Do you really think your puny earth bullets will hurt them?
Only if you sneeze on them first.
That's one thing that bothered me about War of the Worlds. Sure Earth disease fucked up the aliens, but wouldn't they have brought with them their own bugs that humans had no immunity too?
Do you really think your puny earth bullets will hurt them?
Only if you sneeze on them first.
That's one thing that bothered me about War of the Worlds. Sure Earth disease fucked up the aliens, but wouldn't they have brought with them their own bugs that humans had no immunity too?
I mean, shit.
Well, it's dependent on whether their bugs could infect humans. It's entirely possible that whatever diseases they have just don't affect humans, but the bugs we have do affect them. When our diseases wiped out many of the Native Americans, we didn't really suffer from any of their diseases. These things are not always symmetric.
Of course, they come to Earth and they are shown that the Earth environment is very hostile to them. So, umm, why weren't they in environment suits suits?
Well, it's dependent on whether their bugs could infect humans. It's entirely possible that whatever diseases they have just don't affect humans, but the bugs we have do affect them. When our diseases wiped out many of the Native Americans, we didn't really suffer from any of their diseases. These things are not always symmetric.
Of course, they come to Earth and they are shown that the Earth environment is very hostile to them. So, umm, why weren't they in environment suits suits?
If you want to make that quasi realistic, then the idea is that Martians lived in virtually sterile environment and suddenly going to earth they got bombarded by bacteria and all kinds of crap that virtually ate them alive.
Living on a planet that you have to sterilized to live on makes for a very poor choice for a settlement, hence why they gave up on the idea.
But I agree, yeah. Signs and War of the Worlds dropped the ball on that front. Even worse was ID4's "upload a computer virus". They fly up there, "Awww, shit, they've got Mac's.. Welp, pack it in, guys. We're fucked."
But I agree, yeah. Signs and War of the Worlds dropped the ball on that front. Even worse was ID4's "upload a computer virus". They fly up there, "Awww, shit, they've got Mac's.. Welp, pack it in, guys. We're fucked."
Don't try to keep that thing under wraps, someone will expose the conspiracy someday.
I mean, shit.
PeregrineFalcon on
Looking for a DX:HR OnLive code for my kid brother.
Can trade TF2 items or whatever else you're interested in. PM me.
But I agree, yeah. Signs and War of the Worlds dropped the ball on that front. Even worse was ID4's "upload a computer virus". They fly up there, "Awww, shit, they've got Mac's.. Welp, pack it in, guys. We're fucked."
Maybe I'm giving the writer's of ID4 more credit than they deserve but I always thought that was supposed to be a reference to WotW more than anything else.
But I agree, yeah. Signs and War of the Worlds dropped the ball on that front. Even worse was ID4's "upload a computer virus". They fly up there, "Awww, shit, they've got Mac's.. Welp, pack it in, guys. We're fucked."
I was fucking pissed at Signs for that stupidity, because the whole lead up in that movie was actually exceptional. The whole "just in your periphery" of the aliens, the TV bit where they saw them. It was actually very well done.
EDIT: In deferrence to ID4, yeah it seemed to me like it was very much like WotW's - the aliens had just completely overlooked the concept of a computer virus. And in defense of the plan, they had one of their ships to base the attack off.
But I agree, yeah. Signs and War of the Worlds dropped the ball on that front. Even worse was ID4's "upload a computer virus". They fly up there, "Awww, shit, they've got Mac's.. Welp, pack it in, guys. We're fucked."
I was fucking pissed at Signs for that stupidity, because the whole lead up in that movie was actually exceptional. The whole "just in your periphery" of the aliens, the TV bit where they saw them. It was actually very well done.
EDIT: In deferrence to ID4, yeah it seemed to me like it was very much like WotW's - the aliens had just completely overlooked the concept of a computer virus. And in defense of the plan, they had one of their ships to base the attack off.
I agree with you on Signs. The ending was just so exceptionally stupid, but everything leading up to it was well done. It was the only movie to ever elicit a startle out of me. But then the water thing. Ugh. Though, I tend to forgive it because of the excellent lead up.
But I agree, yeah. Signs and War of the Worlds dropped the ball on that front. Even worse was ID4's "upload a computer virus". They fly up there, "Awww, shit, they've got Mac's.. Welp, pack it in, guys. We're fucked."
War of the Worlds was written in the 19th century, so I don't hold the ending against them.
But yeah, the other one doesn't really explain why an alien race would, while naked, invade a planet of acid.
But I agree, yeah. Signs and War of the Worlds dropped the ball on that front. Even worse was ID4's "upload a computer virus". They fly up there, "Awww, shit, they've got Mac's.. Welp, pack it in, guys. We're fucked."
War of the Worlds was written in the 19th century, so I don't hold the ending against them.
But yeah, the other one doesn't really explain why an alien race would, while naked, invade a planet of acid.
In War of the Worlds, the Martians were so advanced that they had eliminated all diseases from their environment, but in the process had lost all their immunities. So when they came to Earth, they got killed by our viruses.
Signs was the stupidest shit ever. Aliens are supposed to be highly intelligent and technologically advanced, it doesn't seem like a wooden door should stop them in their tracks.
Res on
[SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
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Casually HardcoreOnce an Asshole. Trying to be better.Registered Userregular
edited May 2009
Signs makes more sense if you turn the aliens into demons, stupid demons.
Do you really think your puny earth bullets will hurt them?
Only if you sneeze on them first.
That's one thing that bothered me about War of the Worlds. Sure Earth disease fucked up the aliens, but wouldn't they have brought with them their own bugs that humans had no immunity too?
I mean, shit.
Well, it's dependent on whether their bugs could infect humans. It's entirely possible that whatever diseases they have just don't affect humans, but the bugs we have do affect them. When our diseases wiped out many of the Native Americans, we didn't really suffer from any of their diseases. These things are not always symmetric.
Of course, they come to Earth and they are shown that the Earth environment is very hostile to them. So, umm, why weren't they in environment suits suits?
i may have misheard this but didn't colombus and his crew get syphilis from the native americans?
Inter_d on
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Casually HardcoreOnce an Asshole. Trying to be better.Registered Userregular
edited May 2009
Well the whole disease thing was to suppose to be along the lines of "God will protect us from all threats, even from beings with superior technology".
Though if you really want to kill aliens, you should just broadcast 'War of the World 2' Sci-Fi channel movie into space. Heads will explode.
In War of the Worlds, the Martians were so advanced that they had eliminated all diseases from their environment, but in the process had lost all their immunities. So when they came to Earth, they got killed by our viruses.
This. I think it might even be something along the lines of Mars life being around for so long that disease-causing bacteria long evolved out of the environment. I might be making that up, it's been a long time since I've read the book.
Well the whole disease thing was to suppose to be along the lines of "God will protect us from all threats, even from beings with superior technology".
I never really picked up religious overtones like this from the book, though. It strikes me as weird, especially from an author who gathered a lot of criticism from the strongly religious back in his day.
Well the whole disease thing was to suppose to be along the lines of "God will protect us from all threats, even from beings with superior technology".
Though if you really want to kill aliens, you should just broadcast 'War of the World 2' Sci-Fi channel movie into space. Heads will explode.
Actually, Wells wrote the whole story to argue against cultural superiority, as the book was a "let's see how you like it" to Britain. If you read one of his short stories in which a person finds what I can only guess is some sort of surveillance device (you can see the martian planet if you immerse yourself and the object in total darkness and looked through it at just the right angle), you'd know a bit more about their planet. It seems they lived in a fairly pastoral/natural setting, most likely the result of a desire for a lifestyle where one can lie about in the shade and grab lunch easily (they seem to prefer a fresh kill, so having highly domesticated animals roaming around is a good strategy). Most of this info is very loosely inferred, though.
It's likely that the whole sickness thing was just Wells' way of telling his countrymen that they need to bathe more (besides the fact that Europeans seem to have gotten pretty much every other race sick, which should be a tipoff).
The rest of you, I fucking hate you for the fact that I now have a blue dot on this god awful thread.
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Casually HardcoreOnce an Asshole. Trying to be better.Registered Userregular
edited May 2009
Really?
I coulda sworn the ending went along the lines of 'God, in all his infinite wisdom, created Earth to protect itself against outer threat'. Of course, I havent read the books sense forever.
I coulda sworn the ending went along the lines of 'God, in all his infinite wisdom, created Earth to protect itself against outer threat'. Of course, I havent read the books sense forever.
That could have been the narrator, but the analysis' I've read seem to imply it was mostly luck, and it's wildly inconsistent with Wells' statements about the book,which showed that the book was an anti-manifest destiny tract. Given that I know so much about the book, and have already read pretty much everything else by the man, I should probably get around to actually reading it.
I coulda sworn the ending went along the lines of 'God, in all his infinite wisdom, created Earth to protect itself against outer threat'. Of course, I havent read the books sense forever.
There was a line near the end about how the aliens were defeated "by the smallest thing God in His wisdom had created", yes. But it was not meant to mean that God would save us or be a book about religion in any way - that's just the way people talked back then.
Wells was a social commentator. War of the Worlds was about how being technologically superior (Martians, British Empire) doesn't give you the right to exploit the weaker civilizations (Humans, India), and that just because you're on top for a while and it looks like nothing can stop you doesn't mean that this will always be the case (nothing Humanity could do could stop the Martians but they eventually all died, nothing India could do could stop the British...). It was a cautionary tale against England's exploitative imperialism, not a religious book.
Do you really think your puny earth bullets will hurt them?
Only if you sneeze on them first.
That's one thing that bothered me about War of the Worlds. Sure Earth disease fucked up the aliens, but wouldn't they have brought with them their own bugs that humans had no immunity too?
I mean, shit.
Well, it's dependent on whether their bugs could infect humans. It's entirely possible that whatever diseases they have just don't affect humans, but the bugs we have do affect them. When our diseases wiped out many of the Native Americans, we didn't really suffer from any of their diseases. These things are not always symmetric.
Of course, they come to Earth and they are shown that the Earth environment is very hostile to them. So, umm, why weren't they in environment suits suits?
i may have misheard this but didn't colombus and his crew get syphilis from the native americans?
Yes, but they also fed the native americans they took on their ship to each other, and did a large list of other godawful and unhygenic things to them, causing the last few alive to kill themselves the first chance they got. The amerindians claim to never have seen syphilis until the colonists came.
Do you really think your puny earth bullets will hurt them?
Only if you sneeze on them first.
That's one thing that bothered me about War of the Worlds. Sure Earth disease fucked up the aliens, but wouldn't they have brought with them their own bugs that humans had no immunity too?
I mean, shit.
Well, it's dependent on whether their bugs could infect humans. It's entirely possible that whatever diseases they have just don't affect humans, but the bugs we have do affect them. When our diseases wiped out many of the Native Americans, we didn't really suffer from any of their diseases. These things are not always symmetric.
Of course, they come to Earth and they are shown that the Earth environment is very hostile to them. So, umm, why weren't they in environment suits suits?
i may have misheard this but didn't colombus and his crew get syphilis from the native americans?
Yes, but they also fed the native americans they took on their ship to each other, and did a large list of other godawful and unhygenic things to them, causing the last few alive to kill themselves the first chance they got. The amerindians claim to never have seen syphilis until the colonists came.
And we probably wouldn't have recognized the common cold when it started killing Indians.
I hope they come to play nice. Anyone that could successfully traverse interstellar distances would be many orders of magnitude more technologically advanced than us, and could squash us like bugs if desired. People being people, there would be some chaos/panic.
There are only a few reasons I can even think of that would be sufficient impetus to make an alien species even want to visit us. Then again they could be so alien that their logical processes would be unfathomable.
1) They are benevolent super advanced aliens who come with no ill intentions, as what would be the point in crushing us when they can easily find whatever resources they could ever need due to their amazing technology. We would be little more than curiosities to study/help/ignore.
2) A need for resources/habitable space has driven them to search for other planets that they could potentially inhabit and we are unfortunate enough to live on one that they could use. Would be simple work to exterminate us or push us back into the stone age in order to get us out of the way so they can utilize our world.
3) They have some kind of religious or moral code that makes them want to go out and cleanse/uplift/annihilate/tend to/whatever other living beings.
I'd think 1) would be the most likely, since a species that operates like 2) would be likely to annihilate itself (like we are doing) before ever developing the advanced technology/cooperation that would be required to escape their home planet.
I also wouldn't assume they are biological in nature either, as they could be some kind of mechanical construct built to escape mortality and the limitations imposed by flesh.
Darkchampion3d on
Our country is now taking so steady a course as to show by what road it will pass to destruction, to wit: by consolidation of power first, and then corruption, its necessary consequence --Thomas Jefferson
The only way to really look at this issue is to choose very specific circumstances for first contact. In which case, we'd basically have a sci-fi book.
The only way to really look at this issue is to choose very specific circumstances for first contact. In which case, we'd basically have a sci-fi book.
Speaking of, can anyone think of any good books themed around the writer's concept of realistic first contact?
Darkchampion3d on
Our country is now taking so steady a course as to show by what road it will pass to destruction, to wit: by consolidation of power first, and then corruption, its necessary consequence --Thomas Jefferson
The only way to really look at this issue is to choose very specific circumstances for first contact. In which case, we'd basically have a sci-fi book.
Speaking of, can anyone think of any good books themed around the writer's concept of realistic first contact?
First contact is either dealt with on a small scale (a small group of people meeting aliens, or a small group of aliens meeting humans) or dealt with in the past-tense. "They invaded and devastated Earth" or "They arrived and ushered in an era of peace and prosperity".
Footfall, by Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle deals with (violent) first-contact I think. I haven't read it though. A Mote in God's Eye by the same two authors deals with interesting first contact, but its futuristic and not on Earth (so small groups). Ringworld and Rendezvous With Rama, by Niven and Clarke respectively, deal with exploration of alien artifacts. Again, small scale, dealing with only very narrow conclusions, but still interesting to see the reactions of humans to aliens.
I've got to think there's a ton though.
[Tycho?] on
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Gabriel_Pitt(effective against Russian warships)Registered Userregular
Do you really think your puny earth bullets will hurt them?
Only if you sneeze on them first.
That's one thing that bothered me about War of the Worlds. Sure Earth disease fucked up the aliens, but wouldn't they have brought with them their own bugs that humans had no immunity too?
I mean, shit.
Well, it's dependent on whether their bugs could infect humans. It's entirely possible that whatever diseases they have just don't affect humans, but the bugs we have do affect them. When our diseases wiped out many of the Native Americans, we didn't really suffer from any of their diseases. These things are not always symmetric.
Essentially, alien/human diseases actually having an effect on the other is pretty much bunk. Look at how rarely diseases cross the species barrier on earth, despite thousands of years of coexistence. As I heard it explained, it'd be like yanking the engine out of the alien's car-analogue, dropping it under the hood of a Ford Taurus, and expecting it to run.
Do you really think your puny earth bullets will hurt them?
Only if you sneeze on them first.
That's one thing that bothered me about War of the Worlds. Sure Earth disease fucked up the aliens, but wouldn't they have brought with them their own bugs that humans had no immunity too?
I mean, shit.
Well, it's dependent on whether their bugs could infect humans. It's entirely possible that whatever diseases they have just don't affect humans, but the bugs we have do affect them. When our diseases wiped out many of the Native Americans, we didn't really suffer from any of their diseases. These things are not always symmetric.
Essentially, alien/human diseases actually having an effect on the other is pretty much bunk. Look at how rarely diseases cross the species barrier on earth, despite thousands of years of coexistence. As I heard it explained, it'd be like yanking the engine out of the alien's car-analogue, dropping it under the hood of a Ford Taurus, and expecting it to run.
The flu might have a chance, and I'm pretty sure fungi could grow anywhere.
Posts
ever since i was little aliens have scared the SHIT out of me, expecially the 'greys' and abduction shit.
this also didn't help
how is this for kids?
it gets weird around 2:40
Only if you sneeze on them first.
Can trade TF2 items or whatever else you're interested in. PM me.
Or throw water at them.
That's one thing that bothered me about War of the Worlds. Sure Earth disease fucked up the aliens, but wouldn't they have brought with them their own bugs that humans had no immunity too?
I mean, shit.
Well, it's dependent on whether their bugs could infect humans. It's entirely possible that whatever diseases they have just don't affect humans, but the bugs we have do affect them. When our diseases wiped out many of the Native Americans, we didn't really suffer from any of their diseases. These things are not always symmetric.
Of course, they come to Earth and they are shown that the Earth environment is very hostile to them. So, umm, why weren't they in environment suits suits?
If you want to make that quasi realistic, then the idea is that Martians lived in virtually sterile environment and suddenly going to earth they got bombarded by bacteria and all kinds of crap that virtually ate them alive.
Living on a planet that you have to sterilized to live on makes for a very poor choice for a settlement, hence why they gave up on the idea.
Wrong thread.
But I agree, yeah. Signs and War of the Worlds dropped the ball on that front. Even worse was ID4's "upload a computer virus". They fly up there, "Awww, shit, they've got Mac's.. Welp, pack it in, guys. We're fucked."
Don't try to keep that thing under wraps, someone will expose the conspiracy someday.
I mean, shit.
Can trade TF2 items or whatever else you're interested in. PM me.
Maybe I'm giving the writer's of ID4 more credit than they deserve but I always thought that was supposed to be a reference to WotW more than anything else.
EDIT: In deferrence to ID4, yeah it seemed to me like it was very much like WotW's - the aliens had just completely overlooked the concept of a computer virus. And in defense of the plan, they had one of their ships to base the attack off.
I agree with you on Signs. The ending was just so exceptionally stupid, but everything leading up to it was well done. It was the only movie to ever elicit a startle out of me. But then the water thing. Ugh. Though, I tend to forgive it because of the excellent lead up.
But yeah, the other one doesn't really explain why an alien race would, while naked, invade a planet of acid.
They'll see that one Twilight Zone episode, think that it actually happened, then begin the eugenics programs.
I just know it.
Intergalactic hazing ritual?
ID4 and Signs were just stupid, though.
I am on-board with this. Well played.
i may have misheard this but didn't colombus and his crew get syphilis from the native americans?
Though if you really want to kill aliens, you should just broadcast 'War of the World 2' Sci-Fi channel movie into space. Heads will explode.
This. I think it might even be something along the lines of Mars life being around for so long that disease-causing bacteria long evolved out of the environment. I might be making that up, it's been a long time since I've read the book.
I never really picked up religious overtones like this from the book, though. It strikes me as weird, especially from an author who gathered a lot of criticism from the strongly religious back in his day.
What a twist!
Actually, Wells wrote the whole story to argue against cultural superiority, as the book was a "let's see how you like it" to Britain. If you read one of his short stories in which a person finds what I can only guess is some sort of surveillance device (you can see the martian planet if you immerse yourself and the object in total darkness and looked through it at just the right angle), you'd know a bit more about their planet. It seems they lived in a fairly pastoral/natural setting, most likely the result of a desire for a lifestyle where one can lie about in the shade and grab lunch easily (they seem to prefer a fresh kill, so having highly domesticated animals roaming around is a good strategy). Most of this info is very loosely inferred, though.
It's likely that the whole sickness thing was just Wells' way of telling his countrymen that they need to bathe more (besides the fact that Europeans seem to have gotten pretty much every other race sick, which should be a tipoff).
I coulda sworn the ending went along the lines of 'God, in all his infinite wisdom, created Earth to protect itself against outer threat'. Of course, I havent read the books sense forever.
That could have been the narrator, but the analysis' I've read seem to imply it was mostly luck, and it's wildly inconsistent with Wells' statements about the book,which showed that the book was an anti-manifest destiny tract. Given that I know so much about the book, and have already read pretty much everything else by the man, I should probably get around to actually reading it.
Wells was a social commentator. War of the Worlds was about how being technologically superior (Martians, British Empire) doesn't give you the right to exploit the weaker civilizations (Humans, India), and that just because you're on top for a while and it looks like nothing can stop you doesn't mean that this will always be the case (nothing Humanity could do could stop the Martians but they eventually all died, nothing India could do could stop the British...). It was a cautionary tale against England's exploitative imperialism, not a religious book.
Yes, but they also fed the native americans they took on their ship to each other, and did a large list of other godawful and unhygenic things to them, causing the last few alive to kill themselves the first chance they got. The amerindians claim to never have seen syphilis until the colonists came.
And we probably wouldn't have recognized the common cold when it started killing Indians.
I hope they come to play nice. Anyone that could successfully traverse interstellar distances would be many orders of magnitude more technologically advanced than us, and could squash us like bugs if desired. People being people, there would be some chaos/panic.
There are only a few reasons I can even think of that would be sufficient impetus to make an alien species even want to visit us. Then again they could be so alien that their logical processes would be unfathomable.
1) They are benevolent super advanced aliens who come with no ill intentions, as what would be the point in crushing us when they can easily find whatever resources they could ever need due to their amazing technology. We would be little more than curiosities to study/help/ignore.
2) A need for resources/habitable space has driven them to search for other planets that they could potentially inhabit and we are unfortunate enough to live on one that they could use. Would be simple work to exterminate us or push us back into the stone age in order to get us out of the way so they can utilize our world.
3) They have some kind of religious or moral code that makes them want to go out and cleanse/uplift/annihilate/tend to/whatever other living beings.
I'd think 1) would be the most likely, since a species that operates like 2) would be likely to annihilate itself (like we are doing) before ever developing the advanced technology/cooperation that would be required to escape their home planet.
I also wouldn't assume they are biological in nature either, as they could be some kind of mechanical construct built to escape mortality and the limitations imposed by flesh.
Speaking of, can anyone think of any good books themed around the writer's concept of realistic first contact?
First contact is either dealt with on a small scale (a small group of people meeting aliens, or a small group of aliens meeting humans) or dealt with in the past-tense. "They invaded and devastated Earth" or "They arrived and ushered in an era of peace and prosperity".
Footfall, by Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle deals with (violent) first-contact I think. I haven't read it though. A Mote in God's Eye by the same two authors deals with interesting first contact, but its futuristic and not on Earth (so small groups). Ringworld and Rendezvous With Rama, by Niven and Clarke respectively, deal with exploration of alien artifacts. Again, small scale, dealing with only very narrow conclusions, but still interesting to see the reactions of humans to aliens.
I've got to think there's a ton though.
The flu might have a chance, and I'm pretty sure fungi could grow anywhere.
Mind you we'd see the big ass asteroid thingy coming. Hopefully.
And things with an indeterminate or extremely elongated lifespan (or even really really short) could probably just fly around without a worry.
edit: oopsy daisy.
Am I right ladies?
We know where asteroids are that wont be coming near us for millions of years :P