OT:Why Aliens dont come here

Colonel · #1 November 25th, 2004, 12:07 PM

Simple Answer, everytime they come here they find us either blowing each other up with Nukes, planning to blow each other up or they run into dumb hicks most of the time....

So why do you think they dont come here?

(This is assuming that they exist.)

Gandalf Parker · #2 November 25th, 2004, 12:21 PM

I saw a note about the ship they are about to drop onto Titan (a Saturn Moon) which has a fairly good chance of supporting life. They even allowed that "in the event that the lander becomes surrounded by aliens" they included a CD which will play wordless music by some french guys.

Now THAT is just plain MEAN. I dont mean the music, Im sure its fine. But if a probe landed here and made noise.. what would we do? We would spend years and a ton of money trying to decode it. Wordless music as a first contact message? Not cool guys.

Arkcon · #3 November 25th, 2004, 12:41 PM

Well now Gandalf, that just begs the question, "If you have the technology to explore space beyond your own solar system, why do it?" You shouldn't be short of natural resources if you can do it, there should be abundant living space in your own system, you pretty much do it just to see whats out there. If there's sapient life on Titan, we've save them the trouble of starting a SETI program, at least.

I have SE4 inspired question now. Often, when you start a game, you find a system with one of those nice green star planets. Our solar system seems to lack that.

But if there was another rock oxygen planet here, how close would we be to establishing a colony? We don't have near the technology now, but if we had the incentive, would we be closer, or be there already?

Colonel · #4 November 25th, 2004, 03:25 PM

You related to SEIV so I give sort of an answer... In order for us to establish a colony the planet has to be nearly the same as ours.... ie needs to be in almost the same orbitial pattern aswell as tempture and most importantly nearly the same mass. If there is to much mass or to little we will either be extremely heavy or floating around.....Besides it would need a stable core and not to much volcanic activity....

Raging Deadstar · #5 November 25th, 2004, 04:03 PM

Quote:

Colonel said:
Besides it would need a stable core and not to much volcanic activity....

I don't know...Nothing Creates Survival of the Fitest like frequent Volcanic Activity

Some will call this unethical, Some will call this genetic cleansing. I personally call it "Don't live near a smegging Volcano!"

Timstone · #6 November 25th, 2004, 04:47 PM

Quote:

Raging Deadstar said:
I personally call it "Don't live near a smegging Volcano!"

No, never live next a vulcano, your icecream will melt much too fast. And that would be a waste.

Will · #7 November 25th, 2004, 07:55 PM

Quote:

Colonel said:
You related to SEIV so I give sort of an answer... In order for us to establish a colony the planet has to be nearly the same as ours.... ie needs to be in almost the same orbitial pattern aswell as tempture and most importantly nearly the same mass. If there is to much mass or to little we will either be extremely heavy or floating around.....Besides it would need a stable core and not to much volcanic activity....

No, the real reason is because the year isn't 2400 yet.

TurinTurambar · #8 November 27th, 2004, 02:41 PM

Quote:

Will said:

No, the real reason is because the year isn't 2400 yet.

LMAO

Quote:

Gandalf Parker said:
I better post this now, I hear helicopters.

LMMFAO

dmm · #9 December 7th, 2004, 02:09 PM

Quote:

Arkcon said:
...if there was another rock oxygen planet here, how close would we be to establishing a colony? We don't have near the technology now, but if we had the incentive, would we be closer, or be there already?

Interesting question. Some thoughts:
1) You assume that it is possible to have two stable Earthlike planets around one star. May not be true.
2) Is there life on that other planet? The dominant opinion nowadays seems to be that liveable planets will automatically have life. This is by inference from Earth, where life exists in every ecological niche that is conceivably liveable (as well as in many niches that we thought were not liveable). However, the data from Earth may be unrepresentative.
3) Is it possible for a planet to be livable (for humans) without an already-existing biosphere? I would guess "no."
4) If there is a biosphere on that planet, would it be right for us to go there at all, much less colonize it? Would orgs like the Sierra Club put up a huge fight to prevent it? My guess is that, regardless of morality or scientific ideals, there is no way in the world that you could keep nations from setting up research colonies at least and that these would gradually become intrusive. Example is Antarctica.
5) If there is a biosphere on that planet, would it be compatible with us? It could be amazingly similar, yet the amino acids and sugars might all have the wrong chirality. (Hmmm...none of it would be digestible. Earth Lite?)
6) What about the problem of non-indigenous organisms being accidentally transferred? And you thought zebra mussels and kudzu were bad!
7) I think we have the technology now, and I think we'd colonize it. Absolutely.
8) Someone should invent a computer game where our solar system captures a liveable planet (or two). Like "Alpha Centauri," but the home planet is still very much part of the game. (Anyone know if AC can be modded to do that?) Actually, "Conquest of the New World" was somewhat like that, except that of course it was historical not sci-fi.

geoschmo · #10 December 7th, 2004, 02:16 PM

If there was a planet that could support human life in our system we could colonize it. If nothing there was edible, at least we'd be able to transplant our own flora there. If it would support human life I can't think of any reason it wouldn't support other earth species. So you might be talking about a period of terraforming, but it would probably only be a few years before a small colony there could be self-sufficent. Perhaps only a single growing season.