Reaction to alien encounter?

And i\'m talking about more of a Flatwoods/Hopkinsville style encounter rather than an abduction, what would be your response to seeing aliens?

"Surrender your technology to travel amongst the stars and teach us how to use and make it and us psychotic apes won't murder you."

- Said whilst carrying a loaded rifle, bayonet fixed and combat helmet on.

Edited by MajorTom on Aug 15th 2018 at 9:53:04 AM

"Ba Weep Granna Weep Ninny Bong" while holding out my right hand in a Vulcan Salute and the nearest approximation to an energon treat possible in my left.

If they don't show obvious signs of hostility or aggression i'd at least attempt communication and depending on their response I may push my luck and ask to see their technology, maybe ask for a tour of their ship or something.

Well, it would be weird and unexpected, to be sure. Why on Earth (heh) would a star-faring alien race come all the way here and not contact the human authorities? Or, for that matter, announce themselves to the entire human race? The only answer that I can see is that they must consider us as less than ants to them, not worth their time and attention. If that's the case, then the very best response to encountering them is to back away quickly, and try to observe them from a distance, take video with a cell phone or something. Ideally, contacting the authorities and alerting them to what is going on, but if might be difficult to get them to believe it. Livestreaming to the internet might be the best option.

I'd just freak out. I think I would be overcome with a mix of excitement and fear.

"Finally! Where the blaarth have you been? I've been stuck here for nearly three decades now!"

List prime numbers so they at least know humans are an intelligent life form.

I'm not sure how this is a world-building question, unless it's to establish how people might realistically react to such an event. Frankly, I have no idea what I'd do. It would probably depend on whether the alien is displaying hostility, friendliness, or whatnot, and how I'd even tell.

Obviously the first bar is communication. Can they understand me, or vice versa? If yes, and they're willing to talk, then I'd probably start asking them ALL the questions. Like how did they get here, what sort of propulsion are they using, what's their homeworld like, what do they know about physics that we don't, are there others out there, and so on. We're talking the most significant event in the history of mankind since we developed language.

Of course, I'd be curious why they're sneaking around and not talking immediately to the authorities. If it turns out that they're after Human Resources or something like that, then I'd try to escape but it would probably be pointless. At least I have a cell phone and can try to record/transmit something to let people know. Do the aliens know about Facebook?

If they're looking for important people to talk to, then I know who I'm recommending first: Neil deGrasse Tyson. Not the President or anything like that.

If the aliens are hostile, then I'm probably fucked. If they got all the way here with the intent to kill us, then we stand no chance individually, and all I could hope for is that I can get some kind of word out. If Major Tom wants to wave his dick popgun at them, more power to him, although I feel like it gives a bad first impression to any potentially peaceable visitors to be threatened with violence. For more on this, see How to Invade an Alien Planet.

I really want to see a sci-fi show in which the first people to meet aliens attempt to exchange scientific knowledge rather than freaking out or asking, "is God real" or something equally inane. I'd guess that it simply doesn't create enough narrative drama; it's more fun to have the aliens meet some ignorant fools or naive kids and play it for laughs/drama.

Edited by Fighteer on Aug 22nd 2018 at 10:21:45 AM

Pointing a weapon at a space alien, from their point of view, would be a bit like walking through the woods and encountering some animal that snarles at you. How they react would depend on how dangerous the weapon is. A nuke would be like running into a lion (dangerous, but not going to end well for the lion if it attacks), while a rifle would be more on the order of a hissing chipmunk.

Edited by DeMarquis on Aug 22nd 2018 at 12:02:47 PM

Umm, not really. Pointing a manufactured weapon at someone immediately indicates several things:

• The native species is intelligent enough to design, build, and use tools.
  • If the weapon is observed to be of standardized design (that is, mass-produced), this means an industrial base and supporting social structure (although this is something you could easily observe without landing).
• The native species anticipates and plans for hostility in the course of their day to day activities and habitually carries weaponry to engage in such hostilities.
  • As alien encounters are not a "day to day activity", this means that they expect threats to come from things in their normal environment, and/or have a cultural tendency to engage in violence as a primary form of interaction. This, in turn, speaks volumes about their society.

Basically, if my first encounter with a native has them pointing a gun at me (or carrying a gun at all), I know that their society is likely to be both technologically developed and hostile.

Now, if these hypothetical aliens are so advanced that having a weapon pointed at them is amusing, like a growling kitten, then they're so far beyond us that we have no hope of fighting back, and the best we can hope for is that the zoo they put us in is reasonably comfortable. Most alien invasion scenarios postulate that our weapons can be a threat, even if they are equipped to deal with them; in other words, they aren't godlike to us.

Edited by Fighteer on Aug 22nd 2018 at 12:36:51 PM

Yeah, I'm kind of skeptical towards the insect/wild animal analogies. We try to communicate with pretty much any being we think can understand us - even if it's just in incredibly basic terms - and I doubt we're just gonna stop at some point. "Intelligence recognizes intelligence" as I think someone said.

And also, lot's of people have been killed by insects. Just saying.

Theres a big difference between a lion and a kitten. Wild animals are dangerous, and no sane person would ignore one if it was advancing on them (btw, this is strictly a threat level analogy, and no implications regarding relative levels of intelligence were intended). Even a rabid chimpmunk is dangerous, requiring that you take some positive action to protect yourself.

That said, I find it highly unlikely that space faring aliens wouldnt have access to some sort of personal defense tech that renders our firearms completely obsolete and ineffective. Sure, if an individual alien is careless or overconfident enough you might get lucky and take it by surprise, but I doubt the next one will make the same mistake.

Personally, I dont think visiting aliens will be overtly hostile, our go out of their way to be friendly, either. I imagine that they would have business of their own and care very little about us, one way or another.

Good points. I was thinking more about the communication/general interest thing. The idea that anyone would discover a new sapient, technology using species and just not care about it at all, regardless of the difference in tech level, just seems really strange to me.

Whether it's non-interference, destroy-on-sight, uplifting, or something else entirely, you'd expect them to react in some way, right? As a sapient corvid human I'm obviously a bit biased though.

"Oh, look, it's an ape with a metal stick. It's making cute little noises at us." "We've got more important things to worry about, Oogleflax. File it under 'native life' and move on."

Exactly. We have a history of treating other humans that way, let alone another species. Unless there is some profit to be made out of us I would think they would have higher priorities than communicating with us.

One or more of them might make a hobby out of us, of course.

This is assuming the aliens are mentally similar to us.

"Oh dear this is getting concerning, that ape with a metal stick just rammed it up Sarsparilla's digestive cavity and he's bleeding everywhere. And now he's pointing it at us-AH what in the cosmos was that horrific noise! Oogleflax, what was that? Oogleflax? Why is there a newly created hole in your thorax?"

My response is simple: Purge the xeno bastard in the name of the God Emperor!

Edited by Protagonist506 on Aug 22nd 2018 at 10:20:24 AM

The problem with both and scenarios is that we're assuming that the aliens have no concept of our kind of sapience: that the presence of a industrialized native society is either incomprehensible or trivial to them. That seems like quite the stretch. After all, we'd certainly look for such things if we visited another world.

One can postulate a form of life so "alien" from our own that we're incomprehensible to each other, but as Tom points out, guns still work on anything made out of physical stuff, and pointing a weapon at someone is a gesture that would be hard to mistake, unless you postulate that these aliens have no concept of what a weapon is.

Looking at it another way, the fact of traveling across light-years to land on another planet contains certain fundamental implications if we assume that physics work the same everywhere within our little part of the universe. You need to build a ship, have that ship able to sustain whatever kind of life must travel within it, generate propulsion, understand the math and physics involved in interstellar travel, and many many other things.

So, you have industrialization, astronomy, biology, physics, mathematics, and have the mental capacity to discover, invent, and comprehend all of this stuff. Even if physical form and communication methods are wholly different, these broad concepts would have to be universal. Ergo, if you land on a plant abundant in life, and one of those lifeforms builds cities and grows food and travels in machines, you have a common point of reference regardless of any other factors.

Anyone visiting Earth would find unmistakable signs of a civilization developed enough to launch things into space: our planet is ringed with satellites all busily transmitting data, our air contains pollutants and other chemicals that can only come from an industrial civilization, the lights of our cities are visible from space at night, etc. This is all before they even land.

If our hypothetical aliens are Energy Beings or travel through space via photonic propulsion against their diaphanous wing-membranes or something, then yeah, we might have a rough time understanding each other. That seems improbable, though.

Edited by Fighteer on Aug 23rd 2018 at 9:27:29 AM

What about curiosity? Ideological reasons? Fun?

For the reasons Fighteer mentioned, I think they would almost definitely recognize us as intelligent beings who in turn would recognize them for what they are, understand that we'll wonder why they came here but refuse to communicate etc, and make some educated guesses about how the encounter will affect us. Ignoring all that and waltzing around on our planet without even saying "hi" would just make them a bunch of callous jerks, imo.

I guess they might just not care, but even if we're neither a threat nor profitable now, that seems like an unwise first impression to make. Unless of course they know for certain that we'll never... Oh, Crap!

Many hard sci-fi scenarios I've heard about seem to assume that both advanced aliens and/or far future humans are going to be some kind of selfish hyper-utilitarians. If you're cynical enough, I guess you could argue that this makes sense evolution-wise (not so sure about that myself though) but in terms of world building, I would prefer a bit more variation.

Foolish mon-keigh! Your unchecked bloodlust leads only to your doom!

Edited by Corvidae on Aug 23rd 2018 at 4:19:57 PM

If aliens evolved and formed an industrial society on a planet anything like ours they’d probably have some broad morphological similarities to us. For example, it’s hard to build any kind of civilization without a way to grip and manipulate objects, so they’d probably have hands capable of tool use.

Point a gun at someone who has never seen or known what a gun is and he will have no fear of it or clue what it is or does. Wild animals are often this way, you can point a bow, gun, spear, or sword and the animal won't realize it's in danger. It's the other things that signal danger such as body language, loudness, movement.

It's entirely possible an alien species has evolved and never discovered or invented the concept of firearms. Maybe they never needed it (vegetarians?), or have a cultural taboo towards ranged combat or combat at all, or a thousand other possibilities.

Landing on an alien planet without doing some basic research first would just be stupid though.

Okay, I'm going to have to call BS here. To have gone through the technological evolution required to fly ships between star systems and never come up with the concept of personal weaponry is just ... I'm going to call that strange. Incredible is a better word, but the idea that someone can hold a device in their hand that is capable of causing injury at a distance is something I'd expect any species that's advanced beyond the Stone Age to understand.

Now, maybe this alien civilization has matured beyond personal conflict and violence. Maybe they're all Crystal Spires and Togas and totally peaceful. But when you land on an alien planet with a sapient native species, you would be dumber than the dumbest thing that was ever dumb to be completely ignorant of the possibility of violence being directed at you from that species. Hell, even the native wildlife might be hostile and potentially threatening.

Whether you recognize the specific form of a particular weapon or not, the concept that weapons might be used is something that would seem to be fairly universal.

That said, science fiction is about exploring ideas. If you want to write a story where the Pollyanna aliens visit Earth and are shocked beyond imagination that any sapient being could ever do harm to another sapient being, more power to you. That could be very interesting. Realistically, it seems implausible.

Edited by Fighteer on Aug 23rd 2018 at 11:33:32 AM