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Old 01-18-2019, 01:18 PM   #111
PTTG
 
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Default Re: Alien Invasions

What if we really shrink down the universe?

Let's say that ancient STL TL12 aliens did pass through the solar system before recorded history and took humans/protohumans/dolphins/octopi/corvids along for their interesting intellect. The aliens tinkered with their guests, granting them increased intelligence or resilience, changing their biology to survive a different biosphere, maybe granting abilities that violate known science.

Their next stop was Ross 128 b, or an undiscovered Earth analog like Barnard's Star -- someplace about half a century away with high-end drives. They left some of the beings there, with a few gifts; exactly why is lost to history. This colony borrowed much from the collectors, and a starship remained in the system, again, for unknown reasons.

As Earth advanced, so did the colony. Their technology was bizarre, with photovoltaics before fire, and advanced math before writing. Over eight thousand years, they achieved a technological level of about TL-6 or 7, with some sports, and enjoyed a long stable period, as the largest polities were mostly insular, and the small ones fractious and disagreeable. This period persisted for centuries of sometimes enlightenment, sometimes decadence.

Around 1912 CE, this stable period came to an abrupt end, as the colony world picked up undeniable signals of intelligent life around a nearby star. Their advanced and ancient radio telescopes picked up the clearly coded signals of Earthly wireless communications.

There is much the colonists don't know about Earth, but also much that they suspect; they know they are alien to this biosphere, so sober scientists believe they were brought there by alien beings. The curiously artificial moon, which legends refer to as a vessel, has curious abilities...

In the wave of innovation and expansion that ensues, the colony world undergoes a series of wars. The last force standing is an imperialist, expansionist one, in some ways rather feudal, that relies on gaining new territory to maintain its stability. They see the legends of a distant homeworld as a perfect next step, and they have the resources to push the TL to 8 or 9. With that, they can access the TL12 hard-science spaceship they need to continue their expansion.

Play it pulpy by having psychic human space nazis invade Earth in flying saucers. Play it hard by having amphibious octopi with alien governmental structures return to Earth for their own philosophical reasons. Either way, have them horrified with the environmental damage humans have done to the planet (their own industries are extremely clean thanks to their unusual tech path).
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Old 01-18-2019, 01:40 PM   #112
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Default Re: Alien Invasions -- Why troops?

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Originally Posted by fredtheobviouspseudonym View Post
At TL-10 and later why have any large numbers of troops? Why not robotic soldiers -- with the aliens only as colonel-equivalents & above?
There's another thread on that very topic.
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Old 01-18-2019, 04:41 PM   #113
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Default Re: Alien Invasions

I actually prefer the idea of an established, if lightly populated, alien empire that contains hundreds of millions of star systems and possesses tens of millions of polities with tens of quadrillions of sapient beings. Yes, the human species would not matter in the grand scope of things, at least not at the beginning, but that could be an advantage in most campaigns. Humans would find everything strange and wondrous about an empire that had been built by nonhumans, for nonhumans, and of nonhumans.
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Old 01-19-2019, 09:07 AM   #114
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Default Re: Alien Invasions

10. Law Enforcement. It isn't necessarily anything you have done, but they're tired of somebody else using your planet as a base of operations or supply source for a criminal enterprise.

For decades now you've sold *hundreds of tons* of this foul stuff, corrupting our youth and siphoning literally *trillions of dollars* out of our economy to these drug smugglers. We're tired of it and are going to stamp out this vile "tomato juice" at the source.

Well yes, it does sell it as $10,000 a gram. Why?
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Old 01-19-2019, 11:44 AM   #115
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Default Re: Alien Invasions

I haven't read it, but I believe Harry Turtledove's series Worldwar has the invading aliens experience narcotic effects from ginger.

There's also the cheesy movie, I Come In Peace. That alien extract endorphins from human victims as an ingredient in their drug.

Drugs or other marketable biologicals at least explain why aliens don't just carpet bomb Earth.
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Old 01-19-2019, 07:54 PM   #116
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Default Re: Alien Invasions

Iceworld by Hal Clement has the aliens buying cigarettes. Instead of a alien fleet it is one undercover alien cop who is here to stop it. To complicate matters the person suppling the aliens doesn't know they are a powerful drug to them and the aliens have their local base on Mercury since that makes keeping it comfortable warm easy.
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Old 01-19-2019, 11:14 PM   #117
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Default Re: Alien Invasions

Quote:
Originally Posted by jason taylor View Post
If A) Aliens have a way to transit between stars

B) We do not yet.

C) Then we have an opportunity to ally with them to pursue markets and scientific research and perhaps an empire of our own in the future.

That assumes of course that they are not space vampires that eat babies. Or Greys doing torturous experiments. In such a case you just batten down the hatches because there is really nothing more to do. You are in the position of the Bielski Partisans, not in the position of normal politics.

The only downside is the implied slur on our prestige of letting someone else occupy desert territory which we never dreamed of claiming to possess until space flight was envisioned. That could be compromised by letting them give us a Maltese falcon every few years or whatever. There were examples of such things where Europeans were official vassals for the sake of the territorial enclaves they ruled. For one or two Mediterranean islands and perhaps Egypt, Britain paid homage to the Ottomans to save face.
The situation Michele despibes is essentially how large chunks of North America were claimed by the British and French. Note that they were completely uninterested in what natives' opinions on the matter. Nor were they interested in helping the native Americans entering into international commerce or politics. If you were in British territory, you traded with the British, your produce (furs mainly) for their produce (cheap knives, axes, guns, etc.).

We all know how this went - not too badly as long as the Europeans didn't want to live on natives' land. When they did, the natives got displaced or killed. That's what we're looking at there. The aliens mark our system as theirs, and that's the extent of their interest until they want something, at which point they'll come back and get it. They might trade for it if that's more profitable than simply taking it.
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Old 01-20-2019, 06:44 AM   #118
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Default Re: Alien Invasions

Yes, as long as the aliens do not want the Earth, humans are safe from them, but they have lost the Outer Sol System without compensation. Now, if the aliens came in 2100 and found humans throughout the Sol System, then humans might have a bargaining position, though an inferior one, as they would still be considered primitives if they did not possess hyperdrives or reactionless drives. Of course, if it is Transhuman Space, with the prevelance of SAI, the aliens may just destroy human civilization to prevent a singularity event.
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