Ambrosia Software Web Board: Alien psychology, galactic politics and the Real World - Ambrosia Software Web Board

I'm collecting opinions regarding the possibility of

a) alien life existing
what they would be like
c) how would we interact
d) do you think we're being buzzed by real aliens

I'm going to do this first... ahem.

a) Well, the galaxy is extremely large so I think alien life would exist (it exists on planets in our solar system already) but I think intelligent alien life would also exist. For instance, humans aren't self-aware except by the most loose definition of the word, so there would be other 'intelligent animals' all over the place... The reason we haven't been contacted is, I think, because space travel over any large degree is impossible.

It depends on their homeplanet. An earthlike home planet might produce almost-human beings, while a planet like Jupiter would be profoundly different. I also think that beings from strange places (jupiter) would also be evil, not because I'm prejudiced against Jupiter-spawned life but our sense of 'evil' is really things that are alien and irreconcilable to our state of minds.

c) Total war. There would be no peace, even among almost-humanoids, because they know that you know that they might attack and destroy you, and you know that they know that you know that you might sneak an attack and destroy them... Between Jupiter/Earth life this would probably be more profound.

d) No. But maybe we were a few thousand years ago...

a) Deffinately. The universe is a big place. However, the conditions required for complex life (and by complex life I mean anything more complex than a slug) are just short of an impossibility. The odds of there being Civilized life even in our own galaxy are slim; There may be 10 civilizations in our galaxy's entire existance, and probably not at the same time.

Again, this is completely dependant on environment. An Earthlike planet would produce chemically (and perhaps physically) similar creatures to those found here. A planet like Mercury would produce fast moving clumps of liquid copper. Silicon based life would move so slow we wouldn't norice it. And space-born creatures would probably just scare the hell out of us.

c) It would absolutely great just after first contact, when we could't reach eachother. How it goes after that is anyone's guess.

d) No, and probably won't be for a while.

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a) Probably, but who knows. Earth itself is in just the right spot for hundreds of different variables to work correctly and keep Earth alive. Though the chances of another alien race existing on another world that can also sustaine life is slim, there is still a chance.

Probably not at all like us.

c) That I would not know. They may look on life in a totally different way than we do, or they could have similar ideas to ours. We can't really tell.

d) Not right now definitely, and almost assuredly not for a while to come.

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a) Well, I can't think of any logical reason for there not to be; any rock based planet of similar distance from the sun has the same chances of ours, and even in little lab experiments we can create the basic parts of life from scratch. It stands to reason that molecules would become aggregations, and aggregations would grow into the alien version of "cells" and progress somewhere from there.

Well, not like us. Even should they develop on an earthlike planet, what are the probabilities that they develop from Prokaryotes to Eukaryotes to Multicellular organisms, develop spial cords, arms, legs, and opposable thumbs? I'd say that's less likely than the chance of aliens existing in the first place.

c) It depends on them. Specifically, how good they look. An ugly race would automatically be thought of as an enemy, in our stupid human ways. Yet, something that looked similar to us or pretty good would be though of as a "good guy," even should they be otherwise. Plus, there's a good chance we fire on them before we ever see what they look like, trigger an interstellar war and lose, wiping humanity from the face of the universe.

d) Umm...not being "buzzed" by them. But I'd think they've got some kind of contact with us, even if it's only on its way like the Arecibo message.

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However, th is so big, I think that the slim chance per planet is enough to allow life to grow elsewhere.

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a. 99.999999999999999%
[i]intelligent[i] alien life: 99.999999999999998
b. Anything. They could be little grains of sand, planet-sized light-based creatures, or globs of liquid.
c. Very badly. Tons of racism and such, and we'd probably get to war very quickly if they were intelligent and knew the concept of war. If they weren't intelligent, we'd use them as pets or something else, unless they were scary or harmful to us, in which case we'd either try to kill them off (most likely), drive them off (if we couldn't kill them or if killing them would be very very hard), or keep away from them (only if we couldn't kill them or drive them off, or if we were just so scared of them we couldn't even go near them to get rid of them).
d. If you mean they're trying to contact us: Possibly, but their ideas of communications or patterns could be so different than ours that we wouldn't notice if they were. Either that, or we don't have the technology yet to pick up their communications.
If you mean visiting Earth: I doubt it. If there are any intelligent extra-terrestrials flying around causing the UFO sightings, they're probably tourists coming to see this planet with such a primitive intelligent race on it, and their cloaking devices occcaisionally stop working for a little while or something like that. Either that or scientists researching us with the same cloaking/whatever it is problem.

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Reviews are appreciated.

Well, if you want to know what I think. I think it's a government conspiricey that the government is trying to control our minds! Oh,no! They're coming! Tell them! Tell them all! Tell them that the...

[This message has been stopped in transmit.]

We're watching you, Mike. You know too much...

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Do I talk too much?
DoItalktoofast?
Do I ask too many questions?
I wonder...

[This message has been edited by Sundered Angel (edited 05-18-2001).]

Hmm... I see we're all pretty much of the same mind on this. I have some other questions. Of course, you can only answer this if you're making a plugin... and then if you're making one with aliens.

a) What is your alien's motivation?
What do they interpret as pleasure?
c) What is there view on humanity?
d) How long have they existed?
e) Political/Military/Stability/Technology

First I'll answer these...

(I'm using an alien race in my plug called 'the Meson'. But there are lots of others..)

a) To stimulate black holes into the creation of other universes much like their own.
They do not have pleasure.
c) A stepstone to getting a large chunk of interstellar space without violating the Contact Treaty. Or a potential ally in religion.
d) 6 billion years <
e) Politically they are very strong, having survived through many of the greatest conflicts of the universe... enough to make any single race think twice before making a major incursion. Militarily they have recovered well from there recent massacre, and have about 13 different navies, or 135 billion soldiers. Meson society is extremely stable, because they are a collective and have no need of disorder to motivate their creativity... They are of course extremely old and use many powerful weapons which they have had alot of time to perfect... They prefer ranged weapons, and have very advanced shields.

a) Definitely

Hmm..."think different".

c) Think about us and Blue-Whale sized space-borne creatures tryingt to communicate.

d) No.

Thats quite a mouthful of questions...

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