If aliens were to invade...

[roliath]

People seem to place excessive emphasis on small arms. Your AK or ar15 is fucking useless when it comes to facing armor or any modern military, much less aliens with fuck awesome weaponry the likes of which we couldn't imagine.

Nothing cracks me up more than when some 400 pound mouth breathing neckbeard is talking about how he is ready for the revolution or some SHTF situation because he has some small arms and a few thousand rounds of ammo and the motherfucker obviously couldn't run a mile. Small arms have limited uses in a full scale war.

Yes someone can challenge this by saying "Oh, but in Vietnam" or "Afghanistan!!!" but that is different. In either case, if the goal was extermination of the entire populace, it would have been carried out swiftly mercilessly. We could have slaughtered every man, woman and child in Vietnam in a few months, and the soviets damn sure could have done the same in Afghanistan.

with that said, if the aliens intentions are to irradicate us from earth. we would not have anything to combat them and probably would happen before we have had any real time to prepare.

[Moose242]

with that said, if the aliens intentions are to irradicate us from earth. we would not have anything to combat them and probably would happen before we have had any real time to prepare.

I agree wholeheartedly.

[zachary]

I like how everyone thinks the aliens will have weapons. What if they have not lived on a war ravaged planet for say the last 10,000 years. Which let them spend time on their own technologies and advancements in space travel. What if space travel is easy for them and they have element "X" which we do not.

[roliath]

I like how everyone thinks the aliens will have weapons. What if they have not lived on a war ravaged planet for say the last 10,000 years. Which let them spend time on their own technologies and advancements in space travel. What if space travel is easy for them and they have element "X" which we do not.

Any civilization hellbent on surviving is going to have some form of weaponry or some kind of self defense.

[Broncojohnny]

There are so many possibilities here that it is almost pointless to even discuss.

I thought the movie Battle:LA was a pretty interesting take on it with a civilization that launched a blitzkrieg on us for resources using drone technology and some sort of second class/manufactured/conscripted soldier to do their dirty work. One thing they got right is that you don't take over anywhere or anything without an infantry component to keep what you take. For example, you can't pull into orbit with a ship and nail the surface with rail guns or lasers or any of that shit and then proclaim victory. Just like you can't bomb the shit out of Germany, not send in ground troops and proclaim victory. At some point you have to have those low tech boots on the ground and that is where the lowest technology can still mess you up and make it costly to occupy.

[LANTIRN]

There are so many possibilities here that it is almost pointless to even discuss.

I thought the movie Battle:LA was a pretty interesting take on it with a civilization that launched a blitzkrieg on us for resources using drone technology and some sort of second class/manufactured/conscripted soldier to do their dirty work. One thing they got right is that you don't take over anywhere or anything without an infantry component to keep what you take. For example, you can't pull into orbit with a ship and nail the surface with rail guns or lasers or any of that shit and then proclaim victory. Just like you can't bomb the shit out of Germany, not send in ground troops and proclaim victory. At some point you have to have those low tech boots on the ground and that is where the lowest technology can still mess you up and make it costly to occupy.

I was thinking this exact thing. However we have no idea how intergalactic wars would be fought, or how alien generals would think so what holds true on Earth might not mean shit when the Space Invaders finally show up.

[roliath]

I was thinking this exact thing. However we have no idea how intergalactic wars would be fought, or how alien generals would think so what holds true on Earth might not mean shit when the Space Invaders finally show up.

Increase speed, drop down and reverse direction!

[LANTIRN]

Increase speed, drop down and reverse direction!

LOL at the Futurama reference!

[roliath]

LOL at the Futurama reference!

lol

[Broncojohnny]

I like how everyone thinks the aliens will have weapons. What if they have not lived on a war ravaged planet for say the last 10,000 years. Which let them spend time on their own technologies and advancements in space travel. What if space travel is easy for them and they have element "X" which we do not.

What if the aliens perception of time is skewed in comparison to ours? What if they are physically a lot smaller or a lot larger? What if they aren't carbon based life forms? What if they get here and come to find out, their smell attracts swarms of birds that attack them? What if something not uncommon to our environment is as addictive to them as heroin is to humans? The possibilities are so bizarre that the scenarios become endless and pointless.

A great example of this is Harry Turtledove's World War series of books. A group of aliens decide to attack the earth. They have faster than light travel but it isn't all that fast. It doesn't matter to them because they live a hell of a lot longer than we do, IE it is ok if it takes a thousand years to get here. So they send out probes and scout our planet. The scouts see the world at about 1200 AD with people living in an agrarian type of society. They report back and someone says "Oh hey, these assholes on Earth, they will be pushovers! They are still using spears and shit, this will be cake!". So the aliens launch an invasion fleet. Oh boy this is where it gets fun, it takes 700 years to get here. Which in their frame of reference is fine, it is like next year to us, shit they live forever. They finally get here and it is 1940 and it is World War II and the world is industrialized and ready for total war. They only brought the equipment to subdue a medieval agrarian society. Come to find out, humans advance their technology faster than any race they have attempted to conquer in the past. Ooops, big intelligence mistake on their part. Then to top it all off, ginger is like crack to their people and half their invasion force becomes addicted to it. It just turns into a bigger cluster fuck from there...

But all that stuff is things that people don't think about. All they think is that some aliens might have bigger/better guns so they automatically win. Wars over real estate don't work like that even though battles do.

[zachary]

But all that stuff is things that people don't think about. All they think is that some aliens might have bigger/better guns so they automatically win. Wars over real estate don't work like that even though battles do.

What if they are already here but too small to see

[Silverback]

What if they are all bounty hunters and Siths and have lightsabers and blasters?

[Gargamel]

A great example of this is Harry Turtledove's World War series of books. A group of aliens decide to attack the earth. They have faster than light travel but it isn't all that fast. It doesn't matter to them because they live a hell of a lot longer than we do, IE it is ok if it takes a thousand years to get here. So they send out probes and scout our planet. The scouts see the world at about 500 AD with people living in an agrarian type of society. They report back and someone says "Oh hey, these assholes on Earth, they will be pushovers! They are still using spears and shit, this will be cake!". So the aliens launch an invasion fleet. Oh boy this is where it gets fun, it takes 1400 years to get here. Which in their frame of reference is fine, it is like next year to us, shit they live forever. They finally get here and it is 1940 and it is World War II and the world is industrialized and ready for total war. They only brought the equipment to subdue a medieval agrarian society. Come to find out, humans advance their technology faster than any race they have attempted to conquer in the past. Ooops, big intelligence mistake on their part. Then to top it all off, ginger is like crack to their people and half their invasion force becomes addicted to it. It just turns into a bigger cluster fuck from there...

Sounds like the effectiveness of military intelligence is truly universal....

[Moose242]

There are so many possibilities here that it is almost pointless to even discuss.

I thought the movie Battle:LA was a pretty interesting take on it with a civilization that launched a blitzkrieg on us for resources using drone technology and some sort of second class/manufactured/conscripted soldier to do their dirty work. One thing they got right is that you don't take over anywhere or anything without an infantry component to keep what you take. For example, you can't pull into orbit with a ship and nail the surface with rail guns or lasers or any of that shit and then proclaim victory. Just like you can't bomb the shit out of Germany, not send in ground troops and proclaim victory. At some point you have to have those low tech boots on the ground and that is where the lowest technology can still mess you up and make it costly to occupy.

I would say that we declared victory in Hiroshima and Nagasaki without having boots on the ground

We never invaded mainland Japan, as our awesome weaponry did the trick. Aliens could/would have weaponry that could vaporize and kill us all similarly. I imagine that with knowledge of biological engineering they could just whip up something like to Ebola virus and unleash that shit.

[Broncojohnny]

What if they are already here but too small to see

WHAT IF THEY ARE IN YOUR ASS RIGHT NOW!!!???