Poll: If (when) aliens conquer Earth, what do humans become?

[Janelle Darkstone]

If (when) aliens finally get around to invading and conquering Earth, what happens to us, the humans?  Do we become:

 

• Laborers
• Food
• Fuel
• Curiousities / Toys / Pets / Zoo Exhibits on some distant planet
• Pests
• or "Other"?

 

(P.S. Second Life, lag, Zindra, lag, etc. etc.)

[Pussycat Catnap]

Look to colonial Africa of US history of the westward expansion for your answer. :matte-motes-zipped:

But if aliens really wanted the planet but not us, they'd just release a tailored virus and come back in 6 weeks. Then, the few of us left, would get put in reservations somewhere for the zeno-anthropologists to study and steal bones from.

 

 

[Rage Riptide]

Maybe it's already happened.

Answer = Slaves to the MAN!

[Randall Ahren]

Not a science fiction fan are you? According to your scenario, the aliens would just repeat human history on a galaxy-wide scale, planet-by-planet. Why would the aliens repeat human history? Why would they be human like in their actions, thinking, and motivations? They're aliens from a distant solar system. They may not even be carbon-based or oxygen breathers.

@The OP: you need to relate this to SL or it is prone to deletion. Perhaps handle it like the US deficit thread, something like: How will an alien invasion of earth affect your SL?

[Janelle Darkstone]

/me nods and puts a checkmark in the column under "Pests, with Reservations".

[Ishtara Rothschild]

Surely any species that has mastered inter-solar or even intergalactic travel has a high level of automation and no need for human laborers. Technology exchange is probably also out of the question, seeing how backward we'd be compared to them. 

They might be explorers and regard us as curious research subjects (to be studied from a distance, that is, not probed and prodded with phallic objects), but I think it's more likely for them to be after our natural resources. Which means we'd probably be seen as pests and dealt with accordingly.

[Ceka Cianci]

i have a solution..it's kind of old but may just be dumb enough to work..

the ole light grenade *winks*

[Peggy Paperdoll]

We'd just kick their butts.  :matte-motes-big-grin:

[Lynda Klossovsky]

hey, havent you had any training in this ?

http://www.freeworldgroup.com/games/kwikgames/sheepinvaders/index2.htm

It is just space invaders really lol

 

[Ishtara Rothschild]

---

Randall Ahren wrote:

Not a science fictiion fan are you? According to your scenario, the aliens would just repeat human history on a galaxy-wide scale, planet-by-planet. Why would the aliens repeat human history? Why would they be human like in their actions, thinking, and motivations? They're aliens from a distant solar system. They may not even be carbon-based or oxygen breathers.

---

 

I think a certain degree of resemblance is quite likely. There are other Earth-like planets out there (such as the fourth planet of the Gliese 581 solar system), and it is probably more likely for life to evolve under Earth-like conditions than anywhere else. 

We also know that similar environmental conditions and food niches produce a very similar anatomy and behavior, which is known as convergent evolution. For example, ichthyosaurs looked very much like modern day dolphins, and many Australian marsupial species closely resemble mammals on other continents.

It is therefore quite possible that an intelligent alien species would have a human-like anatomy and of course a similar curiosity and reasoning ability, even if they're not mammalian or not even carbon-based.

[Knowl Paine]

All of the above.

 

Programmable, carbon based, electro-chemical, endothermic, endoskeleton, bipedal planetary unit.

 

H. U. M. A. N.

Holographic

Ultrasonic

Magnetic

Animated

Numinous

 

 

 

[Randall Ahren]

You are also not a science fiction fan. Let me suggest the complete works of Larry Niven to you. 

[Poenald Palen]

Into sci fi?

You are bign unfair! Now, you know we are supposed to have at least a few pages of world building or cultural education before we ask ourselves this, right? I am not a well read sci fi fan, but seriously...even I know that!

Star trek says we will have to find out during the next so many minutes...and might find out more in a later episode! So, it depends what story pattern you build also...if this is part of a series of posts.

Techincally, we are supposed to guess until it happens and then that is part of the fun....so, we will not know until the climax, and then wait for the resolution and so on. We didn't even get a cover to judge this story by, for crying out loud!

[Randall Ahren]

Star Trek was an abomination and suffered from a severe shortage of imagination. Why would aliens be bipeds? Almost every alien species in Star Trek is biped and able to mate with humans! Completely absurd.

[Poenald Palen]

---

Janelle Darkstone wrote:

/me nods and puts a checkmark in the column under "Pests, with Reservations".

---

You are taking notes on this all...so, you are preparing some kind of reaction? Hhhm....SO, now they will have to find you. I hope LL will mark this post and put a link in thier "doomsday" emergency plan! Then they can cover up the tracks and all turn and say "I dont' know anyone preppared for alien invasion,...do you..?" "NO" they will reply...and you secret plans may carry on. I will hope that not only taht, but many early warning workers will contact you so they can tell you of the latest! It is funny what a random post in a forum can bring you....funny the attention and connections you might find are attempted to be made!

I will also hope that this post is deleted...so all of them will not find me either...and you will not be exposed via any torture or capture...should it be THAT type of alien. I can't even read your last name on that avatar..good job!!! As fro mine...I am already market, only my true ID must be protected...my avatar will get it for sure if they are hostile! It is a very unique name....sad for it I guess...but the entity behind it will hopefully be protected...we can only hope they are not infiltrating LL as we speak...but maybe you are not the one that is sending the alarm...it was not supposed to be here, not in this way....hhhmm. I will have to think about this. Hope is all we have, for either peace or successful repelling of whatever we encounter...

[MariahWhispers]

Haven't you read "They Walk Among Us"?   Some may walk by you on any given day.  Not to say they all look human.

[Poenald Palen]

They where only starting exploring, the cloud of like fungus stuff...the ones who where fearful of the borg....they where different. But yeah, many near them where humanoid...it is all bout the trees, the rocks and the trees. Besides, they eplained why they where bipeds! They where that way because of the shape shifter people who lived in a sea of consciousness....duh! But, you didn't wish to keep on going and surely you spotted that the stories had a horrible world building going on if that is all they spat out each week and leads to one tiny encounter...which is why they had the whole sisco, careashian, bagouran(yes, I am butchering the spelling..I am not a treky really...just watched them for he fun factor to catch up on childhood memories they where surely trying to build on) and...uh, yeah....the whole shapeshifter peole and thier minions that used the cardashians...not the large butted fashion lady...although, that would have been awsome! shapeshifters and thier fruit tree animal evolution people all working wiht Kim Kardashian to take over the universe...she would have been all trying to lure the cisco and take him off of his path. OH, or maybe she sould just fight it to the death with that one rebel lady after she abandons the shapeshifters when she hurls an insult at her butts fakeness? Wow, why do I even know who kim kardashian is and all that junk about star trek...I am spending way to much time reading pop culture junk! Yeah, I don't know sci fi much..you are sort of right!

[Pussycat Catnap]

---

Randall Ahren wrote:

You are also not a science fiction fan. Let me suggest the complete works of Larry Niven to you. 

---

OMG doooooood. Don't get so hurt over teh opinions.

[Janelle Darkstone]

I'm either asking a hypothetical question or gathering information for our new alien overlords, take your pick.  :smileywink:

Mmmm, bacon!

(And for the record, I would be one of those stupid enough to pick up the light grenade to see what it read. :smileytongue:)

[Tarius Auxarmes]

As cool as the alien invasion scenario makes for entertainment, the reality of it happening is very unlikely. In fact if there was any chance at all an alien species would do this, it would be only a small window in the overall development of their culture. This would be due to the fact that perhaps robotics and automation lagged interstellar travel or something along those lines; still very unlikely though. However, if they did want slave labor, they would probably do like what was shown in one of the Outer Limits tv shows and grab a few people unoticed from this planet and then create a breeding population which would be altered to be submissive and obediant.

The aliens coming for resources scenario is also an unlikely thing to take place. The amount of resources in the asteroid belt and on other planets/moons in our solar system far eclipses those on earth so they wouldnt need to mess with our planet at all. In the case of aliens actually deciding to come and exploit our planet, they would likely do as previously said and release a virus or something of that nature; perhaps something like a neutron bomb would also be used.

In reality, aliens would probably be more interested in watching and studying us(and probably already are if you looked at the evidence for such stuff) Given that the universe is almost 14 billion years old and by about 10 billion years, all the elements required for life would have already formed(heavy elements, planets, etc), there are likely to be alien races out there that excede us in technology by several billion years. Interesting question is just what can a million to a billion years of advancement in all areas of technology get you?

[Janelle Darkstone]

I like your explanation, actually.  It's certainly more optimistic than what Stephen Hawking had to say.  :smileysurprised:

[Ishtara Rothschild]

---

Randall Ahren wrote:

You are also not a science fiction fan. Let me suggest the complete works of Larry Niven to you. 

---

 

Oh, I am a science fiction fan Or at least I used to be. But I'm also very much interested in evolutionary biology, and I think that a vastly different biosphere on an Earth-like planet is just as unlikely as life under vastly different environmental conditions. There are too many examples of convergent evolution (hummingbirds and hummingbird hawk moths also come to mind, two animals from entirely different phylums but with a remarkably similar physiology).

PS: As a "hard science" fan, I haven't read much by Larry Niven. Isn't he the Ringworld author? His work looks more like science fantasy to me. There are some very good hard science authors who have come up with incredibly non-human and fantastic life forms, such as the neutron star dwellers in Robert Forward's "Dragon's Egg". I just think that these scenarios are a lot less likely than an Earth-like biosphere.

[Ishtara Rothschild]

---

Randall Ahren wrote:

Star Trek was an abomination and suffered from a severe shortage of imagination. Why would aliens be bipeds? Almost every alien species in Star Trek is biped and able to mate with humans! Completely absurd.

---

 

I agree about the mating part It is equally puzzling that humans would find alien women sexually attractive to begin with. If I look at our closest extant relatives on this planet, chimpanzees and bonobos, I don't feel any kind of attraction.

While a bipedal physiology makes sense -- natural selection favors energy conservation strategies, exoskeletal organisms such as arthropods are an evolutionary dead end, so the number of limbs on higher, endoskeletal organisms is very likely to be reduced to four, and the use of tools would then require the upper extremities to change their function -- it is a lot less likely that aliens would develop the same kind of enlarged mammaries or the same hip-to-waist ratio, or even a face that is attractive to humans.

To stick with my previous example: Despite the astonishing similarities between hummingbirds and hummingbird-hawk moths, I very much doubt that a hummingbird would try and mate with a moth. I'm pretty sure that from their perspective, hummingbird-hawk moths are butt ugly

[Honey Puddles]

• incubators for their young.

[Poenald Palen]

---

Tarius Auxarmes wrote:

As cool as the alien invasion scenario makes for entertainment, the reality of it happening is very unlikely. In fact if there was any chance at all an alien species would do this, it would be only a small window in the overall development of their culture. This would be due to the fact that perhaps robotics and automation lagged interstellar travel or something along those lines; still very unlikely though. However, if they did want slave labor, they would probably do like what was shown in one of the Outer Limits tv shows and grab a few people unoticed from this planet and then create a breeding population which would be altered to be submissive and obediant.

The aliens coming for resources scenario is also an unlikely thing to take place. The amount of resources in the asteroid belt and on other planets/moons in our solar system far eclipses those on earth so they wouldnt need to mess with our planet at all. In the case of aliens actually deciding to come and exploit our planet, they would likely do as previously said and release a virus or something of that nature; perhaps something like a neutron bomb would also be used.

In reality, aliens would probably be more interested in watching and studying us(and probably already are if you looked at the evidence for such stuff) Given that the universe is almost 14 billion years old and by about 10 billion years, all the elements required for life would have already formed(heavy elements, planets, etc), there are likely to be alien races out there that excede us in technology by several billion years. Interesting question is just what can a million to a billion years of advancement in all areas of technology get you?

---

 

Sincve our planet is seeded and created by all of the rocks we are sort of expected to be proven essentially hybrid aliens in a small way. We say aliens though in giving these creatures post single cell organism status, so they become "life" of some kind. But really, if we are all interactions then the whole universe lives and we are all but sub lifes of this one large reaction....so, since we all have similar origins we would possibly find life very much like what we have hear, if that is our definition of life. Otherwise, we might not detect it as it's very breathing cycle might last a millenium and we could never detect it...I mean, but that is nto answering anything.

In reality, we should all buy guns and watch out for shape shifters.