Philosophical scenario - A chance meeting
 

I got this one from a short story I read; I thought it would be interesting to see what solutions people might come up with that are different from the one in the book (The situation is resolved peacefully in the book).

Your race has one solar system. You are captain of the first exporatory vessel. While investigating a nebulae, you encounter, by seeming chance, an alien vessel appearing to be of roughly equal technological capability, although you can't be sure they don't have advancements you don't - This isn't RPG tech, where everything is equal.

You proceed to make peacefull first contact. At about roughly the same time, the same problem occurs to both you and the other captain - How do both of you survive? You have only one solar system. You cannot, under any circumstances, risk it. If you leave the nebulae and return to it, the other ship may follow or track your ship somehow. They may be hostile and wipe your race out. They may fear you and wipe you out. From what the other captain said, they realize the same problem with regards to you.

On the other hand, peaceable trade would more than double your races' chance of survival - And peace would be desirable, in and of itself.

Plus, you have no certain way of telling just how well armed and armored the other ship is compared to yours.

The question is, how do you ensure the survival of your race?

Re: Philosophical scenario - A chance meeting
 

Send an omnidirectional singal about the meeting, so that the aliens won't know which way to look for you, and to alert the people back home. Then go for peace, if possible.

Re: Philosophical scenario - A chance meeting
 

I like the Chinese point of view on this subject. That being, if you were on an island with nine other people, and there is only enough food for ten days, how long could you survive if you eliminated the other nine people?

Re: Philosophical scenario - A chance meeting
 

Both ships are exploring space for a reason, yes? You need to mine asteroids for mineral resources, need new worlds for colonies, etc. So just appear to go about your business, and watch that other ship. You may be able to work out a collaboration, and peace may grow from that.

Heavy Metal magazine used to do this thing called "Galactic Geographer" or some such foo. It was sort of a sci-fi take off of National Geographic magazine. It discusses humanities first contact with an alien race, centuries before the fictional excerpt occurs:

A spacecraft exploring deep space asteroids for usable metals finds something on the sensors -- metallic, and moving. First slow, then fast, sometimes random, sometimes not. It's a spaceship. The two ships tail each other for a while, playing "Crazy Ivan", hiding from each other, then catching each other. Finally, they faceoff. There are no universal translators. They "agree" to meet in an EVA, they bring scientific instruments to study each other. They could have bought weapons, but didn't. After study, they were no closer to understanding each other than they were before.

Now the Galactic community spans hundreds of star systems, and has dozens of species -- but these first contact aliens were never seen again.

Re: Philosophical scenario - A chance meeting
 

Well, food for ten days for ten people would feed one person for 100 days assuming it's dry goods or canned food.

You might be able to stretch that a bit if you eat the other people too. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

Re: Philosophical scenario - A chance meeting
 

Not if they're chinese, you'll just be hungy again an hour later. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...ies/tongue.gif

Re: Philosophical scenario - A chance meeting
 

Y'know, I was kinda hoping people would post solutions... http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...ies/tongue.gif

Re: Philosophical scenario - A chance meeting
 

I would favor a totally Darwinistic approach. If your species can't survive contact with an alien culture, it doesn't deserve to.

Try for peace; if that doesn't work, fight to the last man. Failing to try is worse than trying and failing.

Re: Philosophical scenario - A chance meeting
 

Well, since both are exploring, it is only a matter of time before one or the other stumbles upon their counterpart's solar system. So, best way to handle it that I can think of is broadcast information about the meeting, and just keep exploring. That's what the ship was doing in the first place. It isn't likely that an exploring ship will continue heading out radially from its starting point, so there isn't a risk of the other ship heading in the exact opposite direction to reach the solar system, and if they follow, they'll just be exploring the same places. Hopefully the lack of precise information on the home location of either would allow enough time for more in depth communication to occur to get a better feeling for motives, peaceful or otherwise, and time to prepare.

Re: Philosophical scenario - A chance meeting
 

I would stall for time send an omnidirectional communique to Earth warning them to build BIG ACTUAL warships (dedicated to killing and the general blowing up of things) I would then try for peace with the Alien.....if we couldn't get anywhere with that I would try to continue exploring.....if he followed i'd nuke him......if he boards me and I can't win I nuke us both.....if I am losing and he is winning I go for the RAMMING SPEED!


This is the best option as if he continues to follow AFTER negotions failed he ain't likely comin' to give all the good little boys and girls presents.

It ALSO gives Earth time to build at least a FEW FTL heavy warships to defend our solar system/attack theirs.



OR you could do it the way my Icarans did.....nuke the nearest alien colony.....then the nearest alien ship....then return home victorious heroes and have your nation begin building a dedicated warfleet.

Re: Philosophical scenario - A chance meeting
 

Omni-directional signal: Aliens decode it. Nuff said.
Try for peace: That's a goal, not a method.
Just ignore them, go about your business: And give them vital future tactical information or never colonize in that sector of space?
Ignore the risk: It's a solution, of sorts, but I don't think a navy review board would like it.

Re: Philosophical scenario - A chance meeting
 

Well, seeing as how we've been advertising our presence for the last half-century or so with radio signals and whatnot (even sending out invites to come and visit on the Voyager probes, although it seems somewhat unlikely they'll ever be picked up) I think you'd have to risk letting them find Earth. Send a message ahead telling them exactly what heppened (don't have to tell them to start building warships, they'll figure that out for themselves) and in the meantime try as hard as possible to begin peaceful relations with the new neighbour.

And if you get the chance to find out where _they_ live, then all the better.

Re: Philosophical scenario - A chance meeting
 

Narf, I was thinking that you wouldn't bother to decode the signal in the first place. They'll probally be doing the same thing, and an omni-directional signal will not give them any clue as to where you are.

And no, the voyager spacecraft never were picked up. One came back as a massive chunk of technology, completed it's mission, and then ascended to a higher plane of existance. Another one of the voyager spacecraft got disintergrated by Klingons for target practice.

Re: Philosophical scenario - A chance meeting
 

If your initial response from such a race is friendly (or at least not overtly hostile), it may be worthwhile to tell them where your home system is with the exchange of said information on their part.

Think of it as disarmament talks.

Re: Philosophical scenario - A chance meeting
 

Yeah, mutually assured desctruction tends to make peace a lot easier.

Re: Philosophical scenario - A chance meeting
 

According To SEIV Rules Of Engagement, you always attack on first encounters!


It doesn’t really matter what do. If you plan to trade then at some point your races will give away the locations of their home systems. Your just passing the problem to the next contact.


The best solution I can think of is to behave as if your race has many worlds colonized. Offer to the other race to relay diplomatic messages and setup trade between one of your races systems, if the other captains agrees to do the same.

Re: Philosophical scenario - A chance meeting
 

In some sci fi futures, messages travel STL while ships travel FTL. So if the meeting with the alien takes place in a distant star system, the only practical way to warn your home system is to travel there yourself.

Re: Philosophical scenario - A chance meeting
 

What surprises me is that nobody has yet brought up the fact that while you only have one solar system, they might have an empire spanning a thousand systems. Then what? http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif

Re: Philosophical scenario - A chance meeting
 

Well then you blow up that ship and if it's buddies show up you go "Damn buddies some guy came in to this sector and just WHAM blew your ship to hell.....can we do anything to help you find them?"
And act all innocent and sweet.

Re: Philosophical scenario - A chance meeting
 

Hey, I thought of it!

You have no way of knowing how large or small their empire is. Nor do they known how large or small our empire is.

So if you pretend to be bigger than you actual are they would be less inclined to pick a fight. Call it the bullfrog defense! (see my earlier post.)

Of course with a little Intel and time both empires would learn the actual size of each other, but hopefully by then a peacefully coexistence has taken root. If not then the big fish eats the little fish and gets bigger.

Re: Philosophical scenario - A chance meeting
 

Well, you cannot totally ensure your race will survive but it would help if you never went home. If you never went home, the alien (or alien tech) could not track you back to the home system.

Of course you're never sure whether or not the alien scanned and read all records in the computers of your ship, used mental telepathy on you, read the warp point signatures on the quantum singularity, or other such hogwash. So without knowing the 'bounderies', you can't really know the solution.

But the best solution would be to blow each other and the nebulae up.

Re: Philosophical scenario - A chance meeting
 

This is one way of enforcing an 'equal' result. Another way would be to exchange ships -- each crew take the other ship home -- so that each empire would know just about everything there is to know about the other. (Although life support compatibility is required here... http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif That would be the non-violent way of attaining an equal result.

Re: Philosophical scenario - A chance meeting
 

"Gee, this sure is a neat little vessel. I hope that human guy likes my ship as much as I like his. OK, time to go hom--Say, what's that ticking sou--"

KABOOM!

http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...es/biggrin.gif

Re: Philosophical scenario - A chance meeting
 

On a related note, I have a colony ship in Carrier Battles Deluxe #1, which has +2% experience http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif

Now that some ships with guns have shown up to guard the warppoint, it will be colonizing something soon.

Re: Philosophical scenario - A chance meeting
 

Baron Munchausen gets his choice of cookie, ice cream or cheese, for guessing the method they used in the book.

Hunpecked gets his choice of cookie, ice cream or cheese, for his...Perspective on it.

That is all. Please continue.

Re: Philosophical scenario - A chance meeting
 

Easy solution.

Try to establish peaceful communications then, regardless of the results of the communication, leave as fast as you can. Don't head straight home, that'd be rather foolish. Instead, move out at a 60°-90° angle in relation to your world. Continue until you think you're out of his sensor range, then head off at another oblique angle, then another. When you're sure he can't see you, go home and prepare.

This of course presumes the other ship doesn't simply nuke you on sight!

Re: Philosophical scenario - A chance meeting
 

Or follow you at the edge of his sensor range, presuming it to be larger than your sensor range.

Re: Philosophical scenario - A chance meeting
 

Omnidirectional broadcast; contains all known facts, but no conclusions, of the encounter. Avaoid flavor. Pick a star at random that is between 30 and 150 degrees from your home star. Head towards it until you reach it, or run out of supplies. If you reach it, and find a settleable planet, start farming. If you reach it and there isn't such a planet, pick a different star along the same general line, within a few degrees, and head towards that.....

Re: Philosophical scenario - A chance meeting
 

Board the ship, kill the crew, ransack her computers & then blow the ship to vapour. Then head home and start gearing up for war, or a 'chance' peaceful first contact if they happen to have a big ole empire.

Either that or turn around and run like hell. If they follow, they're hostile, if they don't they're not.

Re: Philosophical scenario - A chance meeting
 

Yeah. Be insanely aggressive vs. what you can see. Let's hope they don't have any observers you don't know about that can report back about the insanely aggressive shoot on sight aliens they have to worry about......

Who saw which direction you left.....

Or managed to drop a nifty on the outside of your hull.....

Re: Philosophical scenario - A chance meeting
 

What if the other race had set a self-destruct timer, or crippled their ship in some other way?

Re: Philosophical scenario - A chance meeting
 

That was what Hunpecked pointed out.

I don't think there is a safe option here - No matter what you do, you're going to have to roll the dice sometime.

Re: Philosophical scenario - A chance meeting
 

Oh, yeah. I can just see it happening in real life: A human in an environmental suit gathering sensitive information in a colony populated by bug aliens. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...s/rolleyes.gif

[/sarcasm]

Re: Philosophical scenario - A chance meeting
 

Couldn't they just use a fancy costume to do that instead?

Re: Philosophical scenario - A chance meeting
 

If their sensor range is that superior to our own, you can presume the rest of their technology would have a similar edge. If that's the case, you're screwed whatever you do if it comes to conflict. Peace might still be an option though!

Re: Philosophical scenario - A chance meeting
 

Wouldn't be done via fancy costume. It would be done with ships running silent, using passive sensors, possibly with something to cut down on how they look to various sensors. Ah, ship came from this angle and this angle and this angle....... communication came from this point and this point and this point.....