Well that's not what Stephen Hawking said, and I think I'll believe him over you "Mr. Hair", if that is your real name.

If aliens ever came to earth, I doubt it would be to plunder our natural resources...I mean why bother when they can just plunder the asteroid belt or other, unpopulated locations for whatever they need. If they can get here, they can also go elsewhere. Water? It also exists in other places in our solar system.

If the ships ever arrive, there will be only one thing that they want. And we're in the way.

Yeah...DNRTFA. Can you tell? :-)

"Any ancient civilization is probably not biological," Horn told Discovery News. "They don't need a place like Earth. They don't need to come here and steal our water. There's plenty of it out in the outer solar system where the gravity is not so great and they can just take all they want."

Ok, I get that he's trying to assuage us from worrying about our world being destroyed by marauding pirate aliens, because, shiat I worry about that EVERY DAY OF MY LIFE. Don't we all???

But the whole they're probably "not biological" thing? WTF is that even supposed to mean?

You know our internet gets bounced around the globe with satellites. It's possible that anyone in a 20 light year radius knows how we are online. Many of the 10 LY stars have just started to get the interesting stuff.

Makh: You know our internet gets bounced around the globe with satellites. It's possible that anyone in a 20 light year radius knows how we are online. Many of the 10 LY stars have just started to get the interesting stuff.


"A primitive culture, their religion seemed to be based entirely on felines..."

Ennuipoet: Makh: You know our internet gets bounced around the globe with satellites. It's possible that anyone in a 20 light year radius knows how we are online. Many of the 10 LY stars have just started to get the interesting stuff.

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"A primitive culture, their religion seemed to be based entirely on felines..."

Take us to your pr0n.

PainInTheASP: If aliens ever came to earth, I doubt it would be to plunder our natural resources...I mean why bother when they can just plunder the asteroid belt or other, unpopulated locations for whatever they need. If they can get here, they can also go elsewhere. Water? It also exists in other places in our solar system.

If the ships ever arrive, there will be only one thing that they want. And we're in the way.


Any civilization that has access to interstellar travel on a massive enough scale to send a fleet of ships to another planet would have no interest in Earth for any reason. People vastly underestimate the amount of energy and time associated with interstellar travel, and vastly overestimate the value of Earth and its contents.

Interstellar travel by biological organisms requires a container that can survive years in deep space without any energy or material input. Because of the energy requirements for moving mass, it's exceptionally unlikely this closes system is stocked with enough supplies to sustain the organisms for the duration of their journey. After all, with enough energy and efficient recycling, you can create a closed system using far less mass.

The limiting factor, both for travel and for survival during travel, is energy. Earth is not particularly energy dense. Stars are. And the only difference between an artificial habitat in close orbit around a star and an interstellar spaceship are the engines and the energy input.

If a civilization can create an interstellar spaceship, it can also create self-sustaining artificial habitats in a fraction of the time for a fraction of the cost. There is no necessary reason for such a civilization to leave the orbit of its own star until their total energy consumption matches their star's output, or the star itself goes extinct.

If such a civilization does leave the orbit of its own star, its logical destinations are the closest stars to their home star. The planets surrounding other stars are irrelevant. There is no competition for resources with species that are bound to their planets, because an interstellar civilization can use stellar eruptions to gather mass to create any resource they desire using the energy collected from the star. Any exploration or contact between an interstellar civilization and a planet bound civilization would occur to satisfy the leisure and curiosity of the interstellar civilization, nothing more.

Jubeebee: If such a civilization does leave the orbit of its own star, its logical destinations are the closest stars to their home star. The planets surrounding other stars are irrelevant. There is no competition for resources with species that are bound to their planets, because an interstellar civilization can use stellar eruptions to gather mass to create any resource they desire using the energy collected from the star. Any exploration or contact between an interstellar civilization and a planet bound civilization would occur to satisfy the leisure and curiosity of the interstellar civilization, nothing more.

Bingo.

lightwell: Last and most important. Wiping out the competition before its grown. Any space going race can accelerate something to lightspeed. like a 40 kilometer wide rock. Races might be scared of getting "shot" first, so they do it to other intelligent species before we can do it to them. They would not know if it is in our makeup to be aggressive like that.

There is no competition. And any civilization that has the capability to accelerate to a significant fraction of light speed also has no fear of being attacked in the way you describe. Partly because artificial habitats would likely be smaller than planets, and partly because they could be moved so the rock goes zipping right on on by. But that's irrelevant, because there is no competition for stars.

lightwell: Trade. Not necessary trade, but for the ritzy shops for rich aliens, much like an american might have a rug from India.

Right. Like I said: Any exploration or contact between an interstellar civilization and a planet bound civilization would occur to satisfy the leisure and curiosity of the interstellar civilization, nothing more.

Cagey B: Should probably specify that. There's a number of reasons for an alien civilization to make some sort of contact:

Contact, sure. Colonization, no way. Information is a valuable resource, probably the only one besides energy that matters. And like you said, there are a lot of ways to make contact that don't involve sending biological organisms on an interstellar journey.

I don't believe any civilization like that would have any interest in killing planet-bound lifeforms just for shiats and giggles. It'd be like carpet bombing Yellowstone. Yeah, we can do it, but why would you ruin something like that? The wolves and bears might be dangerous on an individual level if you go start taunting them and walking around the backwoods naked, but bears aren't going to overthrow the government. Maybe some sociopath could cause some damage, but there would be a lot of people who want to keep looking at the cool animals who'd try to stop him.

hawcian: Well, there is another option for the alien invasion scenario. Entertainment. The aliens, seeking a grand distraction from the boring tedium of everyday life, send some slaves/lower class/whatever to earth with equal or slightly higher the earth tech; follow them with cameras and proceed with a massive world war campaign.

On the plus side of this scenario, it would explain why aliens seemingly don't just throw a big rock at us to wipe us all out, or why our technology and military is any match for an ancient space-faring civilization.

Most expensive TV show evar. Hell, probably most expensive anything ever. Again, if you can pull something like that off, you have no reason to pull it off because there are cheaper, easier ways to do the same thing.

Fano: Why not? They wouldn't care any more than stomping on ants. Or maybe they have their own alien motives that don't even make sense.

Would you make a trip to inner Mongolia just to stomp on some ants?