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What could they possibly take from us that they couldn't get more easily elsewhere? Raw materials they could mine in any system. Habitable planets that never developed multicellular life and are open to colonization are surely far more common that habitable planets with inhabitants that'll fight back. Slave labor is unlikely to be economically viable in a society that has a decent grasp of automation (unless of course having inefficient slaves is a status symbol). Cultural products are difficult to cultivate in captivity.
Well, they probably want to plunder our planet's ecological diversity, and our cultural databases. (In fact, they're already made a start on the second one!) You might eventually have the issue of 'cultural conquest', but part of me questions if that'll be a one way street.
almost. What they've found is the one thing the universe lacked. Space Orcs. Well they found us, Not our fault. So let the WAAAGH! Begin. mwuhahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha
"Why, do you have something we might want to take?" "... umh ..."
(Yeah, yeah, lots of breathable atmosphere likely is a major asset to deep-space-faring folk in and of itself. There always is some loss/leakage while you have nothing but hard vacuum around.)
Eh, it depends on technology. Oxygen is plentiful in the universe and not that difficult to extract from compounds if energy is available (and for a spacefaring culture, it is). Same goes for almost any mineral resource.
Now, a planet with a complete working biosphere that can be studied and/or settled... THAT is a treasure trove.
lots of carbon dioxide on venus in atmosphere and enough nitrogen (3.5%) to easily extract. Moon titan, absurdly large amounts of nitrogen, methane and water. So places other than earth as sources, though may take more processing to get rid of radioactive isotopes.
comets are full of ice, and may have lots of nitrogen as ammonium salts, no big gravity well to get out of.
Yeah, the old "here to steal the air trope" nope, Realistically there is exactly NOTHING so special on earth that anything would want to steal it. The closest thing I could think/imagine was the original concept for independence day. The earths core.
His question is on point, if not diplomatic. Why bug around with an alien species that hasn't reached the stars yet? That is a question that needs answering.
Would he even put it in those terms? Depends on the level of honesty and self deceit he has playing on his personality, and the clear sightedness to cut through through any veils ideology may impose overtop.
Nope, it was a complete surprise to them. DB has said that they didn't even count the planets before setting out, because Sol was thousands of light-years from any observatory, and it wasn't worth surveying from that far away when they were already planning to come over for a closer look.
It's also worth noting that stumbling upon a sapient world is ridiculous luck (alliance had surveyed something short of a million star systems, found only 15 extant civilizations, so the actual chance of stumbling upon somebody new is roughly 0.000015%). They could easily select Tau Ceti instead of Sol as the jump target, and then not only the plot of the comic wouldn't happen, Earth could remain undetected for further thousands of years.
Edit: It can even be considered pretty much canon fact that there's undiscovered sapient civilizations within the Alliance territory.
And that's something that needs communication. The assumptions earth-side, is it's rare, or so plentiful it's almost a non-event. Humanity doesn't know which extreme to tack to yet. But the fact the technology is within the same epoch is also a surprising realization.
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Insectoids in a lot of ways are the weird ones among the Alliance members. Besides having a completely unpronounceable name of the species, they have dextero amino acid biochemistry, which makes their food and biosphere to be inedible by the rest of the Alliance, and vice versa.
Comments (18)
What could they possibly take from us that they couldn't get more easily elsewhere? Raw materials they could mine in any system. Habitable planets that never developed multicellular life and are open to colonization are surely far more common that habitable planets with inhabitants that'll fight back. Slave labor is unlikely to be economically viable in a society that has a decent grasp of automation (unless of course having inefficient slaves is a status symbol). Cultural products are difficult to cultivate in captivity.
Well, they probably want to plunder our planet's ecological diversity, and our cultural databases. (In fact, they're already made a start on the second one!)
You might eventually have the issue of 'cultural conquest', but part of me questions if that'll be a one way street.
They've come to laugh at us, we are the ultimate "Dumb and Dumber" movie. ;-)
almost. What they've found is the one thing the universe lacked. Space Orcs. Well they found us, Not our fault. So let the WAAAGH! Begin. mwuhahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha
"Why, do you have something we might want to take?"
"... umh ..."
(Yeah, yeah, lots of breathable atmosphere likely is a major asset to deep-space-faring folk in and of itself. There always is some loss/leakage while you have nothing but hard vacuum around.)
Eh, it depends on technology. Oxygen is plentiful in the universe and not that difficult to extract from compounds if energy is available (and for a spacefaring culture, it is). Same goes for almost any mineral resource.
Now, a planet with a complete working biosphere that can be studied and/or settled... THAT is a treasure trove.
lots of carbon dioxide on venus in atmosphere and enough nitrogen (3.5%) to easily extract. Moon titan, absurdly large amounts of nitrogen, methane and water. So places other than earth as sources, though may take more processing to get rid of radioactive isotopes.
comets are full of ice, and may have lots of nitrogen as ammonium salts, no big gravity well to get out of.
Yeah, the old "here to steal the air trope" nope, Realistically there is exactly NOTHING so special on earth that anything would want to steal it. The closest thing I could think/imagine was the original concept for independence day. The earths core.
His question is on point, if not diplomatic. Why bug around with an alien species that hasn't reached the stars yet? That is a question that needs answering.
The answer, unfortunately, is something Gharr probably can't yet express in a human language.
I'm guessing a combination of pride, idealism, and narcissism.
Would he even put it in those terms? Depends on the level of honesty and self deceit he has playing on his personality, and the clear sightedness to cut through through any veils ideology may impose overtop.
Meh, it shouldn't be that hard - why do humans explore the Marianas Trench? *Because they can*.
That's what "true explorers" do. That's what scientists do.
Of course, there are those who do explore for *other* reasons - the question is blunt, distrustful, poorly worded.... but not truly unwarranted.
I dunno what's to question there. They're explorers. They explore.
Were they even aware there was a sentient species on Earth? I mean, before they arrived in-system?
Nope, it was a complete surprise to them. DB has said that they didn't even count the planets before setting out, because Sol was thousands of light-years from any observatory, and it wasn't worth surveying from that far away when they were already planning to come over for a closer look.
It's also worth noting that stumbling upon a sapient world is ridiculous luck (alliance had surveyed something short of a million star systems, found only 15 extant civilizations, so the actual chance of stumbling upon somebody new is roughly 0.000015%). They could easily select Tau Ceti instead of Sol as the jump target, and then not only the plot of the comic wouldn't happen, Earth could remain undetected for further thousands of years.
Edit: It can even be considered pretty much canon fact that there's undiscovered sapient civilizations within the Alliance territory.
And that's something that needs communication. The assumptions earth-side, is it's rare, or so plentiful it's almost a non-event. Humanity doesn't know which extreme to tack to yet. But the fact the technology is within the same epoch is also a surprising realization.
In my opinion, the human characters that I like least are these three, Dan, Val and Mark, especially Dan.
He has a point but is really a good idea asking that to the potential conqueror to his face?(We the readers know better, but still....)