What would you do if Earth became a Client World?

The time: 14th of August, 2020 AD.

The place: Earth.

The situation: An advanced alien species has found us. Unknown ships entered the solar system four months ago, and were hailed via radio by scientists all over Earth. They soon entered Low Earth Orbit, where they have since remained. Their ships are highly unlike our own fragile and ungainly craft, being far larger, bulkier, and propelled by thrusters of unknown design, more resembling something out of Star Wars than 2001: A Space Odyssey.

First Contact was initially pleasant, with the aliens taking the time to learn several human languages, and eventually agreeing to send an envoy to meet the UN in New York. But things quickly turned sour when the alien's envoy announced, in front of the whole world, that Earth was now a client world of the mighty Gormka Empire, and that if humanity wished to continue governing itself, then we would have to pay a regular tithe of slaves - healthy adult humans - to be used by the Gormka for unknown purposes. Otherwise the Gormka would destroy our cities from orbit, and annex Earth for themselves.

That was yesterday. The alien's envoy has since withdrawn to their ships in orbit, leaving you, the leader of... whatever your home country is, to consider your next move. The first tithe is expected in 3 months, and 100 slaves are needed from anywhere on Earth. As far as you know, the aliens are untouchable, their ships being far bigger and more maneuverable than anything humans have ever built, and protected by spherical energy-shields of unknown design.

So Tropers, what do you do?

Agree to the tithe-but the "slaves" are actually my Super Soldiers; each one kitted out with the best my eggheads can equip them with. One slave-hauler actually contains a nuclear weapon, set to detonate when it enters the aliens docking bay. Once the boarding parties have taken over the ships, kill any remaining crew and proccess them into rations; have the soldiers film it. Be sure to broadcast the video to the rest of the alien fleet. Canada is much different under my mighty jackboot benevolent dictatorship gentle-but-firm tutelage, I tell you what.

edited 29th Jul '15 3:09:20 AM by dvorak

Yeah, and then they decide to cut loose and introduced us on "meteor bombardment". It's much practical than just playing along, at least for now. And even if they ask 100 adults from each country, that was rather minor considering the loss of even one city. If they "just" ask for 100 adults, you got bunches of miserable guys like in Africa, North Korea, or your own country's death convicts.

I'd personally consider it better to accept extinction than slavery. I'd probably be overruled by the majority, of course, and I am not in any kind of position for an effective uprising.

—>"Those who give up their freedom for security deserve neither." —>—Benjamin Franklin

Any nation that admits to using slaves deserves at least a bloody nose, and if they school us afterwards then so be it. At least we went down fighting.

Once you submit you're dead anyways, so no.

edited 29th Jul '15 10:58:16 AM by dvorak

Going down fighting is only good if you had a chance of winning. Otherwise it's a waste.

Is submission not preferable to extinction ?

Declaring war right off the bat would be akin to suicide. They've got orbital supremecy and intersteller travel. Yield for now but steal their tech every chance we get. Beg, borough, and bribe our way to parity.

Negotiate the whole client world thing while very, very quietly siphoning resources off to set up a means or fighting. No way in hell will Isurrender slaves.

If they decide to rain rocks, we can send something back up, ineffective though it may be, just to prove humanity don't go down peacably and docile. If we are compelled to leave the stage of history, we will slam the door hard enough that the universe stands back in shock.

Oh, and those facilities and caches I set up? They double as a means of preserving whatever we can of Terran history.

That being said, my opinion of slavers (that slavers should be line up against a wall and shot in the gut a few times each) might colour my response some. I'm a terrible leader for a 'client' nation.

If it is true that the aliens are untouchable, trying to fight back would be no more than an elaborate Suicide by Cop. Not an option.

I like dvorak's idea of "trojan slaves", but it's assuming that a) Super Soldiers are a thing in 2020 and b) the aliens won't check for weapons and such before letting them anywhere near their ships.

Besides, it's "only" 100 people. China alone executed 2,400 last year, so using death convicts should be feasible (though it would lead to some... interesting complications in te debates over death penalty).

I agree — everybody here agree, I suppose (and hope) — that slavery of any kind is despicable. But we have a situation here where our only other option is to be crushed without a chance to retaliate. And we're not even talking about enslavement of the entire human species (that would warrant a I Die Free answer, probably) : only a few who would have died anyway.

edited 29th Jul '15 2:24:25 PM by Aetol

Deception.

Specifically, say you agree to their terms. But when their slave ship comes to pick up the 100, you quietly capture and board the slave ship with not slaves, but a battalion of heavily armed and armored troopers. The slave vessel will be brought back and once aboard the master vessel, the battalion will deploy and capture the vessel from within. Once captured and the extinction threat nullified, the ship will then be examined and reverse engineered and a fleet of human ships will be built based off that technology to counter any further threat. The original captured ship will remain in service to help fend off any future threat for as long as it remains operational.

Contingency:

If in the event the boarding force is destroyed and/or lost contact for over 300 seconds a thermonuclear warhead secreted aboard the slave ship will be remote detonated (or left on a timer, hopefully ship's capture can be attained before it runs out) thus destroying the threat.

Secondary Contingency:

In the event the nuclear warhead aboard the slave ship fails after all other options are exhausted the nuclear arsenal of Earth will be directed and fired upon the enemy vessel either in ICBM form or by specially placed nuclear charges that will catapult KE munitions from Earth and slam it into the enemy vessel.

No other fallback options save full scale war exist.

We dont have enough information at this point. We dont even know what they plan on doing with 100 humans. For what conceivable purpose does it make sense to expend the resources necessary to travel all the way here and all they want is that? We need to gather intell and figure out what their game is. Until we know what their goals are, we have no leverage.

That means trying to sneak, not weapons, but cameras into the alien ship. Given human nature, I think we can find 100 volunteers. Can we develop a cyber eye by 2020? Probably. But how can we arrange to get the images back? Radio is too obvious. Any ideas?

...Make a request for personal items to be returned to the family if they die?

edited 29th Jul '15 7:50:16 PM by Belisaurius

My idea is actually putting all those data on really sturdy data storage, cased in titanium, tungten, tungsten carbide and heat-resistant ceramic, then chunk it out on waste disposal system. But above idea is better, especially since we can observe their custom and behaviour from their response on this request.

Send them 100 industrial robots instead, and say "Use these, they're way more efficient!" Unless they want the slaves for something else, I guess. My country doesn't have death rows, but finding some lifetime prisoners who might volunteer shouldn't be too hard.

With any luck this is all a Secret Test of Character... Probably not but there's always the hope...

Some additional info:

• I chose the year 2020 because it's a little way into the future, but not so far ahead that our society would be unrecognisable. Just assume it's not-quite-2015 and go from there.

• The ships sent to pick up the tithe will be well-guarded, and the slaves will be stripped naked and inspected before being taken aboard. What the Gormka will do if they suspect foul play is anyone's guess, but it probably won't be pleasant.

• The Gormka have made it clear that they have no intention of giving their advanced tech or scientific knowledge to humans, by trade or otherwise.

• The Gormka reached our solar system using a form of superluminal teleportation, in a long series of "jumps". By the candid conversations their envoy held before the announcement, this form of travel doesn't seem particularly difficult or expensive for them.

• The Gormka will not accept robots in place of humans. In fact, they've threatened instant death if they discover humanity has built self-aware AI.

• Similarly, the Gormka have also forbidden humanity from pursuing any further developments in space travel, on pain of bombardment. They're willing to let Earth's existing satellite infrastructure go on existing, but will destroy any further satellites humans attempt to launch.

• Correction: the Gormka are saying they only want 100 slaves for now...

Humanity is about to develop much more advanced tunneling technology.

In the end, you scenario is so restrictive there may not be much humanity can do. If their tech is really so advanced, and they have really have no hesitation about initiating genocidal assaults, then we may have little other choice than just grinning and bearing it.

Honestly, the issue is few cou tries still use the death penalty, so the offering-death-row-convicts-as-slaves is very, very situational. What would Canada, UK, France, or whoever do instead? Lottery? Random selection?

@Tungsten74 define 'well-guarded'. Also, any more details on the ships, defenses, and the like we could glean?

@De Marquis agreed. Honestly, just burying several of the most comprehensive time capsules possible on various locations on Earth and going Out with a Bang is probably the best option available. Alien, meet Nuke. Nuke, Alien.

edited 30th Jul '15 9:15:03 AM by Error404

It's 100 slaves total. Not 100 slaves per country.

I agree with De Marquis, the scenario doesn't leave any room for anything else than yield or die. The instant the aliens detect any kind of retaliation — assaults on the slaver shuttles, launch of ground-to-space missiles, anything — it's rocks fall, everyone die.

edited 30th Jul '15 9:18:42 AM by Aetol

To clarify, I don't mean self-aware sci-fi androids, just modern-day industrial robots with whatever upgrades we can come up with in five years from now. But then again, the scenario makes it seem unlikely that they're just going to use the slaves for labor anyway. Hm... on that note, what do they need the slaves for?

Yeah seriously, why do they need slaves? Why can't they use robots?

And why are they so intent on preventing humanity from exploring the stars?

Maybe they say "slaves" but they mean "dinners"...

Make it out as an alternative to suicide, or lifetime imprisonment. Anyone who wants to volunteer, go right ahead. Anyone who's deemed a threat to real people the population at large, you can get on that ship or you can spend the rest of your life in a super-max prison.

edited 30th Jul '15 10:38:32 AM by dvorak

Hmm...tricky. Going to have to reverse engineer their tech with observation alone.

I fail to see how a humanity imprisoned on its own homeworld and being slowly culled for unknown purposes by a technologically superior enemy is preferable to a glowing, cratered world floating through space that essentially says "Screw you, we refuse to submit".

Because really, it's only a matter of weeks, maybe months, before someone tries to take out some aliens or a ship anyhow, consequences be damned. Best we can do os keep it organized, really.

^ This. Humanity is like herding cats. Damn close to impossible.

Plus these conditions through Fridge Logic pretty much means that the Gormka are lying their frigging asses off about their capabilities. They either don't know how to use or understand the tech they have if they even have the tech they have. Why would they need slaves if they possess Casual Interstellar Travel like that? They would obviously have the capabilities for machines to do just about everything.

If they really possess such means and they somehow don't want Humanity to get off the ground, offering such a means is inconsequential regardless of decision on either side. If they really are all that powerful they wouldn't need to restrict somebody to their homeworld under pain of extinction. Any attempt to challenge their power would be swiftly dealt with.

All other possibilities given this situation imply nothing positive about the Gormka or their proposal. They're either desperate as if they are the last vestiges of a once mighty space empire, fanatical to the point of blind irrationality, arrogant and ignorant of reality or all three all at once.

If that's how they really are, there's nothing for Humanity in submission. Absolutely nothing.