OT: A question about the Human Ability to Cope

[Starhawk]

Hey all you know I've been pondering over this for a while especially after playing such games as Warhammer and reading the fluff behind that and even a lot of other sci-fi and fantasy stories.

Anyway my question is this, if humans are faced with such horrible monsterous aliens like those in the Warhammer world would our minds even be able to handle it or would we crumble in fear?

I mean in for example Warhammer 40k where we see such threats as Chaos and Tyranid hordes would humans be able to take up arms and fight valiantly like the Imperial Guard or would we simply break down mentally at such a sight?

[Emperor's Child]

My limited experience with fighting / combat is that some people will go to a "different place" when in a pretty tough situation by putting off their emotions (and paying for it in the long run with delayed stress issues...that sucks). Others just go to peices or react poorly (like acting agressive towards the people with guns). Funny thing is that you pretty much can’t tell who will do what until they are in it up to their necks, either.

I guess what I'm saying is that you'd see a lot of "chaos" at first when people are reacting with blind panic and fear, and then as people get familiar with the terror / mosters / whatever, they will deal with them better as they understand their enemy better and adjust to the new situation.

[Atrocities]

We adapt, we inpervise, we over come, it is out nature to do so.

[Puke]

well, some of us adapt and overcome. as EC put it, lots of people dont, and theres no way to tell which of us will cave in under pressure, until you start shooting at us.

now, staying focused in combat is alot different that trying to wrap your mind around things "that man was not meant to know"

for a good exploration of this, check out the works of H.P. Lovecraft and also Robert W. Chambers.

From _The Call of Cthulhu_:
"The most merciful thing in the world, I think, is the inability of the human mind to correlate all its contents. We live in a placid island of ignorance in the midst of black seas of infinity, and it was not meant that we should voyage far. The sciences, each straining in its own direction, have hitherto harmed us little; but some day the piecing together of dissociated knowledge will open up such terrifying vistas of reality, and of our frightful position therein, that we shall either go mad from the revelation or flee from the deadly light into the peace and safety of a new dark age."

also (as silly as their fiction is) look at how human society adapted in the world of 40K. its a new dark age, filled with religious superstition, paranoia, and fear. the empire rules with an iron fist, and people live in the shadow of the inqusition. sure, thats one way to adapt and overcome. but its also a way to crumble and fall in the face of our own fears and shortcomings. Space Marines can stand in the face of Chaos and fight back, but at what price? they live for combat, and are brainwashed killing machines. hardly human, in the traditional sense.

[Atrocities]

Those who do not adapt; die.

[Starhawk]

Well Puke I actually like the Warhammer 40k universe fiction wise because it takes humanity to a point where we would probobly not recognize ourselves anymore if we saw them and we could not imagine that far in the future much less how technology would interact with us.

And a funny thing about that is if the Emperor had never been wounded humanity would probobly still be advancing and "enlightened" in the modern sense of the word where they see technology as just that technology and not as some mystic power of the gods. Also we can be pretty sure that the Empire would be ever expanding and not sitting stagnant like it is in their present.

There are rumors even that Games Workshop will eventually "kill" the Emperor and have him reborn into a "good" version of the Chaos gods and we'll see brand new things coming for the Imperium, I hope so personally because I like my IG forces and I'd love to get to add cool new tech

But anyway I've always been amazed at how in most sci-fi humans are just like "meh aliens" or "meh evil insectoids" and pretty much just pick up a gun or build a warship and march out to fight them like it was other humans and no big deal. And the huamn race overall doesn't change much and the government is usually still a "good guy" like the Federation from star trek.

That's in a lot of ways why I chose to write the Icaran story, where Humans don't just go "meh aliens" they are terrified to the point where they make it almost religious dogma that aliens are "unpure" and reduce them to the level of "animals" almost and declare war on them wholesale for the simple purpose of making sure they are never a threat to the human race. I wonder which way humans will really go when we actually step out there and find someone or something else.

[Kevin_Raven]

seems that the ability to cope would vary inversely with the open-ness of the society in question - imagine today's modern world confronted with one of the beasts you listed... the media would be all over it and panic would ensue. In a iron-fisted dictatorship where information can be controlled and the population brainwashed to an extent, it seems that the motivation to fight a superior foe could be achieved (there are probably instances in history where this has happened...)

just my $0.02(US)

[narf poit chez BOOM]

Personally, I think we could get used to anything.

Nuclear annihilation (I don't know if it's spelt right. An online dictionary said it was. Don't look at me) hangs over our heads every second, but people have adapted.

[Gandalf Parker]

Its not a question of whether or not "we" would do anything. Nothing has been found yet which is able to get the human race to react as a "we". No matter what it is; most will fail, a large number will adapt into it, and a small number will fight it quite effectively.

Gandalf Parker

[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?