# Imagine there was another Earthlike planet in our system



## Bullgrit (Apr 4, 2013)

Imagine there was another Earthlike planet in our solar system, say about where Mars is located. There is an intelligent species there, at approximately our level of technology.

How soon would we have begun communication with them? How soon would we begin interaction with them? What kind of interaction would we have with them? Would we have begun interplanetary trade of some kind by now? Would we be at war with them? Would their existence be a prompt to advance our space industry faster?

And on that last note, would discovering intelligent life elsewhere in the universe speed up our space exploration? Would we speed things up so we can interact with these others, or would we speed things up out of a sense of competition (or fear) like the US had with the USSR?

Bullgrit


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## Morrus (Apr 4, 2013)

I don't think we're capable of war with them yet - and they'd need something very light worth billions to make trade even remotely profitable.

So no to them.

But we'd have been communicating for decades by now. We'd know them pretty well. They're just too far - right now - to pop in to borrow a cup of sugar.

We'd definitely have had several manned Mars missions, and vice versa.


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## Joker (Apr 4, 2013)

If communication isn't possible I think war would be the only option with total annihilation of one or both of the species.  This is from a human perspective and the fear that they may be exploitative in nature like us.  I don't mean that as a critique of us.  It's just that the dominant societies on our planet need vast amount of resources to function.

I think it is very likely that as soon as we discover life on another planet we identify as being intelligent and see as a threat you'll look at global society geared towards militarization.


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## Morrus (Apr 4, 2013)

Joker said:


> If communication isn't possible I think war would be the only option with total annihilation of one or both of the species.  This is from a human perspective and the fear that they may be exploitative in nature like us.  I don't mean that as a critique of us.  It's just that the dominant societies on our planet need vast amount of resources to function.
> 
> I think it is very likely that as soon as we discover life on another planet we identify as being intelligent and see as a threat you'll look at global society geared towards militarization.




War isn't an option. Do you know how much it would cost just to send one teeny bomb to Mars? Billions. Billions to blow up a random Martian fruit stand, if we're lucky. 

The Mars One project predicts $6bn to send two people one-way to Mars. You know how people talk about force projection in the real world, and how many countries can't even send a sizeable force across one ocean? We have no way to send an army to Mars. Projecting force around our world is very hard. To Mars? Impossible.


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## Umbran (Apr 4, 2013)

Bullgrit said:


> Imagine there was another Earthlike planet in our solar system, say about where Mars is located. There is an intelligent species there, at approximately our level of technology.




Okay.  This is major.  All answers are pending what the species is like.  I am assuming, for the moment, something not too far from "humans with funny foreheads", as opposed to, say hive-mind insects or aquatic species.  I am assumign also that "level of technology" is similarly Trek-like, so that, for example, once they figure out how radio communication could be done, they actually *do* it...



> How soon would we have begun communication with them?




We would have begun communication shortly after both species had radio communication of sufficient power to reach between the worlds.  As soon as both species are putting out enough radio, detection within the same solar system is pretty much inevitable.  



> How soon would we begin interaction with them? What kind of interaction would we have with them?




Note that radio communication is a form of interaction.  That probably comes first.



> Would their existence be a prompt to advance our space industry faster?




Last question first - probably.  We don't do lots with space now, because historically it has been difficult to justify the cost.  If there were people out there, it becomes a whole other ballgame.  



> Would we have begun interplanetary trade of some kind by now? Would we be at war with them? ...
> 
> And on that last note, would discovering intelligent life elsewhere in the universe speed up our space exploration? Would we speed things up so we can interact with these others, or would we speed things up out of a sense of competition (or fear) like the US had with the USSR?




Well, here things get complicated.  It depends on how that contact was made, and when.  We are now in a realm of alternate history and speculation.  We can only make such speculation with a set of assumptions...

Assume, for example, that we don't really know about the Martians until radio contact is made, between 1920 and 1940.  We've had WWI, but contact with an entirely alien species comes before WWII.  If WWII happens anyway (we can posit the socio-economic and political scene after WWI may have made it nigh-inevitable), we gain the technological basis for rocketry.  From this point on, being able to reach Mars is merely a matter of time and motivation.

Even if we go full-bore on rocket development, I think war is unlikely.  The physics and distances involved mean you might be able to move some very precious cargo, and do cultural exchanges, but chemical rocketry simply won't get you to the point where you can extend conventional military might over such distances.  The supply lines are *years* long.  Sure, you could pack nuclear warheads onto a rocket, but... what's the point?  On Earth, there was a fundamental question of control of territory and resources that led to the cold war, and the nuclear threat.  Between Earth and Mars, there is no real question of control of territory.  There's just no point to blowing them up.

So, minor trade, some movement of small numbers of people back and forth.  And, a fundamental change in how we view ourselves in the Universe.


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## Jdvn1 (Apr 4, 2013)

Maybe we could outsource computer-based jobs, or trade information...

I don't think there'd be no trade at all. We'd still be testing space flights and try to land things on each others' planets - just like we do now. Why not send over some seeds to let them grow mangoes? Initially, there'd have to be tests to ensure that the atmospheres and organisms are compatible and such, but we'd eventually trade small things at first, at least. Maybe nothing very valuable, though.

I think the space industry would probably progress a bit faster. The luxury vacation market might demand it.


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## Joker (Apr 4, 2013)

Morrus said:


> War isn't an option. Do you know how much it would cost just to send one teeny bomb to Mars? Billions. Billions to blow up a random Martian fruit stand, if we're lucky.
> 
> The Mars One project predicts $6bn to send two people one-way to Mars. You know how people talk about force projection in the real world, and how many countries can't even send a sizeable force across one ocean? We have no way to send an army to Mars. Projecting force around our world is very hard. To Mars? Impossible.




Assuming we've known of their existence for as long we've been able to receive radio waves I think our extra-terrestrial military capability would be quite a bit more advanced.  But let's assume a military exchange isn't possible at this point because of logistical hurdles.  We don't know what their capabilities are.  Therefor they are a danger and from that point on our resources will be spent on research and development of vehicles capable of destroying the other species.  I'm not talking about space marines dropped from ships in orbit, I'm thinking more about inter planetary stealth missiles with a biological or nuclear warhead.

Even if communication is possible, I would be hard-pressed to think any other option isn't a giant risk.  Look at the Cold War.  As far as I understand we were quite close to being knocked back into the Middle-Ages.  And with the Russians communication was possible and we could understand each other.  With a species who evolved differently than us or perhaps more frighteningly, exactly like us I think a hostile stance would be the more responsible course of action.

That said, I would like our relationship to be peaceful.  I would like to learn from each other and help each other understand the universe around us.


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## Morrus (Apr 4, 2013)

Joker said:


> We don't know what their capabilities are..




We do - the premise says they have the same tech level as us. So we can't attack each other.  We can send, like a couple of people for $6bn, and that would take a year to get there, but a couple of people can't exactly wage war on a planet of billions.  So we probably send a few people, and they send a few people, but we don't have the ablity to do any more than that.

There's certainly no trade good worth the billions it would take to transport it.


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## Derren (Apr 4, 2013)

The first radio which could transmit into space was probably build around 1920. The first television transmission was 1936. But considering that by that point we would already know that there is life on mars (telescopes had been available for centuries) that would likely happen sooner in such a scenario. And of course space technology would evolve faster.
The interaction with them? Probably a cold war with biological weapons (if we manage to get our hands on their DNA, otherwise nuclear). But as missiles are very easy to detect and the travel time would be months it would be a MAD scenario so no one fires first. Trade wouldn't really happen because even assuming they, for some strange reason, produce goods which are compatible with us (ergonomically or biologically) there is nothing one can't get easier on earth.


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## jonesy (Apr 4, 2013)

It would probably jumpstart our efforts to build an early-warning/anti-missile system for inbound thingamagigs even if we did consider war unlikely. I say early warning, but early might be too strong a word.


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## Joker (Apr 4, 2013)

Morrus said:


> We do - the premise says they have the same tech level as us. So we can't attack each other.  We can send, like a couple of people for $6bn, and that would take a year to get there, but a couple of people can't exactly wage war on a planet of billions.  So we probably send a few people, and they send a few people, but we don't have the ablity to do any more than that.
> 
> There's certainly no trade good worth the billions it would take to transport it.




I understand the premise is that their tech is the same as our tech.  Since we discovered each other nearly a century ago, the tech that we would have now would be considerably more advanced than what we actually have now if resources had been spent differently.

The issue is trust.  Can we trust them and how do we know for certain that we can trust them?  This is difficult enough with other humans let alone a completely different species.  We have no choice but to approach this situation from an anthropological viewpoint because that's what we are.  We fear them because we know what we're capable of.

Let's say we want to send a probe of peace that has information about our history as a species and life on Earth much like Voyager's Golden Record.  Because we have no way of knowing, as of yet, how they evolved and how they look at the things you have to understand the consequences of such a seemingly peaceful gesture.  Anything from their point of view could be seen as hostile.  The high speed approach of a projectile could be seen as an attack.  The scorching of their sacred desert burial grounds can fill them with hate.  Leonardo's Vitruvian Man could be seen as a Martian "come at me, bro".

I'm not saying a peaceful outcome is not possible.  I am saying, given our history with members of our own species, that to be confronted with an alien race who has the same potential destructive capability as us but with whom we cannot communicate properly, destruction of one species is seemingly inevitable.


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## Umbran (Apr 4, 2013)

Joker said:


> The issue is trust.  Can we trust them and how do we know for certain that we can trust them?




No, the issue is first, "What can they actually do?"  Then you ask if you can trust them not to do it.

On Earth, we had a Cold War over territory - who was gong to control the world, the USA or the Soviets?  That is not a question here.  Neither species is going to have the ability to take over the others' planet.  Not gonna happen.  They cannot control us, cannot take our planetary resources.


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## reelo (Apr 4, 2013)

Whatever the answers to the OPs questions, I think contact with an (intelligent) extraterrestial species should lead humanity to stop thinking in terms of nations and start thinking in terms of humans. I am a firm believer that it would be, eventually, a strong pacifying, unifying factor for mankind.

Sent from my GT-N7000 using Tapatalk 2


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## Derren (Apr 4, 2013)

Umbran said:


> On Earth, we had a Cold War over territory - who was gong to control the world, the USA or the Soviets?  That is not a question here.  Neither species is going to have the ability to take over the others' planet.  Not gonna happen.  They cannot control us, cannot take our planetary resources.




But they could take us out. Thats enough reason to fear them.


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## jonesy (Apr 4, 2013)

My views on interstellar (and interplanetary) warfare have largely been colored by _The Killing Star_ by Pellegrino and Zebrowski, which makes many good arguments for paranoia and preventive first strikes. But then the book ends with a warning about the dangers of your attacks not being 100% effective, at which point you have just doomed yourself to a retaliation from the people you 'killed'. If you can detect incoming stuff you can deduce you've just been killed, so the only thing left is hitting back. And in the book they focus on relativistic level strikes which are practically unstoppable. So yeah, the ideas are MAD all over, just on a level of crazy beyond belief.


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## Umbran (Apr 4, 2013)

Derren said:


> But they could take us out. Thats enough reason to fear them.




Only at extreme cost to themselves, and to no gain for themselves - "taking us out" also means ruining the planet so they cannot use it.

Martians and Earthlings going to war is rather like a war between dolphins and wolves.  There's no point to it!  Nobody gains anything from it!


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## Derren (Apr 4, 2013)

Umbran said:


> Only at extreme cost to themselves, and to no gain for themselves - "taking us out" also means ruining the planet so they cannot use it.
> 
> Martians and Earthlings going to war is rather like a war between dolphins and wolves.  There's no point to it!  Nobody gains anything from it!




They gain security from it. If they can take us out we can't take them out.


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## jonesy (Apr 4, 2013)

Derren said:


> They gain security from it. If they can take us out we can't take them out.



But that's the thing. They have no guarantees they can take us out completely enough that we can't return the favour.


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## Derren (Apr 4, 2013)

jonesy said:


> But that's the thing. They have no guarantees they can take us out completely enough that we can't return the favour.




Thats why it stays a cold war as I said above (unless they are crazy/think very differently).
And there is always a chance that someone develops a counter to the current weapons the other has.


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## Janx (Apr 4, 2013)

I would suspect that 2 planets of "same" tech level don't necessarily have the exact same technologies.  Meaning, we both probably have radio and rockets, because on discovery of the other, we're inherently motivated to make contact and exchange something, be it bullets or information.

What we exchange is really the key.  Culture has a near zero weight over radio.  Hollywood exports its TV to an entire planet already.  Shipping BayWatch to Mars could happen.

We also could exchange science.  Odds are good they'll be farther along in one science and us in another.  Trading notes would likely happen.

Militarily, it's be easy to justify building a planetary defense network, than an assault on their planet.  It's also lower risk.  Mars likely doesn't care that we have a ring of orbital defense platforms around Earth.  They can't get to us.  But the military can pitch that we need it "just in case they can" without it appearing to be a hostile move against Mars.

We may exchange some one-way payloads with each other.  Objects, stuff like that.  Ship it to orbit for pick-up by the other party, or some other agreed upon delivery location.  Biological samples may be forbidden as that might give away a biological weakness.  it's easy to trust a guy on the internet who can't drop a biological attack on your front door.

Eventually, we may setup a Midway station between Mars and Earth for the first direct contact meeting.  Something where it's only half the distance for both parties.

Once we find out what the other planet has of value and vice versa, trade will happen.  Science will be pushed to develop the technologies to do it, because business will see a way to make money off it.

Our biggest worry would be if we had plenty of something Mars wanted, but they had nothing we wanted.  Like our Water.  They would be more motivated to take our water, lacking anything of worth to trade us for it.


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## Derren (Apr 4, 2013)

Janx said:


> Militarily, it's be easy to justify building a planetary defense network, than an assault on their planet.  It's also lower risk.  Mars likely doesn't care that we have a ring of orbital defense platforms around Earth.  They can't get to us.  But the military can pitch that we need it "just in case they can" without it appearing to be a hostile move against Mars.




Of course this can be seen as aggressive move. Just look at the problems the Russians had with the missile defense screen in Europe.
Setting up a defensive screen could mean that you managed to develop a defense against their attacks, thus breaking the MAD situation. Then you are free to attack them.


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## Dannyalcatraz (Apr 4, 2013)

Re: Interplanetary War

Bombs are the worst way to do it.  At present & reasonably forseeable tech levels, not only would it be incredibly difficult to project force via that method- as has been pointed out- it would be costly in terms of its effects on whatever resources we (or they) hoped to gain.

No, the way to do it is bio-weapons.  Once one species or the other learns enough of the biology & ecosystems of their intended victims, you borrow a page from HG Wells & the history of the American West and engineer a "bird flu" to kill them off in the millions if not billions.

1) In all likelihood, such a bioweapon would be unable to affect the side that chose to use it.

2) Such a weapon sysem would be relatively low mass compared to conventional arms, generally speaking, depending on the delivery system (Aerosolized?  Powders?  Pellets?  Infected consumer goods?), virulence and vectors.

Wash, rinse, repeat until the enemy cannot mount a meaningful resistance, _then_ mop up with more conventional arms.


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## Joker (Apr 4, 2013)

Umbran said:


> No, the issue is first, "What can they actually do?"  Then you ask if you can trust them not to do it.
> 
> On Earth, we had a Cold War over territory - who was gong to control the world, the USA or the Soviets?  That is not a question here.  Neither species is going to have the ability to take over the others' planet.  Not gonna happen.  They cannot control us, cannot take our planetary resources.




You're making the assumption that we know that they're not concerned with territory.  

You're also very level-headed and logical about this situation.  Can you say for certain others will be the same?

Can you say for certain our leaders, most of whom are businessmen and graduates of law and not scientists, will be level-headed and rational about this?  Even if they were, we were *this* close to total annihilation during the Cuban missile crisis with rational people in Kennedy and Khrushchev at the head of the situation.  Consider our state of mind when the stakes are considerably higher and against a threat actually alien.

All it takes is a few people to kindle our fear of the unknown.  People who are afraid themselves and instill that fear in others, not out of malice but because of a genuine desire to survive as a species, no matter how irrational it may seem.  I can easily imagine the media taking things out of context or out of proportion and causing wide-spread panic which in turn will create a desire to end our fear of the Others.  And there really is only one way to do that.


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## jonesy (Apr 4, 2013)

I remember one short story that was about a first contact situation between two different space travelling species of roughly the same technological level. Two ships met somewhere in space. After they figured out how to communicate (I think that was glossed over to get the plot moving faster) they both recognized that they could destroy each other easily, but also that they both were interested in each others technology and that they wanted to establish some sort of trade agreement.

They pondered over how to do this, as neither wanted to reveal the location of their home star. Revealing colony locations was deemed unacceptable as well, as those could be searched for astronomical data. Then they realized that they couldn't simply leave the location in peace, since either could track the other to where they would head out to (here I think there was some plot reason for why the encounter was a surprise to both, and they didn't know where the other had come from).

In the end the solution to the problem was to trade the ships. Since each knew their own ship inside and out they could disable everything that the other could use to track or attack the other. They then taught each other how to fly their ships and made a deal to meet at the location later for future exchanges. I forget what the solution was for how to do the future meetings without revealing where they each came from. It was a rather contrived story, but an interesting thought experiment.


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## Morrus (Apr 4, 2013)

Joker said:


> You're making the assumption that we know that they're not concerned with territory.
> 
> You're also very level-headed and logical about this situation.  Can you say for certain others will be the same?
> 
> ...




Attacking another planet requires a hell of a lot more than one or two insane people.  It's not even vaguely reminiscent of our Cold War capabilities. We - literally - can't do anything. Developing the ability to do so would take decades and tens of billions; no single impulse decision can do that. It needs to be a concerted unwavering economy-destroying effort by major countries over a dozen successive governments/administrations.

You think Iraq is expensive? That's bankrupted the world.  How on earth are we going to do the same on another planet at a thousand times the cost?


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## Derren (Apr 4, 2013)

Morrus said:


> Attacking another planet requires a hell of a lot more than one or two insane people.  It's not even vaguely reminiscent of our Cold War capabilities. We - literally - can't do anything. Developing the ability to do so would take decades and tens of billions; no single impulse decision can do that.




We can already send probes up to mars. Load them up with nuclear or biological bombs and you have your weapon. Of course you do not send one but thousands.
The capability to wage war is certainly there.


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## Morrus (Apr 4, 2013)

Janx said:


> I would suspect that 2 planets of "same" tech level don't necessarily have the exact same technologies.  Meaning, we both probably have radio and rockets, because on discovery of the other, we're inherently motivated to make contact and exchange something, be it bullets or information.
> 
> What we exchange is really the key.  Culture has a near zero weight over radio.  Hollywood exports its TV to an entire planet already.  Shipping BayWatch to Mars could happen.
> 
> ...




Water? Why fight us for it when it's so plentiful in space? Just go to Europa and take as much as you want.


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## jonesy (Apr 4, 2013)

Derren said:


> We can already send probes up to mars. Load them up with nuclear or biological bombs and you have your weapon. Of course you do not send one but thousands.
> The capability to wage war is certainly there.



Thousands isn't enough. A billion wouldn't be enough. At no point do you reach assured levels of destruction with current level of technology. We wouldn't even know our biological weapons would work on them.


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## Morrus (Apr 4, 2013)

Derren said:


> We can already send probes up to mars. Load them up with nuclear or biological bombs and you have your weapon. Of course you do not send one but thousands.
> The capability to wage war is certainly there.




Send thousands?!?!?  C'mon!  It's a major deal to send one.

We can't. We can send one every few years at immense cost, and they'd probably see it coming months out.

The capability to wage war is most definitely not certainly there.


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## Derren (Apr 4, 2013)

Morrus said:


> Send thousands?!?!?  C'mon!  It's a major deal to send one.
> 
> We can't. We can send one every few years at immense cost, and they'd probably see it coming months out.
> 
> The capability to wage war is most definitely not certainly there.




We can. We just don't do it because there is no use in sending thousand probes at once to mars.



jonesy said:


> Thousands isn't enough. A billion wouldn't be enough. At no point do you reach assured levels of destruction with current level of technology. We wouldn't even know our biological weapons would work on them.




You do not need to destroy the entire race with one attack. Only to destroy their weapon stockpiles/launch facilities so that they can't retaliate or blunt their retaliation so it is not fatal. Then you have all the time in the world to finish them off.


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## jonesy (Apr 4, 2013)

Derren said:


> During the height of the cold war we already had enough nuclear weapons to scorch every part of the planet.



There was enough to wreck civilization, but not enough to assure someone on the other still wouldn't have more left. That's one of the biggest problems of MAD. Reaching the assured part is HARD.


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## Joker (Apr 4, 2013)

Morrus said:


> Attacking another planet requires a hell of a lot more than one or two insane people.  It's not even vaguely reminiscent of our Cold War capabilities. We - literally - can't do anything. Developing the ability to do so would take decades and tens of billions; no single impulse decision can do that. It needs to be a concerted unwavering economy-destroying effort by major countries over a dozen successive governments/administrations.
> 
> You think Iraq is expensive? That's bankrupted the world.  How on earth are we going to do the same on another planet at a thousand times the cost?




I'm talking about people working up other people.  And if those people have influence you really only need a few.  It's not about what we can do now, it's about what we fear they can do.  And if we fear they can attack us we will have no choice but to gear our economy towards that end.

I actually think a vast threat, even if it isn't real, would be a unifying force for our planet.


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## Derren (Apr 4, 2013)

jonesy said:


> There was enough to wreck civilization, but not enough to assure someone on the other still wouldn't have more left. That's one of the biggest problems of MAD. Reaching the assured part is HARD.




See my edit. You do not need to reach assured destruction, just eliminate their retaliation capability.


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## jonesy (Apr 4, 2013)

Derren said:


> See my edit. You do not need to reach assured destruction, just eliminate their retaliation capability.



How do you know when you've done that?


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## Joker (Apr 4, 2013)

jonesy said:


> How do you know when you've done that?




You don't.  Que research into planet busting weaponry.


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## jonesy (Apr 4, 2013)

Joker said:


> You don't.  Que research into planet busting weaponry.



And so we move into the level of crazy beyond belief where we give others a justification for killing us without a single thought. And the chain reaction begins.


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## Derren (Apr 4, 2013)

Joker said:


> You don't.  Que research into planet busting weaponry.




Bad idea considering all the effects on the solar system.
The best bet is to cripple the retaliation capability and then deploy biological weapons. If you can't locate their launch facilities you need to kill all of them quickly. A radiation based weapon might be the best bet for that, but that one is pure science fiction. Or you need to find a way to intercept their weapons and make sure yours go through.


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## Ed_Laprade (Apr 4, 2013)

Unfortunately for this discussion, the OP has made assumptions that are mutually exclusive. He assumes that the two races have the same technological base, then asks what we'd do _now_? Sorry, it doesn't work that way. As has already been pointed out, we'd almost certainly make radio contact with them in the 20s or 30s. From that point on, _everything_ changes. Von Braun was amazed when the allies asked where he'd gotten his ideas from. His answer? "From _your_ Dr. Robert Goddard!" I would also bring to your attention the Disney 'Man Into Space' series from the 50s. If the cold war space race hadn't happened we'd be on Mars now (using atomic powered ion drive ships), with space stations and probaly a Moon base as well. So we'd have a whole different set of space technologies than we we do now when that alternate reality got to the 21st century.

I'd also like to bring your attention to a book writen by H. Beam Piper and someone else titled First Cycle, which considers exactly this scenario, although the two planets orbit each other. (Yes, they wipe each other out.) 

As for the first contact story that was mentioned, I believe the title is, in fact, First Contact. By Murray Leinster? It's easy enough to look up, my potential confusion is because there were a number of first contact stories published around the same time. But, for obvious reasons, that's the most well known.


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## Morrus (Apr 4, 2013)

Ed_Laprade said:


> Unfortunately for this discussion, the OP has made assumptions that are mutually exclusive. He assumes that the two races have the same technological base, then asks what we'd do _now_? Sorry, it doesn't work that way.




Huh? What doesn't work that way? Are you the Doctor? 

The OP made an assumption that there was another earth like planet in place of Mars. I think we can safely say our solar system doesn't work that way.

The idea is to run with his premise. We can all tell him his premise is wrong. He knows that, too.


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## Morrus (Apr 4, 2013)

Joker said:


> You don't.  Que research into planet busting weaponry.




That's just silly, though. Might as well start talking about magic.


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## Derren (Apr 4, 2013)

Ed_Laprade said:


> If the cold war space race hadn't happened we'd be on Mars now (using atomic powered ion drive ships), with space stations and probaly a Moon base as well.




Imo it wold be the opposite. Without the cold war space technology would be decades behind. After all it started out as a proxy conflict for prestige. When that incentive isn't there, why bother?
But I agree with your conclusion that the technological development would be different. Yet the general situation of having the same level of (space) technology as now could still happen. Just not 2013 but maybe 1987.


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## Morrus (Apr 4, 2013)

Derren said:


> We can. We just don't do it because there is no use in sending thousand probes at once to mars.




You can keep repeating it, but we still can't. Not even in the most fanciful of bountiest futures can we send thousands of probes to Mars. No matter how many times you say - we can't do that. 

Like I said, we struggle to send one.


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## Morrus (Apr 4, 2013)

Derren said:


> Imo it wold be the opposite. Without the cold war space technology would be decades behind. After all it started out as a proxy conflict for prestige. When that incentive isn't there, why bother?
> But I agree with your conclusion that the technological development would be different. Yet the general situation of having the same level of (space) technology as now could still happen. Just not 2013 but maybe 1987.




The Apollo tech was basic German WWII tech. It was their V2 program, from defecting scientists after the war.


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## Derren (Apr 4, 2013)

Morrus said:


> You can keep repeating it, but we still can't. Not even in the most fanciful of bountiest futures can we send thousands of probes to Mars. No matter how many times you say - we can't do that.
> 
> Like I said, we struggle to send one.




You have not offered any reasoning for that.
We do not struggle to launch one, we have done so a lot of times already, be it a touchdown, orbital satellite or flyby. Since the 70s the only problems the USA had was making a soft landing with the probe, which is hardly a concern for a weapon. All of those missions reached mars. We would have absolutely no problem of taking one of those designs which work and copy it a few thousand times. In the real world we would need to expand our industrial capability to do that, but thats because there is no need to send that many probes to mars all at the same time, so no energy is wasted on that.
In the OPs universe where we know there is life on mars which can potentially wipe us out we sure as hell would create this industrial capability.
As comparison, how quickly did the US and UDSSR go from "struggling to build 1 atomic bomb" to having an arsenal of thousands of bombs and ICBMs?



Morrus said:


> The Apollo tech was basic German WWII tech. It was their V2 program, from defecting scientists after the war.




Yes, but this technology didn't really got used with that much zeal until the goal was beating the other superpower. Do you really thing the USA would have gone from satellite to moon landing faster than 12 years if there wasn't a race to beat the Russians?


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## Morrus (Apr 4, 2013)

Derren said:


> You have not offered any reasoning for that.
> We do not struggle to launch one, we have done so a lot of times already, be it a touchdown, orbital satellite or flyby. Since the 70s the only problems the USA had was making a soft landing with the probe, which is hardly a concern for a weapon. All of those missions reached mars. We would have absolutely no problem of taking one of those designs which work and copy it a few thousand times. In the real world we would need to expand our industrial capability to do that, but thats because there is no need to send that many probes to mars all at the same time, so no energy is wasted on that.
> In the OPs universe where we know there is life on mars which can potentially wipe us out we sure as hell would create this industrial capability.
> As comparison, how quickly did the US and UDSSR go from "struggling to build 1 atomic bomb" to having an arsenal of thousands of bombs and ICBMs?




Derren, you are m_assively _underestimating the challenge here.  An atomic bomb is not remotely comparable in terms of resources.

Look, you can keep repeating your claim over and over, and you've even progressed to repeating it and demanding that I prove it wrong, but that's not going to make it true.  YOu're imagning capability and resources which this planet _does not have._  The idea that we could launch thousands of vehicles to Mars is preposterous.  The idea that I have to prove that it's preposterous is even more preposterous.  Your claim; prove it's not.  Show us how we can launch thousands of vehicles to Mars.



> Yes, but this technology didn't really got used with that much zeal until the goal was beating the other superpower. Do you really thing the USA would have gone from satellite to moon landing faster than 12 years if there wasn't a race to beat the Russians?




It's not comparable.  I know you want it to be, but it's not.  Just as am amusing aside, check this out:

http://distancetomars.com/

The fact that the US managed to spend a decade developing the ability to send a man to the moon a few times (impressive, yes, but an order of magnitude incomparable) doesn't mean that we can send thousands of probes to Mars.  Do you know how much Curiosity cost?  £2.5 _billion_.  To send _one_.  So to send thousands? That's _thousands of billions_.  That sort of money doesn't exist.  The cost of Iraq in the last ten years is under $100bn and it's bankrupted the world.  Where's the money for a hundred times that going to come from?


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## Derren (Apr 4, 2013)

Morrus said:


> Derren, you are m_assively _underestimating the challenge here.  An atomic bomb is not remotely comparable in terms of resources.
> 
> Look, you can keep repeating your claim over and over, and you've even progressed to repeating it and demanding that I prove it wrong, but that's not going to make it true.  YOu're imagning capability and resources which this planet _does not have._  The idea that we could launch thousands of vehicles to Mars is preposterous.  The idea that I have to prove that it's preosterous is even more preposterous.  Your claim; prove it's not.




Don't forget that you are also repeating your "we can't" mantra over and over again without explanation.
Since the 70s all US mars missions have reached the planet. And all other interplanetary probes have a very good record, too. No launch failures at all. We can build reliable rockets to reach mars. For a war with mars we just need to build more of what we already know how to build and have more launch facilities. We have the expertise to do that and the resources for it. In reality what is lacking is the need to do that. If there was a potential enemy on mars it would be there, too.

You also make a giant mistake. Curiosity costs so much because of the rover which is not necessary in a war. The launch price of a Atlas V rocket is 100 - 200 million dollars. And we have already proven that we can build a lot of nuclear bombs. With 70 million for a Peacekeeper ICBM, the cost for a inter planetary nuclear missile is not prohibitive, especially in a do or die scenario and the earth uniting against the alien threat.


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## Morrus (Apr 4, 2013)

Derren said:


> Don't forget that you are also repeating your "we can't" mantra over and over again without explanation.




OK, let's back up here.

The person making the assertion needs to provide the proof of it.  Demanding that those who disagree prove him wrong is not how basic Debate 101 works. If you're just going to make assertions and treat them as proven unless I prove them wrong, then this debate is over; I cannot, and never will - as you know - be able to prove a negative.

Let's stick to understood rules of debate, eh?  Your assertion, your burden of proof.



> and the resources for it.




Just a repetition, man.  Show me this.  I don't believe you; sorry!  S_how _me that we have the resources to do such a thing, as you keep claiming.


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## jonesy (Apr 4, 2013)

Derren said:


> Since the 70s all US mars missions have reached the planet. And all other interplanetary probes have a very good record, too. No launch failures at all.



None of those are true. Launch failure rate to Mars is 50%. Arrival success rate on the successful launches is 30%:

http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2012/08/failure-to-reach-mars/


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## Derren (Apr 5, 2013)

Morrus said:


> OK, let's back up here.
> 
> The person making the assertion needs to provide the proof of it.  Demanding that those who disagree prove him wrong is not how basic Debate 101 works. If you're just going to make assertions and treat them as proven unless I prove them wrong, then this debate is over; I cannot, and never will - as you know - be able to prove a negative.
> 
> Let's stick to understood rules of debate, eh?  Your assertion, your burden of proof.




And how should I prove that we can build things? Multiple times when necessary?


> Just a repetition, man.  Show me this.  I don't believe you; sorry!  S_how _me that we have the resources to do such a thing, as you keep claiming.




Nuclear weapons are already made by the thousands, so check.
The minerals to make rockets are also there in abundance as we have a lot of rockets, just smaller ones than the Atlas V but they are made out of the same material. So, check.
Rocket fuel for the Atlas V is made out of liquid oxygen, liquid hydrogen and kerosene. Nothing which is considered rare.
Thats it. Now one only needs to build enough Atlas V and launch facilities (concrete, steel, computers, everything which is readily available).




jonesy said:


> None of those are true. Launch failure rate to Mars is 50%. Arrival success rate on the successful launches is 30%.




Source?
I use http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mars_exploration#Timeline where you can see that since the 70s the track record is very good, especially when you do not count the upstarts and stick to the US which by now knows what it is doing.
And don't forget that weapons are not required to land softly or transmit data. So what would be a failure to land or partial success for a probe would be a full success for a weapon unless the weapon itself fails. Do we now have to discuss that we can build nukes that work?

Here a list of Atlas launches.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Atlas_launches

Way more than 50%


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## Morrus (Apr 5, 2013)

Derren said:


> And how should I prove that we can build things? Multiple times when necessary?




Ah, I see where the problem lies; you're misremembering your own claim.  Sure, we can build things mutiple times. 10, 20 or 30, perhaps.  What we can't do is build them _thousands_ of times.

Nobody's saying we can't get to Mars.  You're just making volume claims that can't be supported.



> Nuclear weapons are already made by the thousands, so check.[/uote]
> 
> Nuclear weapons don't cost $2.5bn each.
> 
> ...


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## Olgar Shiverstone (Apr 5, 2013)

The solar system isn't big enough for two intelligent species -- eventually one is going to have to take out the other.  With another plant to expand to, there will be plenty of elbow room for Earth's (or Mars') huddled masses.

Never mind that we don't have the tech today to do it; the mere existence of a close habitable planet would be motivation enough.  Don't underestimate the creative energy of a human mind bent on destruction.

Besides, we don't necessarily have to go to Mars or send a bazillion nukes their way ... if we're patient all we have to do is alter the trajectories of a handful of choice asteroids, then sit back and let time, gravity, and nuclear winter do its work.


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## Derren (Apr 5, 2013)

Morrus said:


> Nuclear weapons don't cost $2.5bn each.




And neither does a nuclear tipped Atlas V. The majority of those 2.5 billion is the rover. Not needed.
The 2001 Mars Odyssey only cost 300 million dollar. 80 million of that is data analysis which is not needed for a weapon.
http://www.astronautix.com/craft/maryssey.htm


> Program Cost: $297 million total for 2001 Mars Odyssey: $165 million spacecraft development and science instruments, $53 million launch, $79 million mission operations and science processing




So for a interplanetary weapon we would look at about 250 million - 300 million (depending on the weapon cost). So that Iraq war which bankrupted the US, not the world, would have paid for more than 300 such missiles.
How much did the nuclear arms race between the US and UDSSR cost? A lot more than 10 years Iraq. And against a interplanetary threat the earth would likely band together more and so the cost can be spread around which allows for even more missiles.


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## Morrus (Apr 5, 2013)

Derren said:


> So that Iraq war which bankrupted the US, not the world, would have paid for more than 300 such missiles.




Not to get into modern politics but I can assure you that my country, which is not the US, was bankrupted by the war.  And Mars is a lot further away than Iraq.


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## Olgar Shiverstone (Apr 5, 2013)

Derren said:


> And neither does a nuclear tipped Atlas V. The majority of those 2.5 billion is the rover.




Point of order: the majority of the development cost in space programs is the R&D and the cost of the single (or two) prototypes that are used as the operational unit.  Essentially every space project is a one-off, which makes them prohibitively expensive.  

Settle on a good, basic design that can be repeated and the production price rapidly falls, and that 2.5B in RDTE spread over a thousand or ten thousand units becomes a relatively small contribution to overall cost.


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## Derren (Apr 5, 2013)

Morrus said:


> Not to get into modern politics but I can assure you that my country, which is not the US, was bankrupted by the war.  And Mars is a lot further away than Iraq.




The point is that the US alone spends 700 billion $ each year on defense. Even when only a fraction of that goes into those missiles + other countries chipping in that is still a lot of missiles which can be build at 300 million a piece.
Give it a few years and one has the 1000 missiles easily.

Before the SALT treaty the USA had 1000 ICBMs. The UDSSR had 1600. Coincidentally, the early USA ICBMs were Titans, the same rockets used for spaceflight.

So I don't really see what is the problem with the whole planet having a stockpile of thousands of interplanetary missiles.


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## Morrus (Apr 5, 2013)

Derren said:


> The point is that the US alone spends 700 billion $ each year on defense. Even when only a fraction of that goes into those missiles + other countries chipping in that is still a lot of missiles which can be build at 300 million a piece.
> Give it a few years and one has the 1000 missiles easily.




"The point"?  That's not the point you're replying to.  That's a totally different point.

If you think that we can send thousands of missiles to Mars at hundreds of millions of dollars apiece (and we don't have the launch facilities or the fuel to send thousands of anything, and we'll, like, totally stop spending money on current defense of course, because we'll all magically happily unite, but we'll conveniently ignore that) then fine. We can't, but OK.  I'm not going to continue this "yes we can", "no we can't", "yes we can", "no we can't" exhange forever.


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## Derren (Apr 5, 2013)

Morrus said:


> "The point"?  That's not the point you're replying to.  That's a totally different point.
> 
> If you think that we can send thousands of missiles to Mars at hundreds of millions of dollars apiece (and we don't have the launch facilities or the fuel to send thousands of anything, and we'll, like, totally stop spending money on current defense of course, because we'll all magically happily unite, but we'll conveniently ignore that) then fine. We can't, but OK.  I'm not going to continue this "yes we can", "no we can't", "yes we can", "no we can't" exhange forever.




ICBMs are not cheap either and yet thousands were build with the intention of throwing them at enemies. Fuel is readily available (liquid oxygen, liquid hydrogen and kerosene) to fuel thousands of interplanetary missiles. Launch facilities have to be constructed but when one can make thousands of ICBM bunkers one can certainly make thousands of atlas V launch facilities. 

But I agree its probably best that you stop arguing about this as long as you can't offer anything except hyperboles (spending all defense money on those missiles) and faulty numbers (2.5 billion for a rocket which can reach mars) despite being corrected multiple times.


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## Morrus (Apr 5, 2013)

Derren said:


> But I agree its probably best that you stop arguing about this as long as you can't offer anything except hyperboles (spending all defense money on those missiles) and faulty numbers (2.5 billion for a rocket which can reach mars) despite being corrected multiple times.




Derren, disagreeing is one thing. That's fine; that's what discussion forums are for. We both utterly disagree as to the resources required. There's no reason to get snotty about it or start misrepresenting each other's positions to score points. Let's stay friendly, eh?


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## Nagol (Apr 5, 2013)

Morrus said:


> We do - the premise says they have the same tech level as us. So we can't attack each other.  We can send, like a couple of people for $6bn, and that would take a year to get there, but a couple of people can't exactly wage war on a planet of billions.  So we probably send a few people, and they send a few people, but we don't have the ablity to do any more than that.
> 
> There's certainly no trade good worth the billions it would take to transport it.




So you trade things that don't have that cost attached: information, knowledge, and entertainment.  Cost is a limited to the radio channels you are willing to clog and electricity.


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## Morrus (Apr 5, 2013)

Nagol said:


> So you trade things that don't have that cost attached: information, knowledge, and entertainment.  Cost is a limited to the radio channels you are willing to clog and electricity.




Sure, OK. We have no disagreement there, just a definition thing. I put that under 'communication' but I have no objection to putting it under 'trade'. Just a word.


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## Nagol (Apr 5, 2013)

Morrus said:


> Sure, OK. We have no disagreement there, just a definition thing. I put that under 'communication' but I have no objection to putting it under 'trade'. Just a word.




Just think of all the extra realty TV shows we can make for trade and get similar value in return!  Oh wait, this *isn't* a horror scenario, scratch that!


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## Joker (Apr 5, 2013)

Morrus, correct me if I'm wrong and please do, but it seems to me you think that because we can't do something now we can't do it ever.  If the fear of dying off as a species is palpable enough, we will gladly bankrupt the world if it means we have a chance of survival.

Granted, everything we say here is speculation.  If contact had been made in the 20's/30's before WWII, before the Cold War, we might be more trusting and more curious.  Such a discovery, however, would have come right after WWI and during the Great Depression so we may not be as innocent as I think.

Umbran, I think, made the assumption that they are humanoid but what if they are a hive-mind type of aliens?  Have you ever tried to have a conversation with an ant colony?  Note, a drunken monologue doesn't count.  You get nothing but a swath of red bumps and burning skin from that.

I agree my little joke about planet-busting weaponry is fanciful and silly, but you can't underestimate our ingenuity concerning destructive devices.  We will find ways to kill things if need be.*

I do think that communicating for decades is the first thing that will be done.  But while this happens, I'm quite positive that while we try to communicate and understand each other, running parallel to this endeavor will be individual militaries or global collaborations commissioning research into information gathering and weapons technology.

If such research concludes that it isn't feasible to attack them, either because of fear of retaliation or as you posit that we don't have the resources, I assume that we will then develop planetary defense systems.

I think, overall, if a military exchange isn't likely, that it will be a positive thing for the world as a whole.  Maybe I'm a bit too optimistic but I think such a discovery would help develop a collective human identity, eroding a lot of the social and economic issues we face today.  Of course, it could easily go into a different direction.  People using the discovery of another species as an excuse to further their own agendas.

As someone pointed out, once technology reaches a certain point we can create a waystation between Earth and Mars when the bodies are closest.  Assuming they have a desire to meet us in person this could be the start of face to face diplomacy before we start sending stuff to each other's homeworld.

* Concerning the invention of the flamethrower:  "That man over there, I want to set him on fire but he's just too damned far away."


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## Joker (Apr 5, 2013)

And about weaponry:

Isn't it possible to send weapons with high kinetic potential their way?  Something like a long needle made of wolfram flung around the sun.  Surely the tech doesn't exist yet in either delivery or targeting but if possible would seem like an effective and efficient way to deliver destruction, assuming there's enough wolfram or similar material.

You just have to be careful about the needle turning back time, that's all.


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## Nagol (Apr 5, 2013)

Joker said:


> And about weaponry:
> 
> Isn't it possible to send weapons with high kinetic potential their way?  Something like a long needle made of wolfram flung around the sun.  Surely the tech doesn't exist yet in either delivery or targeting but if possible would seem like an effective and efficient way to deliver destruction, assuming there's enough wolfram or similar material.
> 
> You just have to be careful about the needle turning back time, that's all.




Never try to fight gravity.  You'll lose.  The Martians have the advantage of being higher in the sun's gravity well.  Anything we can throw at them, they can throw at us with just a little extra oomph or a little less cost.

More likely, the Martians would be considered a future threat and a lot of money would be diverted to handling a bunch of potential scenarios deemed farther in the future than the imminent threats telegraphed by water fluoridation.  ICBMs would be constructed for Cold War use, but each would cost more as they get outfitted with the potential to get boosted out of orbit.  So in the end, the stockpile would be reduced to only destroy the Earth a few times over.

Pre-emptive first strike by either side is deemed improbable and made more unlikely as each side builds launch detectors and trackers to "help" with communication and cultural exchange missions.


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## Morrus (Apr 5, 2013)

Joker said:


> Morrus, correct me if I'm wrong and please do, but it seems to me you think that because we can't do something now we can't do it ever




No, that would be an astonishingly dumb thing of me to think!  I hope I haven't given the impression that I'm talking about anything other than current capabilities.


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## Bullgrit (Apr 5, 2013)

Would communication between the worlds be open to whatever signals get thrown back and forth, or would governments clamp down on radio signals to keep the other world, (or their own world), from learning too much? For example, like how certain nations here on Earth control(ed) information.

Would Earth be more likely to form a one-world government? Or would nations be even more divided? And assuming the Earth-like Mars also has many, many nationalities and languages, would this help or hinder the interplanetary communication and trade?

***
[I don't think the Iraq war bankrupted the US. If the Iraq war cost 100 billion, (using the number given in this thread), the US national debt grew 7,000 billion (7 trillion) since the war's start. So 1/70th part of the debt can't be the cause of bankruptcy.]
***

Bullgrit


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## Janx (Apr 5, 2013)

Morrus said:


> Water? Why fight us for it when it's so plentiful in space? Just go to Europa and take as much as you want.




Water was just an example.  If not water, then Women.  Half our population is Women.  Mars Needs Women!


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## Umbran (Apr 5, 2013)

Oi, go afk for one evening, and look what happens!  



Janx said:


> Eventually, we may setup a Midway station between Mars and Earth for the first direct contact meeting.  Something where it's only half the distance for both parties.




You realize that Mars and Earth are not at rest with respect to each other, right?  They're both moving in separate orbits.  At the closest possible approach, if all the timing is just right, the planets are 33.9 Million miles apart (this approach has not happened in the period of recorded history, btw).  At their farthest, when they're on opposite sides of the Sun, they can be 250 million miles apart.  There's no one place to put a Midway station.


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## Umbran (Apr 5, 2013)

Joker said:


> You're making the assumption that we know that they're not concerned with territory.




No.  I'm making the assumption that at the tech level under discussion, they *CANNOT* be concerned with territory.  Taking the territory is not an option.

With the tech we are talking (chemical rockets), moving and supplying enough people to take and hold territory against billions of inhabitants is not possible.  The supply lines are *YEARS LONG*.  As in, "At the very minimum, it takes over a year to get anything from home." 

And, if you did take it, there's not a whole lot you can do with it.  You can't mine it for minerals - the same physics means shipping bulk materials is too expensive to be profitable.  You cannot use the land - even if they are oxygen breathing, water-needing folks like us, the root biology is different.  As the saying goes, you have more in common with a rutabega than a Romulan - you are unlikely to be able to eat any of the stuff growing on the other planet.  The same tech-level issue prevents "Marsiforming" efforts.  The only things worth shipping back and forth are going to be made by the people - which you won't have if you kill them all!



> You're also very level-headed and logical about this situation.  Can you say for certain others will be the same?
> 
> Can you say for certain our leaders, most of whom are businessmen and graduates of law and not scientists, will be level-headed and rational about this?




Given the expense required to so much as try?  Yes.   Those kind of leaders are *very* responsive to the Bottom Line.


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## Jdvn1 (Apr 5, 2013)

Janx said:


> We also could exchange science.  Odds are good they'll be farther along in one science and us in another.  Trading notes would likely happen.



This made me think that some of this already happens on an international level. There's a language barrier that slows the effect (an interplanetary language barrier would be interesting...) but this is isn't entirely dissimilar from a opposite-sides-of-the-world scenario.


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## Umbran (Apr 5, 2013)

Joker said:


> Morrus, correct me if I'm wrong and please do, but it seems to me you think that because we can't do something now we can't do it ever.




No, he isn't.  He's arguing that we could not do it now, assuming a reasonable time of discovery in the past.  What happens in the future is the future.



> Umbran, I think, made the assumption that they are humanoid but what if they are a hive-mind type of aliens?  Have you ever tried to have a conversation with an ant colony?  Note, a drunken monologue doesn't count.  You get nothing but a swath of red bumps and burning skin from that.




Cue _Ender's Game_ and the Bugger Wars?  Per previous post, really not relevant.  They cannot actually use our planet at the time under consideration, and we couldn't really use theirs.  The only reason to go to war is fear that the other guy will, but the other guy has no reason to go to war!

This is where the interplanetary scenario differs from our Cold War.  Our Cold War was ultimately over (proxy) control of real-world resources that could be used.  The Russians presented a threat of taking over Europe and Asia, because they could have *used* Europe and Asia.  At the tech level cited, the Martians have no use for Earth.  We have no use for Mars.

We can only think of going to Mars to use it now because it is uncontested, and even then the economics make it a questionable venture.  Make it so before you can get anything out of it, you have to demolish the planet, it becomes even less attractive.  



> We will find ways to kill things if need be.*




Yes.  My point is about the lack of need.



> I'm quite positive that while we try to communicate and understand each other, running parallel to this endeavor will be individual militaries or global collaborations commissioning research into information gathering and weapons technology.




Yes.  So, let us think about that for a moment.  How, exactly, are you going to test whatever weapons you develop?  You sure as heck can't test them on Earth.


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## Jdvn1 (Apr 5, 2013)

Derren said:


> We can already send probes up to mars. Load them up with nuclear or biological bombs and you have your weapon. Of course you do not send one but thousands.
> The capability to wage war is certainly there.



Too bad we can't have a Death Star...


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## Jdvn1 (Apr 5, 2013)

Umbran said:


> No.  I'm making the assumption that at the tech level under discussion, they *CANNOT* be concerned with territory.  Taking the territory is not an option.



Further, people only want territory they can use. Colonization of the New World was based on the possibility of trade. Modern day territorial disputes are often oil fields. What are you going to do with territory on Mars?

If you change the situation from planets in a solar system to countries on a planet, you can consider similar issues. We're not going to blow up a country on the other side of the world just because - we're going to at least attempt to be diplomatic with them first. If nothing else, you can make a lot more money that way with a lot fewer resources.


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## Umbran (Apr 5, 2013)

Bullgrit said:


> Would communication between the worlds be open to whatever signals get thrown back and forth, or would governments clamp down on radio signals to keep the other world, (or their own world), from learning too much? For example, like how certain nations here on Earth control(ed) information.




Difficult, because we use radio communication too much.  Controlling transmission is easy enough - local authorities could find and shut down any transmitter powerful enough to be heard on Mars.  

But, if you or they want to broadcast, the only way to prevent folks here from listening is to take away all the radio receivers on the planet, and all the components one might use to build a receiver - and that there pretty much kills your electronics industry, as the things you need to build a receiver are really basic.  So, you can control who talks to the Martians, but not who listens in on the conversation between you.  Collusion between human and martian governments could establish encryption protocols, but short of that, pretty much everyone knows who's saying what.



> Would Earth be more likely to form a one-world government? Or would nations be even more divided?




Eh.  Pure speculation, here.  You'd have to start including effects like what knowledge of another intelligent species does to religions around the world (both worlds, really). And that's going into areas that'd be outside the rules of EN World.



> And assuming the Earth-like Mars also has many, many nationalities and languages, would this help or hinder the interplanetary communication and trade?




We are used to conducting trade across a globe that has many languages and nationalities.  I don't see that as an issue.  



> [I don't think the Iraq war bankrupted the US. If the Iraq war cost 100 billion, (using the number given in this thread), the US national debt grew 7,000 billion (7 trillion) since the war's start. So 1/70th part of the debt can't be the cause of bankruptcy.]




No.  No no no.  The original estimates for a two-year engagement were $100 billion.  But, when you start counting up all the costs (like including that it's gone way, way past two years, and adding in veterans benefits and such) the Iraq war has cost more like $100 billion *per year*.  Total cost of the actions in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Pakistan are estimated to be at least $3 to $4 _*trillion*_, maybe as high as $6 trillion.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Financial_cost_of_the_Iraq_War

Whether or not it has bankrupted the US (the concept's a little fuzzy for an entity that can create money, after all), it has had notable negative economic impact.


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## Bullgrit (Apr 5, 2013)

> No. No no no. The original estimates for a two-year engagement were $100 billion.



I was just using what Morrus threw out, (since he was the one making the comparison/argument): "The cost of Iraq in the last ten years is under $100bn and it's bankrupted the world."

There are political spins to all the numbers, and even the link you give shows wildly varying figures depending on who calculates what information, and how. But even taking the worst at face value, the war cost is a smaller fraction of the nation's/world's spending, and is not the cause for any nation being "bankrupt" (read: in serious debt).

Bullgrit


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## Umbran (Apr 5, 2013)

Bullgrit said:


> But even taking the worst at face value, the war cost is a smaller fraction of the nation's/world's spending, and is not the cause for any nation being "bankrupt" (read: in serious debt).




Actually, it is.  Because the world as a whole was running pretty much full-tilt before the war began - I don't believe any of the major nations involved was working with a major yearly surplus.  Certainly, the US was already deficit spending before the war (the last balanced US budget was under Clinton, not Bush).  Then, 9/11. The financial markets (upon which national budgets depend) took a *huge* nose-dive.  And *then* we added what seems to be trillions in war-spending on top of that.  That's serious debt land.

And that's as far as I go on that - so far, we are talking history and economics, not politics, but I won't edge closer to that line.


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## RangerWickett (Apr 5, 2013)

Nagol said:


> Never try to fight gravity.  You'll lose.  The Martians have the advantage of being higher in the sun's gravity well.  Anything we can throw at them, they can throw at us with just a little extra oomph or a little less cost.




I wonder whether our planetary resources are greater, though? Sure, it's cheaper to launch from Mars toward Earth than vice versa, but we're much closer to the sun, and thus receive more solar radiation. I mean, I guess we don't know the size and composition of this hypothetical not-Mars that is capable of supporting life. But if we just plopped a green-blue biosphere on Mars as it is today, I believe we've just got a lot more resources.


As for what would happen, my stance is that rich wealthy and powerful Earthlings would get in touch with rich wealthy and powerful Martians and figure out they can profit from pretending to care about the hostilities between their nations. I mean, we know global warming is going to mess up our whole planet, but politicians get money from oil companies, so they deny the science. 

The defense industry would love aliens, because they'd make tons of money building all these rockets with various doomsday payloads, and it would be very profitable. But the entities in power on each planet wouldn't want to ruin a good thing, so they'd keep milking the fear economy in order to feather their own nests. 


Now Russ, you've been assuming traditional rocket launches. But there are other WAY more efficient methods of getting to orbit. They just require huge investments up front, and a lot of political and international wrangling to pull them off.

Could we achieve the technology to wage war? Sure! Invest 30 billion dollars in a launch loop. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Launch_loop 

It's now $3/kg to send things into orbit. A Peacekeeper ICBM weighs 100 tons (100,000 kg), and 1000 of those (1 million kg) could annihilate civilization. So $3 x 100,000,000 = less than a billion dollars to launch those bad boys into orbit. Once they're out of our gravity well, getting them to Mars is comparably cheap. If we can afford to have that many nukes right now, adding on an extra $31 billion to get them into orbit is certainly doable.

Of course, this depends on the rest of Earth not getting up in arms about us getting arms up in space. But if we unified under the fear of extraterrestrials, hell yes we could destroy a Martian civilization. Let's just hope we build our launch loop faster. Wipe them out, wait a few centuries for the radiation to die down, then start colonizing. And since it would encourage us to rapidly increase our launch capacity, it would be great for the human race. Hell, considering the return on investment, and how much it would eventually improve the quality of life of Humanity to have a second planet, we'd almost be morally _obligated_ to wipe the bug-eyed bastards out.


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## Derren (Apr 5, 2013)

Jdvn1 said:


> Too bad we can't have a Death Star...




Just because people are too stingy
http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/461687407/kickstarter-open-source-death-star


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## Shayuri (Apr 5, 2013)

Maybe it would help focus discussions if you (the OP) tell us the endpoint you want to arrive at, rather than try to massage the feedback to suit your purpose.

It sounds to me like you're looking to start a scenario where the Earth has (more or less) unified in opposition to a nearby planetary neighbor's inhabitants in an interplanetary war...and the implausibility of that happening with your starting conditions are vexing to you.

Happily, being fiction, all that needs be done to correct that situation is play with the assumptions a bit. For example:

1) If the aliens appear to be more capable than we are at space flight, and seem interested in Earth for some reason (ie - UFOs buzz us a lot), then Earth governments and people will be more nervous. This nervousness may or may not be warranted.

2) If the aliens are significantly different than we are in psychology or technological path, meaningful communication may be difficult or impossible. This doesn't guarantee war, but in conjunction with point 1, it makes war more likely.

3) If the alien planet has some unusual resource that can justify the massive expenses associated with space travel, then human beings might have interest in going there, in which case scenario 1 would apply to us buzzing them with 'ufos.'

4) If human technology is unusually advanced so as to make spaceflight easier, that lowers the bar for having interest in other planets. The idea that additional research could lead to a big breakthrough is unlikely without invoking space magic though...as long as we're limited by the laws of physics, space travel is going to be slow and expensive.

All of these points are at odds with the conditions set in the original post, but any or all of them would help satisfy the conclusion you seem to be aiming for.

As for the unified government of Earth...I suppose a case could be made for the idea that an inhuman 'other' could help human beings think of themselves as a single unit and overcome regional differences. But given the level of isolation from that other, I think it's unlikely to make a big difference in people's day to day lives. Realistically, entities like the UN might be more powerful, or more respected, but the nations of the world have too much rooting in history, ethnicity and culture to be so easily wiped out.

That doesn't mean that you can't have a one-world government in a fictional setting. It just means that the mere presence of aliens wouldn't alone plausibly justify it, in my view. But it could certainly contribute to other things, like a war of conquest, or something...


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## Umbran (Apr 5, 2013)

RangerWickett said:


> Now Russ, you've been assuming traditional rocket launches.




Yes, because something like our current level of technology was stipulated in the OP.



> But there are other WAY more efficient methods of getting to orbit. They just require huge investments up front, and a lot of political and international wrangling to pull them off.
> 
> Could we achieve the technology to wage war? Sure! Invest 30 billion dollars in a launch loop. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Launch_loop




The Launch Loop, and most other "economical" approaches to reaching orbit generally hinge on technology and engineering that does not exist to date.  For example, the Launch Loop is 2000 km long, and it's middle is maintained at a height of 80 km!  We do not know how to build such a thing.  the estimated price tag on that is quite thoroughly speculative.


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## Bullgrit (Apr 5, 2013)

> Maybe it would help focus discussions if you (the OP) tell us the endpoint you want to arrive at, rather than try to massage the feedback to suit your purpose.
> 
> It sounds to me like you're looking to start a scenario where the Earth has (more or less) unified in opposition to a nearby planetary neighbor's inhabitants in an interplanetary war...and the implausibility of that happening with your starting conditions are vexing to you.



WTF?

Bullgrit


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## Umbran (Apr 5, 2013)

Shayuri said:


> It sounds to me like you're looking to start a scenario where the Earth has (more or less) unified in opposition to a nearby planetary neighbor's inhabitants in an interplanetary war...and the implausibility of that happening with your starting conditions are vexing to you.




I don't see that at all.  Bullgrit seems to me to merely be eliciting conversation.  He's asking our opinions on, "what if?" and is doing darned little to guide our speculations.  He starts such threads fairly frequently, and they're usually a lot of fun.


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## RangerWickett (Apr 5, 2013)

Now I'm intrigued. What is the most cost-effective way, starting with our current technology, to annihilate a civilization on Mars.

Something to reduce the cost of getting payloads into space is a must. I think I read that we have the technology today to conceivably build a space elevator from the surface of the moon. So maybe you spend a high investment to get a base on the moon, then build lunar solar panels that can generate enough energy for us to produce antimatter. This requires, of course, figuring out how to contain antimatter for a long period of time (and I think if we can do that, we can just as easily pull off fusion).


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## Shayuri (Apr 5, 2013)

In that case, I read hastily and drew a really bad misconclusion.

My sincere apologies.



As for how to devastate Mars...I suspect just hurling nukes would be most cost-effective, since we already have a lot, and they're all already on top of giant rockets.

Failing that, maybe send rockets to asteroids and nudge them onto collision courses? Hard to beat that level of destruction, but it might not really be cost-effective.


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## RangerWickett (Apr 5, 2013)

I'm thinking "Real Time Strategy" game, StarCraft style. Sure, you could just build dozens of small units and send them, but is it more effective for the overall battle to invest in more production and technological development so you can field super-weapons.

Or, in this case, figure out how to make a launch loop.

(I really want a launch loop. And a pony.)


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## Umbran (Apr 5, 2013)

RangerWickett said:


> Now I'm intrigued. What is the most cost-effective way, starting with our current technology, to annihilate a civilization on Mars.




All you care about is cost, and the end of Martian civilization?  You don't care if you can use the planet, you don't care if it takes a while to accomplish, and you don't care how many Martians are left alive, just so long as the civilization crumbles?

Okay, here's my suggestion, using only stuff that we've at least experimented with already:

Take a standard chemical rocket to launch a probe.  Said probe is equipped with an ion drive.  The probe heads out to the asteroid belt (or, for a little more oomph, go for one of the Jupiter Trojan points), and latches on to a big rock.  It then uses a solar sail to de-orbit the rock such that it crashes into Mars with a high relative velocity.  The only speculative thing here is the solar sail, really.  Cost is probably on the order of a couple/few billion dollars.  It takes forever, though, as solar sails don't provide much thrust.  If you're careful, though, the Martians never see it coming, because you make sure your sail never reflects light in the direction of Mars.  Extra bonus points, you have the probe spray-paint the rock a stealthy black.


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## Dannyalcatraz (Apr 5, 2013)

RangerWickett said:


> Now I'm intrigued. What is the most cost-effective way, starting with our current technology, to annihilate a civilization on Mars.
> 
> Something to reduce the cost of getting payloads into space is a must. I think I read that we have the technology today to conceivably build a space elevator from the surface of the moon. So maybe you spend a high investment to get a base on the moon, then build lunar solar panels that can generate enough energy for us to produce antimatter. This requires, of course, figuring out how to contain antimatter for a long period of time (and I think if we can do that, we can just as easily pull off fusion).




See post #22.

Dropping rocks is cost effective on a per-rock basis, but you need a lot of them to do the job.

A bioweapon requires expensive R&D, but the payload is comparatively tiny, and depending on virulence, vectors, and science/culture of the target, could be effectively delivered with as few as a single payload.

Plus, you probably don't have any rebuilding costs, post-conquest.


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## Derren (Apr 5, 2013)

Dannyalcatraz said:


> Plus, you probably don't have any rebuilding costs, post-conquest.




I don't think that would be an issue as we likely couldn't use their buildings anyway and their biosphere would be as hostile to use as the real mars.


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## Jdvn1 (Apr 5, 2013)

I find a little disheartening that this discussion has essentially become, "How can we most efficiently destroy another civilization?"

That makes us more like the _bad guys_ in standard sci fi.


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## Derren (Apr 5, 2013)

Jdvn1 said:


> I find a little disheartening that this discussion has essentially become, "How can we most efficiently destroy another civilization?"
> 
> That makes us more like the _bad guys_ in standard sci fi.




But it is realistic that this would be one of the first questions we ask us.


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## Jdvn1 (Apr 5, 2013)

Derren said:


> But it is realistic that this would be one of the first questions we ask us.



I completely disagree. I still think no one has satisfactorily explained why we would attack them - it's not cost-efficient and it doesn't provide us with any benefit.


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## Morrus (Apr 5, 2013)

Derren said:


> I don't think that would be an issue as we likely couldn't use their buildings anyway and their biosphere would be as hostile to use as the real mars.




No it wouldn't - it's earth like.


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## Derren (Apr 5, 2013)

Jdvn1 said:


> I completely disagree. I still think no one has satisfactorily explained why we would attack them - it's not cost-efficient and it doesn't provide us with any benefit.




1. They could do it.
As they possess the same technology as we do they could attack us. If not now, then in the future. So as defense we either have to destroy them first or, more likely, need to build up a MAD scenario so they can't attack us without getting killed themselves.

2. We would have absolutely no idea how they think. The most crazy human psycho would be more understandable than an alien.




Morrus said:


> No it wouldn't - it's earth like.




Earth like does not mean supporting human life. Their physiology might differ so much that we couldn't even enter their buildings. And just because there is a flora & fauna on the planet doesn't mean that we are compatible with that. Its even unlikely that we can breath the air even when it includes oxygen. Water we could use. The rest is hostile.
Just look at the movie Avatar. That planet certainly was earth like and yet all the plants, animals and even the atmosphere was a obstacle and not helpful at all.


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## Morrus (Apr 5, 2013)

Derren said:


> 1. They could do it.
> As they possess the same technology as we do they could attack us. If not now, then in the future. So as defense we either have to destroy them first or, more likely, need to build up a MAD scenario so they can't attack us without getting killed themselves.
> 
> 2. We would have absolutely no idea how they think. The most crazy human psycho would be more understandable than an alien.
> ...




If we can't breathe the air, it's not earth-like. It's earth-unlike.

Avatar has no part in this debate.


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## Ed_Laprade (Apr 5, 2013)

Derren said:


> Imo it wold be the opposite. Without the cold war space technology would be decades behind. After all it started out as a proxy conflict for prestige. When that incentive isn't there, why bother?
> But I agree with your conclusion that the technological development would be different. Yet the general situation of having the same level of (space) technology as now could still happen. Just not 2013 but maybe 1987.



Yes and no. Most of the space tech we had at the end of the Apollo program was little better than what we had when the Mercury project started. And then we spent a lot of time trying to improve it while the voters lost interest. So, as they said at the beginning: No bucks, no Buck Rogers. 

The plan, before the Race to the Moon, was a slow one-step-at-a-time program with something happening to keep interest up all the time. Getting into orbit. Building a space station. Going to the Moon. Colonizing the Moon. Going to Mars. It would have taken us longer (10 years?) to get to the Moon, but by then we'd have had all the things we needed to get to Mars in place. It 'just' would have required building a Mars rocket, with better tech than we had shortly after reaching the Moon in real life. 

All of which may, or may not, be applicable to the current discussion.


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## Derren (Apr 5, 2013)

Ed_Laprade said:


> Yes and no. Most of the space tech we had at the end of the Apollo program was little better than what we had when the Mercury project started. And then we spent a lot of time trying to improve it while the voters lost interest. So, as they said at the beginning: No bucks, no Buck Rogers.
> 
> The plan, before the Race to the Moon, was a slow one-step-at-a-time program with something happening to keep interest up all the time. Getting into orbit. Building a space station. Going to the Moon. Colonizing the Moon. Going to Mars. It would have taken us longer (10 years?) to get to the Moon, but by then we'd have had all the things we needed to get to Mars in place. It 'just' would have required building a Mars rocket, with better tech than we had shortly after reaching the Moon in real life.
> 
> All of which may, or may not, be applicable to the current discussion.




If you mean sending humans to mars then no. There are some challenges a manned mission to mars faces which are negligible when going to the moon like psychological stress, muscle degeneration and radiation, or pose much less of a problem like having a return vehicle.

If you want to send someone to mars suicide style with a high risk of death during transit and no chance for return (and no means to survive on mars either), we can do that already. But for anything more constructive a lot more research is needed than for a manned moon landing.


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## Umbran (Apr 5, 2013)

Derren said:


> 1. They could do it.




Yes, well, we already saw how humanity approaches that question, now haven't we?  "They could to it," is insufficient.  The Soviets could have done it.  But they didn't, and we didn't launch a preemptive strike, either.  The same logic applies.




> 2. We would have absolutely no idea how they think.




By the posits we have so far, we have significant expectation of being able to know how they think decades before either end has the capability to visit destruction - radio contact comes decades before interplanetary rocketry. 



> Earth like does not mean supporting human life.




"Earth like" in this context generally means having a solid, rocky surface, liquid water available (which implies an atmosphere, though it's content may be open to discussion), and a mass such that humans can manage to live there is some measure of health.  I assert that if we cannot live largely unprotected on each others' worlds, there's really no reason to fight.  At least, not before we both have technology to mine asteroids.  



> Their physiology might differ so much that we couldn't even enter their buildings.




Well, that's nothing - we can always put up new buildings - we usually do when we move into new territory, you know.



> And just because there is a flora & fauna on the planet doesn't mean that we are compatible with that. Its even unlikely that we can breath the air even when it includes oxygen.




You are correct that the wrong balance of gases would be problematic.  It isn't enough to have Oxygen, Nitrogen, and CO2, but we need them in right concentrations to keep breathing (and presumably, so would they).  And we are unlikely to match their biology - we can't eat each others' food, and so on.



> That planet certainly was earth like and yet all the plants, animals and even the atmosphere was a obstacle and not helpful at all.




Yes.  To the point where, if not for "unobtanium", humans wouldn't have bothered with the planet at all.  So, if it is so hostile, why blow them up?  The fact that they *could* blow you up isn't itself a threat, unless they have *reason* to.


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## Janx (Apr 5, 2013)

Jdvn1 said:


> This made me think that some of this already happens on an international level. There's a language barrier that slows the effect (an interplanetary language barrier would be interesting...) but this is isn't entirely dissimilar from a opposite-sides-of-the-world scenario.




Thanks.

I was trying to come up with different angles from what had already been suggested at that point in the thread.

Exchanging culture, science, and ideas can be done over radio waves.

While building a defense network can be construed as Hostile, it is less hostile than sending a fleet of attack rockets to Mars.  In effect, because it's so freaking far away, the Martians could easily have a "who cares about that" attitude as they build their own Space Defense network.

It's a mostly harmless activity since you're not planning on being the aggressor (it's always the other guy), and it gives you a platform for staging your assault plan when you decide to do a pre-emptive strike.


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## Olgar Shiverstone (Apr 6, 2013)

Dannyalcatraz said:


> Dropping rocks is cost effective on a per-rock basis, but you need a lot of them to do the job.




That depends on the size of the rock.  The dinosaur-killer wasn't that big in asteroid terms.  Deorbit about six of them from the asteroid belt on to Mars and you'll do the trick.



> I completely disagree. I still think no one has satisfactorily explained why we would attack them - it's not cost-efficient and it doesn't provide us with any benefit.




Two expanding civilizations that use the same resources in a limited resource environment will inevitably come into conflict unless both choose to limit their expansion to available resources.  And why do that when you can take it from the other guy -- especially when they're just a bunch of alien bugs?

The two civilizations may find an equilibrium if equally matched ... but if it becomes a battle for the survival of the species, whose side are you going to be on?


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## Derren (Apr 6, 2013)

Umbran said:


> Yes, well, we already saw how humanity approaches that question, now haven't we?  "They could to it," is insufficient.  The Soviets could have done it.  But they didn't, and we didn't launch a preemptive strike, either.  The same logic applies.




But we did build up the capabilities to do it, just in case. The same logic applies.




> By the posits we have so far, we have significant expectation of being able to know how they think decades before either end has the capability to visit destruction - radio contact comes decades before interplanetary rocketry.




The problem is that they are still alien. They think completely different than any human which makes understanding them very hard. We don't even know if they have the same needs, emotions or even senses. How could anyone understand such completely different beings just with radio contact?



> Well, that's nothing - we can always put up new buildings - we usually do when we move into new territory, you know.




So no reason to not flatten them in a theoretical attack. Together with everything else we humans can't use which happens to be everything except the water.


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## Dannyalcatraz (Apr 6, 2013)

> That depends on the size of the rock. The dinosaur-killer wasn't that big in asteroid terms. Deorbit about six of them from the asteroid belt on to Mars and you'll do the trick.




The Dino killer- last estimate I saw- was at least 2.5 miles across.  That is many, many times the mass of something we could move right now or in the foreseeable. future with anything resembling alacrity or accuracy.  Deorbiting and targeting 6 such asteroids would _literally_ be the most massive undertaking in human history up to that point.

(And, as pointed out, it would be easier for hem than for us...)

A bioweapon, in contrast, could be delivered with what we have now.  Plus, as I pointed out, post-conquest cleanup would be a cakewalk compared to that caused by an artificial meteor shower capable if exterminating an advanced civilization.

And there are solid reasons NOT to use nukes or asteroids.  Just because they are as technologically advanced as we are- as per the discussion's parameters- it does not follow that our scientific discoveries are _identical_.  They could have alloys we don't.  They may have a better understanding of astrophysics or chemistry or quantum mechanics than we do.

Use a mass drop or nukes, and all that knowledge is lost.


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## Derren (Apr 6, 2013)

Dannyalcatraz said:


> A bioweapon, in contrast, could be delivered with what we have now.  Plus, as I pointed out, post-conquest cleanup would be a cakewalk compared to that caused by an artificial meteor shower capable if exterminating an advanced civilization.




Manufacturing such a weapon would be pretty much impossible as we do not even have samples of their DNA and viruses we could upgrade.


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## Dannyalcatraz (Apr 6, 2013)

Derren said:


> Manufacturing such a weapon would be pretty much impossible as we do not even have samples of their DNA and viruses we could upgrade.



I was assuming that there had been some kind of contact preceding the decision to initiate genocide, clearly.

...even if that contact were limited to sending interplanetary craft to do "orifice probes" on individuals isolated from their fellow beings...


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## Morrus (Apr 6, 2013)

Like I said; we can't do it.

And nukes?  Seriously?  I know they sound scary and can destroy cities on Earth.  But the rockets ain't the same things as the ones that go to Mars.  I don't think folks are grasping that the hard part about sending stuff to Mars is the fuel costs.  Hell, it's hard to send stuff around the world in one shot.  Mars is a long way away.  A long, long way away.  Not like Russia-away. Not like the Moon-away.  Tens of thousand of times that, with current travel times being 6-9 months or so, depending how far away Mars is (outside that window we just don't send stuff, as it would take years).


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## Umbran (Apr 6, 2013)

Derren said:


> But we did build up the capabilities to do it, just in case. The same logic applies.




Except that it was a case where no defense existed, so the best offense became the defense.  And that seemed okay, because it might have been possible to sneak up on the bad guy.

That doesn't apply here.  We are talking about months to years between when they launch a weapon, and when it reaches the target.  My scenario, while sneaky, may call for a decade or more between launch and delivery.  There is no "take 'em out quick before they can get us!




> The problem is that they are still alien. They think completely different than any human which makes understanding them very hard.




Are you sure?  If they have physical bodies, breathe something, use tools, and all, we have lots of points of commonality.  We're talking about a species that knows a lot of chemistry (you need that, to launch rockets).  They know math and physics.  These things are the same on Earth and Mars.  There is a constant between us - the Universe!  We are interacting with the same Universe, using the same techniques!  That implies some significant commonalities.



> We don't even know if they have the same needs, emotions or even senses.




Actually, we do.  As I said, the Universe is the same here and there.  Physics dictates there are only so many ways to perceive your environment.  



> So no reason to not flatten them in a theoretical attack.




I've raised the reason several times:  cost with no return on investment.  Oh, and the fact that, really, you can be sure a whole lot of humans are *not* going to like the idea that you're going to commit genocide.


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## GSHamster (Apr 6, 2013)

It's probable that neither side would be able to conquer the other's planet. There's simply too many defenders (6 billion) and it would cost way too much to send an invasion force capable of holding territory.

That being said, there's still something worth fighting for: the rest of the solar system.  

The asteroids, Jupiter's moons, all the other planets, all of that is up for grabs.  I think the situation would more closely match the European powers rushing to colonize other continents.  So the war for the most part would more like the Age of Sail, with privateers and navy ships preying on the colonies and the resources being extracted.

That of course could lead to each side developing weapons capable of destroying the other planet. Not to conquer, but to eliminate a rival claimant for the rest of the system. I doubt these would be used, but it could be a Cold War standoff again.


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## Umbran (Apr 6, 2013)

Dannyalcatraz said:


> The Dino killer- last estimate I saw- was at least 2.5 miles across.  That is many, many times the mass of something we could move right now or in the foreseeable. future with anything resembling alacrity or accuracy.




See my previous note on how to destroy a civilization economically.  If you're willing to take your time, it isn't that expensive, and it is near-current tech.  There are many variables, but peaking very broadly:

A 100m diameter stony asteroid would hit like the Tunguska event.  10 to 15 megatons, roughly 1,000 times more powerful than the Hiroshima bomb.
A 350m to a half-kilometer diameter asteroid would hit well beyond any weapon ever created by man.  Expect immediate casualties of 10 million or more if it hit today's Earth.  Also expect some global climate impact.  Given that killing only a couple thousand people in one blow in NYC did severe damage to our economy, something this size is apt to topple governments, if not worse.
A 1km diameter rock does enough to, say, wipe out *all* coastlines of the ocean it hits.  It obliterates an entire country in one shot.  It throws up enough dust to ensure global climate change.  This is enough to kill a civilization.
A 10km rock is an extinction-level event.  It kills much of life on the planet.



> (And, as pointed out, it would be easier for hem than for us...)




Not by that much.  We both probably have to go to the asteroid belt to get the rock.  We're firing from the same place...



> A bioweapon, in contrast, could be delivered with what we have now.




Yes, but you don't have the ability to test enough to know with certainty that it is virulent and lethal enough to take down the civilization.  And, if it doesn't, they're *pissed*.



> Plus, as I pointed out, post-conquest cleanup would be a cakewalk compared to that caused by an artificial meteor shower capable if exterminating an advanced civilization.




That is true.  The bioweapon designed for them doesn't do diddly to us.


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## Dannyalcatraz (Apr 6, 2013)

> See my previous note on how to destroy a civilization economically. If you're willing to take your time, it isn't that expensive, and it is near-current tech.




Taking time isn't really an option.  If they're as smart as we are, they will be as aware of the appearance of asteroids on unnatural trajectories as we would be, and would probably react properly- with extreme aggression and an eye towards retaliation.*

In addition, if you want to thoroughly destroy a civilization as advanced as ours, targeting cities won't do it.  Our species is concentrated in cities, to be sure, but there are enough of us in rural areas- and at least as importantly, in mobile weapon platforms at sea**- that if you have any designs on landing on the planet after the meteoric bombardment, you have to go for complete annihilation.  So the 10km rock or its aggregate equivalent is your only choice.

So once you've triggered the ELE on Mars, how long before the planet's environs are sufficiently restabilized for us to venture down and seize our spoils?

And how much of the valuable knowledge and valuable materials- those created naturally as a byproduct of the metabolisms of living creatures as well as those artificially created by the minds of the decimated- would be eradicated in an orbital mass bombardment?

If the aggressors had _any_ plans to make use of the conqured world within a nation-state's lifetime, a bio weapon is really the best solution.

Testing it would surely be a problem, but not insurmountable.  And in all honesty, if this were to be a global effort, it is highly probable the would be multiple teams at work on the same task.  It is likely, then, that by the time the drums of war had reached crescendo, not one, but several bioweapons would be deployable.

Given their compactness, it is conceivable that all could be delivered with only a couple of launch vehicles.

As things stand on this planet, we have trouble dealing with one super-bug epidemic at a time.  How would our alien targets fare against the release of the equivalent of the 1918 flu, the Black Death, smallpox, anthrax and Ebola being released on their civilization simultaneously?

Assume, arguendo, that this attack were planned post-first contact.  As I suggested- drawing from history- such an attack could be as simple as delivering innocuous trade goods via our (possibly unknowingly complicit) goodwill ambassadors.  Imagine the engineered plagues' vectorization as our diplomats visited all of the major population centers...





* assuming your target is at least as nasty as we are is a necessity.  If they're pacifists, well, they're S.O.L.

** Mars may not have seas, but it is not inconceivable that any intelligent life on that planet may actually be at least partially if not wholly subterranean.


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## Umbran (Apr 6, 2013)

Dannyalcatraz said:


> Taking time isn't really an option.  If they're as smart as we are, they will be as aware of the appearance of asteroids on unnatural trajectories as we would be, and would probably react properly- with extreme aggression and an eye towards retaliation.*




They'd be as aware... and as incapable of doing anything about it!  The interesting part of this trick is that, if you've done your job properly, they don't know you've done it.  They know there's an asteroid coming their way, but they don't know you put it there.

But, if you want it to be fast, we can cut the time by an order of magnitude or so.  Instead of deploying a solar sail, you slap an Orion drive on the thing.  Use up the atomic weapons folks are so keen to use, but to greater effect.  Of course, here the fact that you're sending a rock to kill them becomes obvious.



> In addition, if you want to thoroughly destroy a civilization as advanced as ours, targeting cities won't do it.  Our species is concentrated in cities, to be sure, but there are enough of us in rural areas- and at least as importantly, in mobile weapon platforms at sea**- that if you have any designs on landing on the planet after the meteoric bombardment, you have to go for complete annihilation.  So the 10km rock or its aggregate equivalent is your only choice.




I don't believe you need to have an extinction level event to kill the civilization, as far as being an interplanetary-power is concerned.  



> And how much of the valuable knowledge and valuable materials- those created naturally as a byproduct of the metabolisms of living creatures as well as those artificially created by the minds of the decimated- would be eradicated in an orbital mass bombardment?




I asked at the start - eliminating the civilization cheaply was the *only* consideration?



> If the aggressors had _any_ plans to make use of the conqured world within a nation-state's lifetime, a bio weapon is really the best solution.
> 
> Testing it would surely be a problem, but not insurmountable.  And in all honesty, if this were to be a global effort, it is highly probable the would be multiple teams at work on the same task.




The teams are irrelevant.  You don't have the test subjects.  You don't have a pack of Martians you can test the thing on!



> As things stand on this planet, we have trouble dealing with one super-bug epidemic at a time.  How would our alien targets fare against the release of the equivalent of the 1918 flu, the Black Death, smallpox, anthrax and Ebola being released on their civilization simultaneously?




Oh, so now you want to develop _several_ bio-weapons, based in non-terrestrial biology, again without test subjects?  



> ** Mars may not have seas, but it is not inconceivable that any intelligent life on that planet may actually be at least partially if not wholly subterranean.




We are stipulated it is "Earth like".  Seas are, I think, a reasonable assumption.  Not necessary, but reasonable.


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## Dannyalcatraz (Apr 6, 2013)

Umbran said:


> They'd be as aware... and as incapable of doing anything about it!  The interesting part of this trick is that, if you've done your job properly, they don't know you've done it.  They know there's an asteroid coming their way, but they don't know you put it there.




If we are assuming they're as advanced as we are, it is reasonable- no, necessary- to assume that they would be just as capable of moving asteroids as we are.

If we can move in on target, they can potentially move it back off target as a countermeasure.  Assuming otherwise could have disastrous consequences, including the Martians redirecting the asteroid to a hit a target on _Earth_, so any competent battle strategist will have to include that possibility.

As for figuring out the whodunit...well, if the Martians are similar in thought process to humans, its not a question of _would_ any of them suspect Terran treachery, but rather how many and do they have the ability to convince their fellows of their suspicions.



> The teams are irrelevant.  You don't have the test subjects.  You don't have a pack of Martians you can test the thing on!
> 
> <edit>
> 
> Oh, so now you want to develop _several_ bio-weapons, based in non-terrestrial biology, again without test subjects?




As _I_ said, a bioweapons program presupposes there has been some kind of study of the biology of the target, even if its just the of the old Sci-Fi horror show trope of ships dropping out of the sky to abduct the unsuspecting for "probulation."


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## Olgar Shiverstone (Apr 6, 2013)

Dannyalcatraz said:


> If we can move in on target, they can potentially move it back off target as a countermeasure.  Assuming otherwise could have disastrous consequences, including the Martians redirecting the asteroid to a hit a target on _Earth_, so any competent battle strategist will have to include that possibility.




Though from the asteroid belt the delta-V required to drop an asteroid on Mars is quite a bit less than getting it to Earth, so assuming relatively equal tech Earth has the advantage if we get to the asteroid first.  Pushing an asteroid back out of the Sun's gravity well takes even more energy, so if the Martians are trying to push the asteroid out while we push it in they lose.  The smart defensive play is to push it inward, though do it wrong and you might get a highly eccentric orbit that becomes a danger to both planets.

If we want to plan a mega-strike, we sneak into Mars orbit and drop Phobos on them.


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## Umbran (Apr 6, 2013)

Dannyalcatraz said:


> If we can move in on target, they can potentially move it back off target as a countermeasure.  Assuming otherwise could have disastrous consequences, including the Martians redirecting the asteroid to a hit a target on _Earth_, so any competent battle strategist will have to include that possibility.




Yes, but the Martians don't have Bruce Willis!  

This is one of those cases where the attack is easier than the defense - the small amounts of force we can apply over time have large cumulative effect.  But, on defense, you don't have the time.  You've taken a decade to set it up, but leave them at best months to fix the problem.  They have to discover it is coming, develop the specific technology, launch the mission, and have it arrive in time to make a difference.  Right now, we here on Earth do not have suitable asteroid defense - heck, Congress was hearing options for asteroid defense just last month!

As for figuring out the whodunit...well, if the Martians are similar in thought process to humans, its not a question of _would_ any of them suspect Terran treachery, but rather how many and do they have the ability to convince their fellows of their suspicions.



> As _I_ said, a bioweapons program presupposes there has been some kind of study of the biology of the target




You think, "some kind of study," equates to, "can whip up a globally virulent and deadly bioweapon without testing"?  

I'm sorry, but that's not how biological sciences work.  You cannot design things in theory and have them just work.  We couldn't even perform this feat for a terrestrial species, much less an alien one.



> even if its just the of the old Sci-Fi horror show trope of ships dropping out of the sky to abduct the unsuspecting for "probulation."




Going back and forth is still expensive, remember.  With chemical rocketry, you don't get to just land and take off again without anyone noticing.


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## Umbran (Apr 6, 2013)

Olgar Shiverstone said:


> If we want to plan a mega-strike, we sneak into Mars orbit and drop Phobos on them.




Phobos is the right size, but it's relative speed with respect to Mars is not great.


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## Morrus (Apr 6, 2013)

Umbran said:


> Yes, but the Martians don't have Bruce Willis!




Yeah, but they're on a messageboard thread on Mars right now typing _"Yes, but the Earthlings don't have Martian Bruce Willis!"
_


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## Grumpy RPG Reviews (Apr 6, 2013)

Bullgrit said:


> Would we be at war with them? Would their existence be a prompt to advance our space industry faster?




We would have been preparing for war for as long as we could have, to kill them all, it would have pushed technology faster, so we could kill them all, then we would go there and try to kill them all.

Humans are pretty horrible.

Edit: I wonder what would happen when Earth Chuck Norris and Martian Chuck Norris fought.


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## Bullgrit (Apr 6, 2013)

I didn't expect for the discussion to go this way, and now I feel kind of bad that everyone is talking about how to kill the Martians. And I agree with those who have said there's no reason to war with them.

Bullgrit


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## Umbran (Apr 6, 2013)

Grumpy RPG Reviews said:


> Edit: I wonder what would happen when Earth Chuck Norris and Martian Chuck Norris fought.





...Well, you know, something has to make all those stars go supernova, right?


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## Jemal (Apr 6, 2013)

I have a few notes:
First, According to what I've heard from astro-physicists, we started sending radio signals into space about 60-70 years ago.  Signals would take between 5 and 30 minutes to reach Mars, depending on relative positions due to orbit, so once both of us were able to send and recieve, we'd know almost instantly about each other - even assuming we hadn't already figured it out via telescope.  Assuming our relative forms of communication were similar enough for translation to be possible - Which is reasonable if we can understand that they ARE communicating, and virtually impossible if we cant - Linguistics shouldn't take too long to do so, even if we have to get by communicating via math.

How we would respond to each other would greatly depend on the above - If we can't communicate with them, then Darwinism kicks in - If we can't know they aren't meaning to destroy us, we will - as a dominating and very self-preservative species - destroy them first.
"If you can't speak to the other guy, you can never be certain he's not trying to kill you."
On the other hand, if we CAN communicate with them, then other possibilities open up - Yes, conflict would be all but inevitable given our history, but it would be very similar to what happened when different societies first encountered each other on Earth.  

Now, as to the travel..  The problems with sending stuff into space is Politics.  Yes, it's costly, but think about this : The recent Curiosity mission to mars cost 2.5 Billion, from R&D to Launch, sending a nuclear powered mobile science lab across space and landing it safely without any assistance at the other end - and that was far over the estimate due to problems that I won't get into other than to say they wouldn't have happened if there was political motivation to get there.
The United states Dept of Defense spent ~700 Billion just last year.  Many current fighter jets cost around 100 Million each.  Not counting the few billion they spend on R&D every year.  Heck, the B22 spirit bomber.. which they have a couple dozen of.. EACH cost the same as Curiosity.  Not counting the bomber's R&D budget.

Now take into account that if there were KNOWN Intelligent life out there, the drive to go out there - whether for trade, war, exploration, whatever - would be so much greater than it currently is.  Especially if they're that close.  If we found out about them around the 60s, when all the space programs were getting started, we'd probably have had unmanned probes there by the early 70s, and a manned mission by the 80s at the VERY LATEST.  It took NASA 8 years to go from 'holy crap the Russians put a guy in space!' to "Hey look, we're on the moon" because there was drive to do so.  

Though that's assuming we're more advanced than them and they don't beat us to it.


Consider this; A 5 minute video of thoughts from Astrophysicist, Science Popularizer, and Directer of the Hayden Planetarium - Neil Degrasse Tyson.  
It's called 'we stopped dreaming' and combines a lot of his great quotes/thoughts about the american space program.  I seriously suggest watching it.  It's a bit heavy on the american patriotism, but still very insightful and moving to anybody who's interested in space.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CbIZU8cQWXc

Imagine if instead of the Americans slowing/stopping space exploration, they and all the rest of us had encountered a catalyst to go further - Extraterrestrial Intelligence.  

I cannot fathom the concept that we would NOT be capable of travelling between Earth and Mars efficiently and readily by now.


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## Derren (Apr 6, 2013)

Bullgrit said:


> I didn't expect for the discussion to go this way, and now I feel kind of bad that everyone is talking about how to kill the Martians. And I agree with those who have said there's no reason to war with them.
> 
> Bullgrit




Since when do we need a reason except "they are there and could hurt us"?


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## Umbran (Apr 6, 2013)

Bullgrit said:


> now I feel kind of bad that everyone is talking about how to kill the Martians.




Don't feel bad.  Us talking about it is more inevitable than us actually doing it.  We're people who play games based in the "kill things and take their stuff" tradition, after all.  Thinking about how to kill stuff is what we do.


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## Jemal (Apr 6, 2013)

Derren said:


> Since when do we need a reason except "they are there and could hurt us"?




Since we developed communication and higher thinking, and realized that working together tends to get you further than killing each other.  That's not to say that many humans aren't still blood-thirsty brutes, but there are those who realize that co-operation is usually the winning strategy.


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## Jemal (Apr 6, 2013)

On that note, however, despite my belief that violence isn't the best way, it's sometimes necessary, and I do enjoy a good wargame scenario, so..

We do currently have the technology to theoretically deflect asteroids given a couple years warning.  Accounting for 50+ years of realization that such a thing could be neccessary given an interplanetary war and the drive that comes with that, It's not exactly far-fetched to think that we would have asteroid-deflection plans and early detection systems already in place, not to mention a deterence factor of our own - If both planets are aiming huge asteroids at each other, you get the interplanetary equivalent of MAD.


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## Derren (Apr 6, 2013)

Jemal said:


> co-operation is usually the winning strategy.




Only between equals (in military power).


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## Jemal (Apr 6, 2013)

If we're assuming they're not our equals then the entire discussion is moot.  If they're far enough beyond us for co-operation to not be worth their time, we have no defense.  If they're far enough behind, the inverse is true.  
For any meaningful discussion we must assume at least similar power/technology/skill.

EDIT: 
Otherwise it's like discussing a boxing match between Mike Tyson and the Incredible Hulk.  Sure, Tyson can give and take a beating, but when you're out of your league, you're OUT OF YOUR LEAGUE, and baring incredible and unforseen events, Hulk Smash.


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## Derren (Apr 6, 2013)

Jemal said:


> If we're assuming they're not our equals then the entire discussion is moot.  If they're far enough beyond us for co-operation to not be worth their time, we have no defense.  If they're far enough behind, the inverse is true.
> For any meaningful discussion we must assume at least similar power/technology/skill.




Equals in military power.
Even when they are technologically equals to us, but are completely peaceful and possess no real weapons they are toast as we humans operate under "Might makes right / survival of the fittest". And as we would assume they also do, we certainly would build weapons against them, no matter what their real intentions were.

Only when it is clear that both are on equal terms when it comes to the military so that there is a MAD scenario or it becomes too costly/uncertain to overcome the others defenses then cooperation starts.


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## Jemal (Apr 6, 2013)

That's essentially what I said "if we're assuming they're not our equals the entire discussion is moot". A race that can't fight back is obviously not our military equal..

 Also a completely pacifistic intelligent race with no means of fighting is rather unrealistic.  Survival of the fittest is evolution, not human psychology.  The entire concept of a species that is unfamiliar with conflict seems absurd to me.  You don't get to be the dominant species of an entire planet like that.
The only ways they could NOT be approximately as prepared for war as us (given similar technological advancement) is if A) Their planet did not undergo natural selection, or B) They evolved far beyond it.

The first is highly unlikely, the second would more than likely have lead to highly advanced reasoning and science without the strife and conflict that usually get in the way.  It would also have required that ALL of the races on their planet were conflict-free, meaning they wouldn't even recognize what conflict is.  Otherwise, any race so advanced would have made at least a cursory study of the other life forms around it and come to the realization that just because THEY are enlightened and non-violent doesn't mean everybody is.

EVEN THEN, They would have had decades to study us and realize how warlike we were, before we would even have been capable of launching an attack on them.  By simple reverse engineering they could figure out how to wage war in return.


On another note, two powers do not need to be EQUAL to make co-operation relevant, the lesser just has to be capable of making the alternative more costly than beneficial.  That's the entire basis behind Guerilla warfare.

EDIT: TBC.  Gotta hit the hay.


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## Umbran (Apr 6, 2013)

Derren said:


> Since when do we need a reason except "they are there and could hurt us"?




Since pretty much forever, actually.

If you go back and review your history, I think you'll find that, behind the rhetoric, every war has socioeconomic drivers behind it.  The history of human wars is not loaded with examples of, "Get them before they get us!"  That was part of the rhetoric of the Cold War, but then, interestingly, we failed to get them.


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## Umbran (Apr 6, 2013)

Jemal said:


> Also a completely pacifistic intelligent race with no means of fighting is rather unrealistic.  Survival of the fittest is evolution, not human psychology.  The entire concept of a species that is unfamiliar with conflict seems absurd to me.  You don't get to be the dominant species of an entire planet like that.




Beware of evolutionary psychology.  It works on the basis of plausible arguments, rather than testable hypotheses, and that's the place where our preconceived notions get in the way.  The one here is that humans are the "dominant species".  That's based in an old, outmoded view of evolution (the "evolutionary ladder", with humans at the top), which itself is based on the notion that humans are somehow special and distinct among living creatures.

"Survival of the fittest," applied purely to physical conflict misses much of the point of evolution.  "Fittest" does not mean, "most capable of fighting back".  It acutely means, "best adapted to its conditions".  Grass doesn't reach up and throttle cattle, beating it into a bloody pulp so that it doesn't get eaten. The grass that it "fittest" maybe has a chemical defense that makes it unpalatable. But really, most of the grass is fittest because it has the ability to simply grow back after the cattle have passed by, a completely passive approach to survival that has led there to being a whole lot more grass than there are cows!  Plankton and krill don't "fight" when the baleen whales come by, either.  Most of the living stuff on our planet is completely incapable of "fighting" in the human sense of the word.



> On another note, two powers do not need to be EQUAL to make co-operation relevant, the lesser just has to be capable of making the alternative more costly than beneficial.  That's the entire basis behind Guerilla warfare.




This, at least, is correct.


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## RangerWickett (Apr 6, 2013)

Umbran said:


> ...Well, you know, something has to make all those stars go supernova, right?




I feel a story in the making. Two races have first contact. Within 3 years they've exchanged massive bulks of their popular cultures, and everyone on both planets want to know: who would win in a fight -- Chuck Norris, or g'43ab!xlitz? Massive public pressure leads to the first mainstream interstellar action film. (There was that one indie film ironically reimagining E.T., but they could even afford to shoot on real space ships.)


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## Umbran (Apr 6, 2013)

RangerWickett said:


> I feel a story in the making. Two races have first contact. Within 3 years they've exchanged massive bulks of their popular cultures, and everyone on both planets want to know: who would win in a fight -- Chuck Norris, or g'43ab!xlitz? Massive public pressure leads to the first mainstream interstellar action film.




And, in standard Hollywood/comic book fashion, the fight turns up a draw, and the two heroes have to come together to fight some mutual threat.


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## Olgar Shiverstone (Apr 6, 2013)

Jemal said:


> Heck, the B22 spirit bomber.. which they have a couple dozen of.. EACH cost the same as Curiosity.  Not counting the bomber's R&D budget.




Fact check: Procurement costs for the B-2 were just under $1B per bomber, with total cost at about $2.1B per aircraft when development costs are included (compared to $2.5B for the Mars Science Laboratory program -- Curiosity).  This was a result of the reduction in total buy from 132 to 21, which meant that the R&D and production tooling designed to build over 100 aircraft have to be spread over just 21 -- a lesson that carries over to this discussion on space travel, because if you can increase production volumes beyond one-offs, the average procurement cost declines substantially.

This suggests too that repeat MSL missions, provided they don't vary much from the current design of Curisoity, would come down in cost as the preliminary development is completed (though numbers would have to increase substantially as build and test of single spacecraft is still expensive and have never reached mass-production proportions).


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## Umbran (Apr 6, 2013)

Olgar Shiverstone said:


> a lesson that carries over to this discussion on space travel, because if you can increase production volumes beyond one-offs, the average procurement cost declines substantially.




Quite right.  Space X, for example, is depending on this.  Becoming a repeat provider of launch capabilities (expecting to do on the order of 10 each of Falcon Heavy and Falcon 9 launches each year) is what brings payload costs down to around $1000/lb.


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## Dannyalcatraz (Apr 6, 2013)

> You think, "some kind of study," equates to, "can whip up a globally virulent and deadly bioweapon without testing"?
> 
> I'm sorry, but that's not how biological sciences work. You cannot design things in theory and have them just work. We couldn't even perform this feat for a terrestrial species, much less an alien one.




No, I'm assuming bioscience advances alongside and apace with the spacefaring tech that gets us out to the asteroid belt and back with a big-ass rock in tow, targeting an alien civilization, in a timely fashion...which we also can't do right now.

At a minimum, you would need an understanding of the Martian ecosystem sufficient to know what the pathogens that affected the sentient species were, knowing what vectors existed within their species & culture, and so forth.  IOW, everything necessary to weaponize a pathogen for humans- which we _have_ done with anthrax and smallpox, as well as rice blast, which targets crops, not the creatures that eat them- _INCLUDING_ testing.  (Rice blast is nasty, because it is composed of over 200 crop destroying fungi, and a starving enemy is a defeated enemy.)

At this time, we (probably) do not have any bioweapons as nasty as the 1918 flu.  But part of that is because the massive funding that went into those programs largely dried up.  Enough humans rediscovered their ethical grounding.  There may be some secret/rogue labs still doing that research, but they are far and away the exception.

But if the world were basically united on a path to genocidal destruction of an alien species you can bet dollars to donuts the funding would be there.  Blank checks would be written. Requests for test subjects would be filled.

My remarks about "probulation" were a joking nod to what the REAL aliens are doing in their _first stages_ of investigating our biology in prep for their conquering of Earth.


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## Derren (Apr 6, 2013)

Dannyalcatraz said:


> At this time, we (probably) do not have any bioweapons as nasty as the 1918 flu.  But part of that is because the massive funding that went into those programs largely dried up.




No matter the funding, without a lot of samples of DNA and viruses from mars it is impossible to make a bioweapon against them.


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## Dannyalcatraz (Apr 6, 2013)

> ...without a lot of samples of DNA and viruses from mars it is impossible to make a bioweapon against them.




I agree.

My main assertion with pushing bioweapons as the weapon of choice was that, all costs considered, it would be the most cost-effective method to use, as per Rangerwickett's query.

Dropping mass from orbit is almost undoubtedly the cheapest method on the front end, but there are huge time and cleanup costs associated in the tail end, as well as the cost of destroyed resources in the target zone, both natural* and artificial.

A well-designed bioweapon leaves those resources largely intact, and minimizes post-genocidal cleanup costs.






* somewhat alleviated by the addition of whatever the meteors add, but that is at best a wash- more efficient to mine them in space, in all likelihood.


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## Erekose (Apr 6, 2013)

Hypothetically speaking I can suspend my disbelief at the concept of Mars being replaced with an Earth-like planet and all of the details expressed by the OP. However, I can't believe the following . . .



Morrus said:


> Yeah, but they're on a messageboard thread on Mars right now typing _"Yes, but the Earthlings don't have Martian Bruce Willis!"
> _




There is only one Bruce Willis


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## Dannyalcatraz (Apr 6, 2013)

Hmmm...I recently suggested that Chuck Norris' missing beard was on a mission to North Korea.

What if Chuck and the Beard decided it would be best to clone it and send it on a mission to Mars..._just in case._


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## Umbran (Apr 6, 2013)

Dannyalcatraz said:


> No, I'm assuming bioscience advances alongside and apace with the spacefaring tech that gets us out to the asteroid belt and back with a big-ass rock in tow, targeting an alien civilization, in a timely fashion...which we also can't do right now.




We have already sent probes to the asteroid belt.  The only thing that my scheme has that would still need development is the solar sail, and we're already working on those.  We've never even seen an alien biology before, so I wouldn't expect our abilities on that front to "keep pace".

And, by the way, my solution isn't "timely".  It takes a long time, in human terms.  He asked for cost-effective, not fast  



> At this time, we (probably) do not have any bioweapons as nasty as the 1918 flu.




Well, note also how the 1918 flu completely failed to destroy civilization.  We'd need something drastically worse than the 19818 flu, and that's not easy.  It not only has to have an extremely high fatality rate, it has to take its time doing the job, or else the disease doesn't get transmitted.



> But if the world were basically united on a path to genocidal destruction of an alien species you can bet dollars to donuts the funding would be there.  Blank checks would be written. Requests for test subjects would be filled.




Maybe you and I have different ideas of how easy it would be to acquire sufficient test subjects.  I'm expecting to have to grab hundreds of individuals from Mars, and keep them alive (so, food enough to keep them alive and healthy.  This is somewhat different than a cargo run, and includes some pretty hefty logistical challenges.



Dannyalcatraz said:


> My main assertion with pushing bioweapons as the weapon of choice was that, all costs considered, it would be the most cost-effective method to use, as per Rangerwickett's query.




I think we are working from different assumptions.  He asked for destruction of a civilization, and that's all.  No cost recovery of resources from colonizing Mars afterwards is included in the requirements- destroying the planet itself is an option.


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## Dannyalcatraz (Apr 7, 2013)

Umbran said:


> And, by the way, my solution isn't "timely".  It takes a long time, in human terms.  He asked for cost-effective, not fast




Timeliness, though, is still a necessary factor to consider: the longer the time it takes to launch the attack, the more time there is to counter it.  If you have to start over or include multiple waves of asteroid bombardments to succeed past their (as yet unknown) countermeasures, that drives up costs.

And if one of their countermeasures includes being better at vectoring mass than we are, they could well re-target an asteroid towards us- a cost we would have to consider.  And it is one we'd best try to calculate before launching the attack.  Finding out post attack could Delphically wind up causing the fall of the wrong empire- an unacceptably huge cost.



> Well, note also how the 1918 flu completely failed to destroy civilization.  We'd need something drastically worse than the 19818 flu, and that's not easy.  It not only has to have an extremely high fatality rate, it has to take its time doing the job, or else the disease doesn't get transmitted.




1918, like the Black Death before it, did a damn good job of it, but failed in no small part because, well, it wasn't today.  Many of their carriers died before infecting others, causing the contagions to stumble and fail.  Influenza, for instance, has an incubation period of 3 days.  It is also fairly hardy, and can survive without a host for a few days as well.

Fast forward to today, with rapid sea transit* and, more importantly, frequent and fast global air travel.  Patient Zero with a modern counterpart  to 1918 can circumnavigate the world, personally exposing hundreds if not thousands simply by sharing a plane with him.  Even with a garden variety flu, some estimate that the as many as 50% of the people in such close quarters to Patient Zero for an hourlong plane trip could be infected.  (Note: not all infected become sick, but they can still be contagious themselves.)

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/features/interview/influenza-shirley-fannin/

IOW, a modern version of 1918 might not need much weaponizing at all, given the way modern society operates.  So if the Martian society had similar global travel capabilities to ours, an analogously virulent pathogen would do just fine.  If, OTOH, their population were less prone to congregate or didn't travel like we do, you'd need a completely different kind of pathogen.  Something more like anthrax, which can lay dormant for decades and spread with the wind...



> Maybe you and I have different ideas of how easy it would be to acquire sufficient test subjects.  I'm expecting to have to grab hundreds of individuals from Mars, and keep them alive (so, food enough to keep them alive and healthy.  This is somewhat different than a cargo run, and includes some pretty hefty logistical challenges.




Its essentially the reverse of a modern mission to Mars.

The ease of acquiring test subject depends on how Machiavellian and secretive you want to be, as well as the nature of the targets themselves.  If the Martians have a hive mind, for instance, getting test subjects may well be impossible to do.  (That wouldn't stop a rice blast tactic from working, however if the alien biosphere has analogues to fungi.)

But how many alien abductions have been reported in human history...and utterly dismissed?  How many mundane abductions are never solved every year?  If they were indeed the result of alien scientists collecting test subjects, they'd already have more than enough humans to start _their_ bioweapons program.

Side note: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6tZar4wRP40&sns=em

If you don't want to abduct them, and you want to go the Machiavellian route, simply invite them to open a diplomatic base on Earth...and ask for reciprocity.  Both embassies could be dual purposed as bioweapon development labs.



> I think we are working from different assumptions.  He asked for destruction of a civilization, and that's all.  No cost recovery of resources from colonizing Mars afterwards is included in the requirements- destroying the planet itself is an option.




I already conceded that point.  If there is no plan to land & reap the benefits of the planet, orbital bombardment is THE way to go.





* ship speed has increased somewhat, but the biggest factor is that there are more fast ships in general as a subset of all ships.


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## Umbran (Apr 7, 2013)

Dannyalcatraz said:


> 1918, like the Black Death before it, did a damn good job of it, but failed in no small part because, well, it wasn't today.  Many of their carriers died before infecting others, causing the contagions to stumble and fail.  Influenza, for instance, has an incubation period of 3 days.  It is also fairly hardy, and can survive without a host for a few days as well.
> 
> Fast forward to today, with rapid sea transit* and, more importantly, frequent and fast global air travel.  Patient Zero with a modern counterpart  to 1918 can circumnavigate the world, personally exposing hundreds if not thousands simply by sharing a plane with him.  Even with a garden variety flu, some estimate that the as many as 50% of the people in such close quarters to Patient Zero for an hourlong plane trip could be infected.  (Note: not all infected become sick, but they can still be contagious themselves.)




Reading up about the 1918 pandemic, no.  That pandemic went in two waves, two slightly different strains.  The first was mild, and in civilian life, selection favors a mild strain - if you get really sick, you stay at home.  If you have only a mild sickness, you go out and to work and encounter more people - so the mild form spreads more easily.

But there was something special in 1918 - WWI.  In the trenches, those with mild flu stayed put.  Those who got really sick got put on trains to crowded field hospitals.   It was the very sick who got exposed to more people, so the deadly strain spread.  

Modern times still favor the mild strain, for the same reasons.  We do travel faster, so nastier strains do get farther, but it isn't that we are selecting for them, merely selecting less strongly against them.

Oh, and by the way, have you considered the risk factor to humans here?  Yes, most of the time, if you remove an organism from its home environment, it doesn't do well.  But, every once in a while, you'll find one that just coincidentally can live in the new environment.  This is doubly so for microorganisms, that generally have less stringent requirements, and much faster generation times.  You've read _War of the Worlds_, right?



> Its essentially the reverse of a modern mission to Mars.




No it isn't.  A modern mission to Mars is talking about sending two or four people, and not bringing them back.  We are talking instead about sending a ship, landing it, picking up perhaps hundreds of alien individuals, and keeping them alive for a year and more for the trip back.  The life-support requirements are much heavier.  And you can presume that for this one, you don't get the Martians to help you refuel while you're on their planet...


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## Dannyalcatraz (Apr 7, 2013)

> The first was mild, and in civilian life, selection favors a mild strain - if you get really sick, you stay at home.




Smart people do, but they're the exception.

Perhaps you remember in 2007, when Atlanta personal-injury lawyer Andrew "Drew" Speaker flew from Atlanta, Georgia to Paris, France and on to Greece and then Italy before returning on a flight from Prague, Czech Republic to Montreal, Canada, where he crossed over the border and back into the United States while infected with multi-drug-resistant tuberculosis?

That's not the worst form of tuberculosis, but it IS a serious infectious disease transmitted via aerosolized particles.



> Oh, and by the way, have you considered the risk factor to humans here?




Certainly.

However, even with sharing 90+% of our DNA, viruses do not jump easily from species to species with pathogenic virulence.

There was a recent report of a newly discovered deep-ice (or was it deep sea?) organism with less than 90% similarity.

Unless Martian and terrestrial life share a common origin, it is likely that we share less than 50% of our DNA...assuming they're even carbon based.

Note, however, that doesn't answer the question or risk.  Depending on the virus's mechanisms, it might still be dangerous to us.  Who knows- the bioweapon might produce arsenic as a side effect of its presence in a human body- a completely different method of killing than it uses to kill Martians.

One would hope, however, that those involved in producing a bioweapon would test it to see how it interacts with terrestrial biology,



> No it isn't.




The difference is chiefly one of scale- which DOES present unique challenges- but the same could be said of moving space rocks 2.5 miles wide from the asteroid belt.


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## Grumpy RPG Reviews (Apr 7, 2013)

Jemal said:


> Since we developed communication and higher  thinking, and realized that working together tends to get you further  than killing each other.  That's not to say that many humans aren't  still blood-thirsty brutes, but there are those who realize that  co-operation is usually the winning strategy.




You are forgetting people are simply evil. Rapacious for material  goods and the blood and suffering of others. One in ten people would  smoke a kitten for the sake of smoking a kitten. Our reputation for  rational thinking is vastly over rated. Grief is a better spectator  sport than baseball, misery is a better spectator sport than grief and  wars are the best form of spectator sport. 

Go Team Pointless Genocide.


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## Dannyalcatraz (Apr 7, 2013)

I agree with the sentiment, somewhat, but not the percentages of evil in humanity.  I'd say 1/100 at worst, not 1/10.



> Our reputation for rational thinking is vastly over rated.




If there is one thing I've learned in my studies of the past fire years, it is that the rational human mind is an overlay over an irrational, emotional, animal core- like Windows over DOS- and the irrational portion is what engages most quickly.


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## sabrinathecat (Apr 7, 2013)

We might actually develop a real space program, so we could go there and invade/conquer/colonize/enslave it. All in the name of glory, gods, and greed. Even better if there's an indigenous life form or three to wipe out or degrade.
But at least we would have a space program, and maybe, just maybe, start to get off this one single isolated mud ball to explore the universe instead of sitting here, mindlessly consuming and stewing like a bunch of parasites or pustules.
Or we can sit back and watch telee.


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## Dannyalcatraz (Apr 7, 2013)

In the words of Perry Farell, "We'll make great pets."


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## Knightfall (Apr 7, 2013)

*Query:* At what point in history would we be able to see the surface of this other Earth with enough clarity to realize that it has a similar biosphere and/or intelligent life? How powerful were the best telescopes pre-WWI.


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## Joker (Apr 7, 2013)

Sorry about the misunderstanding Morrus.



> As for what would happen, my stance is that rich wealthy and powerful Earthlings would get in touch with rich wealthy and powerful Martians and figure out they can profit from pretending to care about the hostilities between their nations. I mean, we know global warming is going to mess up our whole planet, but politicians get money from oil companies, so they deny the science.




I'm singling you out but it's prevalent throughout the thread.  This is a very human centered, anthropocentric, way of looking at it.  You're making the assumption that the aliens have political and economic structures as we have here in the developed world.  That's a huge assumption.
While as Umbran put it we could probably have a similar understanding of the world around us in math and physics if our technologies are of the same level.  This doesn't mean in any way that they look at the universe, their place and our place in it in the same way we do.

To hopefully illustrate my point, there are practices and believes in other cultures in our world that seem almost alien.

From Ron Brauman's report on his work for MSF in Uganda in the early 1980's when he struggled to distribute insufficient food supplies:

"We very quickly observed that the food was being taken away from the so-called target population of children under five and pregnant women to be given to the elders in these villages...For the Karamojong...maintaining their elders was of supreme importance for reasons that may be obvious even in the West: social coherence, social authority and decent social standards.  Whereas the kids, of course, the death of a child is always painful no matter where one goes, can be replaced easily.  An elder cannot be replaced."

You can understand, if you think about it, the logic of this behavior.  It's not even twisted or mad, but very practical and human.  But can you say you can really empathize with it?  I couldn't take the food from a starving child to give to my Nana,  I'm pretty sure Nana wouldn't accept it.

We have no choice but to give other things human attributes and to see patterns where there aren't necessarily any.  This is our nature.  Some people might think a dog baring its teeth is smiling and inviting you to pet it but people who have experience with dogs know you shouldn't get any closer.

We will have no experience with aliens and no way to knowing how they are going to react to anything we do.  We can make assumptions based on extrapolations of data we can gather but every assumptions we make should be treated as suspect because of our aforementioned anthropocentric attitude.

The premise is that they are at the same level as us.  Bullgrit hasn't mentioned if we are aware they are at the same level.

I've been making some assumptions and after reading the points made here have made a few adjustments and my assumptions are as follows:

- Our history hasn't changed since we received the radio-signals from Mars.  I'm making this assumption to avoid having to change the last 70 years of history, aside from the fact that there haven't been any missions to Mars in that time.  We are just now in 2013 thinking about doing something about the others.

- We know nothing except for the following:  They can send and likely receive signals.  They have sattelites in orbit.  We have detected contrails in their atmosphere and can see where, what we assume, the population hubs are.  If someone wants to expand on my list on what we know with current technology, please do.

The problem is we don't know anything.  We can't.  Everything we learn about them we'll attribute our own understanding and morality to.  This is what is frightening.  Our seemingly insurmountable ignorance.

Umbran, it's true that behind the rhetoric of wars is usually a socio-economic reason but that reason is based on the fear of not having enough.  When in the history of "civilization" have we ever gone:  "Well that should do it, we have sufficient resources to provide for ourselves and those around us.  No more conquering for us."  They are considerably closer to the asteroid belt which could have a lot of resources for when we become a space-faring species.  We can't afford there to be a asteroid-mining shaft gap.

Bullgrit, sorry about being the first to s**t on your thread by going "look, they're different, kill them!".  I understand I'm very likely projecting my own fears when I say something like that we have to kill them before they kill us.  I take this stance because I made the assumption that conversation type of communication isn't possible for a considerable time.
If they are not really alien but just a culture of basically humans on another planet then you can take your pick of any Star Trek first contact scenarios and see what could happen.

I suppose my biggest fear is that they are like us but unified.  Perhaps in a religious or ideological way.  Who are we to they if they have the strong belief that they are the Chosen Ones in their Creator's universe.


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## Grumpy RPG Reviews (Apr 7, 2013)

Joker said:


> I suppose my biggest fear is that they are like us but unified.




Earth would want to kill them if they were anthropomorphic kittens. Earth would want to kill them if they were hot anarchic atheistic sex pots who extended us an open invitation. Earth would want to kill them if they were just like us (a perfect duplicate of Earth).  Earth would want to kill them if doing so meant 4 in 5 children on Earth had to choke to death on their own excrement. 

Charity, compassion and open mindedness are lies.

Humans are objectively evil.


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## Joker (Apr 7, 2013)

Grumpy RPG Reviews said:


> Earth would want to kill them if they were anthropomorphic kittens. Earth would want to kill them if they were hot anarchic atheistic sex pots who extended us an open invitation. Earth would want to kill them if they were just like us (a perfect duplicate of Earth).  Earth would want to kill them if doing so meant 4 in 5 children on Earth had to choke to death on their own excrement.
> 
> Charity, compassion and open mindedness are lies.
> 
> Humans are objectively evil.




I don't think that's true.  Only about 1% of the human population has a predisposition for psychotic or sociopathic behavior.  What we would likely consider to be "evil."  The rest of us certainly have it in us to do "evil" things but we're not as equipped with dealing with the psychological stress that comes from doing evil towards our own kind.

We have an innate desire to work together and care for each other.  This is possible due to an evolutionary necessity where it was beneficial to be kind to each other.

It would certainly be easier to wage war on another race, psychologically, especially considering the distances involved.


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## Morrus (Apr 7, 2013)

Grumpy RPG Reviews said:


> Humans are objectively evil.




I'm not.


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## Janx (Apr 7, 2013)

Dannyalcatraz said:


> I agree with the sentiment, somewhat, but not the percentages of evil in humanity.  I'd say 1/100 at worst, not 1/10.
> 
> 
> 
> If there is one thing I've learned in my studies of the past fire years, it is that the rational human mind is an overlay over an irrational, emotional, animal core- like Windows over DOS- and the irrational portion is what engages most quickly.




Yeah, something like that.  Freakonomics (an excellent book to challenge how we arrive at our assumptions of things), had a section on a guy who used the honor system to pay for his bagels.  He found smaller offices were more honest, large more "anonymous" offices were less honest.  I'm too lazy to fetch my book, but if I recall, the approximate percentage was 10-30%.

Regardless of the actual number, the percentage was definitely a minority.


I agree, there are at times, a lot of bad people on the planet, doing bad things.

But we're not all evil.  Not even a majority.  Otherwise, we'd have just as many "good" people going postal on "bad" people.  But it's never that way.  You very seldom hear on the news of a "crazy vigilante" wiping out a gang of drug dealers.

That's because whatever factor enabled Adam Lanza to walk into a school and kill a bunch of kids, or the Taliban to put a bullet in a school girl's head because she advocated for girls to get educated, the rest of us ain't got that.  If we did, then the people of Pakistan would find every Taliban bully and slit his throat in the middle of the night.

Most of us can talk big and can enjoy movies like Die Hard.  But we ain't got it in us to go the extra mile.


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## Olgar Shiverstone (Apr 7, 2013)

Morrus said:


> I'm not.




He's a Martian!  Kill him!

Humans are objectively evil.  Morrus is not evil.  Therefore Morrus is not human, and must be killed.


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## Dannyalcatraz (Apr 7, 2013)

Grumpy RPG Reviews said:


> Earth would want to kill them if they were anthropomorphic kittens. Earth would want to kill them if they were hot anarchic atheistic sex pots who extended us an open invitation. Earth would want to kill them if they were just like us (a perfect duplicate of Earth).  Earth would want to kill them if doing so meant 4 in 5 children on Earth had to choke to death on their own excrement.
> 
> Charity, compassion and open mindedness are lies.
> 
> Humans are objectively evil.




I, for one, would vote against genocide...at least in those scenarios you just presented.

PS: does it seem to anyone else that _someone_ is grumpier than usual?


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## jonesy (Apr 7, 2013)

I thought the thread started gloomy and pessimistic with all the planet destruction going on, but I guess I was wrong. _Now_ it's gloomy and pessimistic.


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## Grumpy RPG Reviews (Apr 7, 2013)

Morrus said:


> I'm not.




You would say that. (narrows eyes)



Janx said:


> Otherwise, we'd have just as many "good" people going postal on "bad" people.




Just dress it (evil actions) up in terms of patriotism, good business and religious fidelity and anything becomes acceptable. 

Anyway, back to the topic at hand, once it was determined there was another sapient and sentient species in the solar system, humanity would wrap itself around the axle to go to war with the other species, even if it did not make objective sense to do so.


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## sabrinathecat (Apr 7, 2013)

Have to go with Grumpy on that one.
Humans run the spectrum. However, humanity as a whole is a plague. Funny thing: greedy immoral people tend to rise to positions of power and influence. What effect does that have on a culture, do you think?


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## Umbran (Apr 7, 2013)

Dannyalcatraz said:


> Smart people do, but they're the exception.




No, not really.  Very few people who are so sick they cannot stand manage to get into their workplaces 



> Perhaps you remember in 2007, when Atlanta personal-injury lawyer Andrew "Drew" Speaker flew from Atlanta, Georgia to Paris, France and on to Greece and then Italy before returning on a flight from Prague, Czech Republic to Montreal, Canada, where he crossed over the border and back into the United States while infected with multi-drug-resistant tuberculosis?




That's Hollywood biology, though, where one man moves around and creates a plague.  But, the situation in which the really deadly versions of a disease spreads around takes a bit more than that.  HIV, for example, has an extremely long incubation time.  For the 1918 pandemic, it wasn't just that a guy with the nasty strain moved around, but that first hundreds, then thousands, then tens of thousands of people who had the disease were moved around.  A situation that specifically favored and selected for the spread of the ugly strain was set up by human activity in large amounts.




> However, even with sharing 90+% of our DNA, viruses do not jump easily from species to species with pathogenic virulence.




It happens commonly with influenza.



> Unless Martian and terrestrial life share a common origin, it is likely that we share less than 50% of our DNA...assuming they're even carbon based.




You're too focused on viral infection.  We don't even know if they have what we'd call viruses.  I would expect another threat to be form other microorganisms - their analogs of bacteria or fungi, for example, that just happen to find the interior of the human body, or the interior of one of our major food crops, to be a really cool place to live.  They don't have to share our DNA, they just have to be able to grow someplace really inconvenient.  The chance of that being true for any particular microorganism from another world is not strong, of course.  




Grumpy RPG Reviews said:


> One in ten people would  smoke a kitten for the sake of smoking a kitten.




As my father would say, that's horsehockey.  I think you're letting selection bias influence you.  There are individuals who are horrible people, yes, and their horribleness imprints strongly upon us.  And we then tend to make our estimates of how common the thing is based on how we *feel*, rather than real evidence.



> Our reputation for rational thinking is vastly over rated.




For individuals, yes.  But, for actions on the nation-state level, if you look at actual history, you'll generally see a socio-economic basis for conflict.  There is no basis for such conflict at the tech levels we are considering.  War may come eventually, when we are competing for resources, but not before.



Joker said:


> I'm singling you out but it's prevalent throughout the thread.  This is a very human centered, anthropocentric, way of looking at it.  You're making the assumption that the aliens have political and economic structures as we have here in the developed world.  That's a huge assumption.




The issue of needing a socio-economic basis for really major expenditures of resources is not at all anthropocentric.  It is thermodynamics, really.  As a living thing, you have limited resources.  You spend those resources to maintain and expand your resources.  If you spend too much, you lose the energy-game, and you die.  




> The premise is that they are at the same level as us.  Bullgrit hasn't mentioned if we are aware they are at the same level.




The tech level makes that close to inevitable, as I mentioned early in the thread.  So long as both sides build radios of some form, we'll notice each other.



> Umbran, it's true that behind the rhetoric of wars is usually a socio-economic reason but that reason is based on the fear of not having enough.  When in the history of "civilization" have we ever gone:  "Well that should do it, we have sufficient resources to provide for ourselves and those around us.  No more conquering for us."  They are considerably closer to the asteroid belt which could have a lot of resources for when we become a space-faring species.  We can't afford there to be a asteroid-mining shaft gap.




Our actions are generally driven by what resources it is economical for us to get.  In the scenario under discussion, mining the asteroids profitably is beyond our capabilities when first contact happens, so it isn't an issue yet.   We may go to war *eventually*, but not in the timeframe under discussion.

What everyone here saying "we would go to war" is forgetting is that nature knows more than "kill or be killed".  Nature also knows cooperative relationships...

Your guts, for example.  You realize that in your small intestine, you host more bacteria than there are humans on the face of the Earth, by some orders of magnitude?  You realize that not only do they live there, but that without them you'd die of malnutrition?  Do you realize that *every cell in your body* is an example of such a relationship - your mitochondria are an example of a mutual relationship that has lasted so long, we forget that at one time there wasn't a thing called a eukaryotic cell....

Given some time when we *aren't* in direct competition for resources, we could well develop a mutual relationship that's good for both species...


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## Dannyalcatraz (Apr 7, 2013)

> No, not really. Very few people who are so sick they cannot stand manage to get into their workplaces




You'd like this to be true, but it isnt.  Too many people these days are scared of losing their jobs, or are hoarding/have used up their sick leave to actually miss work even while seriously ill.

My father (an MD) has treated people who _walked_ into his office while becoming _cyanotic_.



> That's Hollywood biology, though, where one man moves around and creates a plague. But, the situation in which the really deadly versions of a disease spreads around takes a bit more than that.




I didn't just pluck that 50% exposure/infection rate via aerial transmission out of the air (no pun intended)- that's an estimate that shows up in some of the WHO reports, as well as the CDC and other literature.  My Dad is an MD specializing in allergies, which requires a foundation in the study of infectious diseases: he has a special hate on for the Flu- mainly because people take it so lightly- so I've been hearing & reading all this stuff he gets for decades.

Again, exposure/infection does not mean you get sick.  It does, however, still mean you can be a vector.  In fact, you can be nearly asymptomatic and still be quite contagious, making you a carrier.

So if Killer Flu Patient Zero takes a flight and exposes 20 people (less than 50% of the plane's passengers), with only half of those getting sick enough to be a vector, and of those, only 2 get super sick.  He gets off that plane and takes another to reach his destination, with similar results.  We have 20 people spreading the disease, 4 of whom are deathly ill, right?

Not so fast: since the Flu is a hardy bug, and planes don't get cleaned all that thoroughly nor that often.  Those 2 planes will harbor some of Patient Zero's plague for a few days, opening up further vectoring. Final tally of vectors?  WHO knows, I don't.



> It happens commonly with influenza.




That's 'cause the Flu is pretty slutty as pathogens go, and most of the time when it jumps species, the newly infected don't have the same kind of reaction as the carrier species.  (More or less is, AFAIK, not predictable, hence part of the reason swine and avian flus are soooooo scary.)  But even so, "commonly" is a relative term.  Despite having common origins, only one or two of the last few avian flu outbreaks mutated enough to be transmitted from human to human as opposed to from avian to human with direct contact.  

(Side note: this year's avian flu looks nasty, since the infected animals appear to be largely asymptomatic...)



> You're too focused on viral infection. We don't even know if they have what we'd call viruses. I would expect another threat to be form other microorganisms - their analogs of bacteria or fungi, for example, that just happen to find the interior of the human body, or the interior of one of our major food crops, to be a really cool place to live. They don't have to share our DNA, they just have to be able to grow someplace really inconvenient. The chance of that being true for any particular microorganism from another world is not strong, of course.




I _did_ mention the Plague & weaponized anthrax (bacteria) and rice blast (fungi) in passing, but the flu and smallpox are in some ways scarier because of our relative inability to use preventative countermeasures against them.  While toxins like botulin or ricin are effective, things like that wouldn't serve the purpose i postulated- namely, defeating the foe in a way that allows easy post-conquest cleanup.

And who knows about what could be done with prions?

But the fact is, the reason I'm focused on the flu, etc. is because I am _not_ a xenobiologist.  The Flu is just my catch-all stand in for whatever nasty pathogen(s) might be found in the alien ecosystem.  If, for instance, the aliens were sentient "plants", a "fungus" might be the only way to go.


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## Morrus (Apr 7, 2013)

Dannyalcatraz said:


> You'd like this to be true, but it isnt.  Too many people these days are scared of losing their jobs, or are hoarding/have used up their sick leave to actually miss work even while seriously ill.




That's not a worldwide phenomenon, though.  It's fairly local to your country.


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## Dannyalcatraz (Apr 7, 2013)

Morrus said:


> That's not a worldwide phenomenon, though.  It's fairly local to your country.




A fair point, but I would bet its not limited to the USA, just most common here.  And even here, its not that common.

But with the worst infectious diseases, it doesn't take many.  With most of these diseases, you are contagious long before you become too sick to get out of bed.  Because of this, we've had a few pandemics in the modern era- mostly with diseases exhibiting generally their mildest symptoms, thank God.

Tuberculosis alone kills 2 million a year, and it is estimated by the WHO that 1/3 of the world has been infected with the disease.  Clearly, most of those people didn't miss work yesterday.  Just as clearly, they are also not all wheezing and coughing...and we're not alarmed because a cough or a wheeze is not exclusive to tuberculosis.  Or even to infectious disease.


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## Umbran (Apr 8, 2013)

And... coincidence being what it is.... check out this on moving an asteroid:

http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/U/US_SCI_CAPTURING_ASTEROID?SITE=AP


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## Dannyalcatraz (Apr 8, 2013)

To them, I say: "Don't.  Screw. That. Up."

Or, to paraphrase Pink Floyd, "Careful with that asteroid, Eugene."


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## Umbran (Apr 8, 2013)

Dannyalcatraz said:


> To them, I say: "Don't.  Screw. That. Up."




Oh, it's just a tiny one.  It'd just burn up on the way in.  Nothing to worry about.  Really.


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## Dannyalcatraz (Apr 8, 2013)

I was thinking more in terms of the current hostility to funding the space program in the USA.  Screw up something challenging but relatively inexpensive, and who knows which way things could go.

Besides...what if they accidentally drop it on the Martians?


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## GSHamster (Apr 8, 2013)

I wonder about the assumption that radio is the point when we find out about each other? How powerful would a telescope have to be to see the Martian surface?  Things like large roads, the lights of a large city, the Great Wall of Mars.

Could the telescopes of the 19th Century have observed the Martian civilization?


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## Dannyalcatraz (Apr 8, 2013)

> I wonder about the assumption that radio is the point when we find out about each other?




Depending on location, radio probably marks the earliest possible confirmation of intelligent life if neither civilization has significant spacefaring capability.


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## Umbran (Apr 8, 2013)

GSHamster said:


> Could the telescopes of the 19th Century have observed the Martian civilization?




Astronomers were still arguing about there being canals on Mars in 1905.


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## Dannyalcatraz (Apr 8, 2013)

That's 'cause the Martians didn't cover them up until 1906, DUH!


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## Grumpy RPG Reviews (Apr 8, 2013)

sabrinathecat said:


> Funny thing: greedy immoral people tend to rise to positions of power and influence. What effect does that have on a culture, do you think?




Buy our phone app or the Martians win!
Vote for this politician of the Martians win!
Slap your children around or the Martians win!
Etc...

That would become its own thing, with the war effort being slown down more by profiteers bilking the system than by technical issues or issues of distance to this other, inhabited Mars.


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## Jdvn1 (Apr 8, 2013)

Jdvn1 said:
			
		

> I still think no one has satisfactorily explained why we would attack them - it's not cost-efficient and it doesn't provide us with any benefit.





Derren said:


> 1. They could do it.



Only with great difficulty and crippling costs. Which is another way of saying - not realistically. Further, both sides would be further advantaged by trade. Think about how this already doesn't happen on an international level.


			
				Derren said:
			
		

> 2. We would have absolutely no idea how they think. The most crazy human psycho would be more understandable than an alien.



They probably think in a similar manner to how we do -  but regardless, that doesn't matter. We'd have a chance to communicate with them first and find out how they think. Which brings me back around to seeing how this already doesn't happen on an international level - diplomacy is typically the first response. It's also the cheapest and most potentially beneficial response. The immediate response of war hurts more than it helps because not only is it costly, it prevents trade and diverts money from more economically efficient enterprises.


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## Jdvn1 (Apr 8, 2013)

Jemal said:
			
		

> co-operation is usually the winning strategy.





Derren said:


> Only between equals (in military power).



Disagree - the earth is full of countries unequal in military power that still benefit from co-operation. That's sort of what macroeconomics is based upon.


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## Jdvn1 (Apr 8, 2013)

Grumpy RPG Reviews said:


> ... once it was determined there was another sapient and sentient species in the solar system, humanity would wrap itself around the axle to go to war with the other species, even if it did not make objective sense to do so.



... said no humanity ever.

If I'm to appeal to your cynicism, try this one on: People aren't evil, they're greedy. Civilization isn't killing you and taking your stuff, it's bleeding you dry via credit card rates.

Which takes you along a very different historical path - it asks the question, "How can I profit on this new situation?" The answer isn't killing and taking stuff, it's buying up cheap products and selling them expensively. You make more money over time that way -  who cares about a single drop of cash if you can start a business and make money over the next several decades? You need to keep the creators of the cheap product alive to do that.


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## Nagol (Apr 8, 2013)

The problem is greedy sods can't take advantage of the other planet -- very limited travel capabilities, communication channels are not restrictable.

But the paranoiacs CAN take advantage of the other planet.  

More sunspots than expected?  Martians have a sunspot making machine!
Norovirus outbreak?  Martian engineered bio-weapon!
Decades/century long change in overall climate temperature? Martians are boiling us like a frog in a pot!
Meteor impact in Russia?  Martians are throwing rocks at us!

They make most excellent scapegoats.

And like all excellent scapegoats, will be targeted by governments to rally the people.  And once people's fear grows outside the government's control, the scapegoat will be targeted for violence because not doing that will bring violence to the government.


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## Umbran (Apr 8, 2013)

Nagol said:


> But the paranoiacs CAN take advantage of the other planet.




A real paranoiac can, of course, be scared of anything.  Thankfully,t here are not enough actual wingnuts to dictate policy.  The more common political paranoia generally requires some actual friction between groups, present or historical, to play off and exaggerate.  You can't whip up a head of steam against a people you've never seen, and who have never interacted with you.


----------



## Jdvn1 (Apr 8, 2013)

Nagol said:


> The problem is greedy sods can't take advantage of the other planet -- very limited travel capabilities, communication channels are not restrictable.



Trade of information can happen immediately - that's pretty valuable.

And with current tech - $6B to send a new team to Mars in a first-of-its-kind project. If we were sending people to an earth-like planet where they may not need the same kind of atmospheric protections, and without several years of training, that price is going to come way down. Then, exchange the people for luxury materials or increase the size of the ship, and you have the beginnings of a luxury market.



			
				Nagol said:
			
		

> And like all excellent scapegoats, will be targeted by governments to rally the people. And once people's fear grows outside the government's control, the scapegoat will be targeted for violence because not doing that will bring violence to the government.



... Said no civilization ever. Have you considered whether history would tell us this is the case?


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## Nagol (Apr 8, 2013)

Umbran said:


> A real paranoiac can, of course, be scared of anything.  Thankfully,t here are not enough actual wingnuts to dictate policy.  The more common political paranoia generally requires some actual friction between groups, present or historical, to play off and exaggerate.  You can't whip up a head of steam against a people you've never seen, and who have never interacted with you.




Of course you can so long as someone can be painted as fundamentally different.  I'd provide examples, but I don't want to walk toward the board's no-go zones.  I'll point at London in 1189 and leave it at that.


----------



## Nagol (Apr 8, 2013)

Jdvn1 said:


> Trade of information can happen immediately - that's pretty valuable.
> 
> And with current tech - $6B to send a new team to Mars in a first-of-its-kind project. If we were sending people to an earth-like planet where they may not need the same kind of atmospheric protections, and without several years of training, that price is going to come way down. Then, exchange the people for luxury materials or increase the size of the ship, and you have the beginnings of a luxury market.
> 
> ... Said no civilization ever. Have you considered whether history would tell us this is the case?




Said many, many nations in recorded history, actually.  And that was towards fellows of the same species.


----------



## Umbran (Apr 8, 2013)

Nagol said:


> Of course you can so long as someone can be painted as fundamentally different.  I'd provide examples, but I don't want to walk toward the board's no-go zones.  I'll point at London in 1189 and leave it at that.




Your example includes past friction, and so does not support your claim particularly well.


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## I'm A Banana (Apr 8, 2013)

Umbran said:
			
		

> Thankfully,there are not enough actual wingnuts to dictate policy.




Um. I'm symied by the no politics/religion rule, but dude, wingnuts dictate policy all the time. To cull just from US history off the top of my head we've got Japanese internment camps and McCarthyism and prohibition. All driven by wingnuttery (and paranoid wingnuttery in at least two of those cases at that). All quite influential. 

The study of history is, at least in part, the study of the batcrap things that hundreds of thousands people once believed and how this leads, time and time again, to dumb things happening as a matter of national policy. Wingnuttery is part of the human condition. We're scared, ignorant little apes, and we wouldn't be any more sane in the presence of some kindred spirits out there. We might not do much about it, but don't think that there wouldn't be, I dunno, a vast group of good-intentioned religious wingnuts who mount a space expedition to preach the Gospels and wind up triggering some interplanetary tiff, even if inadvertently. I doubt we'd exterminate each other, but there would certainly be some violence, just as there would be some trade (however infrequent) and probably some pr0n (because Rule 34).


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## sabrinathecat (Apr 8, 2013)

I think people are forgetting that in addition to being greedy, warlike, and evil, most of humanity is deeply stupid and short sighted. (I will consider most of the people here the exceptions to the rule. You're welcome.) Why worry about 10 years down the road: If we kill them now, we can take all their stuff! We wipe out species here at an alarming rate for some of the dumbest reasons. The stupidest being: We think ____ part of the animal is an aphrodisiac. No proof, but we think it is. There's an entire breed of tiger that no longer exists because zoo breeding programs cross-bred them out. Yep. To preserve the endangered species, we wiped it out. White tigers get all the attention, but are small. Cross-with this breed, and you get big white tigers. Oh, now there are no more of breed X because no one bothered to breed pure X with pure X. Yeah, we are that dumb. Why worry about tomorrow: all these fish will feed me today, and the extra I can take to market and get $50 for. Of course, by taking them all today, there won't be any for the rest of the month, and that $50 will only last a week. Oh and I'm glutting the market. If I thought to not over-harvest, I could get the same amount of money, have more food for tomorrow, and--ah forget it. Take them all now.
I have some other examples, but they are perhaps culturally offensive. (Yeah, that's me backing away from offending someone. Imagine!)
And the popularity of arranged and organized superstitions around the world is absolutely nuts, with a heaping helping of crazy on the side.


----------



## Jdvn1 (Apr 8, 2013)

Nagol said:


> Said many, many nations in recorded history, actually.  And that was towards fellows of the same species.



Civilizations destroyed as a result of pure paranoia? I don't think so. If anything, there have been land-grabs: the Mongols, Native American Indians, the Crusades. Still, for the most part, they have been isolated occurrences in history, and there are more that have been unsuccessful.

No, instead, look at the fact that those have been temporary and unsuccessful outliers in how the world works. North Korea even makes deals with the US. And when they reneg on the deal a year later, there still isn't a war, despite plenty of paranoic fearmongering.

There is trade between plenty of unequal countries, many of whom could squash the other. They don't, because that'd be a terrible idea. Even the Riot of London in 1189 (which I think you alluded to) isn't an example of paranoic civilization-killing.


----------



## Umbran (Apr 8, 2013)

Kamikaze Midget said:


> Um. I'm symied by the no politics/religion rule, but dude, wingnuts dictate policy all the time.




I understand the stymie, there.  I'll leave it at this...

The wingnuts don't *dictate* policy.  I am cynical enough to think that the major figures who look like they almost dictate policy 1) are not themselves wingnuts or true believers, but are generally the more insidious and calculating sort who make themselves appealing to wingnuts.  2) Don't actually dictate policy, but instead do a lot of back room dealing - if you have lots of help and support, it isn't dictating.

Your beliefs may differ.


----------



## Dannyalcatraz (Apr 8, 2013)

I'll go as far to say this: there have been regimes in which the true wingnuts did dictate policy, but they are rare and getting rarer.  They often do have powerful military forces and some have even gone to war over utter lies spouted from their kooky leadership...but the wingnuts who do so don't often last long.

The incidence of those wingnuts is, by my reading of history, declining.  However, the more advanced weaponry becomes, the less time & effort it takes for a true nutjob to ruin everyone's party.

Or to put it differently: the incidence of wingnuts in power has declined, but the potential consequences of their rulership has increased.


----------



## Derren (Apr 8, 2013)

Jdvn1 said:


> Only with great difficulty and crippling costs. Which is another way of saying - not realistically. Further, both sides would be further advantaged by trade. Think about how this already doesn't happen on an international level.
> They probably think in a similar manner to how we do -  but regardless, that doesn't matter. We'd have a chance to communicate with them first and find out how they think. Which brings me back around to seeing how this already doesn't happen on an international level - diplomacy is typically the first response. It's also the cheapest and most potentially beneficial response. The immediate response of war hurts more than it helps because not only is it costly, it prevents trade and diverts money from more economically efficient enterprises.




There is absolutely nothing we could trade with them.
And no, we would have no idea how they think even when we can communicate with them. Maybe after centuries but not decades. And this is exactly why there will be a military buildup.
1. They are different/not us.
2. They are a threat.
3. We have no idea if they mean us harm or not. And when in doubt, the answer is yes.


----------



## Umbran (Apr 8, 2013)

sabrinathecat said:


> We wipe out species here at an alarming rate for some of the dumbest reasons.




Yes, but almost never *intentionally*.  We don't actively set out to destroy species often, it just happens as a result of our thoughtlessness.



> White tigers get all the attention, but are small.




I think your information here is inaccurate.  You are correct that the white Siberian tigers we see in captivity aren't pure Siberian tigers - they were produced by breeding standard Siberian tigers with white Bengal tigers - the gene for the white coat has never been observed in the Siberian tigers in the wild.  

But, white Bengal tigers are not, and were not, a "breed" or subspecies.  They're just tigers with a specific mutated gene for coat color.  About one in 15,000 wild Bengal tiger births results in a white tiger.


----------



## tomBitonti (Apr 8, 2013)

RangerWickett said:


> Now I'm intrigued. What is the most cost-effective way, starting with our current technology, to annihilate a civilization on Mars.
> 
> Something to reduce the cost of getting payloads into space is a must. I think I read that we have the technology today to conceivably build a space elevator from the surface of the moon. So maybe you spend a high investment to get a base on the moon, then build lunar solar panels that can generate enough energy for us to produce antimatter. This requires, of course, figuring out how to contain antimatter for a long period of time (and I think if we can do that, we can just as easily pull off fusion).




Couldn't we redirect an asteroid with today's technologies, and at a smaller cost than the $5Trillion (est) for the gulf wars?

Also, if environmental issues were taken off the table, won't that open new technologies for use? An object to using Plutonium as a power source, for example, is the consequence of a launch failure putting plutonium in the environment.

Speaking of which, depending on the biochemistry, spreading a fine dusting of plutonium over major cultivated or populated areas could be devastating.

Of course, if we want to occupy the planet afterwards, that makes a big difference.  *Smallish* redirects of asteroids might be OK, but one big ecosystem killer would be a bad idea.  Nuclear-biological-chemical might also be problematic, depending on the lifetime of the material used.

TomB


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## Dannyalcatraz (Apr 8, 2013)

> There is absolutely nothing we could trade with them.




That is an assumption without foundation.

At a the very least, it is highly improbable that their technology is _identical_ to ours, so trading scientific data could be beneficial to both sides of the equation.


----------



## Jdvn1 (Apr 8, 2013)

Derren said:


> There is absolutely nothing we could trade with them.
> And no, we would have no idea how they think even when we can communicate with them. Maybe after centuries but not decades.



Why couldn't we trade information with them? Why couldn't we communicate with them? The technology exists for both and has existed for quite some time.


----------



## Joker (Apr 8, 2013)

Umbran said:


> The issue of needing a socio-economic basis for really major expenditures of resources is not at all anthropocentric.  It is thermodynamics, really.  As a living thing, you have limited resources.  You spend those resources to maintain and expand your resources.  If you spend too much, you lose the energy-game, and you die.




Nowhere did I say the need for resources was an anthropocentric viewpoint.  That would be silly to think even with my limited knowledge of science.
I do say that it is quite possible that their way of looking at the world around them is so different as to be incomprehensible.  




> Our actions are generally driven by what resources it is economical for us to get.  In the scenario under discussion, mining the asteroids profitably is beyond our capabilities when first contact happens, so it isn't an issue yet.   We may go to war *eventually*, but not in the timeframe under discussion.
> 
> What everyone here saying "we would go to war" is forgetting is that nature knows more than "kill or be killed".  Nature also knows cooperative relationships...
> 
> ...




While becoming the workhorses in the intestines of some giant Martian psychic behemoth may qualify as some sort of commensalist or mutualistic relationship, there is a limit to the our definition of cooperation.

Sillyness aside, cooperative relationships in nature are only possible because the two creatures are able to communicate with each other, through chemical triggers, non verbal or verbal communication.

I cannot stress enough that unless the Martians are so very similar to us that communication would be extraordinarily difficult.  Which would, in the best case, severely hamper our cooperation and in the worst case foster enmity.



			
				Jdvn1 said:
			
		

> They probably think in a similar manner to how we do - but regardless, that doesn't matter. We'd have a chance to communicate with them first and find out how they think. Which brings me back around to seeing how this already doesn't happen on an international level - diplomacy is typically the first response. It's also the cheapest and most potentially beneficial response. The immediate response of war hurts more than it helps because not only is it costly, it prevents trade and diverts money from more economically efficient enterprises.




On your first point.  I can't see how you can say that they probably think in a similar way we do.  While you can theorize that they had to have the same type of progress in technology as we had this in no way means they think like us.  All it means is that there is a slim possibility we can empathize with them and maybe they with us.

On your second point.  It's very true that diplomacy is cheapest, in the short and usually the long run.  However, this level of international diplomacy is fairly recent.  It's the product of millennia of conflict.


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## Derren (Apr 8, 2013)

Jdvn1 said:


> Why couldn't we trade information with them? Why couldn't we communicate with them? The technology exists for both and has existed for quite some time.




Communication != understanding.
And what information would we trade? They have a similar technological level, so trading technology is not that profitable and unlikely to result in a big breakthrough on either side. The only information we could trade is about the respective planets/lifeforms/history, etc. And those information are either sensitive (bioweapons) or unimportant.


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## Dannyalcatraz (Apr 8, 2013)

Humanity is just now beginning to realize that the real problem of running out of oil is not its value as a fuel, but rather, its value in creating plastics.  Because of this, we're just now starting to see major research in using bacteria and other life forms to create bioplastics.

Perhaps the aliens came to this conclusion sooner, and use bioplastics almost exclusively.

That is neither truly militarily sensitive nor is it trivial.


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## Umbran (Apr 8, 2013)

I've gotten a couple PMs from people who want to go deeper into the political aspects of the thread.  Thanks, folks, for recognizing the issues, and keeping it by the book.

I, however, have said what I'm going to say on those matters - ultimately, it is a question of whether you think the human race is generally naughty, or nice.  We could drag up individual case studies for each other pretty much forever, and I doubt anybody would convince anyone of anything they didn't already believe on the matter.  That's the time to stop, at least for me.  If you guys want to keep butting heads, go for it, so long as you keep it within the rules, and don't make it personal.

If you want to talk about the scientific aspects, I'm all for that.


----------



## Derren (Apr 8, 2013)

Dannyalcatraz said:


> Humanity is just now beginning to realize that the real problem of running out of oil is not its value as a fuel, but rather, its value in creating plastics.  Because of this, we're just now starting to see major research in using bacteria and other life forms to create bioplastics.
> 
> Perhaps the aliens came to this conclusion sooner, and use bioplastics almost exclusively.
> 
> That is neither truly militarily sensitive nor is it trivial.




And as we would have no way to create martian bacteria it would be utterly useless.


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## Jdvn1 (Apr 8, 2013)

Joker said:


> On your first point.  I can't see how you can say that they probably think in a similar way we do.  While you can theorize that they had to have the same type of progress in technology as we had this in no way means they think like us.  All it means is that there is a slim possibility we can empathize with them and maybe they with us.



Like I said, how they think doesn't matter if we can communicate with them. I think it's not a stretch that they might think in a similar way - in order to achieve the requisite level of technology to communicate, they would need some sort of workable scientific logic. That should be enough, initially. But - regardless, it doesn't matter. We've accomplished some successful diplomatic relations with people pretty different from us - all that is necessary is communication, which is already possible.


			
				Joker said:
			
		

> On your second point.  It's very true that diplomacy is cheapest, in the short and usually the long run.  However, this level of international diplomacy is fairly recent.  It's the product of millennia of conflict.



That's true - and why it'd be our first response.


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## Umbran (Apr 8, 2013)

Derren said:


> And as we would have no way to create martian bacteria it would be utterly useless.




You don't have to create it.  They've created it.  All you need to do is be able to grow it.  And, if they're already using it on industrial scales, they can also tell you how to build a plant that will sustain the stuff.  All you need to do is carry the plans and a small sample of the microorganism back to Earth.  You don't even have to visit - they can radio you the plans, and send a small sample in a probe!  The only question is whether you can economically reduce Earth biomass to something the bug can eat and use, and they can probably tell you its needs on that front.

Interesting tidbit - the creation of fossil fuels on a planet with life is not a foregone conclusion.  On Earth, they result from the anoxic decomposition of animal and plant matter, followed by a geologic process.  If your microorganisms decompose materials differently, or the geologic process doesn't take place for whatever reason, you get no fossil fuels.


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## Derren (Apr 8, 2013)

Umbran said:


> You don't have to create it.  They've created it.  All you need to do is be able to grow it.  And, if they're already using it on industrial scales, they can also tell you how to build a plant that will sustain the stuff.  All you need to do is carry the plans and a small sample of the microorganism back to Earth.  You don't even have to visit - they can radio you the plans, and send a small sample in a probe!  The only question is whether you can economically reduce Earth biomass to something the bug can eat and use, and they can probably tell you its needs on that front.
> 
> Interesting tidbit - the creation of fossil fuels on a planet with life is not a foregone conclusion.  On Earth, they result from the anoxic decomposition of animal and plant matter, followed by a geologic process.  If your microorganisms decompose materials differently, or the geologic process doesn't take place for whatever reason, you get no fossil fuels.




So you only need to have bacteria survive a interstellar travel and then grow on a alien planet likely without access to any for of suitable sustenance.
Sounds easy...


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## Jdvn1 (Apr 8, 2013)

Derren said:


> Communication != understanding.



True, but we think we're pretty smart people and can eventually understand other people. So - we'd try it before sending off whatever method of destruction you can think of. And, history shows that we'll try it a lot and for a long time.


			
				Derren said:
			
		

> And what information would we trade? They have a similar technological level, so trading technology is not that profitable and unlikely to result in a big breakthrough on either side.



Similar technology level != same technology.

Breakthroughs tend to happen more frequently when you have more people working on the same problem - especially when those more people have a different way at looking at problems.


			
				Derren said:
			
		

> The only information we could trade is about the respective planets/lifeforms/history, etc. And those information are either sensitive (bioweapons) or unimportant.



You may think it's unimportant, but I think others wouldn't. Information about our respective planets/lifeforms/history helps us to understand the other cultures (remember you emphasizing understanding?). It increases the ability to empathize.

Further, basic knowledge about each others' planets/lifeforms might enable us to find a way to have some of them live here or visa-versa. If we can trade a couple of scientists (there are those that would be jumping at the opportunity), our scientists could work at each others' planets and share more in-depth knowledge (what you might consider 'sensitive' information could be traded if it was mutually done - though I don't know where you draw that line... I wouldn't consider a lot of it sensitive).


----------



## Jdvn1 (Apr 8, 2013)

Derren said:


> And as we would have no way to create martian bacteria it would be utterly useless.



Why couldn't we create a martian-like atmosphere in something like a greenhouse? Why is it impossible?


----------



## Derren (Apr 8, 2013)

Jdvn1 said:


> True, but we think we're pretty smart people and can eventually understand other people.



Thats the point. We are not talking about other people.



> You may think it's unimportant, but I think others wouldn't. Information about our respective planets/lifeforms/history helps us to understand the other cultures (remember you emphasizing understanding?). It increases the ability to empathize.
> 
> Further, basic knowledge about each others' planets/lifeforms might enable us to find a way to have some of them live here or visa-versa. If we can trade a couple of scientists (there are those that would be jumping at the opportunity), our scientists could work at each others' planets and share more in-depth knowledge (what you might consider 'sensitive' information could be traded if it was mutually done - though I don't know where you draw that line... I wouldn't consider a lot of it sensitive).




Knowledge about their history would give us some knowledge about them, but nothing can make us understand them. We can only approximate what they might do or not and considering the only communication is over radio even with knowledge of their culture it would be very vague.
And transferring scientists? How? They would die as soon as their supplies run out. You would basically just exchange corpses which could be the basis of a bioweapon program.



Jdvn1 said:


> Why couldn't we create a martian-like atmosphere in something like a greenhouse? Why is it impossible?




So you have a greenhouse, possibly pressurized and radiation shielded (or enhanced) which is completely barren as no plants from earth would grow there. Air is the least of ones problems on foreign planets.


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## Umbran (Apr 8, 2013)

Derren said:


> So you only need to have bacteria survive a interstellar travel and then grow on a alien planet likely without access to any for of suitable sustenance.
> Sounds easy...




It probably is.  Microorganisms are basic organisms, and so generally have basic needs.  Not having major structures, they tend to freeze astonishingly well.  If not, posited that the Martians are using them on an industrial scale, and thus know their needs pretty darned well, putting together a small breeder environment for them for the trip should not be difficult.  If they are industrially useful, they probably subsist on a slurry of basic nutrients derived from a wide variety of Martian life.  So long as the system isn't dependent on large molecules our life doesn't produce, we may well be set.


----------



## Umbran (Apr 8, 2013)

Derren said:


> So you have a greenhouse, possibly pressurized and radiation shielded (or enhanced) which is completely barren as no plants from earth would grow there. Air is the least of ones problems on foreign planets.




Air is the least of your problems, yes.  But your statement that "no plants from Earth would grow there" is overstated.  Earth has a lot of plants with only basic requirements - given them O2, CO2, sunlight, and basic minerals, and they're good to go.

This is much the basis for the science of hydroponics - we are continuously surprised at how well plants can do in environments not designed for them.


----------



## Jdvn1 (Apr 8, 2013)

Derren said:


> Knowledge about their history would give us some knowledge about them, but nothing can make us understand them.



You can't know that for sure. We have people that have been studying lots of different creatures and cultures for a long time - we learn more all the time. There are some human cultures that are still being studied that we don't fully understand and people are even studying modern culture that isn't fully understood by 'outsiders' - that doesn't mean they don't cohabitate the same space peacefully, though.

Knowing that there's a sentient species out there at all means that there will be people who will want to learn about them and try to understand them - we may never understand them fully, but we can do so enough to coexist peacefully.

I don't understand why you apparently think it's impossible. I think most people would say that more difficult things have been accomplished.


			
				Derren said:
			
		

> We can only approximate what they might do or not and considering the only communication is over radio even with knowledge of their culture it would be very vague.
> And transferring scientists? How? They would die as soon as their supplies run out. Completely unfeasible.
> 
> So you have a greenhouse, possibly pressurized and radiation shielded (or enhanced) which is completely barren as no plants from earth would grow there. Air is the least of ones problems on foreign planets.



Are you kidding me? That would be totally easy to figure out - send a probe / send over some information as Umbran mentioned. There would be plenty of people excited to study Marian plantlife. We'll start growing a Martian biosphere or something and figure out suits that we can wear in that atmosphere and vice-versa.

Just like there are scientists willing to be sent to Mars _now_ - pretty much live in a box on a barren wasteland - there will be scientists on both sides eager to be sent to learn with and work with another civilization... what an exciting experience! With communication, we'll figure out a way to make it work on each side.


----------



## Derren (Apr 8, 2013)

Umbran said:


> given them O2, CO2, sunlight, and basic minerals, and they're good to go.




Assuming of course that the greenhouse also doesn't contain something which makes plants die (High amount other gases, high radiation, etc.). And even if you can grow earth plants in it, whats the point?



Jdvn1 said:


> I don't understand why you apparently think it's impossible. I think most people would say that more difficult things have been accomplished.



No, it has not. Nothing of this sort has been done yet. We likely have more in common with dolphins than with any sentient lifeform from mars. And we certainly can't understand dolphins. We can guess, but that is all.


> Are you kidding me? That would be totally easy to figure out - send a probe / send over some information as Umbran mentioned. There would be plenty of people excited to study Marian plantlife. We'll start growing a Martian biosphere or something and figure out suits that we can wear in that atmosphere and vice-versa.
> 
> Just like there are scientists willing to be sent to Mars _now_ - pretty much live in a box on a barren wasteland - there will be scientists on both sides eager to be sent to learn with and work with another civilization... what an exciting experience! With communication, we'll figure out a way to make it work on each side.




Would people do it? Yes. But it would only cost resources for no effect at all except providing them with information with possible military application.
And growing alien plants is a little harder than just setting up a greenhouse.


----------



## Jdvn1 (Apr 8, 2013)

Derren said:


> Assuming of course that the greenhouse also doesn't contain something which makes plants die (High amount other gases, high radiation, etc.). And even if you can grow earth plants in it, whats the point?



I thought we covered that. It's the basis for trade, potentially of valuable resources.

Further, if we can accomplish all of that (which is likely within our technological limitations) we've just traded science and information. Studying these foreign lifeforms could mean a host of new technologies we could use. And that's just one step that can lead to many more.


----------



## Derren (Apr 8, 2013)

Jdvn1 said:


> I thought we covered that. It's the basis for trade, potentially of valuable resources.




Trade? Really? We can't use their plants and they can't use ours. Whats there to trade? Unless some of their plants are some sort of organic miracle there is nothing valuable about them except being a expensive room decoration.


----------



## Jdvn1 (Apr 8, 2013)

Derren said:


> Trade? Really? We can't use their plants and they can't use ours. Whats there to trade? Unless some of their plants are some sort of organic miracle there is nothing valuable about them except being a expensive room decoration.



If their plantlife really is _that_ different, we can study how it's different and what biological processes it undergoes - those processes could be adapted for us on our planet. Further, if it's that different, it could create chemical compounds we don't often see - and be able to grow useful chemical compounds.

Further, if we can create a martian habitat, we can house martians. If we can house martians, we can trade scientists, and work together.


----------



## Derren (Apr 8, 2013)

Jdvn1 said:


> If their plantlife really is _that_ different, we can study how it's different and what biological processes it undergoes - those processes could be adapted for us on our planet. Further, if it's that different, it could create chemical compounds we don't often see - and be able to grow useful chemical compounds.
> 
> Further, if we can create a martian habitat, we can house martians. If we can house martians, we can trade scientists, and work together.




1. Yes, plant life will be _that _different.
2. Adapting alien DNA and biological processes to earth organisms? Only in science fiction. When we manage to cross an eagle with seaweed we might start thinking about something like that, not before. So we are back to miracle plants.
3. Even when we manage to exchange people and somehow keep them alive, whats the point?


----------



## Umbran (Apr 8, 2013)

Jdvn1 said:


> You can't know that for sure. We have people that have been studying lots of different creatures and cultures for a long time - we learn more all the time. There are some human cultures that are still being studied that we don't fully understand and people are even studying modern culture that isn't fully understood by 'outsiders' - that doesn't mean they don't cohabitate the same space peacefully, though.




There is a great tendency to say, "We don't know everything, and that means we know nothing!"  We should avoid this tendency.  We don't know with 100% accuracy how the human mind works, but somehow, by and large, we get along.  We don't have to know the alien mind down to umpteen decimal places to get along with them, either.

All we need to know to get along is that we aren't in conflict over some major required resource.  Everything else is then negotiable.



Derren said:


> Assuming of course that the greenhouse also doesn't contain something which makes plants die (High amount other gases, high radiation, etc.).




Aren't you the guy who just said the air (like, you know, _gases_) would be the least of our issues? 

It would be really good if you used an example of something that was hard to detect - a high amount of *anything* (other gases, radiation, and such) is easy to detect, and thus fix.  If you wanted to suggest that Martian soil might hold some thing rare and deadly and undetectable, you might have a point.  But you better make sure it isn't something that will show up with a Geiger counter or simple chromatograph.



> And even if you can grow earth plants in it, whats the point?




I believe the original point was to establish a way to have our scientists stay there (or, really, theirs here) for a prolonged period.  Food production probably being the idea.  Of course, we know lots of food crops from Earth that grow well by hydroponics - we don't need their dirt.  Just some space.


----------



## Jdvn1 (Apr 8, 2013)

Derren said:


> 1. Yes, plant life will be _that _different.



Which you don't know for sure unless you test it. Remember we're talking about an earth-like planet - the extent of similarities is up to interpretation and can't be known. There might be no differences between our plant life, there might be a lot of differences, or it might be something in the middle.


> 2. Adapting alien DNA and biological processes to earth organisms? Only in science fiction. When we manage to cross an eagle with seaweed we might start thinking about something like that, not before.



Well, we can already cross plant DNA with other plant DNA. So, that's at least a step in the right direction. I think we can cross animal DNA with other animal DNA as well, but it's more expensive.


> 3. Even when we manage to exchange people and somehow keep them alive, whats the point?



This line of questioning essentially boils down to, "What's the point of expanding scientific knowledge?" I suppose if you want to ignore the human and economic benefits of expanding scientific and technological advances, that's your business.


----------



## Derren (Apr 8, 2013)

Umbran said:


> There is a great tendency to say, "We don't know everything, and that means we know nothing!"  We should avoid this tendency.  We don't know with 100% accuracy how the human mind works, but somehow, by and large, we get along.  We don't have to know the alien mind down to umpteen decimal places to get along with them, either.
> 
> All we need to know to get along is that we aren't in conflict over some major required resource.  Everything else is then negotiable.



To use the dolphin example, we would have a much easier time to understand dolphins than any lifeform from mars and that even when we could observe them in person instead of talking over radio.
And no, we could not be sure if we would get along with them when we are not in conflict over resources.







> Aren't you the guy who just said the air (like, you know, _gases_) would be the least of our issues?




The least, but not the only one. Gravity? Radiation?
Besides as I understood it you were saying that earth plants might grow in a mars greenhouse. What if mars has a lot more radiation than earth? I don't think our plants would do well in that case.


> I believe the original point was to establish a way to have our scientists stay there (or, really, theirs here) for a prolonged period.  Food production probably being the idea.  Of course, we know lots of food crops from Earth that grow well by hydroponics - we don't need their dirt.  Just some space.




So even if we manage to replicate the environment of mars, have seeds transferred which also manage to "digest" the minerals found on earth and build up a storage of martian food, there is still the question of the why? There wouldn't really be an advantage economically to exchange people (who would be confined for the rest of their lives (and the likelihood is great that it will be short) to a greenhouse except for satisfy some peoples curiosity and to acquire some sample for a weapon program (not that a few corpses would allow you to create bioweapons but you could test chemicals).



Jdvn1 said:


> Which you don't know for sure unless you test it. Remember we're talking about an earth-like planet - the extent of similarities is up to interpretation and can't be known. There might be no differences between our plant life, there might be a lot of differences, or it might be something in the middle.
> 
> Well, we can already cross plant DNA with other plant DNA. So, that's at least a step in the right direction. I think we can cross animal DNA with other animal DNA as well, but it's more expensive.




To use my previous example, billions of years ago the eagle and seaweed had a common ancestor. Mars and earth plants would not. So unless you can combine an eagle with seaweed or subscribe to a "earth was seeded from space and mars, too" theory you don't even need to think about combining alien with terrestrial plants.


> This line of questioning essentially boils down to, "What's the point of expanding scientific knowledge?" I suppose if you want to ignore the human and economic benefits of expanding scientific and technological advances, that's your business.




What scientific knowledge is expanded by building a greenhouse?


----------



## Jdvn1 (Apr 8, 2013)

Derren said:


> To use the dolphin example, we would have a much easier time to understand dolphins than any lifeform from mars and that even when we could observe them in person instead of talking over radio.
> And no, we could not be sure if we would get along with them when we are not in conflict over resources.



Do you advocate destroying dolphins, then? What about martian dolphins?

The fact is you can't factually say we'd have a much easier time to understand dolphins than any lifeform from Mars. You can't know that until you try. And history tells us we would try and continue trying even after initial failures.

And I disagree with Umbran that we need to know that we're not in conflict over some resource - just like with oil, we would just create a market for that resource or find alternatives to it.


			
				Derren said:
			
		

> The least, but not the only one. Gravity? Radiation?
> Besides as I understood it you were saying that earth plants might grow in a mars greenhouse. What if mars has a lot more radiation than earth? I don't think our plants would do well in that case.



Thank goodness we have a ability to study the surfaces of other planets. We've been doing that for decades. If we've been studying martian linguistics at the same time, we'd probably be further along than we are now.


			
				Derren said:
			
		

> To use my previous example, billions of years ago the eagle and seaweed had a common ancestor. Mars and earth plants would not. So unless you can combine an eagle with seaweed or subscribe to a "earth was seeded from space and mars, too" theory you don't even need to think about combining alien with terrestrial plants.



Crossing plant life with other plant life is likely enough. We don't have to be able to do _everything_ we just have to be able to do initial things, and then we'll eventually grow into the more complicated things. Science is done in baby steps. NASA wasn't built in a day.

Further, crossing earth and martian DNAs isn't necessary. Chemical processes that occur in martian plants can be duplicated on earth, regardless, outside of a plant. We can put together protons, neutrons, and electrons to create elements to create any molecule... initial tests could be expensive, but just about anything can be done.

If we can create temporary black holes and pass the speed of light, we can do a lot. We're only bound by our imaginations - which is part of the benefit of observing life different from our own.


			
				Derren said:
			
		

> What scientific knowledge is expanded by building a greenhouse?



I already mentioned biological and chemical things we could learn by studing the plant life.


----------



## Dannyalcatraz (Apr 8, 2013)

> What scientific knowledge is expanded by building a greenhouse?




Lots, actually.  You get a controlled environment in which to study plants over generations, for one, including hybridizing different strains.  This gives you the foundations for understanding their genomes, etc.

In the case before us, a working terrestrial Martian greenhouse- a redhouse, if you will- could be the basis for that bioplastics factory mentioned above.

But lets say all we find out is that _we_cannot sustain Martian life on Earth, even in an artificial environment, with the tech level of the day.  Then we have still learned something: it expands the depth of knowledge we would have on the difficulty of biological exploration of other worlds- terraforming and colonization, in other words.

Even if, for whatever reasons, we could not have a sustainable Martian Bioplastics Industry on Earth or in orbit, you still have the potential for the basis of trade.  They have the bioplastics, we have __________.

What that is, we don't know, and can't know until there is communication.  Perhaps they are affected by chemicals in cinnamon and rattlesnake venom like it was LSD, and they're secretly a planet of would-be stoners.  Or perhaps the color purple is extremely rare and hard for them to produce.

Perhaps they really want to learn to surf the big waves.

It doesn't matter, by sheer force of separate biospheres, there will be things- natural and created- they have that we don't and vice versa, which is the basis for any trade scenario.


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## Derren (Apr 8, 2013)

Jdvn1 said:


> Do you advocate destroying dolphins, then? What about martian dolphins?




Do they have the technology to seriously harm or destroy us?







> The fact is you can't factually say we'd have a much easier time to understand dolphins than any lifeform from Mars. You can't know that until you try. And history tells us we would try and continue trying even after initial failures.




It is simply a fact that we would have more in common with dolphins than martians. Same needs, same senses, two genders, much more similar brain structure, etc. 
Communicating with dolphins or any other higher intelligent earth animals would be much more easy than communication with martians.







> Thank goodness we have a ability to study the surfaces of other planets. We've been doing that for decades. If we've been studying martian linguistics at the same time, we'd probably be further along than we are now.



Surface study of planets have nothing to do with communicating with completely alien life forms.







> Crossing plant life with other plant life is likely enough. We don't have to be able to do _everything_ we just have to be able to do initial things, and then we'll eventually grow into the more complicated things. Science is done in baby steps. NASA wasn't built in a day.




No, it is not likely. Again, mammals or birds have more in common with out plants than martian plants would. The most obvious difference would be if they would be silica based. But even if they are carbon based there still would be no similarities unless through ungodly coincidence.







> Further, crossing earth and martian DNAs isn't necessary. Chemical processes that occur in martian plants can be duplicated on earth, regardless, outside of a plant. We can put together protons, neutrons, and electrons to create elements to create any molecule... initial tests could be expensive, but just about anything can be done.




We can? Since when can we create atoms? And molecules outside of chemical processes?


> If we can create temporary black holes and pass the speed of light, we can do a lot. We're only bound by our imaginations - which is part of the benefit of observing life different from our own.
> I already mentioned biological and chemical things we could learn by studing the plant life.




You read way to many science fiction.


----------



## Jdvn1 (Apr 8, 2013)

Derren said:


> Do they have the technology to seriously harm or destroy us?



We don't know! Maybe! So, you're thinking kill them just in case?


			
				Derren said:
			
		

> It is simply a fact that we would have more in common with dolphins than martians. Same needs, same senses, two genders, much more similar brain structure, etc.
> Communicating with dolphins or any other higher intelligent earth animals would be much more easy than communication with martians.



We don't know that for sure, do we? The supposed planet is earth-like, but we don't know exactly how close to earth it is. They might be just like us, they might be totally different. That means you have to allow for the possibility that they might be very easy to communicate with - we only find out by trying first.


			
				Derren said:
			
		

> Surface study of planets have nothing to do with communicating with completely alien life forms.



I beg to differ - if we study their plants and see that they're remarkably similar to our plants (it's a possibility!), then we've find out that our atmospheres might be compatible, and they might be able to live here without a green/redhouse.


			
				Derren said:
			
		

> No, it is not likely. Again, mammals or birds have more in common with out plants than martian plants would. The most obvious difference would be if they would be silica based. But even if they are carbon based there still would be no similarities unless through ungodly coincidence.



You don't know that martian plants would be so different without testing. If they're silica based - we can cross that bridge when we get to it.


			
				Derren said:
			
		

> We can? Since when can we create atoms? And molecules outside of chemical processes?



Well, outside of plants, which is what I said. But, yes. It's difficult and expensive (as I also mentioned), but yes. (Link is over 10 years old, so for over a decade now, and probably longer than that)


			
				Derren said:
			
		

> You read way to many science fiction.



Actually, I don't read a lot of science fiction. But, I'm not sure which part you think is fiction. Temporary black holes or passing the speed of light? Or just the sentiment that we can do anything? Maybe you don't read _enough_ science fiction.


----------



## tomBitonti (Apr 8, 2013)

So ... having a second biosphere, with potentially very very different chemical processes at play ... should open a huge new field of biochemistry.  It might also introduce very dangerous substances into our biosphere.  Our biosphere was created by oxygenating organisms driving out competing organisms by poisoning them.  It's not so clear that the same might not happen, in one direction or the other, between two biospheres that provide similar enough niches.  Then again, our biosphere has evolved to be self stabilizing, such that any organism not fitted to a fairly high degree might have a hard time of surviving.  Hard to say.

One could co-opt the intellectual resources of another people to one's benefit.  Have them do the research and development.  Capture the knowledge to your own benefit.  Also environmental costs as well.  Why have that experimental and potentially dangerous lab on your own planet?

Thx!

TomB


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## I'm A Banana (Apr 8, 2013)

Umbran said:


> I understand the stymie, there.  I'll leave it at this...
> 
> The wingnuts don't *dictate* policy.  I am cynical enough to think that the major figures who look like they almost dictate policy 1) are not themselves wingnuts or true believers, but are generally the more insidious and calculating sort who make themselves appealing to wingnuts.  2) Don't actually dictate policy, but instead do a lot of back room dealing - if you have lots of help and support, it isn't dictating.
> 
> Your beliefs may differ.




Yeah, given the frequent and persistent occurrences of wingnuttery in old and recent history, I'ma hafta differ on that point. Genocide is a thing. A thing that has happened in living memory of people that are not even very old. Any argument that wingnuttery doesn't dictate policy is, for me, going to have to overcome some counter-examples that I feel are TREMENDOUSLY problematic to write off as just outliers. 

I don't think I'm being overly cynical, either. I don't imagine we'd be at interplanatery war or anything (that would assume a planetary government, which...hahahahaha). Just that in this hypothetical, a journey to the other planet isn't out of the realm of possibility for wingnuts, and said wingnuts are likely to try something violent sooner or later, 'cuz they're nutty. If the aliens aren't psychologically hegemonic (which, given natural selection, it is unlikely that they would be), they'll probably have some wingnuts, too, who do very similar stuff. 

Give it at most a year or two before someone is on a popular news network advocating for the destruction of all alien life (for one reason or another) and politicians talking about securing the "xenophobe" vote in 2016 while people are showing up at rallies with signs like "THEY HAVE NUKES, TOO!" and "BLAST THEM OUT OF THE SKY!" and "IF HUMANS ARE MADE BY GOD, WHAT MADE THEM?!"

(Xenotheology/Exotheology would be an interesting subject, I think!)


----------



## sabrinathecat (Apr 8, 2013)

Why trade, when we can conquer and destroy, then take their stuff? If we have merchant ships flying back and forth, you can damn well better bet we'd have a space navy of some kind. Then some Hawk politician (or whoever actually gives the orders) would want to use them, even if it meant fabricating an incident to use as an excuse. (Because we're good at that.) I would love to believe that the human race would opt for trade and peace. I just don't believe it is up to the challenge.


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## Bullgrit (Apr 9, 2013)

Reading some of the thoughts in this thread, I wonder why Earth isn't completely ruled and lived by one, and only one, race/nationality of humanity.

Bullgrit


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## Grumpy RPG Reviews (Apr 9, 2013)

Kamikaze Midget said:


> A thing that has happened in living memory of people that are not even very old. Any argument that wingnuttery doesn't dictate policy is, for me, going to have to overcome some counter-examples that I feel are TREMENDOUSLY problematic to write off as just outliers.




What he said.

Consider the Cambodian massacres of the 70s - which did not even involved different nationalities, religions or ethnic groups, just different social classes. The Rwandan massacres of the 90s did involve different ethnic groups, but ones which knew each other and were often neighbors in close proximity. Further, a lot of the rhetoric around the wars on terrorism and in Afghanistan and Iraq at least in the Early days also carried genocidal tones. Also consider the Falkland Island war between Argentina and Great Brittan happened in large part because the Argentinean government was attempting to distract its population from the incompetence of the Argentinean government. Lastly all such wars and conflicts were served by great marketing, were wonderfully entertaining for the perpetrators. 



Bullgrit said:


> Reading some of the thoughts in this thread, I  wonder why Earth isn't completely ruled and lived by one, and only one,  race/nationality of humanity.




Give it time, sir, give it time.


----------



## Umbran (Apr 9, 2013)

Derren said:


> 3. Even when we manage to exchange people and somehow keep them alive, whats the point?




Here's the thing - nobody in history has ever been able to accurately predict what and where the cool and useful new bit of knowledge comes from.  The very moment you say, "I cannot imagine how this might be useful..." is the moment you lose at the game of science.  Can we guarantee that it will be a big payoff?  No.  But if you fail to search, you absolutely guarantee there will be no big payoff.  So, you have to try pretty much everything.

The potential of an entire planet of sentient beings and the richness of their biosphere, however, is vast.  The number of things you don't know about them is huge.  And the more new things you learn, the more chance you have of finding excruciatingly useful pieces of information.  



Derren said:


> What scientific knowledge is expanded by building a greenhouse?




Well, presumably, you learn a whole lot about the alien biology in the process.

Interesting analogy to current events.  There are creatures on our own planet referred to as "extremophiles".  They live in environments we don't - like in the boiling water around volcanic vents on the sea floor.  Those volcanic beasties, their ecosystem works on a different basis than the one you're used to - rather than based on photosynthesis, they're based on chemosynthesis, from heat and minerals welling up from the vents.  These critters certainly *cannot* live on the surface of the Earth with us, at least not without a major artificial habitat.  By your logic, that means really, there's no point studying them...

But then, folks at Virginia Tech didn't listen to you, and instead discovered an enzyme from such life that may help us create a real viable hydrogen fuel infrastructure, as it allows us to take pretty much any vegetable biomass, and use it to create hydrogen fuel at modest temperatures, without having to worry about heavy metal pollution from the catalysts used.

http://www.dailytech.com/Virginia+T...ogen+to+Replace+Fossil+Fuels/article30286.htm

You don't know what useful bits you'll discover.  You *cannot* know, until you bother to look.


----------



## I'm A Banana (Apr 10, 2013)

sabrinathecat said:


> Why trade, when we can conquer and destroy, then take their stuff? If we have merchant ships flying back and forth, you can damn well better bet we'd have a space navy of some kind. Then some Hawk politician (or whoever actually gives the orders) would want to use them, even if it meant fabricating an incident to use as an excuse. (Because we're good at that.) I would love to believe that the human race would opt for trade and peace. I just don't believe it is up to the challenge.




See, I'm not quite on board with this.

Trading is the logical recourse, and arguably the one that nets the most benefit for the most people over time. Why trade instead of conquering? Because lots of happy people will give you more money over the long haul than a few terrified ones. The most sensible power is a subtle one, one that people exert on themselves without even noticing it (Max Weber, your _Protestant Ethic_ keeps explaining so much), one that keeps people working together to do awesome things that nobody could do by themselves.

Trade is the BEST option!

But the people who wield power in our world are not necessarily the most logical. Indeed, wanting to wield power is itself a little illogical, so it sort of selects for those with an inflated sense of self-importance and a propensity for charismatic personality traits (in both the charm sense and in the cult/sociopath sense). 

So I don't think it's a matter of humanity being good or bad as a whole per se. I think it's a matter of biology, sociology, design, and instinct. Someone somewhere with some power would do something stupid sooner or later. The real tell would be how we (and the aliens) react to that stupidity. 

Given that the aliens have technology (and thus presumably have a roughly comparable society to humans), they're not likely to react any smarter than we would, and they're not likely to avoid being stupid, either. 

I imagine we'd have a big philosophically awesome organization that is all about peace harmony cooperation love and free trade between the planets, and we'd have them able to do exactly jack nothing about all the goofuses on the ground who see the fear in peoples' eyes and use it to earn their trust, empower themselves, and do something dumb once they're in control of a few nuclear warheads. Governments don't act any more rationally than the people who make them up, really. They're mostly just an amplifier, for the best and the worst of us.


----------



## Derren (Apr 10, 2013)

Kamikaze Midget said:


> See, I'm not quite on board with this.
> 
> Trading is the logical recourse, and arguably the one that nets the most benefit for the most people over time.



Only if there is anything to trade which I think is rather unlikely because of differences and distance.



> Why trade instead of conquering? Because lots of happy people will give you more money over the long haul than a few terrified ones.




If they have money...


----------



## sabrinathecat (Apr 10, 2013)

Kamikaze Midget said:


> See, I'm not quite on board with this.
> 
> Trading is the logical recourse, and arguably the one that nets the most benefit for the most people over time. Why trade instead of conquering? Because lots of happy people will give you more money over the long haul than a few terrified ones. The most sensible power is a subtle one, one that people exert on themselves without even noticing it (Max Weber, your _Protestant Ethic_ keeps explaining so much), one that keeps people working together to do awesome things that nobody could do by themselves.
> 
> ...




The key here, is "Over Time." Over Time, trade _IS _the best option. But humans (the ones that crave power enough to play politics and put up with the incredibly boring meetings) are stupid, short-sighted, and greedy.
If the BEST of humanity is in charge, we might have something like what you suggest. But it isn't. The mediocre to worst of humanity rises to the top, and we have Parliament and Congress and... and all the other politicians, party chairmen, and other assorted riff-raff and flotsam.
We are increasingly less likely to have the Star Trek Federation, and more likely to have the Blake's7 Federation.


----------



## I'm A Banana (Apr 10, 2013)

Derren said:


> Only if there is anything to trade which I think is rather unlikely because of differences and distance.




Why would this be unlikely?

At the very least, being an Earth-like planet, they have earth-like metals and minerals (used in the construction of their analgous technology). Additionally, as makers of technology, they have some sort of specialization that produces specialized instruments, and those instruments themselves would be valuable, not to mention the extensive labor force that enables the production of that specialization (and the technologies that multiply the efforts of that labor force). 

This isn't even to mention the unique products and ideas that they could have that are subtly different than ours. Arts, crafts, cultural artifacts, etc. 




> If they have money...




They've likely at least got minerals or natural resources we find valuable, and the technology required to mine them out or "develop" them. And given that they have a comparable level of technology, there's a very good chance that they've got a lot of other cultural accouterments -- they're clearly novelty-seeking creatures, with a high level of economic specialization (and the corresponding methods to quantify labor and effort), or else they wouldn't have technology comparable to ours in the first place.


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## Grumpy RPG Reviews (Apr 10, 2013)

Kamikaze Midget said:


> Because lots of happy people will give you more money over the long haul...




But we rarely think about the long haul and we do not feel the long haul, we feel quick gratification. We are mean, lazy and hungry. We want stuff now, we don't want others to succeed and violence is cool because it makes us feel important.


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## Stormonu (Apr 10, 2013)

Just throwing in my two cents:

Early on, people were latching onto believing since we had radio in the 20's, that's when we'd make contact.  Personally, I don't think that'd be likely.  I have trouble getting reception from a modern radio station less than a hundred miles away; with 20's technology, power and land-based radio stations, I don't think we'd likely have contact until we had developed directional, high-powered radio sender/receivers.  Definitely not until we had the technology to send/track radio waves with the likes of the Voyager satellites.

Once we made contact though, what would follow would be based on the society(s) of the Martians as well as our own.  I think there's a lot of assumption that the societies would be American-like, wanting progressive and open relations - which would more than likely not be the case.  I think it'd more likely to be with one or more Martian regimes that would be seeking to exploit or ignore Earthlings.  I think it would be far more likely that we'd run into martian nation states of the likes of Japan, North Korea or cold-war Soviet Union than we'd be likely to run into something like the US, Great Britain or the like.

As far as colonization, I don't doubt that it would have been attempted by now - by one or more individuals who saw Mars as "the greener grass".  It would have likely been Mayflower-like attempts, one way trips funded by billionaires with more curiosity than brains.  I'd suspect the number of successful launches could be counted on two hands or less and probably less than a dozen individuals would have made the trip successfully.  The converse could be true as well, a handful of Martians who left behind their world for a "new and better life" on Earth, and harrowing tales of "thousands" who left their oppressive world to die in ill-fated trips to Earth (whereas the actual number might be only 2-3 times the number who actually made it).  With enough desperation, there could even be a minor colony - something along the lines of District 9 (likely out in the South Pacific, Africa or perhaps South America on our Earth).

In regards to war, I'm sure there would be all kinds of worst-case scenarios drawn up, and feasibility studies would have sunk billions into plans that never materialized.  I could see a handful of ICBM's modified to make a long trip as a "last-strike counter-attack" if something were to ever happen, but nothing really in place as a first or per-emptive strike ability.  Conspiracy groups would have a field day with things like the meteor over Russia, with photoshopped images of martians driving or hauling the asteroid into the atmosphere and "anti-martian rockets" shooting it out of the sky.  Imagine what Roswell would be like!

If Martians did turn out to be friendly towards us, there'd probably be very tightly controlled transfer of technology, and possibly media (such as movies) going on.  Corporations would have special Martian patents allowing them special privileges to disseminate and recreate martian technology on Earth and possibly vice-versa.  Trade would likely only have recently increased as credit and electronic money transfers came into vogue; prior to that, trade would likely have been limited to -for-tat exchanges - trading knowledge that resulted in profits on the receiving world for equally valuable knowledge on the sending planet.


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## Dannyalcatraz (Apr 10, 2013)

> -for-tat exchanges



Quoted for my personal amusement.


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## jmucchiello (Apr 11, 2013)

There's on assumption here that is being taken too literally. Just because the scenario states "of about equal technological advancement" does not mean the people making first contact can assume such. The people making first contact will probably worry that the martians might already have stealth satellites in orbit around Earth and plan to unleash their orbital mind control lasers on our unsuspecting planet unless WE STOP THEM!!!! Paranoia in the early years would be rampant. Having a top of the food chain species popup suddenly in your neighborhood will do that.

Likewise as pointed out above, the knowledge that they are out there would likely take a decade or two after the early 20s because the radio systems would likely be incompatible and perhaps only appear as noise initially. It could be another decade after that before a common "language" was worked out where time delayed communication was even possible. (If like from the sun reaches earth in 8+ minutes, when the planets are furthest apart, communication delays can exceed 15 minutes. Even: "Earth here. Come in Mars." "Mars here. Go ahead Earth" could take half an hour.) So WWII is still likely in that time frame. 

I think the real question is what impact this has on Earth. Does the United Nations become a strong world influencing (and respected quickly) body through which we communicate with Mars? Or do the soviets and the US (and a bunch of other self-important states) make Earth sound like it is run by 100 different mad men who don't talk to one another?


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## Grumpy RPG Reviews (Apr 12, 2013)

jmucchiello said:


> Paranoia in the early years would be rampant. (snip) Or do the soviets and the US (and a bunch of other self-important states) make Earth sound like it is run by 100 different mad men who don't talk to one another?




Which adds weight to the "interplanetary war of genocide" argument.


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## Umbran (Apr 12, 2013)

Stormonu said:


> Early on, people were latching onto believing since we had radio in the 20's, that's when we'd make contact.  Personally, I don't think that'd be likely.  I have trouble getting reception from a modern radio station less than a hundred miles away;




As well you should, seeing as a transmitter on top of a 100 foot tower has a direct line of sight to receivers perhaps 12 miles away - beyond that you're reaching over the horizon, and then you're talking about transmitting through rock, refracting through, or reflecting off the atmosphere, which gets kind of iffy.  Power isn't the largest issue there.



> I don't think we'd likely have contact until we had developed directional, high-powered radio sender/receivers.  Definitely not until we had the technology to send/track radio waves with the likes of the Voyager satellites.




The first antenna used to detect radio from an astronomical source was built in 1931.  The first parabolic dish radio telescope was built in 1937.  I don't see any reason to think we needed to wait for Voyager-era technology.  The Voyager probes didn't have much power (470 Watts when launched), and needed to be received from much farther away than mere Mars.  Land-based transmitters have *lots* more power to work with.


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## Bagpuss (Apr 12, 2013)

Morrus said:


> War isn't an option. Do you know how much it would cost just to send one teeny bomb to Mars? Billions. Billions to blow up a random Martian fruit stand, if we're lucky.




You wouldn't send a bomb direct from Earth. You would work on tethering asteroids "purely for mining operations", and then once you have that technology sorted you just throw rocks at them, it would be cheaper in the long run.

Also you wouldn't involve people it's expensive putting people in space you would use robots to drop the rocks.


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## jonesy (Apr 12, 2013)

Bagpuss said:


> You wouldn't send a bomb direct from Earth. You would work on tethering asteroids "purely for mining operations", and then once you have that technology sorted you just throw rocks at them, it would be cheaper in the long run.
> 
> Also you wouldn't involve people it's expensive putting people in space you would use robots to drop the rocks.



How does that make any more sense? The scenario is two planets with roughly similar levels of technology. Any scenario where you start lobbing mass at your opponent is going to turn into a contest to see which side reaches stone age first, or which side can dig a deeper hole to hide in forever.


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## Bagpuss (Apr 12, 2013)

jonesy said:


> How does that make any more sense? The scenario is two planets with roughly similar levels of technology.




Right because countries with similar levels of technology have never gone to war, in history.

Also do we have to assume they have similar mind sets? Political structures? Paranoia?


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## jonesy (Apr 13, 2013)

I meant sense from a self-preservation point of view.

Planet to planet warfare is very different from nation to nation war. You can't attack by surprise. You can't hide any of your operations. You can't send landing parties without expecting most or all of them to the get shot to pieces.

The whole throw rocks at them approach might have worked in The Moon Is A Harsh Mistress, but in that story Moon had a significant gravity well strength advantage. Mars + two small moons vs Earth + one large moon is a fairly symmetric situation that leads to a war neither can expect to win without signicant losses. Is ending up in the stone age an acceptable price for victory?


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## Grumpy RPG Reviews (Apr 13, 2013)

jonesy said:


> Is ending up in the stone age an acceptable price for victory?




Leadership would lie to the people about this and tell themselves, yes it would be worth it.


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## dark2112 (Apr 13, 2013)

Derren said:


> Only if there is anything to trade which I think is rather unlikely because of differences and distance.
> 
> 
> 
> If they have money...




Once upon a time, there was this road, and it took about a year to go from one end to the other with your caravan. And people were still willing to leave behind their friends, their families, to travel this road. This year to travel this road, it could even be longer, depending on whether or not you ran into bandits who would kill and rob you, or into hostile kingdoms that had radically different cultures than anything you could even have conceived. 

Why did they travel this road? Why, simply to get the byproduct of some insect catching dinner. Silk was a pretty big deal back then. Trade of anything we could find on earth would be prohibitively expensive, but that doesn't mean we wouldn't send caravans to get those luxury goods that just simply don't exist on Earth, and you can't tell me that with an entire planet that's just as full of life as Earth is that we wouldn't find something. And money? That's a fairly modern concept, humanity did quite well (and still does, in many areas) simply bartering for what they want.

I agree with the sentiment that we wouldn't have been chatting it up with 'martians' back in the twenties, but we wouldn't have exactly been ignorant as to their presence. The debate about the canals of Mars was pretty fresh in the early 1900s, and more powerful telescopes were being made at around the same time radio was getting into the scene. We would have probably seen their equivalent of London before we heard their first radio broadcasts, or at least before we were able to identify their radio broadcasts as something indicating intelligent life.

The thing I wonder, primarily, is what effect would the discovery that an alien species was able to listen in to our radio (and later television) broadcasts have on our society. Would we have even commercialized television for the masses, or would it have been kept as some sort of military-only technology? Would the knowledge of the likelihood of alien life nearby changed WWII? If not, would the rampant paranoia after the war brought around military preparations for a potential invasion, or would we have overcome that and learned to communicate? Would we be watching Martian Box Office's version of Game of Thrones on the Interstellar TV Network? Would Sean Bean find a market where he could play a character that didn't die?

People always like to cite the psychological issues of a manned mission to Mars as this giant, game ending barrier. Yes, it's a problem, but then again, so was a three month journey on a wooden boat in 1492 to a land that no one was even sure existed. They couldn't even supply themselves well enough to prevent simple diseases from ravaging their health. We can do much better.

The human spirit is pretty strong, and if there's sufficient motivation, we'll find a way to put up with all kinds of hardships to get what we want, and I'm pretty sure there would be a lot of people interested in traveling to Mars to learn, trade, and explore. Personally, I'd be interested in traveling to Mars now, even knowing it's a one way trip, and so would many other people. Imagine if there was a society that could keep us in breathable atmosphere, catch supply packets sent over in advance to feed us, and top up the gas tanks so we could come back?


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## Derren (Apr 13, 2013)

dark2112 said:


> Once upon a time, there was this road, and it took about a year to go from one end to the other with your caravan.




No trader traveled on the whole silk road. Goods were transferred from one outpost on the road to the next where someone else would buy it and continue to the next outpost. And emissaries and pilgrims whos destination was on the other end had plenty of time and could rest along the way.







> People always like to cite the psychological issues of a manned mission to Mars as this giant, game ending barrier. Yes, it's a problem, but then again, so was a three month journey on a wooden boat in 1492 to a land that no one was even sure existed.




People of that time were very certain that India existed (thats what they were looking for)


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## Umbran (Apr 13, 2013)

dark2112 said:


> People always like to cite the psychological issues of a manned mission to Mars as this giant, game ending barrier. Yes, it's a problem, but then again, so was a three month journey on a wooden boat in 1492 to a land that no one was even sure existed.




Well, let us remember a few things when making that comparison:

1) The Niña had a complement of 24.  The two missions to Mars being talked about much these days have crews of 2 and 4.  For social animals like humans, this is a major difference.  And while Columbus' ships were small, they still had notably more room than a Dragon capsule - you could walk around on deck, if nothing else.

2) A 3 month trip on a small boat isn't fun.  The Mars missions under discussion are more like 8 months one-way.  

This is not to say it is impossible, but merely to be realistic about what we are asking.


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## tomBitonti (Apr 13, 2013)

jonesy said:


> I meant sense from a self-preservation point of view.
> 
> Planet to planet warfare is very different from nation to nation war. *You can't attack by surprise.* You can't hide any of your operations. You can't send landing parties without expecting most or all of them to the get shot to pieces.
> 
> The whole throw rocks at them approach might have worked in The Moon Is A Harsh Mistress, but in that story Moon had a significant gravity well strength advantage. Mars + two small moons vs Earth + one large moon is a fairly symmetric situation that leads to a war neither can expect to win without signicant losses. Is ending up in the stone age an acceptable price for victory?




Response is to "You can't attack by surprise."

I was under the impression that detection of ballistics was not a sure thing.  Would a stealthed rock on an odd approach be easy or hard to detect?

Thx!

TomB


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## tomBitonti (Apr 13, 2013)

Another thing is a question of fragility of certain infrastructures.  Anything space based that is not dispersed seems to be easy pickings.  A few nukes against the right planet based targets might cause debilitating damage.

I'm thinking the main issue would be stability of relations.  A lot of this might depend on details: Is communication possible?  Are there any scarce resources that both sides want?  Does either side have a feature that disturbs the other side at a basic level?  On the flip side, is there a common threat that the side can cooperate to overcome?  Are there very clear trading opportunities?

Thx!

TomB


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## Derren (Apr 13, 2013)

tomBitonti said:


> I was under the impression that detection of ballistics was not a sure thing.  Would a stealthed rock on an odd approach be easy or hard to detect?




The cold war made sure that we are quite good in detecting launches.
The real problem is heat. Detecting a cold rock in space is hard (and we can still do it), detecting something that is emitting heat is very easy .


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## jonesy (Apr 13, 2013)

tomBitonti said:


> Response is to "You can't attack by surprise."
> 
> I was under the impression that detection of ballistics was not a sure thing.  Would a stealthed rock on an odd approach be easy or hard to detect?



Stealth in space is impossible. Any measure to hide yourself results in another way that you can be seen (of course I'm assuming here that we'd have the detection network ready. At the moment we are only looking at a portion of the sky). Ballistics are difficult to see when they go through an atmosphere. The hardest to detech things in space are the really small and the really fast. And like I inferred earlier, the moment that the speed of the projectiles becomes faster than the ability to see them the whole concept of starting a war becomes crazy, because at that point we are talking about planet busting weapons and then the war options are cold war or xenocide.


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## Umbran (Apr 13, 2013)

Derren said:


> The cold war made sure that we are quite good in detecting launches.




We are good at detecting launches _from Earth_.  There's lots and lots of cameras pointed downwards, and lots of radar dishes scanning the atmosphere.



jonesy said:


> Stealth in space is impossible.




Yes... and no.  As the man said - Space... is big. Really big. You just won't believe how vastly hugely mindbogglingly big it is....  So, "stealth" may be difficult.  But, on the other hand, we cannot actively probe the entire sky with radar.  We cannot yet even manage to actively *watch* the entire sky at once.  Smallish, dark objects that aren't under active thrust may well go unnoticed until it is too late to do anything about them.


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## Dannyalcatraz (Apr 13, 2013)

> Smallish, dark objects that aren't under active thrust may well go unnoticed until it is too late to do anything about them.




Pygmy Space Jump Commandoes?


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## jonesy (Apr 13, 2013)

Dannyalcatraz said:


> Pygmy Space Jump Commandoes?



Hmm. Self Replicable Robot Pygmy Space Jump Commandoes?


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## Derren (Apr 13, 2013)

Umbran said:


> We are good at detecting launches _from Earth_.  There's lots and lots of cameras pointed downwards, and lots of radar dishes scanning the atmosphere.




And the instant we know that there is intelligent and technologically equal (which means that they can launch weapons towards us) those dishes will point up.


> we cannot actively probe the entire sky with radar.




IR is the way to go. All man (+ alien) made objects with their own propulsion will emit heat.


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## Umbran (Apr 13, 2013)

Derren said:


> And the instant we know that there is intelligent and technologically equal (which means that they can launch weapons towards us) those dishes will point up.




And be useless.  They're all short-range.  We don't have the capability to blanket the entire solar system from, say, Jupiter inwards with active radar.  The power requirements alone would be absurd.



> IR is the way to go. All man (+ alien) made objects with their own propulsion will emit heat.




Pretty much everything that the sun shines on emits heat.  If it is using something a bit more passive, like a solar sail, it may appear just like a large rock in IR.


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## dark2112 (Apr 13, 2013)

Derren said:


> No trader traveled on the whole silk road. Goods were transferred from one outpost on the road to the next where someone else would buy it and continue to the next outpost. And emissaries and pilgrims whos destination was on the other end had plenty of time and could rest along the way.
> 
> People of that time were very certain that India existed (thats what they were looking for)




http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marco_Polo
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Giovanni_da_Pian_del_Carpine

You could argue that Marco Polo was an explorer, not a merchant, at that stage of his life, and Giovanni was technically a courier, but 20 seconds of research discovered two people who had traveled the silk road. I'm sure there were more, although certainly not a majority. It was more common, as you said, for a merchant to travel a small section, trading goods between outposts.

As for India, he was technically aiming for the orient, and insisted that the lands he discovered were in fact part of Asia. I suppose I could have worded my sentence a bit better, as it was largely popular sentiment at the time that the world ended, and not the opinion of the educated elite, but even they doubted that a western passage to Asia would be feasible, and if I recall correctly, the distance he initially proposed was somewhere around half what he actually traveled to reach Cuba, with no re-supply.


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## Morrus (Apr 13, 2013)

Umbran said:


> And be useless.  They're all short-range.  We don't have the capability to blanket the entire solar system from, say, Jupiter inwards with active radar.  The power requirements alone would be absurd..




Or, indeed, more than a few percent of the sky at any one time.


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## Morrus (Apr 13, 2013)

dark2112 said:


> as it was largely popular sentiment at the time that the world ended, and not the opinion of the educated elite




That's a myth invented by popular fiction.  The flat earth was_ never _a popular opinion.  Even uneducated medieval folk could see that was ludicrus; there's no shred of evidence to suggest that such a thing was a widespread opinon at any time.


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## dark2112 (Apr 13, 2013)

Umbran said:


> Well, let us remember a few things when making that comparison:
> 
> 1) The Niña had a complement of 24.  The two missions to Mars being talked about much these days have crews of 2 and 4.  For social animals like humans, this is a major difference.  And while Columbus' ships were small, they still had notably more room than a Dragon capsule - you could walk around on deck, if nothing else.
> 
> ...




There are logistical challenges, yes, but the general attitude is that they are insurmountable, which they are not. We assume that our technology is at the same level today, which may or may not be true with 60+ years of confirmed knowledge of extraterrestrial beings in our solar system, but even with no additional impetus to develop space technology any further than what is available today, we do have the technology to build a space ship capable of carrying 24 people. It's a matter of cost on why we don't, and I suspect that with a known alien species at the other end, we could come up with that funding over say, a 20 year development plan that could have begun in the 70's. I also suspect we would have built some semi-permanent moon base by now, allowing the larger ship to travel from our moon to one of Mars' moons, cutting the cost of running such a vessel considerably, since we'd only need to boost our ship into space once. A large part of the cost of any mission is the expense of lifting all the weight out of a planet's gravity well, but if that is defrayed over a larger number of missions, it does become economically feasible to trade luxury items and items of high scientific value. Martian spiders that can spin their silk in thicker strands at a higher tensile strength could potentially replace steel alloys in suspension bridge construction, for example, making a land bridge across the bering strait much more economical.

Even if we scaled it down to say, a ship designed for 6 or 8 people, you also don't account for the difference near-instantaneous communications would have for socialization purposes. Looking at similar areas of isolation, Antarctica has 70 research stations and a population of 1000-4000 people, depending on season. In the winter, assuming even distribution of the population among those stations, you're looking at an average of 14 people per station. Additionally, Sergei Krikalev managed to live 10 months aboard Mir during the dissolution of the Soviet Union, and that had a maximum crew of 3 people. 

There is indeed a psychological component to the extreme isolation such a journey would entail, but we already have people who've been in similar situations in the past, and it isn't hard to arrange a dry-run of potential candidates to see how they'd react to living and working in small confines with the same crew of people. The reason this is even considered a barrier at present is because a manned mission currently can't bring home anything that a robotic probe couldn't do safer and cheaper. Having an entire world at the other end changes that entirely. Even if the lifeforms on our psuedo-Mars were completely different than anything on Earth, it would still give us another view of how life could have started, a different set of data to add to what we know of evolution, etc.


Edit: Replying to the post by Morrus, you are correct. Further research has proven my ignorance, the flat earth theory was largely abandoned around the turn of the millennium, even among the uneducated populace. I withdraw my incorrect assumption.


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## Dannyalcatraz (Apr 13, 2013)

And unfortunately, The Flat Earth is an idea that refuses to die.

In that, it perfectly presages that aspect of Internet culture in which, even though the facts of a matter maybe quickly and easily found & verified, no misinformation has failed to find an audience of believers.


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## Morrus (Apr 13, 2013)

dark2112 said:


> There are logistical challenges, yes, but the general attitude is that they are insurmountable, which they are no.




Nobody thinks that. Nobody in this thread, and nobody I've ever encountered. It's utterly possible, and everybody knows it.

The common objection is that it's expensive; which it is. As indicated earlier in the thread, Mars One is costed at $6bn, all in. Expensive, but George Lucas could personally fund it. But that's a rewind of the thread by a couple of weeks, so let's not dwell on that.


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## Dannyalcatraz (Apr 13, 2013)

A Mars mission funded by George Lucas would be doomed: he'd want to include at least one annoying astronaut, and that would lead to at least on if not multiple deaths.

If Ted Turner did it, OTOH, at least one of the female astronauts would be hot, so he'd partially recoup his expenditures with merchandising.

And Hugh Hefner would...well, lets not dwell on that.


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## Derren (Apr 13, 2013)

Morrus said:


> That's a myth invented by popular fiction.  The flat earth was_ never _a popular opinion.  Even uneducated medieval folk could see that was ludicrus; there's no shred of evidence to suggest that such a thing was a widespread opinon at any time.



And for that there is of course evidence, right?



Umbran said:


> And be useless.  They're all short-range.  We don't have the capability to blanket the entire solar system from, say, Jupiter inwards with active radar.  The power requirements alone would be absurd.
> 
> 
> 
> Pretty much everything that the sun shines on emits heat.  If it is using something a bit more passive, like a solar sail, it may appear just like a large rock in IR.




Nations have no problems plopping down a few nuclear power plants when it comes to the military. Besides, we just need to monitor mars and track any outgoing vessels. Not cover the whole solar system.
And thats why IR is so great. Everything which emits heat, either through self generation like rockets or just by reflection is clearly visible against space either because there is no heat radiation behind it so it stick out or because there is so much heat radiation behind it that its a black spot (when viewed against the sun).


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## GSHamster (Apr 13, 2013)

Derren said:


> And for that there is of course evidence, right?




http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Myth_of_the_Flat_Earth

That seems reasonably thorough.


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## Morrus (Apr 13, 2013)

Derren said:


> And for that there is of course evidence, right?




Yes. Tons of evidence. Reams of documentation from the time.  An overwhelming quantity of it which makes that fact as established as gravity. I won't insult you by linking to the "let me google that for you" page, but there's the entire scientific and historical community in 100% agreement on this one based on vast amounts of documentation.  Nobody has believed in a flat earth in many, many hundreds of years.

The only odd part is that you're even asking the question!  I assumed it was common knowledge. I guess not!  It would appear that there are more people today who think Middle Ages folk believed in a flat earth than there were actual Middle Ages folk who held that belief. That's mildly embarrassing.


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## Dannyalcatraz (Apr 13, 2013)

> Nobody has believed in a flat earth in many, many hundreds of years.




...except The Flat Earth Society.  (NOT a big group.)


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## dark2112 (Apr 13, 2013)

Morrus said:


> It would appear that there are more people today who think Middle Ages folk believed in a flat earth than there were actual Middle Ages folk who held that belief. That's mildly embarrassing.




I blame hollywood and my lack of interest in digging further to find real evidence for my own ignorance, and yes it is embarrassing. 

Not wanting to dwell on the expense of these missions, if the common objection to any of the various scenarios is the primary difficulty, and we've established that the cost can be paid if there is a reason to do so, all we have to provide is evidence that there would be a significant portion of people in positions to pay those costs in order to actually go ahead with the missions that have been proposed.

I personally think there would be a lot more interest in establishing trade than war, but that depends a lot on our assumptions. A trade relationship assumes that whatever life we find over there is at least compatible enough that we can communicate with them, because without communication, there can be no trade. An alien race that we can't establish any sort of common ground with, such as perhaps a telepathic hive mind race that doesn't view us as intelligent, would lead to war. Once it's established that there's a race that will eventually expand outside of it's own boundaries and take our planet from us, we'd definitely have the provocation to spend the money for war purposes. The other side of the coin, is that we would probably have a privately funded expedition in place to send an explorer on a cultural and/or trade mission, and the likely result of that would be some sort of interplanetary trade. I find it hard to believe that an entire planet would have absolutely nothing to interest us enough to justify the return trip cost, especially since we'd almost certainly make the initial trip.

So really, unless my assumption that cost is the primary difficulty is wrong, this discussion essentially boils down to whether or not this alien culture is similar to ours, or completely unable to be understood. If similar, some sort of trade is the likely end result, due to the evidence of humanity's various explorations across the globe and the expensive trade empires it's already created. If not, some sort of containment action/war is the likely result, and the only real question is if we have the means to enforce that with today's technology.

If we're assuming eventual hostilities, and assuming that radiation has a similar effect on their environment as it does on ours, how feasible would it be to transport largeish amounts of radioactive materials (radioactive waste as the primary source, moving on from there if needed) near their planet, if the goal were simply to seed the atmosphere with radioactive materials? How much radioactive materials would we need to seed an earth type planet with enough radiation to begin killing off or sterilizing the larger lifeforms?

I do like the previously mentioned idea of an ion drive ship sending asteroids into mars, for the purposes of war, but aiming interstellar objects is pretty tricky, and I'd see that as the bigger challenge to that idea than anything else. They would eventually see it coming, and I'm sure we could attempt to delay any efforts to halt it with modified conventional weaponry platforms (projectile weaponry fired upon any martian ships that come near the asteroid, for example), but with the timescale of such an attack (years, likely), the bad luck of an early detection or poor aim could very well send these asteroids closer to our orbit, and would make it easier for them to use our own failed projectiles in a similar attack against us.


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## Derren (Apr 14, 2013)

dark2112 said:


> If we're assuming eventual hostilities, and assuming that radiation has a similar effect on their environment as it does on ours, how feasible would it be to transport largeish amounts of radioactive materials (radioactive waste as the primary source, moving on from there if needed) near their planet, if the goal were simply to seed the atmosphere with radioactive materials? How much radioactive materials would we need to seed an earth type planet with enough radiation to begin killing off or sterilizing the larger lifeforms?




My guess is a lot with no guarantee of success (even when they are not intercepted) and it will certainly not be quick. Radiation damage is pretty random unless you get a massive doses which is basically a nuclear warhead. Counting on the explosive effect is imo a better idea than on long term radiation ones.
Don't forget, there have been 2.500+ nuclear tests on earth so far + 2 (and a half) power plant meltdowns with hardly any effect on the global population.


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## tomBitonti (Apr 14, 2013)

dark2112 said:


> If we're assuming eventual hostilities, and assuming that radiation has a similar effect on their environment as it does on ours, how feasible would it be to transport largeish amounts of radioactive materials (radioactive waste as the primary source, moving on from there if needed) near their planet, if the goal were simply to seed the atmosphere with radioactive materials? How much radioactive materials would we need to seed an earth type planet with enough radiation to begin killing off or sterilizing the larger lifeforms?




The question is, how much is *largish*?

Some interesting, and horrifying, information out there about toxicity.

This is a *very* chilling paper title "Human Plutonium Injection Experiments".

http://www.fas.org/sgp/othergov/doe/lanl/pubs/00326640.pdf

While finding that, I found information about the difference between Radium and Plutonium, and that Botulin Toxin, is the most toxic substance.  (I hesitate over pronouncing that a fact, since I haven't followed that subject far enough to find a dependable source.)

I would presume that the toxicity of Bolulin is dependent on the biology of the organism receiving a dose, meaning Botulin would likely not work on the aliens.  At the same time, there would probably something else that did.

Then again, finding something that was self-replicating (a virus or bacterium) probably makes the amount less of an issue than finding the right vector for reproduction and transmission.

Thx!

TomB


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## Bullgrit (Apr 14, 2013)

> Maybe we could outsource computer-based jobs, or trade information...



Or hire customer support call centers based on Mars.

Bullgrit


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## Dannyalcatraz (Apr 14, 2013)

> Then again, finding something that was self-replicating (a virus or bacterium) probably makes the amount less of an issue than finding the right vector for reproduction and transmission.




That was my thought process for choosing a bioweapon based on a pathogenic organisms as opposed to a toxin or some kind of radiation or metal poisoning.


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## Grumpy RPG Reviews (Apr 14, 2013)

Bullgrit said:


> Or hire customer support call centers based on Mars.




"Hello Human Unit this is Groknar Unit, how may I help you? Please give 14 minutes in your response time to allow for inter-spacial distance and this call might be recorded by the Big Malevolent Brain for quality purposes." 

To narrow this conversation down, lets say the Martian races discussed here are biologically similar to humans, and are on order of the creatures from the Barsoom novels. Silverburg wrote a novel along these lines, in the Court of the Crimson Kings I think was the title, but the novel was not grim enough, it too adventurous to be real science fiction.


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## Dannyalcatraz (Apr 14, 2013)

> "Hello Human Unit this is Groknar Unit..."




C'mon...we all know it's more like "Hello Human Unit this is 'Peggy' Unit..."


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## jonesy (Apr 14, 2013)

Grumpy RPG Reviews said:


> "Hello Human Unit this is Groknar Unit, how may I help you? Please give 14 minutes in your response time to allow for inter-spacial distance..



So.. customer service becomes better under the Martians?


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## Grumpy RPG Reviews (Apr 14, 2013)

Dannyalcatraz said:


> C'mon...we all know it's more like "Hello Human Unit this is 'Peggy' Unit..."




I do not think that is tech support. 



jonesy said:


> So.. customer service becomes better under the Martians?




Blasted Martians with their blasted Martian ways taking away jobs from Earthlings! Kill them all!


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## dark2112 (Apr 14, 2013)

Derren said:


> Don't forget, there have been 2.500+ nuclear tests on earth so far + 2 (and a half) power plant meltdowns with hardly any effect on the global population.




Since 1963, international treaty has banned any nuclear testing above ground. Underground testing contains most, if not all of the radiation, as the main source of radioactive fallout is the loose matter being drawn into the explosion, irradiated, and spewed high into the atmosphere as part of the mushroom cloud, and most of these events were spread out over time, giving humanity a chance to clean up and contain any ill effects. There were 240 estimated cases of thyroid cancer caused by the Windscale fire, which was the result of an isotope that has an 8 day half-life, and was minor enough that I'd be surprised if anyone outside of the UK had even heard of it, despite it being a class 5 disaster. Most of the truly big disasters were relatively harmless due to redundant safety measures, remote location, and quick evacuation from the source of the disaster.

A nuclear weapon, although devastating, can be relatively clean when you consider the radioactive side of it. It depends largely on what fissionable material is used for the core of the bomb, and how the bomb is detonated. An aerial explosion, which is where they detonate the bomb some 1000 feet above ground and let the shockwave pulverize the target below, is the most destructive method if you want to level a city, but it is also one of the least radioactive.

The main faults that I can see with my idea are:
1) Interception of the delivery method - some of that can be mitigated by using a manned delivery system, but certainly not all.
2) How much material would we actually need? Your average nuclear warhead only uses 60 grams of material per kiloton of yield, and depending on the material, the half-life can be very short indeed.

My idea was to attempt to introduce large amounts of radioactive materials with a half-life on the order of years, as opposed to days. Some googling shows me that the UK has about a thousand tonnes of high level nuclear waste sitting around, which accounts for 95% of the radioactivity of all their nuclear waste. Dispersing that into an atmosphere as a powder wouldn't be very healthy, but some preliminary math with estimated figures shows that it would probably have less radioactivity than the chernobyl disaster, which would indicate a need for more material. How much to be effective, I don't know, and that I think is really the real weak spot in the plan. Can we even come up with enough material, and if so could we manage to effectively introduce enough of it? After a bit more research, I'm beginning to suspect not.


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