First contact protocol for fictional aliens...

[Spacescifi]

 

I seriously do not think any civilized race should be lacking this, especially if meeting new lower tech races and exploring is what they do.

There are a number of tasks I think should be undertaken.

1. Introduction. If you have come in peace, there are ways to at least demonstrate it, even if the natives do not understand you yet. Leave a few gifts you think they could use that are fairly harmless perhaps? A flashlight that will run for years? A computer that will do the same? Assuming they use such things. A camera with petabytes of memory?

2. Overcome the language barrier ASP. The fastest way to do this is to live among the locals, so send some intrepid courageous crewnen and let them live among the locals for six months or perhaps a year or two. Allow for some losses of crew and be prepared to accept that as the cost of communication. 

Afterward let said crew instruct a universal translator AI, so that anyone with it can now understand the natives with the UT.

3. Decide whether or not to uplift the natives. Whether a scifi race does or not depends a lot on their values and goals. For example, a race used to dealing with monolithic scifi cultures my find the political quagmire that is Earth too much. Especially if they already know of other monolithic cultures.

 

That's my two cents, what do you have to say on this?

 

Edited July 16, 2019 by Spacescifi
Edit

[magnemoe]

I would prefer to do 2 first, get their language with spy probes. Also give an idea of their culture, if they believe demons ride dragons and come unexpected from the sky an dramatic landing during some major event in their capital might go badly. Yes you pull out but having to overheat the close in weapon systems against an crowd is not an nice first contact

Second would be contact and obviously some gift, some understanding of them helps here to. 

Then you want to mingle to get more details, also lots of shots to send home.

 

[Spacescifi]

8 minutes ago, magnemoe said:

I would prefer to do 2 first, get their language with spy probes. Also give an idea of their culture, if they believe demons ride dragons and come unexpected from the sky an dramatic landing during some major event in their capital might go badly. Yes you pull out but having to overheat the close in weapon systems against an crowd is not an nice first contact

Second would be contact and obviously some gift, some understanding of them helps here to. 

Then you want to mingle to get more details, also lots of shots to send home.

 

 

Depends on how hard it is to SSTO, since lets not kid ourselves, to get crew back and up with ease you need that capability.

No matter whether you send a gift or a crew, SOMETHING is coming outta the sky LOL.

[Guest]

How are you making first contact? 

An uber advanced civilisation would likely be able to determine all sorts of details about the other covertly. The larger the technological differences between one and the other, the more information could be found out about the lesser advanced one without their knowledge. 

So how I’d proceed is assess the state of their technological advancement by passive remote means, if it is deemed safe to proceed undetected launch covert information gathering probes  to determine details about their societies. Then, armed with intimate knowledge of their culture and psychology, if they are deemed safe to contact. Make contact, mentioning of course that “we have been watching your people with interest (owing to out uber advanced technology) and have chosen to introduce ourselves in friendship ^_^”. 

Or whatever appropriate introduction would get the most favourable reception. You already know a heap about them of course so could estimate this stuff. If they are a people that would react violently to being covertly studied then maybe you proceed differently if at all. 

If they are a violent people who are a danger to themselves and others you could start covertly engineering their development to either push them in a good direction or ensure they don’t expand beyond their planet. The ethics of that aside it’s quite possible through a campaign of financial and political influence to keep them down. Promoting internal wars is one way. You could turn their world into a bucket full of crabs. Whenever one gets close to climbing out the other crabs will pull him back down and ensure none get out.

however if you are in a community of other advanced races, you have to be aware of how others will view your course of action. You could become seen as an amoral, dangerous people in your own right by your peers.

Edited July 16, 2019 by Guest

[magnemoe]

1 minute ago, Spacescifi said:

 

Depends on how hard it is to SSTO, since lets not kid ourselves, to get crew back and up with ease you need that capability.

No matter whether you send a gift or a crew, SOMETHING is coming outta the sky LOL.

You could inject small drones stealthy way easier than people. Think something insect sized. 

[Guest]

1 minute ago, magnemoe said:

You could inject small drones stealthy way easier than people. Think something insect sized. 

They could even be indistinguishable from a native insect. Down to being able to decompose away when finished its mission

[Spacescifi]

57 minutes ago, magnemoe said:

You could inject small drones stealthy way easier than people. Think something insect sized. 

True.

 

54 minutes ago, Dale Christopher said:

They could even be indistinguishable from a native insect. Down to being able to decompose away when finished its mission

Is it not sad how obvious uses of superior technology ruin the premise of many a scifi franchise?

In other words, instead of boldly going in person like Captain Kirk or Archer, the aliens would just orbit and send in a probe for reentry that  blows itself up, but not before dropping a bunch of cyborg insects and a info pod for them.

Cyborg because unlike normal insects, they have been bioengineered to reproduce and RETAIN basic tech that allows them to record information in cellular form.

Even today it is known that cells can hold a tremendous amount of information longer than digital storage. It can even be converted to digital format! So all the insects to 'save' what they see and hear around the natives for a few years. Then you can arrive knowing far more about the natives than they would like.

I actually prefer this to aliens just arriving and by some miracle tech automatically knowing the language like Zod.

 

 

Edited July 16, 2019 by Spacescifi
Probe

[kerbiloid]

Depends on whose civ is higher.
If theirs, they will familiarize you with their contact protocol, independently of your desire.

If a terrestrial research ship has arrived to someone other's planet, then just follow the standard contact protocol.

1. Watch their TV: language lessons, comedies, and soap operas. Maybe you won't want to have a deal with them after this at all.
2. Watch their political TV shows. This informs you what to not take too seriously.

3. Uplift the natives. (Look, it's also p.3. in the OP list!).

Better take a scout leader from a summer camp, right from the scout group.

• Nobody will believe that aliens kidnapped him. Everybody will be sure he's AWOL, and the scouts are lying. Also nobody really needs him, especially the scouts. So, you gain some time gap.
• Has an experience of communication with strange and intellectually challenged lifeforms, and probably knows the gestures language (maybe their speech is indistinct, while you can emulate their limbs with fingers).
• The scouts, who have just seen an alien ship kidnapping the teacher, and wounded by the others' distrust, are your potential allies.

4. Interrogate him.
5. Hide the body/Give the gifts. (Depending on its communication abilities / cooperative strategy).

6. Put a tradepost, launch an advertising campaign. Hit the troops if required.

if 6 doesn't work,
7. Burn the crops. Start feeding the cities.

P.S.
If you think p.7 is excessive, it isn't. You will anyway be guilty in every mosquito bite for 90% of locals.
So, if they don't want p.6, then p.7. won't make it worse.
Remember, they call "cities" the places where p.6. is already successfully working for centuries.

Edited July 16, 2019 by kerbiloid

[Scotius]

We already have foundations of First Contact Protocol in place: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uncontacted_peoples

At least for hunter-gatherer level societies.

It sums up to: "Leave them alone. Watch from distance." Or more succintly: "eyes-on and hands-off".

As for more advanced, interstellar visitors? I have sneaking suspicion bigger militaries have more than a couple copies of those lying around

[WinkAllKerb'']

this also:

http://www.unoosa.org/

[cubinator]

1. "Hello there!"

2. Profit

[ARS]

Depend on their response. If their response:

-friendly > befriend

-neutral > observe

-hostile > subjugate

-extremely hostile > exterminate

[kerbiloid]

27 minutes ago, ARS said:

-friendly > befriend

-neutral > observe

-hostile > subjugate

-extremely hostile > exterminate

Brief version:

Spoiler

 

[ARS]

2 hours ago, kerbiloid said:

Brief version

Should've added one before friendly:

Naive > exploit

[Mitchz95]

The Dark Forest theory argues that any civilization with a sense of self-preservation must immediately exterminate any others they encounter, for fear that the other will do the same to them. Covert infiltration of a technologically-inferior civ might be a stopgap, but depending on how different their physiology is, understanding and befriending them may be impossible a lot of the time. And even if we pull it off, how can we be sure they won't change their mind and annihilatate us a century down the road, too suddenly for us to respond to?

[Ultimate Steve]

18 hours ago, Spacescifi said:

No matter whether you send a gift or a crew, SOMETHING is coming outta the sky LOL

By the time we are making first contact, I am fairly sure we would have engines efficient enough to SSTO from most world's, at the very least fusion (tens of thousands of seconds isp).

[Scotius]

2 hours ago, Mitchz95 said:

The Dark Forest theory argues that any civilization with a sense of self-preservation must immediately exterminate any others they encounter, for fear that the other will do the same to them. Covert infiltration of a technologically-inferior civ might be a stopgap, but depending on how different their physiology is, understanding and befriending them may be impossible a lot of the time. And even if we pull it off, how can we be sure they won't change their mind and annihilatate us a century down the road, too suddenly for us to respond to?

Dark Forest theory is incredibly ksenophobic and anthropocentric. And even anthropocentric part doesn't hold much water, because human beings tend to be surprisingly rational and mostly curious when confronted with unknown visitors. Only societies who had previous, bad experience with such "guests" tend to react aggressively to newcomers.

[kerbiloid]

One should not attack a neighbor because what if in future he needs him as an ally to attack another neighbor.

Edited July 16, 2019 by kerbiloid

[Guest]

3 hours ago, Scotius said:

Dark Forest theory is incredibly ksenophobic and anthropocentric. And even anthropocentric part doesn't hold much water, because human beings tend to be surprisingly rational and mostly curious when confronted with unknown visitors. Only societies who had previous, bad experience with such "guests" tend to react aggressively to newcomers.

I think it’s pretty safe to say that the first reaction if encountered with some unknown and unexpected alien creature in close proximity would be terror on our part. It’s an evolutionary response. Only after that initial flight/fight moment passes would a person cautiously explore.

Yes to surprisingly rational but the rational part isn’t the only part at play in the human mind and it’s probably not even the dominant part under certain circumstances, there’s a whole lot of automatic responses that can be triggered in specific situations, you could call them instinct. Those hardwired instructions are survival incarnate and were old long before the conscious mind. You have to think maybe there’s something to them.

Edited July 17, 2019 by Guest

[razark]

Teach them to clean up their planets, grow plentiful food, establish world peace, and offer them trips to our home planet.

 

[Spacescifi]

6 hours ago, Ultimate Steve said:

By the time we are making first contact, I am fairly sure we would have engines efficient enough to SSTO from most world's, at the very least fusion (tens of thousands of seconds isp).

 

Fission fragment rockets could potenially be put on an SSTO, but the exhaust is cancerous I have read.

Fusion I suspect is the same.

Starfish Prime was a test where researchers blew up a nuke up in the upper atmosphere if I recall correctly. The result was more radiation in Earth's Van Allen belt. The concern was not just for astronauts but satellites too. Both could be harmed from the radioactive particles orbiting the planet from the nuclear rocket.

Even antimatter does not have totally safe exhaust. I remember someone here once said that thermal antimatter propellant exhaust would be cancerous enough to merit putting it in an isolated area.

In other words, even with a theoretical SSTO, landing one at a native's 21st century tech airport may give one out of ten nearby cancer.

 

Unless ANYONE can convince me that fission, fusion, or thermal antimatter propellant exhaust is safe enough to land with at a modern airport, I am skeptical about using it in fiction.

I actually prefer metallic hydrogen, since the exhaust is simply an overwhelmingly powerful chemical reaction. No radioctive particles involved in the exhaust if I read correctly.

15 hours ago, kerbiloid said:

Brief version:

  Hide contents

 

What TV show or movie is that from and how does it relate to what we are discussing?

The lady with the knives looks threatening but human otherwise. Why does everyone look so... down?

Edited July 17, 2019 by Spacescifi
Edit

[Ultimate Steve]

18 minutes ago, Spacescifi said:

 

Fission fragment rockets could potenially be put on an SSTO, but the exhaust is cancerous I have read.

Fusion I suspect is the same.

Starfish Prime was a test where researchers blew up a nuke up in the upper atmosphere if I recall correctly. The result was more radiation in Earth's Van Allen belt. The concern was not just for astronauts but satellites too. Both could be harmed from the radioactive particles orbiting the planet from the nuclear rocket.

Even antimatter does not have totally safe exhaust. I remember someone here once said that thermal antimatter propellant exhaust would be cancerous enough to merit putting it in an isolated area.

In other words, even with a theoretical SSTO, landing one at a native's 21st century tech airport may give one out of ten nearby cancer.

 

 Unless ANYONE can convince me that fission, fusion, or thermal antimatter propellant exhaust is safe enough to land with at a modern airport, I am skeptical about using it in fiction.

I actually prefer metallic hydrogen, since the exhaust is simply an overwhelmingly powerful chemical reaction. No radioctive particles involved in the exhaust if I read correctly.

Assuming a closed cycle fusion engine can be made and neutron shielding will fit into the mass budget (which I am confident about with specific impulses like that) then the only exhaust will be the reaction mass and the tiny bit of helium that builds up in the reactor.

The neutrons will gradually make the reactor more radioactive over time, but this will not be an issue unless it crashes, and even then it would be way less of a problem than a fission reactor, as the only radioactive fuel for the fusion is tritium, and only small amounts of it are needed. Only a few seconds worth at most will be in the reactor at any given time, and if containment is lost there will be a brief blast and then nothing as the reaction will pretty much stop instantly.

In most respects, fusion is safer than fission.

Edit: In a D-T fusion reaction, neutrons and helium are produced. Helium doesn't really matter, but the neutrons are the dangerous part that need the shielding.

Edited July 17, 2019 by Ultimate Steve

[Spacescifi]

49 minutes ago, Ultimate Steve said:

Assuming a closed cycle fusion engine can be made and neutron shielding will fit into the mass budget (which I am confident about with specific impulses like that) then the only exhaust will be the reaction mass and the tiny bit of helium that builds up in the reactor.

The neutrons will gradually make the reactor more radioactive over time, but this will not be an issue unless it crashes, and even then it would be way less of a problem than a fission reactor, as the only radioactive fuel for the fusion is tritium, and only small amounts of it are needed. Only a few seconds worth at most will be in the reactor at any given time, and if containment is lost there will be a brief blast and then nothing as the reaction will pretty much stop instantly.

In most respects, fusion is safer than fission.

Edit: In a D-T fusion reaction, neutrons and helium are produced. Helium doesn't really matter, but the neutrons are the dangerous part that need the shielding.

 

So let's do fusion vs metallic hydrogen... the final battle of the space propulsion rocket systems!

In one corner we have fusion, which has how much ISP?

In the other we have metallic hydrogen, with a theoretical ISP of 1700 seconds! Only it would melt all known materials currently used for rocketry, or so I have read. Still, scifi can gleefully ignore that detail.

So for a scifi universe where metallic hydrogen's extreme heat can be coped with via better materials, which is better?

Fusion or merallic hydrogen?

Would having better heat resistant materials make/put fusion and metallic hydrogen on the same ISP level?

Is fusion less ISP than metalic hydrogen?

Would a fusion thermal metallic hydrogen fueled rocket be just as good as or nearly as good as an antimatter thermal methane propelkant rocket?

Thanks in advance!

[Kerbart]

19 hours ago, Scotius said:

We already have foundations of First Contact Protocol in place: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uncontacted_peoples

At least for hunter-gatherer level societies.

It sums up to: "Leave them alone. Watch from distance." Or more succintly: "eyes-on and hands-off".

As for more advanced, interstellar visitors? I have sneaking suspicion bigger militaries have more than a couple copies of those lying around

"We think they don't want to contact us"

(yes I know it's not "real" but art. It's still funny)

[kerbiloid]

1 hour ago, Spacescifi said:

What TV show or movie is that from and how does it relate to what we are discussing?

The 100.
befriend...exterminate on their choice

3 hours ago, Dale Christopher said:

but the rational part isn’t the only part at play in the human mind and it’s probably not even the dominant part under certain circumstances, there’s a whole lot of automatic responses

A significant difference: the interciviiliziation contact would take place between intellectual elites of the sapient species, not between random crowds.
And we have much less things to compete in, say soil, water, or coal. And both counterparts are far from each other and well-protected, so neither sudden strike, nor covert expansion are effective.

1 hour ago, Spacescifi said:

Unless ANYONE can convince me that fission, fusion, or thermal antimatter propellant exhaust is safe enough to land with at a modern airport, I am skeptical about using it in fiction.

Just the aneutronic fusion and thermal air-propelllng nozzles.

Also I doubt a real spaceship would fit a runway size.

Edited July 17, 2019 by kerbiloid