New efforts!

[Ohioknight]

If someone has a weird idea like aliens built the pyramids, its up to the promoters of that idea to build an evidence-based case to demonstrate its plausibility.  No one has come remotely close to finding the zip code the bar sits in, much less reach and surmount it.

...We can sit around in the western world and speculate about how there's no way "primitive" people could build the pyramids, but the actual descendents of those people are still alive today and still live in the area.  To most Egyptians, say, I would think that notion that their ancestors were obviously too stupid and primitive to have built one of their ancestral legacies would be highly insulting.  That would be like if the entire eastern world constantly speculated on whether aliens build Washington's Monument because its so obvious lazy Americans couldn't possible have got off the couch long enough to even draw the blueprints for it.

_{I would dispute the term "western world", though it's common... the "western" world hasn't been "western" for 100 years now.  Personally, I prefer "published world", since the creation of publication -- printing press with small character alphabet -- created what we sometimes call the "western" world because it started in Europe and enabled the conquest of the rest of the world -- but that's off the point}

And in the specific case of the great Pyramids, it's comical because we know almost as much about their construction as we do about the construction of the Empire State Building... there's no mystery there -- there's the entire progression of pyramids from the simple block tombs through the stacked early models all the way to the Great ones... The transport roads are still there, the ramps, heck, there are still partially carved blocks in the quarries for crissake!

[MWRuger]

_{I would dispute the term "western world", though it's common... the "western" world hasn't been "western" for 100 years now.  Personally, I prefer "published world", since the creation of publication -- printing press with small character alphabet -- created what we sometimes call the "western" world because it started in Europe and enabled the conquest of the rest of the world -- but that's off the point}

And in the specific case of the great Pyramids, it's comical because we know almost as much about their construction as we do about the construction of the Empire State Building... there's no mystery there -- there's the entire progression of pyramids from the simple block tombs through the stacked early models all the way to the Great ones... The transport roads are still there, the ramps, heck, there are still partially carved blocks in the quarries for crissake!

Exactly. I'm an actual historian and it always upsets me when this kind of thing comes up. Generations of scholars, many of them too obscure to be general knowledge, who have painstakingly tried to piece together what happened and how.

Sure, there are many, many things we do not know. Many things we may never know. But ultimately we go where the evidence takes us. We disagree, but when we do we keep looking until the preponderance of the tells us the most likely conclusion. That's the way it remains until some new evidence comes along that makes a re-evaluation necessary. Gibbon's Rise and Fall falls into this category. It's essential theory has been disproved (although it is still a great book). although it does show what personal bias can do.

A modern example of this is the theory that Roosevelt knew about Pearl Harbor and concealed that knowledge. This is a theory advocated by Historian John Toland in his book Day of Infamy. Other historians looked and advanced counter arguments. In the end, they came down on the side of lack of evidence that his theory did not match the facts that could be proven. He simply didn't have any direct connecting link between the evidence he offered and the President.

But that is the way historians approach things like this. It's dead boring to non historians because you have to read a lot of relatively dry material,be an expert in the area being discussed, and in many cases dig through whatever records and accounts remain and vet them for accuracy.

By the way, writing too much is another thing historians do as well. Sorry about that.

[darkgob]

All I know about this backwards-compatibility stuff is that, when Microsquish decided for me that I no longer needed a pure DOS environment, and started phasing it out, my DOS programs/games ultimately fell by the wayside, because I had no idea how to deal with their need for the user to allocate extended and expanded memory. I was (and still am) completely lost as to how to handle that for running, say, Wing Commander: Privateer in a DOS window. I'd install the game, the instructions would say to allocate X amount of one or the other, and that'd be where I was blocked. (I seem to recall that it was one of them - either extended or expanded - in particular that you had to manually allocate enough memory for.) If I ever got any of them to work, I don't remember doing so; even the allegedly-Windows-compatible versions failed. And I'm still steamed that I never got to finish my Privateer career. (Petty, I know, but there it is.)

Try DOSBox.

[Rejolt]

What the hell did I walk into?! It's walls of text and old movie suspensions of disbelief! Cats and Burritos living together!

This is madness!

(ahem). Carry on. In other news: I just put the VO launcher on my PC. Fingers crossed I get to play it soon. Eventually flying around one city and a sewer is going to make me real sad when CoH had 8+ years of content to buzz around in.

[Taceus Jiwede]

Neil Tyson is fond of pointing out that any resource they would want could be found in abundance on their way here - with no conflict required to get it.

I've always thought the more likely scenario for an alien invasion would be a religious compulsion to impose their belief system on other intelligent beings.

Oh hey that's a good thought actually.  I think the same thing in terms of resources being moot just because when we discuss the kind of aliens that can just casually zoom around the galaxy we are assuming they have technology and understanding that we can't even fathom.  A species that can either A) Defy the speed of light or B)Live for hundreds of thousands of years, as well as safely make it around space(Not as easy as it sounds).  A species like that would have agenda's beyond resources.  You can't get to that point unless you learn to either create your own resoruces, or already have an abundance.

However I SUPPOSE a species hellbent on becoming the most intelligent and powerful species they can be would harvest massive amounts of resources.  And therefore could force them move planet to planet consuming their resources to further their pursuit of power.  I just feel like resources would have to be addressed before galactic travel could be achieved.

[LaughingAlex]

Oh hey that's a good thought actually.  I think the same thing in terms of resources being moot just because when we discuss the kind of aliens that can just casually zoom around the galaxy we are assuming they have technology and understanding that we can't even fathom.  A species that can either A) Defy the speed of light or B)Live for hundreds of thousands of years, as well as safely make it around space(Not as easy as it sounds).  A species like that would have agenda's beyond resources.  You can't get to that point unless you learn to either create your own resoruces, or already have an abundance.

However I SUPPOSE a species hellbent on becoming the most intelligent and powerful species they can be would harvest massive amounts of resources.  And therefore could force them move planet to planet consuming their resources to further their pursuit of power.  I just feel like resources would have to be addressed before galactic travel could be achieved.

I agree with you wholly on the resources issue.  It's a main aspect I use to deconstruct how my characters are roleplayed and a good number of the backgrounds.  A number of them are a species of aliens, and come from a split, fractured empire that had spanned hundreds of star systems.  I don't want to go into to many details, but it's in many ways a deconstruction of what'd happen to such an empire.  I have other deconstructions in mind but it's the overall plot of the AE archs I was designing, given that it was a multi-part mission arch.

[Joshex]

So basically to sum things up, Aliens don't want or need anything in particular from earth.

That also goes along with my theory, the only reason they come at all is probably to document lower intelligence as if we are some endangered species. I suppose that's better than the plague of the universe, but then again it could be both a documentation process and a containment process.

seriously we've never tried to leave our solar system on a manned expedition. That would probably set-off alien red alerts if there are any aliens. "Oh no! the Humans!! they are leaving their solar system heading to the rest of the universe Quick we need to do something!" *force-fields erected around our solar system*

[Felderburg]

Tools that support survival would come first.  Sharp objects, blunt objects, projectiles, houses, and walls.
...
I could keep going but the point is I doubt any species as intelligent as us, or even more intelligent didn't get a little dirt under the nails to get where they are.  Unless they lived on a giant planet, with non-hostile animals, seemingly endless materials, and all of their species evolved in one place and never traveled out so they grew and expanded together.

Unless they're a horta. Reading through your post, about needing walls, and tools, and all that... doesn't apply to a horta.  :P

I've always thought the more likely scenario for an alien invasion would be a religious compulsion to impose their belief system on other intelligent beings.

Oh, well that's good. Means we won't all die. In fact, the goal would be for us not to die.

I'm not super informed on the availability of different resources across the Cosmos, but perhaps they're looking for water-rich planets?

Well, based on the evidence in the movie Signs (SPOILERS) the aliens there were actually the dumbest of their species, sent to "collect specimens," but really the rest of their "buddies" were trying to get rid of them by sending them to a water-rich planet.

We rebelled and as a result we were "kicked out of the garden of Eden".

Flaming sword = LASER BEAM!

*force-fields erected around our solar system*

This is the plot to a book I saw at the bookstore. I may actually buy it some day. (The shield around the solar system is the initial start of the plot, the back cover blurb doesn't tell us anything about its nature.) (Also worth noting it is not the Walter John Williams Metropolitan & City on Fire pair of books, which are super duper good and also involve a world with a barrier constructed around it.)

[Mistress Urd]

So basically to sum things up, Aliens don't want or need anything in particular from earth.

That also goes along with my theory, the only reason they come at all is probably to document lower intelligence as if we are some endangered species. I suppose that's better than the plague of the universe, but then again it could be both a documentation process and a containment process.

seriously we've never tried to leave our solar system on a manned expedition. That would probably set-off alien red alerts if there are any aliens. "Oh no! the Humans!! they are leaving their solar system heading to the rest of the universe Quick we need to do something!" *force-fields erected around our solar system*

Heck, we haven't done a manned mission to Mars yet. its been what, 42 years since we landed people on the moon.

Actually, Mars might be the only other planet in our solar system we would land people on. Venus is not a pleasant place to be. Mercury is not an easy place to land and solar radiation is rather intense. The Gas giants don't have a surface to land on.

[Reaper]

Well, based on the evidence in the movie Signs (SPOILERS) the aliens there were actually the dumbest of their species, sent to "collect specimens," but really the rest of their "buddies" were trying to get rid of them by sending them to a water-rich planet.

Yeah, I always had a problem with that as well.  Why would you come to a planet that is so obviously filled with the one thing that can kill you?  I like your theory though.  They must not have been the smartest peanuts in the turd.

[Ohioknight]

This is the plot to a book I saw at the bookstore. I may actually buy it some day. (The shield around the solar system is the initial start of the plot, the back cover blurb doesn't tell us anything about its nature.) (Also worth noting it is not the Walter John Williams Metropolitan & City on Fire pair of books, which are super duper good and also involve a world with a barrier constructed around it.)

Yeah the blocked-off solar system is one variation of the "cosmic zoo" hypothesis -- one of the standard proposed solutions to the Fermi Paradox ("Where IS everybody")

I don't personally buy it because we're still not seeing any indications of technological activity anywhere with any of the ways we're looking.

Absence of evidence isn't evidence of absence... BUT.  We can confidently say at this point that we are NOT living in the Star Trek universe.  Over billions of years nobody has left obvious indications of any form of technological activity anywhere we've looked.  Klingons aren't buzzing through here every few years (or millenia) to target practice asteroids.

When you look at the emergence of Technology on Earth, we've had 300 million years or so with EVERYTHING needed to create a technological intelligence -- about 1/15th of the total life of the planet, about 1 45th of the total life of the universe, with THOUSANDS of ecological regions and millions of species and even with the dominance of mammals, we saw symbolic information storage explode (leading to technology) ONCE in ONE ecosystem, with absolutely no indication that it would have gotten going at all if one minor sub-group of the apes had died off.

I think we're looking, not only at something that is very rare in its occurrence, but something that, as it progresses, goes commonly down a different pathway than our ideas about creatures in spaceships.  All joking aside, I suspect that non-biological microscopic embodiment of some kind is too attractive to advanced technology -- biological bodies are just too limited.

[Battlechimp]

Yeah, I always had a problem with that as well.  Why would you come to a planet that is so obviously filled with the one thing that can kill you?  I like your theory though.  They must not have been the smartest peanuts in the turd.

For Signs, that's not the part that bugs me.  If you're looking for a living species you go to where they are.  If that means going to a planet filled with water when it can harm you, that's where you have to go.   If you're looking for fish you don't go checking out the trees.

The problem with Signs is that they go to a planet covered with a substance that can kill them and they go down naked!  They can cross instersteller distances but they can't figure out a way to cover their bodies?  Or work a door knob. 

Water soluble aliens coming to a planet covered with water isn't the worst of the WTF things with that movie

[Kaos Arcanna]

For Signs, that's not the part that bugs me.  If you're looking for a living species you go to where they are.  If that means going to a planet filled with water when it can harm you, that's where you have to go.   If you're looking for fish you don't go checking out the trees.

The problem with Signs is that they go to a planet covered with a substance that can kill them and they go down naked!  They can cross instersteller distances but they can't figure out a way to cover their bodies?  Or work a door knob. 

Water soluble aliens coming to a planet covered with water isn't the worst of the WTF things with that movie

Klingon voice: "Clothes are without honor! And only a coward uses a doorknob!"

:D

[SemanticAntics]

[...] our knowledge of history is an educated guess based on evidence (not proof) [...]

Whenever someone says this, I feel the need to ask them: what qualifies as proof? What is merely evidence? Where is that line?

As far as the rest of it, I don't know. Ancient astronauts? Maybe. I think not, but this world has been around for quite a while. Who knows what it has seen?


So it seems water is super abundant in the universe. I thought it might be (hydrogen and oxygen are pretty common, after all), but I couldn't remember any reports of water-rich, Earth-like planets off hand. Good to know.

Still, if aliens are coming to Earth and making that huge journey, there must be something they want here. Maybe that something isn't exclusively here, but maybe we're just "next on the list" for the ID4, Signs, and War of the Worlds crowd of aliens. I mean, look at Doctor Who: Not only is Earth getting invaded every other month, but most of the time these invasions focus on the London area. Maybe aliens just like English accents?

Something we have is attracting attention, at least in fiction.

[Taceus Jiwede]

Something we have is attracting attention, at least in fiction.

What else is there to do after mastering space travel. That and Commander Shepard.

[Zombie Hustler]

The notion that scientists, archeologists, and historians are all just guessing belies a gross misunderstanding of the incremental progress those fields make over decades and centuries of work across thousands of different investigators.

The mere fact that all of those various people often, regularly, and repeatedly come into conflict with one another over their theories, and that things that were previously believed to be true (and taught in schools) but are now no longer so also speaks to this.

History (much like all other forms of human knowledge) is an ever evolving, ever changing advancement of what we know, and test, and demonstrate to be true with the resources we have available. It is never this monolithic "right or wrong" that many of the fringe and conspiracy theorists and others often portray it as in an effort to promote their own ideas at the expense of doing their own evidentiary research.

[FloatingFatMan]

I've always thought the more likely scenario for an alien invasion would be a religious compulsion to impose their belief system on other intelligent beings.

Just because a certain percentage of humans are completely insane, doesn't mean alien's will be.  If anything, they'll be advanced enough to not still be stuck in the religion trap.

[Sinistar]

Heck, we haven't done a manned mission to Mars yet. its been what, 42 years since we landed people on the moon.

Actually, Mars might be the only other planet in our solar system we would land people on. Venus is not a pleasant place to be. Mercury is not an easy place to land and solar radiation is rather intense. The Gas giants don't have a surface to land on.

Some of the moons of Saturn or Jupiter may be able to be landed on, but I doubt it.  Mars is our only good chance for colonization within the solar system.

Also a quote to remember from Season 1 of Babylon 5:
"Ask ten different scientists about the environment, population control, genetics and you'll get ten different answers, but there's one thing every scientist on the planet agrees on. Whether it happens in a hundred years or a thousand years or a million years, eventually our Sun will grow cold and go out. When that happens, it won't just take us. It'll take Marilyn Monroe and Lao-Tzu, Einstein, Morobuto, Buddy Holly, Aristophanes .. and all of this .. all of this was for nothing unless we go to the stars." "

[BraveStar]

No... the aliens are cats and they are already among us.

https://38.media.tumblr.com/23e4c5d599471bb56dae3d6dad1fb2ae/tumblr_msbqis9JCa1rotk4lo6_250.gif

Not cats; mice. The aliens are mice.

https://images.weserv.nl/?url=www.smallport.com%2Fimages%2Ffunny%2Fmice.jpg

[Aggelakis]

That mouse/alien on the left has serious derp-face.