War of the Worlds Etc. Etc.
Watching the latest TV series on the topic brought me back to some thoughts I had while working on the “Of Destiny’s Daughters” trilogy. This was an issue I had to consider when putting this particular epic Space Opera tale through its paces. There have been a number of books, movies, TV series on the subject, usually ending up with the valiant Earthlings struggling against overwhelming odds and eventually winning due to their moral superiority etc. What do I think we should consider?
Why are the aliens invading earth in the first place? What is it they want? Remember, they have crossed an immense distance to get here, which makes me suspect their technology is advanced far beyond anything we currently have, faster than light flight, for one, or immense generation ships, for another.
Do they simply want more land? Can they terraform? Why not pick an empty world, rather than one already teeming with supposedly intelligent life?
Do they want our mineral resources? The heavens are filled with empty rocky worlds, asteroids, moons hiding frozen oceans.
Are they looking for food? While we might be tasty, less sentient creatures could be easier to herd, although I suspect our mythical invaders would probably have the ability to synthesize their meals, given the amount of room and bother a herd of live meat creatures might take up on a fleet of space ships.
Do they want our women? (or men?) While we are certainly delectable, I doubt an advanced alien breeding program would require our particular warm bodies when any other warm body would probably serve just as well and be easier to wrangle, or construct.
Or, what might be worse, they might “invade” us for reasons we can’t even imagine, like considering us a virus they have to stop before it spreads.
What about weaponry? Assuming an advanced technology which doesn’t really need to keep us around, they could simply scour the planet from orbit and there would be nothing we could do about it. They would hold the high ground. Think of applying pesticide to a garden. Our imaginary aliens could even use targeted chemicals, or sterilization, if they wanted to keep some of the Earth life alive. Alternatively, they could simply kill every living thing from a safe distance, sterilize the planet, alter the atmosphere, poison the water, and how could we resist, assuming we were even aware before it was too late.
One thing I am pretty certain of is that the alien invaders would not show up, on the surface of Earth, driving around in machines, attempting to shoot us one at a time. That would be highly inefficient. But then, I suppose you never can tell about aliens from outer space?
The moral of this essay, while war of the world’s tales can be fun, interesting, educational, the end result of such an invasion would be devastating.
Which I suppose that brings us to the question, what are the odds of such an event, and should we be blurting out welcomes into the vastness of the universe, attempting to let everyone know we are here, and welcoming contact? But that could be the subject of another essay.
Why are the aliens invading earth in the first place? What is it they want? Remember, they have crossed an immense distance to get here, which makes me suspect their technology is advanced far beyond anything we currently have, faster than light flight, for one, or immense generation ships, for another.
Do they simply want more land? Can they terraform? Why not pick an empty world, rather than one already teeming with supposedly intelligent life?
Do they want our mineral resources? The heavens are filled with empty rocky worlds, asteroids, moons hiding frozen oceans.
Are they looking for food? While we might be tasty, less sentient creatures could be easier to herd, although I suspect our mythical invaders would probably have the ability to synthesize their meals, given the amount of room and bother a herd of live meat creatures might take up on a fleet of space ships.
Do they want our women? (or men?) While we are certainly delectable, I doubt an advanced alien breeding program would require our particular warm bodies when any other warm body would probably serve just as well and be easier to wrangle, or construct.
Or, what might be worse, they might “invade” us for reasons we can’t even imagine, like considering us a virus they have to stop before it spreads.
What about weaponry? Assuming an advanced technology which doesn’t really need to keep us around, they could simply scour the planet from orbit and there would be nothing we could do about it. They would hold the high ground. Think of applying pesticide to a garden. Our imaginary aliens could even use targeted chemicals, or sterilization, if they wanted to keep some of the Earth life alive. Alternatively, they could simply kill every living thing from a safe distance, sterilize the planet, alter the atmosphere, poison the water, and how could we resist, assuming we were even aware before it was too late.
One thing I am pretty certain of is that the alien invaders would not show up, on the surface of Earth, driving around in machines, attempting to shoot us one at a time. That would be highly inefficient. But then, I suppose you never can tell about aliens from outer space?
The moral of this essay, while war of the world’s tales can be fun, interesting, educational, the end result of such an invasion would be devastating.
Which I suppose that brings us to the question, what are the odds of such an event, and should we be blurting out welcomes into the vastness of the universe, attempting to let everyone know we are here, and welcoming contact? But that could be the subject of another essay.
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