goofy alien invasion scenarios · 3:58am Jan 2nd, 2016
This is just a topic of intrest of me, wonder if anyone else wants to weigh in. Sorry, no MLP tie in.
Let me start up this entry by discussing my thoughts on how aliens seem to be portrayed in the majority of Sci-fi productions. Basically, as gods. Why do I say this? Most of the time in Sci-fi, aliens concur earth or in some way are able to completely nullify all human weapons in pursuit of whatever goals they have, often able to use humans as mere pawns in their schemes because they are that much more powerful than us.
The concept of aliens being that far ahead of us is goofy to begin with, but what's even funnier is when shows and movies try to list specific reasons why alien civilizations would beat us almost without a fight. Almost every human vs aliens scenario in which the aliens win easily, demonstrates the writers know jack all about both physics and human technology. Let's run through a few of the clechies:
Energy fields that nullify all weapons!
Energy fields don't work that way. It is conceivable that a powerful enough field could block projectile based weapons, but the shock waves produced by those weapons would proceed past the field anyway and only do slightly less damage. Energy doesn't "block" energy. Similar frequencies can "cancel each other out" but that's a VERY different concept with few realistic weapons applications, at least in this particular area.
Shields or armor that guard completely against nuclear weapons!
Um... no... just no. Seriously, how many people who write about that must have no idea what a nuclear weapon actually is or does? I guess many people seem to think that all a nuke really does is send out a cloud of toxic radiation. In reality a nuclear weapon sends out a powerful shock wave preceded by a heat flash that normally would incinerate all life forms and most objects PERIOD long before that shock wave arrived. You could theoretically stop the radiation via some kind of lead lined armor perhaps, but the shock wave and heat flash would be impossible to stop with anything short of so much metal it's hard to conceive your ship even being able to fly due to it's own weight.
They shoot down our missiles before they can make contact with their ships!
That's conceivable, barely, but conceivable. In which case, oh no, not that, that would be a seriously effective strategy for a whole week! Maybe... probably not. It would probably take the nations of the world less time than that to realize they can just either A: fire so much ordinance at the ships that this advantage is meaningless and the aliens can't shoot all of it, or B: just start using missiles with bombs that have a larger kill radius than the range of the lasers shooting down the missiles. True, that might give us a problem eventually, but our technology could easily adapt to a countermeasure that simple.
They bomb us from orbit!
Oh dear Lord... these have to be the dumbest most uneducated on human technology aliens possible. Did they miss the lunar landing or something? Did they miss Sputnik? Let me do the math for everyone, Sputnik was launched in 1957, if aliens invade now, we humans have had over half a century to improve upon technology to launch stuff into orbit. And you know what, we've done just that. Pop quiz, what's escape velocity? That's right, mach 33. What happens to your pretty flying saucer when it gets hit by... basically anything, flying at that speed?
We don't shoot missiles like that at the ground for all kinds of logistical reasons, but I'm guessing nearly all of those would be eliminated if someone decided to just sit in geosynchronous orbit and take pot shots at us. Heck we could nuke them with ICBMs with virtually no negative repercussions because heat and radiation far stronger than that bombards the earth's atmosphere below orbit on a daily basis. Obit is pretty much the worst possible place to put your base as it would be little more than a target for the biggest baddest weapons humanity has to just be fired at completely at will. You would basically have to say that your aliens also have that goofy shield tech, because they just made themselves target practice.
They bomb us from orbit and shoot down our missiles that we fire at them!
Because lord knows, something traveling mach 33, when destroyed, wouldn't cause damage anyway, it's not like the shrapnel would continue to fly forward faster than the speed of sound as well. It's also not like nuclear weapons don't have to be right next to their targets to be effective.
They used a big EMP to shut down our technology!
Oh yes, the US army has even used that before... to distract and inconvenience it's enemies because EMPs seriously aren't that effective. They're great in theory, but in practice they cause a few hiccups in some electronic equipment that often a simple restart will fix. Also they have no effect at all on things like guns and mortars that don't rely on electricity.
They have something...else that shuts down all our technology!
Ya know, not all "technology" has the same basic fuel or operating system. Even if you did find a way to disable all electronics, you would still have to deal with several explosive and projectile weapons that have jack all to do with electricity, and seriously... it just shuts our shit down? Have you met human technology? Our computers shut down without explanation once a freaking month at least. Unless the weapon has a lingering effect, we would just turn everything back on and barely find that inconvenient. It's a tactic that would be kind of effective for a while... maybe. Depends on where it's used and what the circumstances are.
They have instant teleportation!
To where? "A ship sitting in orbit!" Excuse me while I go bang my head against a wall.
There's a lot of them!
So? There's a lot of us and we have home field advantage.
They pretend to be humans!
Because that would so stop us from just shooting them. Basic infiltration techniques work well in the short term, but you have to have something to follow up when you're eventually discovered.
They cause us to hallucinate!
So just shoot weapons at them that have a longer range than the hallucinogen. We have weapons like that on earth and they don't guarantee victory.
They gave us an incurable disease!
So we just quarantine those infected and move on. There are incurable diseases on the planet right now. Cancer kills 20,000 people a day and we're still here. This disease would have to be ridiculously effective to mean much of anything to us and if it's that powerful, short of your aliens being mechanized, it's hard to imagine such a powerful contagion would not effecting them too. Are you supposing they magically sweep it up before they land or something? That one could work, but there are still all kinds of problems with the application.
Can anyone else think of a few more goofy alien invasion scenarios?