[Thermodyne]

Years ago I read a report on the percentages of a given population that could be expected to resist occupation by a superior military force. Based on WWII up to the war in SE Asia, the numbers were quite small. 3 to 5% for industrialized urban populations. 8 to 12 % for rural industrialized populations. Non industrial populations tended to be pegged to the system of government and there was an index for this. But I don’t remember many of the details. Communists had a higher level of resistance than democracies. Dictatorships had the lowest levels of resistance. Of note is the mention of religious fanatics being seen as an anomaly. The paper was written in the early to mid 70’s. I think that the religious fanatics would be seen as something more than an anomaly today.

IMHO, I think that the numbers would hold true for industrialized populations today. But actual results would rapidly influence the numbers after initial contact. As would the treatment by the invading aliens. If we were to be incorporated into a greater whole that included basic civil rights and freedoms, then resistance would be less. But faced with a situation where we could not win and were about to become a protein source for some nasty aliens, resistance would be greater. Faced with being food or forced manual labor, I would hope that we would have the balls to launch every nuke we had. Leaving them with an inedible pile of glow in the dark ash and a world rapidly descending into nuclear winter. Perhaps the loss of this conquest would throw a monkey wrench into their plans for moving onto their next conquest.

As a whole, people don’t cope; the majority will just try to survive for another day. Look at what the Nazis did during WWII. By 44 the Jews knew what awaited them in the camps, but they went anyway. Sure a few resisted, but less than 10%. It’s not so much a question of coping. Faced with dieing right now, or dieing next week, most people will choose next week and hope for some improvement of their situation to occur.

This brings us to a question. How would you remove 3 billion + humans from the earth? If you wanted to eat us, I would think that it would be a long process. More likely, you would want to just get rid of us and take the planet. Or perhaps make slaves of us and put us to work. If you wanted to take the planet more or less as is, you could kill us with some type of virus, but then you have a bunch of rotting remains to clean up. To invade would be risky, and would take a lot of space lift capability even with superior weapons. I would think that a long term approach would be the most economical. Kill us off with a germ and once we were dead send in an advanced force to care take the infrastructure. Secure the nuclear power plants, get rid of the weapons with limited shelf life. Mothball the chemical plants and such. Then when the stink of rotting flesh is gone, move in as the new owners. With germ warfare, there is a good chance that we would never realize what was actually happening, and would not take steps to make the planet unlivable. To make slaves of humans would be a long drawn out process. As a species we are probably far too adaptable and intelligent. We would adapt to the alien technology and turn it against our masters at some time in the future.

This brings us to another question. Why would an intergalactic civilization want to invade us? What does earth have that they couldn’t get for less effort elsewhere? If they had need of a planet just like this one, then perhaps that would be a reason. But let’s be realistic. In all probability, they would need to sterilize the planet before they could live freely on it. Everything here would be alien to them. The common cold could be a plague for them. Basic earth carbon based life would probably be incompatible with their biology. Perhaps they would just want to incorporate us into their system of government/empire, but why bother? We are a violent species, and would more of a problem than it was worth.

And this brings us to a what if. I would assume that an intergalactic war would be somewhat like WWII in the pacific, but on a larger scale. The opposing forces would be faced with the need to planet hop their way to the heart of the other empire. Setting up points of supply along the way. What if we found ourselves between two more advanced civilizations that were at war? They know we are here. They know we have an industrial base. But they see us primitives of little value. Would they see us as a valuable resource? A possible ally in their war. Or would they just wipe us out to prevent the other side from making use of us. Send us a little note; “Sorry, but because of your strategic location we have no choice but to drop a big rock on your little planet”.

And this brings me to one more what if. What if we are so far off in the boonies of the universe that none of the advanced aliens have found us yet? What will happen when that first alien explorer comes within range of our electronic emissions? I would hope that the first thing they translate is not rap music! I would also hope that the first people they contacted were not lawyers or politicians. I would also hope that the aliens were not Klingons or Shadows[sic]

And this brings us to the big questions. If the major world governments found out that there were advanced aliens out there, would they tell us? What would the impact of telling us be? What would people do if they found out that their god was just an advanced alien who on a whim decided to mess with some primitives? What if SETI found a signal? Who would decide if we would reply and what we would say?