. Single species are free to wipe other species out, but networks will simply contain demonstrating to others in the network there generally non aggressive intentions. Most networks work relatively quick once a pest is identified to ascertain the extent of his colonization with sets of probes to all the potential home-worlds and then works to determine the best strategy for containment or extermination. Generally extermination of nascent colonies will be require after neutralization of the communication network. They tend to use covert attacks, nudging asteroids off course, severing fuel lines by infrared lasers, this type of thing.  Of course if the sentient is developed enough and they are faced with overtly attacking more than one terraformed planet, they would call in captured/implanted cyborg diplomatic contingent to try to negotiate a nonaggression pact. 

Quote

Also, "When a diplomat says Yes, he says Maybe. When he says Maybe, he says No, When he says No, he's not a diplomat."

Such things as interstellar war are not a one-time decision. Such things have great inertia. Nobody makes such decisions at once, automatically, after one sad incident.

That's exactly what Earth nations do for many millennia. And "foe/friend" relations are being changed twice per century.
Why to treat a wise network interstellar civilization as an horde of angry goblins?

Yes and on Earth how many nations no longer exist, where are the Spanish  Moors? Tierra del Fuegans, do the Karankua have a tribal headquarters? Does anyone remember the La Salle colony, how about  Jamestown. Whatever happened to the Vinelanders?  Greenland 'Norse'.  Dorset culture. Homo florensiensis, 99.999% of the Neanderthals. Did imperial Germany negotiate in the end, or did a 'your it' general capitulate to the allies. The Tojo era Japanese tried to negotiate, IIRC, it was not an unconditional surrender. You see where your line of thought goes? If you are considered a pest organization they may opt to simply ignore your pleas for 'mea cupla' diplomacy.

Sometimes 'No' means 'No more you'. This is game theory, you/they have choices to explore or make first contact, to send diplomats. As the saying goes, do you throw pearls to pigs? The decision has to be researched and studied to determine if a culture is worthy of a formal contact, and only thereafter would a great network or more advances single sentient system make contact and send diplomats. If they find your culture to impulsive, exhibiting many fatalistic tendencies they probably would elect to see if there were progressive elements therein to deal with, or chose to work covertly to contain your activities. 

Therefore as a player, you have to realize that you cannot force a civilization to make first contact, but you can compel them to by making offerings to communicate and show them your level of social sophistication. Then you will have to wait. There is a point that many contacts, they or you will want to reach out, knowing that they are aware of you so sidestepping the contact issue can no longer be done.

Quote

1. That's why we called a large battleship to the Kuiper belt.
2. If our first ship (the one which had attacked first) has seen that their homeworld is a mighty dungeon surrounded by orbital fortresses, we'll think "Oops", say "Sorry" and ask them for peace. (See above about palladium).
Sure, a wise and great civilization which they are, will be glad to adopt miserable stupid us instead of making a war.

Dungeon fortresses are not immune to a series of atomic weapons or antimatter bombs. Don't forget there is a lag of several years between what happens on a colony and word reaching a home-world, so you would not be able to create a dungeon planet with such a small lead time. If you were a well developed hostile then they would already be aware of your capabilities when you attacked their colony the first time, and they would be doing even more research and developing a star map of all your colonies, if you appeared to have premeditated and unprovoked attack strategy, then one day simultaneously on all world a series of weapons would begin a process of detonation followed by a final antimatter like weapon that sends a 100g pulse waves through you planets. Its the loss of valuable space resources, but they will try to salvage what they can, but you are out of their way. 

Quote

When I was a pupil and invented space battleships, my yachts looked like dreadnoughts.
Later I've understood that things are much simpler.

Were Columbus and Magellan's ships battleships? When i was playing spore if i was unprovoked attacked while traveling between systems, I simply sterilized the planets that attacked me, but if they did not attack they became my trading partners, unless they were to impulsive. The Grox got the volcanoes of comet strikes, i would capture their home-world colonies at the center, trophy piece. Sometimes, if a hostile paid a high price for items i would keep them around, but generally speaking only as long as it took to buy them all out or blast them away. 

There is strength in good trading partnerships and economics, Networks may be key optimal local exploitation of space given the great distances. This is because managing things cooperatively fro a great distance is hard, so fre standing management strategies which operate through cooperative trade agreement and defense strategies works best. If we look at the British empire or Soviet Union, either of which can be considered as stable centralized nearly global organizations. Stable but not for long, and eventually both succumb to more efficient competition. The crippling problem with soviets was autocratic central government lacked incentives for modernization and productivity improvements. The British empire extracted too much from the colonies and inefficiently distributed resources. These centralized  have been replaced by cooperative trade agreements, commonwealths, UN, and treaty organizations. 

Edited June 18, 2016 by PB666

[magnemoe]

6 hours ago, PB666 said:

I don't recall the Mayflower, Pinto, or Santa Marie being significantly armed. We are after all talking about colonization ships not merchant ships, so thats sort of altering the game. You would not have merchant ships in an area before there were merchants so i would toss this supposition out as being irrelevant. During the period following initial colonization the Spanish had armed patrol ships that traveled the gulf coast and Florida looking for interloping colonist, like the French, but that is only because they had spies within other countries that let on to these activities. Pirates also became a big a couple if hundred years after American colonization. During the pacific age of colonization along the Northern Pacific there was a notice of wife stealing where men of certain Native American tribes  travel great distances to steal wives.

Large weapons represent mass, which lowers the ultimately the interstellar speed and the number of humans or aliens that can be taken, genetic diversity is more important than arms. I dont recall that Apollo spacecraft were armed, nor any of the Mars landers, so .......you are going to have tio keep that argument. 

You mean like the Grox. I defeated the grox. I basically 'cesium' bombed 10000 star systems with a single ship, fantasy of course. The grox are very elusive until you enter one of there occupied planets, remember you have to search to find them. Aside from that if they were strange and aggressive you would already know before you left, probably, and second they would not be using colony ships, they would have military outpost ships, or you would see mining ships that were armed. Again, this is where stopping before entering a system, harvesting materials from protocomets and building probes is advantageous, properly designed probes would note the design of ships and observe intent while being so small as to be much harder to detect. An intelligent being would already surmise whether you are passive colonist or militaristic before engaging in an encounter as i said they would use probes to gather information. By the time they set you into a caste the odds that you would be such a race would be low risk to them. Anyway in the attempt to isolate your system they would soon find out.

I can give you some examples, you next colony ship is pushed off-course by some mysterious force and wanders through Interstellar space like the Botony Bay, never to intercept a colonizable system. There is a sudden unexpected overheating in a large number of fusion reactors that suddenly causes them to explode during you deceleration causing the ship to barrel strait through the destination system again into the void of IS space. There are stealthy ways to make you think IS colonization is two risky. The Network could even remotely trigger WWIII on your home planet sending the population back warring period for such a long period such that easy fossil fuels are depleted. So you don't exactly have to see that the Network is doing anything, just that after a fractious encounter your space ambitions suddenly become immensely harder.

They would not doom you at once or hardly at all, they would tie your shoe laces together while you were in red-faced warrior mode and watch you stumble about and falter,musing the IS equivalent wording to sophomoric.

Attack, no cripple, ensnare, put a few ballast stones, etc. You have to keep in mind that individuals in a network would only use the atomic option with an agreement by all, otherwise they become recognized as impulsive, just as you have been recognized as impulsive, because then you would be considered to have an innate threatening behavior. They would use a policy like containment, which has been applied to Cuba, N. Korea, Syria, Iran. If you were recognized as this kind of civilization then that's how they would prolly deal with you. 

They simply contain you to a single system, at least until they are ready to expose their might to you and negotiate with you.  More than likely you would become mercenaries drafted individually like the Romans did when they captured slaves.

Unfortunately, planet sterilization is the maximum that network councils will allow, blasting the surface off of a home planet is not allowed without full consent of the council and generally done for multi system pests that are aggressive existential threats. Single system species are simply sterilized or contained, again if you are a Network. Single species are free to wipe other species out, but networks will simply contain demonstrating to others in the network there generally non aggressive intentions. Most networks work relatively quick once a pest is identified to ascertain the extent of his colonization with sets of probes to all the potential home-worlds and then works to determine the best strategy for containment or extermination. Generally extermination of nascent colonies will be require after neutralization of the communication network. They tend to use covert attacks, nudging asteroids off course, severing fuel lines by infrared lasers, this type of thing.  Of course if the sentient is developed enough and they are faced with overtly attacking more than one terraformed planet, they would call in captured/implanted cyborg diplomatic contingent to try to negotiate a nonaggression pact. 

Yes and on Earth how many nations no longer exist, where are the Spanish  Moors? Tierra del Fuegans, do the Karankua have a tribal headquarters? Does anyone remember the La Salle colony, how about  Jamestown. Whatever happened to the Vinelanders?  Greenland 'Norse'.  Dorset culture. Homo florensiensis, 99.999% of the Neanderthals. Did imperial Germany negotiate in the end, or did a 'your it' general capitulate to the allies. The Tojo era Japanese tried to negotiate, IIRC, it was not an unconditional surrender. You see where your line of thought goes? If you are considered a pest organization they may opt to simply ignore your pleas for 'mea cupla' diplomacy.

Sometimes 'No' means 'No more you'. This is game theory, you/they have choices to explore or make first contact, to send diplomats. As the saying goes, do you throw pearls to pigs? The decision has to be researched and studied to determine if a culture is worthy of a formal contact, and only thereafter would a great network or more advances single sentient system make contact and send diplomats. If they find your culture to impulsive, exhibiting many fatalistic tendencies they probably would elect to see if there were progressive elements therein to deal with, or chose to work covertly to contain your activities. 

Therefore as a player, you have to realize that you cannot force a civilization to make first contact, but you can compel them to by making offerings to communicate and show them your level of social sophistication. Then you will have to wait. There is a point that many contacts, they or you will want to reach out, knowing that they are aware of you so sidestepping the contact issue can no longer be done.

Dungeon fortresses are not immune to a series of atomic weapons or antimatter bombs. Don't forget there is a lag of several years between what happens on a colony and word reaching a home-world, so you would not be able to create a dungeon planet with such a small lead time. If you were a well developed hostile then they would already be aware of your capabilities when you attacked their colony the first time, and they would be doing even more research and developing a star map of all your colonies, if you appeared to have premeditated and unprovoked attack strategy, then one day simultaneously on all world a series of weapons would begin a process of detonation followed by a final antimatter like weapon that sends a 100g pulse waves through you planets. Its the loss of valuable space resources, but they will try to salvage what they can, but you are out of their way. 

Were Columbus and Magellan's ships battleships? When i was playing spore if i was unprovoked attacked while traveling between systems, I simply sterilized the planets that attacked me, but if they did not attack they became my trading partners, unless they were to impulsive. The Grox got the volcanoes of comet strikes, i would capture their home-world colonies at the center, trophy piece. Sometimes, if a hostile paid a high price for items i would keep them around, but generally speaking only as long as it took to buy them all out or blast them away. 

There is strength in good trading partnerships and economics, Networks may be key optimal local exploitation of space given the great distances. This is because managing things cooperatively fro a great distance is hard, so fre standing management strategies which operate through cooperative trade agreement and defense strategies works best. If we look at the British empire or Soviet Union, either of which can be considered as stable centralized nearly global organizations. Stable but not for long, and eventually both succumb to more efficient competition. The crippling problem with soviets was autocratic central government lacked incentives for modernization and productivity improvements. The British empire extracted too much from the colonies and inefficiently distributed resources. These centralized  have been replaced by cooperative trade agreements, commonwealths, UN, and treaty organizations. 

Santa Marie and the other exploration ships was pretty small this made them easier to handle, they had large ships at that time too, however they was only used for bulk trade on established routes, not something you would explore with, think a 2-300kt ship today, they also had real warships with multiple gun decks used for large scale war. 
In the 15-18th century merchants on long voyages was armed, guns on deck and perhaps some on an lower deck too, at this time it was easy to build an small warship and pirates had them, privateers was also common. 
Piracy today is not an issue, even at the worst most ships did not bother increasing speed, this would make an intercept in open sea very by small boat very hard as it would cost to much fuel. Cruise ships and container ships with expensive and critical cargo uses armed guards. 

Interstellar war demand some technology level from both parts, earth today would not do much better than we could 10.000 years ago, you simply kill them or take over. Overkill is using stealth planes against someone without radar
You need serious space pressenes to do interstellar colonization else you are not an player but an victim here, at bit later and a planet killer end of killing the majority of the population wile leaving most of the industrial capacity intact so you need to invade their solar system.
Else its likely the survivors in space will go very postal against you so you have to invade, you want to anyway good planets looks rare so you don't want to destroy them.
Note that establishing an base on an planet with an primitive civilization would be far easier than one with wilderness. 

Agree in not being seen as an pest. Also note that most wars on Earth are limited wars, your aim is not to destroy the other side but to make them agree with you. This allows diplomacy all the way. Total war is rare, mostly happens then the other side is an idiot fanatic or the power diference is so large you can just as well take them over as under lot of the colonization. 

 

[kerbiloid]

On 18.06.2016 at 2:40 PM, PB666 said:

I can give you some examples, you next colony ship is pushed off-course by some mysterious force

If they can do this, our first ship will surely know this very soon, before this happens.
Then of course, instead of call for bombardment support, it will be an ambassdor of good will, establishing respectful and benevolent relations with our great and noble neighbor.

On 18.06.2016 at 2:40 PM, PB666 said:

They simply contain you to a single system

See above again.

Also no wise civ should make a total war after one occasional sad incident, especially when their own colony ship maybe had tresspassed private property and faced the fire.
That's why it survived long before it had became a space civ.

On 18.06.2016 at 2:40 PM, PB666 said:

Unfortunately, planet sterilization is the maximum that network councils will allow, blasting the surface off of a home planet is not allowed without full consent of the council and generally done for multi system pests that are aggressive existential threats. Single system species are simply sterilized or contained, again if you are a Network.

You describe some kind of cruel and blood thirsting space maniacs, not a network interstellar civilization.
If they were so psychopatic, they would gorge themselves long ago.

In any case, if they are such kind of beasts, they should attack in any case. So, not much difference, who started first.

On 18.06.2016 at 2:40 PM, PB666 said:

Yes and on Earth how many nations no longer exist

Indeed — how many? Not so many, I guess. Most of their descendants are now a part of nowaday nations. As also their conquerors are. No nation exists unchanged longer than a millenium.

On 18.06.2016 at 2:40 PM, PB666 said:

Yes and on Earth how many nations no longer exist, where are the Spanish  Moors? Tierra del Fuegans, do the Karankua have a tribal headquarters? Does anyone remember the La Salle colony, how about  Jamestown. Whatever happened to the Vinelanders?  Greenland 'Norse'.  Dorset culture. Homo florensiensis, 99.999% of the Neanderthals. Did imperial Germany negotiate in the end, or did a 'your it' general capitulate to the allies. The Tojo era Japanese tried to negotiate,

Moors — Spain (assimilated), Northern Africa (Tunis, Algeria).
Greenland was stagnated and has been abandoned by people able to work, not conquered.
Floriensis' afaik were not a separated race or species, but just an ill and highly deteriorated local area population, having big intellectual problems, predictably extincted.
Germans still live in Germany and many other countries, if I remember right.
All other examples, you've listed, describe small groups of people, not very sofisticated in technologies and medicine, highly dependant on any disaster or casualties.
In most cases more or less numerous conquered peoples were not eliminated, but assimilated.

On 18.06.2016 at 2:40 PM, PB666 said:

This is game theory, you/they have choices to explore or make first contact, to send diplomats. As the saying goes, do you throw pearls to pigs? The decision has to be researched and studied to determine if a culture is worthy of a formal contact, and only thereafter would a great network or more advances single sentient system make contact and send diplomats

A game theory tells me that when you had killed a mosquito, with > 0% probability it was not just a mosquito, but Envoy Extraordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary of Intergalactic Network Confederation.
And you can't prove that it wasn't. You just have decided: it probably was just a mosquito, they shouldn't probably make a revenge.
What an arrogant and reckless act. What if we're surrounded by a network civilization of the mosquito's masters? You put at risk all of us, it's a shame.

On 18.06.2016 at 2:40 PM, PB666 said:

Dungeon fortresses are not immune to a series of atomic weapons or antimatter bombs

You suggest to attack their fortresses with antimatter bombs? No, thatks. Clairvoyant people prefer to soften up sharp corners, and a tragically lost ship is not a reasonable price for a galactic war.

On 18.06.2016 at 2:40 PM, PB666 said:

if you appeared to have premeditated and unprovoked attack strategy,

Unprovoked? Why this conclusion?
Their ship entered some area presumably no one's, but faced a fire, What if it was an act of self-defense, and we're are a nice and peaceful civilization? (We are).
When you get into an abandoned house you would be ready that it's not as abandoned as looks.

On 18.06.2016 at 2:40 PM, PB666 said:

When i was playing spore if i was unprovoked attacked while traveling between systems, I simply sterilized the planets that attacked me,

You were playing with fire. Because the first network civilization (as you describe them) would eliminate any organic molecule in your homeworld.

Edited June 19, 2016 by kerbiloid

[PB666]

29 minutes ago, kerbiloid said:

If they can do this, our first ship will surely know this very soon, before this happens.
Then of course, instead of call for bombardment support, it will be an ambassdor of good will, establishing respectful and benevolent relations with our great and noble neighbor.

Well second ship, the Network allows you to behave as you naturally would before first contact, after this they would take appropriate action against further ship. It is true the aggresor race would eventually figure out they wer subsequently being sabatoged, but then by that time patrol ships from every part of the network would have high powered space telescopes and patrol ships patriolling, and the politicians would be crying blood trying tobfigure out why your reformed gestures of good intentions were not getting a reponse. After studying you race for a very long period of time they would eventually send a holograph, much like the defense system around magrathea, to inform you of your violation and consequences. Future attempts to leave the system would catch a warning message followed by disabling of the ship propulsion system. Space is big and empty and lots of places for drones to hide. 

29 minutes ago, kerbiloid said:

 No wise civ should make a total war after one occasional sad incident, especially when their own colony ship maybe had tresspassed private property and faced the fire.
That's why it survived long before it had became a space civ.

But they would seek some type of atonement, such as the proposition that allowed them to place an observatory colony in your system, such as on you moon as to keep eyes on what you are doing, and youbwould be on probation, limited to probes and colonization of faint dwarfs and brown dwarves that are considered to have in adequate resources for you to venture further. In addition they would avoid direct contact with you, but would have thoroughly sample human DNA from the ships they disabled that went dark. 

29 minutes ago, kerbiloid said:

You describe some kind of cruel and blood thirsting space maniacs, not a network interstellar civilization.
If they were so psychopatic, they would gorge themselves long ago.

Careful, beaurocratic and methodical, like the Vogons, but at least your probation does not require the reading of poetry.  Bloodthirsty revengeful would be the sinple destruction of all anthropoids allowing for some other sentient to evolve. The universe is big, the loss of one sentient is harmful, but tolerable within the network as long as it keeps expanding.

29 minutes ago, kerbiloid said:

Not so many, I guess. Most of their descendants are now a part of nowaday nations. As also their conquerors are. No nation exists unchanged longer than a millenium.

True. But now they are tapping into your networks and history and looking at violent historic episodes, for example people who say the united nations is bad even though it has helped prevent thevtypes on conflict seen during a long period prior. What they realize that when pushed the population realizes their folly, but in a couple of generations they forget, noting that the default nature is that of eight year old boys. Observing the attack on pearl harbor and the second Iraq war and noting what you did to their colony they realize that you frequently attack out of ignorance, a definite drawback for being an interstellar sentient.

They would also note the enduring religious conflicts based on their point of view false gods. From there they would decide that you need more evolution to become stable and so they simply isolate you as you work these violent issues out for yourselves. So by attacking them first and not trying to negotiate or place the olive branch forst you opened yor past behaviors to closer inspection.

Btw, you ignore the possibilty that their perception of their own social evolution is as violent as ours, if it was not they might consider your sentient aboriginal, either out of their ignorance of you or their own past. How long has it taken to restore aboriginal rights on Earth? 

29 minutes ago, kerbiloid said:

A game theory tells me that when you had killed a mosquito, with > 0% probability it was not just a mosquito, but Envoy Extraordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary of Intergalactic Network Confederation.

Oh they would study the issue first, for great certainty send out probes, that is the reason that in stealth, in the beggining of the isolation they would ever-so- slightly interfere with your space missions, making them fail by the smallest of margins, knowing that you are largely ignorant of the perils of deep space exploration, you would be confused for some time. If they found iit to be true that you we a member of a confederation, they would start building up defenses and making sure that there was little exploration of stars systems in a neutral zone were each side only had probes. If you came from a network that later they found a non-hostile situation, then they would send an ambassador to the interested third party and see if it could be worked out peacefully for the greater good. The acts they take against you would be stealthy and plausibly deniable to your network. There is no 'No answer' , just more or less productive answers. There is a risk that a negative behavior results in you extinction, and the is a risk that your positive behavior also. One way to minimize either is to avoid contact until it cannot be avoided any longer. 

29 minutes ago, kerbiloid said:

When you get into an abandoned house you would be ready that it's not as abandoned as looks.

Earth is a tiny isolated blue marble isn't it; how difficult would it be for them to say increase the rate of melting every season in antarctic by 10 fold or even 10%. Of course with global warming a comet redirect mission for several very large comets loaded with CO2. In addition. Without even destroying earth, you put the population in utter chaos relatively easily. Why put your pouplation at risk with each alien encounter, it is better to grow colonies and not encounter at the risk of losing a colony prospect every now and then tonstart blasting at competitors out of ignorance. The could redirect heavy elements from deep space into the dark side of the sun that increase output by even 10%, not for long, say for just a few thousand years. Things like pufying dueterium litium  from hydrogen in comets and then zeroing out their velocity relative tonthe sun at say neptunes orbit. At L1 they could have a fresnel fabric that redirects sunlight from just outside earth-sun line sight into the atmosphere, just 10% more. 

 

 

[wumpus]

This basically assumes that an interstellar travelling civilization wouldn't mistake us for roaches infesting an otherwise livable planet.  The idea of trade, knowledge, or pretty much anything else we could do for such beings is fairly laughable.  My guess is that that an "invasion" would involve a single probe dropping by a few millenia before they planed on showing up, dropping life forms designed to terraform the planet.  If we somehow survivved *that*, they might at least consider talking to us, but don't count on it.

If you don't want to think of us as roaches, consider the whales of the nineteenth century.  Of course the whalers weren't *trying* to kill all the whales (with the possible exception of press-ganged slaves who figured it would at least get them back to shore), but it would be a similar situation.

One problem with movies like "Independence Day" was that a "space war" had already been on moments notice for decades, ready and able to kill most of humanity in under 30 minutes.  Nevermind how dangerous an interstellar civilization would be, it couldn't correctly model the menence that humanity is to itself (which *still* appeared to be an optimal solution to game theory, in a nod back to the thread).

[kerbiloid]

10 hours ago, PB666 said:

But they would seek some type of atonement, such as the proposition that allowed them to place an observatory colony in your system, such as on you moon as to keep eyes on what you are doing

If they were so tough, they would do this without our permission. So, in any case we could just say: "Welcome, our friends! Be our guests!"

10 hours ago, PB666 said:

Careful, beaurocratic and methodical, like the Vogons

, would never send a standalone colony ship into an unknown area with a possibility to conflict with another careful, beaurocratic and methodical system.

At least because once the ship leaves the colonized area, it leaves the beaurocracy control. It's absolutely inappropriate.
So, before you can really attack a Vogon colony ship, you should many times meet their land surveyours and administrative comissions and receive tons of notifications and thousand times put your sign in their acknowledgement log.
That's what the beaurocracy is: preventing unpredictable events.
That's why the mosquito was just a mosquito. If it were the Envoy Extraordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary of Intergalactic Network Confederation (I just like how this sounds, so repeated again) you would know.
That's why a general director usualy doesn't make phone calls himself, but tells to a secretary.

So, you will exactly know, whose that ship and of course avoid any misconception.
Vogons aren't so passionate to jump into the Unknown. Until something effects their beaurocratic procedures, they won't hurry up. An unknown planet far from their empire — definitely doesn't.

If a civilization sends a ship just as is, it already takes into account the risk of somebody borders violation. That means, they are ready to take it easy if they suddenly lose one.

10 hours ago, PB666 said:

but in a couple of generations they forget

Forget? Vogons? This is a joke of year.

10 hours ago, PB666 said:

if it was not they might consider your sentient aboriginal, either out of their ignorance of you or their own past

Some rats can like humans, some rats can hate. But this means nothing when the human puts a rat posion to where they live.
Also there are many wild and dangerous animals, but humans don't eliminate them. For example, our cavemen ancestors would look at us like at cretins if we tell them that we protect bears and leopard from our fellow tribesmen.

So, if this civ is so highly advanced, that treats us as animals, it's totally on their own if they will make a reservation area.
Are we aggressive or no would mean nothing. Are we cute — that decides. Humans tear and gorge harmless sheeps, but keep and protect bloodthirsty tigers.

10 hours ago, PB666 said:

Earth is a tiny isolated blue marble isn't it; how difficult would it be for them to say increase the rate of melting every season in antarctic by 10 fold or even 10%.

Again, an impression appears that you are writing a screenplay for The Saw, rather than describing a sentient, adequate and dull persons.

Edited June 20, 2016 by kerbiloid

[PB666]

Is there anyone else that has a stategy for exploration contact other than ?

1. Try to shag the first alien we see without investigating their potency. 2. create excuse why we would prosper after a losing encounter with a superior sentient force?