Elite / Frontier Discussion - Reaching Outer Space

[SuperG]

Question: What eerie things do you think lie beyond the fringes of our solar system and galaxy? Life? Emptiness? Remnants? Something else entirely?

Well a extreemly lot of stars and beyond that a extreemly lot of galacy's and beyond that no clue.
Aliens well lighst speed is getting to slow within our solar system. Mars is in reach if a year or 2 aren't a problem. But out there so many stars.
If chance life spawning with a few right conditions there would be lot one cell life out there. If stars with a planet with such condition are 1 in a 10.000 there are a whole lotta places where life can spawn. And evolve to something a lot more advance who drive technology further for whole lot of 1000 years. And these species might have a long life cycle to depelop there personal knowledge.

But then again FTL might be just not possible. Or FTL capable aliens a very rare thing.

Aliens are just isolated due to the limit of no FTL posible.

We can reach a next star. with sublight.

We need to find and garther a whole comunity with a large enough gene pool to start a kollony. With a mother ship where many generation can life there life, until they get there.
The resources are massive. And the fully backup form whole earth society is needed.

The ship and resources must be build and mined in space. Moon mining Mars mining.

So probaly feasable. But far fetched. To much hurdles to overcome. To get earth autorities on the same wave length.
First hurdle is a moonbase kolony wich do mining and space travel industral things.

Traveling in the future is already done. There is a astronaut who is 15msec younger

Well we know stars because we can see them. But I expect a whole lotta flavors of planets. There might be more planets then there are stars. We are aware that a several hundred exist. But are detected inderectly.

I don't expect a alien nation on the closest star. But it might be nr 879nth star 155 LY away or so.
I won't expect life in the galacy center or where novae or gammaray burst went off. That sterrilise the region. So could be there are Alien relics out there because of these fenomenae.

And wenn we do meet aliens here. This would mean they are lot more advanced to get here. Or put all there resources to it. Wich means they won't go back. And came for something. Food? And are carnivoric like. And like we humans kill each other so easy. A Aliens vs Human thing would be a nobrainer. There are astrophysics who warn for this. Like Japan fish industrie sees inteligent dolphins as food.

Maybe it's a good thing No FTL isolate species betweens tars.

 

[Kenny 10 Bellys]

If we are working to reach the stars, it is not to declare war on any species we meet out there. We go to explore. to expand our knowledge and resources. I think a better model would be explorers looking to seek trade and diplomacy with our neighbours. If we declare war on any species, we would have to be DAMN sure we knew everything about them first.

 

[steve tyler]

If we are working to reach the stars, it is not to declare war on any species we meet out there.

Eh, i bet if we dont find any enemies in space, we'll certainly invent some...

 

[Kenny 10 Bellys]

I think it more likely we would take some with us if necessary.

 

[SuperG]

You both sound like humans are galactic evil. Like we are lokin for war.
War needs first this two large groups who think or are different.

The problem with aliens of outer space is they are at least so different that war is much easier. The fell out of the human right law.
But think of this how would aliens see us. Some primitive species to harvest or hunt.

It foolish to think that aliens would be a bunch of space hippies.

Then there is also how well the first encounter would be. A Alian can be also neutral and provoked to war. Like some alien crash land on this planet and home land securety disect dead aliens wich is agianst a unkown alien law. And treat the surviving living once as labrats. Keep it as secret ofcourse.

And the rescue and search party comes and are very ed off. How ever that the general idea hollywood miminc how earth agency's would react and treet aliens. Movie District 9 is refreshing. It takes it in a much more different direction.

While Humanity got a lot of very dark pages in the history book. It doesn't mean that aliens must be better then us at treating other groups so well.

I think there must be a protocol set up already how to act on first encounter. So humanty is prepared for meeting space hippies or neutrals.

Ofcourse we aren't prepared for hostile aliens. BEcause our weapon advancement was based on cold war. And now to act on terrorism. There are treaties who make war development for space and orbit illigal.

 

[steve tyler]

You both sound like humans are galactic evil. Like we are lokin for war.

Not all of us... but some are really are evil, or mental, or both, and some are in powerful positions, or theres the potential for that to happen. Mankind has a history of ambitious, ruthless or batsh*t insane leaders, people who would think nothing of slaughtering even their own people.

"one death is a tragedy, a million is a statistic"

Joseph Stalin had a particularly callous attitude to human life... the biggest mass murderer ever, responsible for millions of deaths. Hitler, Amin, Milosevic, how will history look back on the war of terror, sorry, war on terror? would they popularly add Bush and Blair to that list? Some already would.

And there's a great deal of unfairness in the world, inequalities, it makes us unstable.. as we can see in the world all around us. And as a global society we seem to be in a very fragile, unstable state at the moment.

War needs first this two large groups who think or are different.

I guess you're thinking of the old paradigm of opposing ideologies lining up on either side of a misty, grass covered battlefield. I think thats over simplifying things. Maybe that idea is a more a way to motivate people to do terrible things.

I think it often just needs someone who wants something... Hitler wanted more territory and to make an empire, the US under Bush and Cheney largely wanted to secure oil and money and invaded Iraq, Afghanistan and war is still raging nearly a decade on, its been going on for so long that it seems normal. And look at who benefits from that, yes some people benefit from war, they can profit by it. So perhaps if there is no clear and present enemy, like the soviet union, invent one. and it works best if its a war that can never end, with no clear goals and no traditional army to overcome and destroy, like the cold war, or err, the war on terror. It gives you a lot of reasons to spend money on defense, and develop new technology.

Ideology is a factor of course, its a good one to motivate your troops, its easier to take from people you've been persuaded think are subhuman or simply have a different religion and perhaps dislike you anyway. How easy would it be for a human to hate an alien? because maybe they're an entirely different species and maybe look like some huge snot monster that stinks and is generally repellent.

Resources, the lack of, need for territory and money are a big, real cause of wars it seems.

Maybe it largely comes down to primative selfishness, & primative ideas that truely massively interstellar races grow out of, since they must have such abundant energy sources that they're maybe something like star treks federation, generally kind and fair, and don't murder and pillage and take peoples planets by force. This would be a much older race than the humans in the elite games, who still suffer inequalities and violence.

On the other hand, no matter how old they are, they might still like to blow stuff up for fun.

maybe there are both types of aliens, and various shades in between who are nasty or nice... who knows. The physicist Michiu Kaku made an interesting point, that if aliens evolved in a simlar way to us, competing in natural selection against other species, they'd likely be the top predator of that world, with all the baggage that brings. Perhaps biological life is just too limited and irrational, and the only things that truely persist are benign, logical machines.

Bringing this back to elite and humans / thargoids empires, the elite galaxy has all the same problems that we have on earth, and people are still the same and living under the same types of regimes which cause the same types of problems. Frontier is clearly based in a east/west style cold war setting for example with the federation and empire, and perhaps merely making it to colonise the stars, and access to all the energy and resources the universe has to offer does not necessarily mean that we'll grow up straight away, or ever. If you have an alien species with a similar level of tech competing in the same area there's definately going to be war, it would be inevitable i think, even if they're not warlike, we are, and possibly always will be.

We also always need to practice war, so we know how to fight for real, lest we become weak and pacifistic, and then taken over or destroyed by someone with more ambition.

And this comes back to the point of inventing enemies, even if they are the space hippy pacifist kind, who've forgotten how to fight. If they have things we want, we'll probably take them, and tell everyone else that they're evil space 's who we need to kill before they kill us. I think thats a possibility at least.

 

[SuperG]

My point is why would be a alien be any better. We got some bad thing called racism.
We look down on apes. Apriciate horses. Because they are value for us. Not in modern times. And we are on top of the foodchain.
Well there comes a Alien species in town with a big space ship 800m long and massive. These aliens are a lot smarter then us. And see als like some intelligent ape but more equal to the other apes. But Ape is treated as we treat worms, or insects. They could see us as varmint. Just a plague.

So for this kind of alien humans are just something they can shoot at so as we shoot birds. After thin us out by miljards.

There is a chance to that and not so small. Of course space hippies are also possible. Even so a race that are refugees from a galactic war. Bringing advance tech to prepare us to. Or a alien race that is more or less devided and in a political strugle.

ALiens might have a religion to. And we won't fit to that. Make us lower being by defauld.

I'am also am aware that a alien should be vary causious to meet those violent and sadistic humans with here an there some hippies and people with some reason. Because we can be very bad. And of couse can take uperhand in a while.

 

[Steve]

SuperG, I think I understand most of your post, but what does "After thin us out by miljards" mean?

 

[Kenny 10 Bellys]

A while back myself and some friends were thinking of doing a 3D project based on human/alien interaction. It was based on the premise that humanity might indeed be the most devious, vicious and downright dangerous species in this part of the galaxy, if not the most technically advanced. Other aliens like the small, spindly Grays recruited or abducted special forces fighters to undertake dangerous missions, equipping them with advanced weaponary and training. In short, compared to most other aliens, we are Predators. Twice as large, twice as strong and with a mean streak a mile wide when it comes to kicking weird little alien ass.

 

[SuperG]

SuperG, I think I understand most of your post, but what does "After thin us out by miljards" mean?

Let me just put in a example: the independance day scifi movie with will smith. The aliens are destroying all of our majority of big city's. Thin us out by miljards

A while back myself and some friends were thinking of doing a 3D project based on human/alien interaction. It was based on the premise that humanity might indeed be the most devious, vicious and downright dangerous species in this part of the galaxy, if not the most technically advanced. Other aliens like the small, spindly Grays recruited or abducted special forces fighters to undertake dangerous missions, equipping them with advanced weaponary and training. In short, compared to most other aliens, we are Predators. Twice as large, twice as strong and with a mean streak a mile wide when it comes to kicking weird little alien ass.

A good example would be Avatar the movie. Where Humans mis behave the same way wenn North America got kolonised. We know us humans we are omnivors wich means also predetorial. But more in a handy intelligent way. Not with huge teeth and force. Aliens are just a huge variable. Wich can be of any of threesome type. Even pure predetorial. And don't forget we don't know if humanoid way is the end station of evolotuion. They just need to be handy to be able to build things and use tools, with that can be technology driven.

 

[Kenny 10 Bellys]

Evolution pretty much stops playing a part in shaping life once that lifeform develops intelligence. You then stop letting the environment change you, and you start to change your environment to suit yourself. Once that happens changes start to be more in terms of technology integration and genetic engineering. It's not so far fetched to believe that there may very well be several Borg type cultures out there, although they may not be rapacious conquerors. It might very well be the end point of our own evolution.

 

[Sir.Tj]

A while back myself and some friends were thinking of doing a 3D project based on human/alien interaction. It was based on the premise that humanity might indeed be the most devious, vicious and downright dangerous species in this part of the galaxy, if not the most technically advanced. Other aliens like the small, spindly Grays recruited or abducted special forces fighters to undertake dangerous missions, equipping them with advanced weaponary and training. In short, compared to most other aliens, we are Predators. Twice as large, twice as strong and with a mean streak a mile wide when it comes to kicking weird little alien ass.

I get the feeling this could be quite a accurate description of certain portions of the human race.

Great premise for a book or film though.

 

[gunbladelad]

Evolution pretty much stops playing a part in shaping life once that lifeform develops intelligence. You then stop letting the environment change you, and you start to change your environment to suit yourself...

It's well documented that there's many species on this planet, apart from humans, that are extremely intelligent - to the point of having enough self-awareness to recognise themselves in mirrors - including Elephants, dolphins & whales. However, you don't see them altering the environment to suit them.

Intelligence of a being does not equate to the ability, or even desire to change the environment around itself.

Personally, I believe that humanity should actually try to work out if, as a species, we actually are intelligent, before we go off looking for intelligent life outside our own atmosphere. Current scientific methodology can't even prove humans are self-aware...

No doubt, with the way the overall human mindset has been for most of the past few thousand years, if we found an intelligent extraterrestial life-form, we'd instantly decide it's the bad guys, and start working out ways to hunt them down into extinction.

Remember, a group of people is only as smart as the dumbest person in it...

 

[Kenny 10 Bellys]

There's a bit of a difference between being able to recognise your reflection is not another being standing opposite you, and terraforming. The nutcases who climb Everest will not develop enlarged lungs and muscles like the Sherpas have, because they will use oxygen tanks to make the environment suit them. Likewise with pearl divers and scuba gear. If we move off planet we will do our utmost to pick Earth-like planets with Earthlike conditions, and we'll make them into a home away from home as much as possible. Evolution might still occur, but at a greatly reduced rate.

 

[Spacegamer]

If humans do find another earth like planet with an oxygen atmosphere, would we be able to breath the air with out some sort of technology aid .Or will we just terraform the whole planet to make it more like home.

 

[Alien]

Current scientific methodology can't even prove humans are self-aware...

There is actually a very simple test. It has been used on Elephants (I don't know about dolphins) and recently on bears.

What you do is you paint a dot on the middle of the subjects forehead, and place a mirror allowing the subject to see their reflection. If upon seeing their reflection, the subject touches the dot on their forehead, then they must recognise themselves in the mirror, hence self aware.

This does assume though, that the subject actually cares that there is a dot on their forehead !

Alien

 

[Kenny 10 Bellys]

I guess from the way this discussion has developed that the most bizarre and intruiging thing we're looking to encounter in space is other life forms. Black holes and spatial anomalies are all well and good, but to make things really interesting you need aliens.

 

[Callum Rowley]

I've always been fascinated by how humanity would hold up against an Alien race – whether we'd be the more intelligent, stronger or united when compared, or whether meeting an alien race would truly wake us up and expose our flaws some seem so adamant to suppress.

There was a scene in the Mass Effect novel, Revelations, that I thought was excellent where humanity suddenly realises the alien races try and put us down and suppress us not because we're the "newcomers" but because they're actually afraid of us... afraid of our persistence and passion (or something along those lines), and it makes me think our emotions could be our saving grace when faced with an alien race, as what if they're actually something truly unique to us?

 

[turwhitt]

It's well documented that there's many species on this planet, apart from humans, that are extremely intelligent - to the point of having enough self-awareness to recognise themselves in mirrors - including Elephants, dolphins & whales. However, you don't see them altering the environment to suit them.

For that you also need opposable thumbs!

 

[Kenny 10 Bellys]

I've always been fascinated by how humanity would hold up against an Alien race – whether we'd be the more intelligent, stronger or united when compared, or whether meeting an alien race would truly wake us up and expose our flaws some seem so adamant to suppress.

Based on eye-witness accounts, and putting aside any tech level considerations (they are more advanced because of time, not inate skill) then so far I think we're onto a winner. The majority of rednecks appear to report the classic Gray alien; childishly small with large heads and frail bodies. The rest of the reports say mainly very human in appearance, although again a bit pale and thin looking, and only one or two talk about something more like a Wookie.

Physically therefore, I think we can kick their ass. Mentally? Who can tell. We have a lot of practice smacking our own neighbours around, so beating up aliens should cause no qualms at all. We can get pretty riled up and organised when faced with a severe enough threat, it just might take a little time.

I think our biggest problem would come from a completely alien lifeform, something insectoid perhaps. Unlikely, but a hive mind might develop and we'd be dead meat then. Very hardy, physically strong, unemotional, fast growing and not giving a damn about us at all. We wouldn't stand a chance.

Personally I'd love to see us discover that there are dozens of advanced species running around, and they land and clue us in on our position in the galaxy. Just watching the various religious heads trying to explain it and rewrite their myths to suit the news would be brilliant.