h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

AGGGHH!!! YOUR SPACE!!! ITS BLUE!!!!!!!! HOW DID YOU DO THIS AMAZING ACT OF SOURCERY!!!!!!!!

Use the BRUNEL tag in your personal entry thing (where you write about yourself.

See: A957602

------------------------------------------------

Snark King, U226076

Is the World Prepared for an Alien Invasion, A1050193

I like this article, but if you want to get it into the edited guide, you'll need to be more objective (ie: loose the "I"s, replace "Right about now, many of you are now yelling 'OMG you idiot. Just nuke the b******s of the face of the planet'" with "Some would suggest the use of neuclear weapons", etc.

Otherwise, you could plonk it into AWW.

---------------------

How would you ally with aliens? We would not be able to talk to them any more than we can to any terrestrial animal (ie not at all). And they wouldn't care a jot about talking to us.

I don't think we would be terribly worried about our differences in the case of alien invasion: think about the coalition against terrorism aster Sept 11. This shows we will pull together in adversary. Our main problem would be that we wouldn't get a co-ordinated attack, with each leader having a different plan. Also, if the aliens had any sense, they would wipe out our communications.

We wouldn't see aliens coming (even without cloking). We can't see lumps of rock miles across (asteriods), and it took years to find Pluto (discovered 1930).

Our closest neighbour is Alpha Proxima, over 4ly away (so it will take 4 years to get there at the speed of light). We don't know if it has any habitable planets. At the moment, we only have the technology to detect gas giant planets a small distance from the sun - not exactly habitable.

I think that it's doubtful the aliens would destroy the planet compltely (except to get at something at the planets core, eg: iron, heat energy, etc), so no Death Star. The only reasons they would destroy us are:
1. To get natural resorces
2. To turn us into a slave race
3. They see us as a threat (in which case they wouldn't be more advanced than us), or
4. They don't like us

---------------------

Stephen Hawking said - "One possibility is that we will wipe ourselves out completely by some disaster, such as neuclear war. There is a sick joke that the reason we have not been contacted by extraterrestrials is that when a civilisation reaches our level of development it becomes unstable and destroys itself."

and - "Any alien life we encounter will likely be much more primative or much more advanced. If it is more advanced, why hasn't it spread through the galaxy and visited Earth? If aliens had come here, it should have been obvious, more like the film Independence Day than ET."

and - "It could be that there is an advanced race out there which is leaving us to stew in our own primative juices. Hovever, it is doubtful it would be so considerate to a lower life-form: do most of us worry about how many insects and earthworms we squash underfoot?"

and - "Bacteria do very well without intelligence, and will survive us if out so-called intelligence causes us to wipe ourselves out in a neuclear war."

If you quote this, please give an acknowledgement, eg:

Quote Text here
- Stephen Hawking, The Universe in a Nutshell

PS - Please read my new article(s)