first contact

[between3and26characterslon]

What if the aliens are giant cockroaches?

 

 

What if they're kittens, you'd irradiate cute little kittens, you bad!

[Leader Bee]

My point was that cockroaches and other insectoid life forms (at least from what we know on earth) have a good resistance to radiation thus rendering even gamma ray flashes ineffective. It's space anyway and theres loads of radiation up there, i'd expect an interstellar ship to be heavily shielded against it in the first place.

[DanielC]

What if the aliens are giant cockroaches?

 

Giant cockroaches, and giant insects as you know them, are not physically possible. But the point you are really trying to make (that some life forms resist radiation better than others) is valid, but then again, even insects, and for that matter anything, can only tolerate certain amounts of radiation, simply because radiation breaks molecular bonds and that's bad for anything made of molecules.

 

Btw, the reason giant insects are not physically possible is due to the fact that the weight of an animal goes with the cube of its size, while its physical strength, and the strength of the skin / shell / exoskeleton only goes with the square of their size. That's why insects can get away with the tiny legs they have, but larger animals like humans have much thicker limbs in comparison to their bodies, and the largest animals, like elephants, have really thick limbs to hold their weight.

[Ophiolite]

Giant cockroaches, and giant insects as you know them, are not physically possible.

.....in a 1g environment. What if the alien cockroaches come from a 0.1g environment?

[DanielC]

.....in a 1g environment. What if the alien cockroaches come from a 0.1g environment?

 

Then there is no atmosphere and any life is probably busy worrying about not being able to breathe. Mars has 0.4g and its atmosphere is 0.6% that of Earth, in spite of having half the solar wind flux.

 

But let's ignore the atmosphere issue. If you lowered gravity to 0.1g you would not get giant cockroaches. The cubic law catches up with you very quickly. How big could you make insects in a 0.1g gravity? about 10 times bigger (cubic / quadratic = linear with gravity). Imagine a cockroach that is 10 times bigger than ours. Yes, it's big, but I can still kill it with my foot. It is not a giant cockroach.

[MRlogic]

Giant cockroaches, and giant insects as you know them, are not physically possible.

 

 

 

 

how dou know,maybe the aliens are insectoid type organism

[Moontanman]

Then there is no atmosphere and any life is probably busy worrying about not being able to breathe. Mars has 0.4g and its atmosphere is 0.6% that of Earth, in spite of having half the solar wind flux.

 

But let's ignore the atmosphere issue. If you lowered gravity to 0.1g you would not get giant cockroaches. The cubic law catches up with you very quickly. How big could you make insects in a 0.1g gravity? about 10 times bigger (cubic / quadratic = linear with gravity). Imagine a cockroach that is 10 times bigger than ours. Yes, it's big, but I can still kill it with my foot. It is not a giant cockroach.

 

 

Yes giant cock roaches are improbable at best, but if arthropods were free of competition by mammals we might see giant arthropods but they wouldn't resemble what we think of as insects. Even the really big arthropods we have now do not resemble insects much.

 

 

 

 

They would have to evolve a better breathing system for sure and have their legs under them like mammals. The exoskeleton would have to evolve some strength for them to get even a fraction of vertebrate size. The cube square law is hard to get around, lol

[AzurePhoenix]

Higher oxygen levels would be suitable in the absence of a more efficient respiratory system, that's what allowed Arthropleura to grow to 8 and a half feet long back in the carboniferous (giant centipede relative), though better lungs would still be ideal. Regardless they definitely wouldn't be the spindly legged things most people imagine if the gravity was anywhere near earth-like, not if they wanted to stand higher off the ground than a centipede, they'd probably be at least as stout and robust as Moon's robber crabs.

 

I sometimes like to imagine intelligent psuedo-dromaeosaurine terrestrial pack-hunting stomatopods with avian respiratory systems hunting us into extinction...

[DanielC]

Yes giant cock roaches are improbable at best, but if arthropods were free of competition by mammals we might see giant arthropods but they wouldn't resemble what we think of as insects. Even the really big arthropods we have now do not resemble insects much.

 

This is correct. There is nothing wrong with having a large arthropod, but its physical proportions would be nothing like an insect with its tiny legs. The pictures you showed are a good example.

 

They would have to evolve a better breathing system for sure and have their legs under them like mammals. The exoskeleton would have to evolve some strength for them to get even a fraction of vertebrate size. The cube square law is hard to get around, lol

 

All true.

[Moontanman]

I wanna pet robber crab! See if they really are interested in shiny objects... They'd be much cooler than a lizard!

[ydoaPs]

I wanna pet robber crab! See if they really are interested in shiny objects... They'd be much cooler than a lizard!

I wonder if you could order them online somewhere.

[Moontanman]

I wonder if you could order them online somewhere.

 

 

I am looking, I did find this...

 

http://news.worldwild.org/strange-living-animals-coconut-crab/

 

The coconut crab is admired for its strength, and it is said that villagers use this animal to guard their coconut plantations. A coconut crab may attack a person if it is threatened. The coconut crab, especially if it is not yet fully grown, is also sold as a pet, for example in Tokyo. The cage must be strong enough that the animal cannot use its powerful claws to escape.

 

and this

 

http://www.tradekey.com/product_view/id/720703.htm

[Airbrush]

Sophisticated technology requires some kind of digital dexterity, such as our opposible thumb.

[MRlogic]

if an alien space ship landed in the middle of time squar, the government would quarantine the area and everyone whom saw it even if it were 1000+ people. they would take the alien and study everything about its anatomy. they would check the ship for any hazard material using level 4 bio suits then take that in for study to learn how it got here. the alien would be alive for study about it in particular then kill it to study inside. this might trigger a conflict but thats how the government would handle it. they wouldnt even consider starting a conflict. all the people that were quarantined would be paid to keep shut and kept under heavy watch b the government for awile.

[Ophiolite]

if an alien space ship landed in the middle of time squar, the government would quarantine the area and everyone whom saw it even if it were 1000+ people. they would take the alien and study everything about its anatomy. they would check the ship for any hazard material using level 4 bio suits then take that in for study to learn how it got here. the alien would be alive for study about it in particular then kill it to study inside. this might trigger a conflict but thats how the government would handle it. they wouldnt even consider starting a conflict. all the people that were quarantined would be paid to keep shut and kept under heavy watch b the government for awile.

And you know all of this, how?

[MRlogic]

in read a lot of books and this was one of the subjects.

 

what do you think they would do if an alien ship landed in time square.

[ydoaPs]

in read a lot of books and this was one of the subjects.

 

what do you think they would do if an alien ship landed in time square.

Probably not something so likely to incite an interstellar war.

[MRlogic]

well depending on the actions we take and the way those aliens would respond might cause a large conflict

[Ophiolite]

in read a lot of books and this was one of the subjects.

So you prefer to believe anything you read in a book even if the idea is wholly speculative and is unsubstantiated by any evidence. A little critical analysis reveals your suggestion as improbable, if not downright silly.

 

what do you think they would do if an alien ship landed in time square.

I don't know. I can proposed some plausible actions that would involve cautious attempts to communicate coupled with a readiness to attack the vessel if its actions came to be deemed hostile. I would anticipate strongly contrary views as to the appropriate action would exist within the government and the final outcome would be determined as much by chance as by rational decision making.

[MRlogic]

the government would assume worst case scenario, they always do

[Ophiolite]

the government would assume worst case scenario, they always do

Demonstrate with specific examples that this is so.

 

Explain how the US military was surprised in December 1941 by the Japanese when they had been aware for almost a decade of the possibility of hostile action by the Japanese. Why did they not assume the worst case scenario and place Honolulu on a war footing?

 

Why, during the Cuban missile crisis did the Kennedy administration not assume that some of the installations were ready for action and thus carry out a pre-emptive strike on Cuba?

 

In short justify your statement that is contradicted by dozens (and probably thousands) of incidents/scenarios, large and small throughout US history.

[Mr Skeptic]

I don't think an alien would randomly decide to land in Times Square. That could be seen as a violation of our airspace and land, and with the potential for starting a conflict (with the ship outnumbered one planet to one ship). I think that the alien would try to communicate from space and ask permission to land or wait for an indication of where to land. Alternately, it could sneak around, both in space and on Earth. If it wanted to attack I suspect it would be via meteoric bombardment.

 

I'd agree with Ophiolite that the governments actions would essentially be random. There's very good reasons both to try to capture the alien and to make peaceful contact with them, and that choice will probably be made by the president.

 

Capture:

The alien's biology and technology become available to us immediately, with no need to negotiate. These are exclusive to us and need not be shared nor even acknowledged to other countries, which would be a huge tactical advantage. More can be learned about the alien's true intentions. However, without the alien's cooperation, the technology would have to be very slowly and carefully reverse engineered with risk of damage or self-destruct, with only the one sample. It would also damage our relations with the alien race and perhaps even provoke a war. Worse, perhaps there is no computer on the ship and it's controlled by the alien and all the data that we expected doesn't exist in a form we could access. And though we could almost certainly defeat the alien, this might provoke it into releasing a bioweapon (if it had one; it would probably be the weapon of choice to use vs a planet). This is a hugely risky choice; we could easily end up with angry aliens and nothing to show for it.

 

Peaceful contact:

Positive relations with the aliens, if they want it, but the same goes for all countries. Possibility of diplomatic relations with a planetfull of advanced aliens, and the trade (in information, properly explained technology, etc) that could go with it. There's a risk that other countries get a bunch of technology which might mess with the current balance of power, which is currently very favorable for the US. Also the alien could provoke a war if it wanted to, either by bribing countries or simply by "graciously" giving technology that shifts the balance of power. Also more chance for the alien to design a more effective bioweapon or gather intel. I think this option would have less risk, but risks of a different sort.

[MRlogic]

Demonstrate with specific examples that this is so.

 

Explain how the US military was surprised in December 1941 by the Japanese when they had been aware for almost a decade of the possibility of hostile action by the Japanese. Why did they not assume the worst case scenario and place Honolulu on a war footing?

 

Why, during the Cuban missile crisis did the Kennedy administration not assume that some of the installations were ready for action and thus carry out a pre-emptive strike on Cuba?

 

In short justify your statement that is contradicted by dozens (and probably thousands) of incidents/scenarios, large and small throughout US history.

 

 

hmm u make a pint but i think it was much more recent like twards the end of the cold war crisis

[MRlogic]

how would the US government respond to an alien landing?

 

 

P.S. im going to see that movie skyline, who is with me

[MRlogic]

Sophisticated technology requires some kind of digital dexterity, such as our opposible thumb.

 

 

and intelligence