From: William Spencer <williamspencer@h...>
Date: Wed, 14 Jun 2000 13:38:36 PDT
Subject: Re: Crowbars, etc.
I just came into the middle of this conversation, but...
I recall that in Heinlein's Starship Troopers (and other stories by other
people), they explained that the mobile infantry were the arm of
restraint -
sure, you could pulverize the planet from orbit, but if you want the industry
intact, or to teach the population a lesson (but not eliminate them), or
whatever, you send in the marines.
You'd also have to send troops down to make SURE that you got all the aliens
after nuking the planet (and to clean out those aggravating bomb shelters
under mountains), unless you've got really good sensors.
Now, I suppose if it was all-out war between two completely hostile
races, you'd never bother to land on the planet. Example: E.E. Smith's Lensmen
series - the Patrol and the Boskonians were fanatics for their causes.
They
would never surrender, and could not co-exist - they HAD to eliminate
each other. Thus, such entertaining weapons as mobile planets, sunbeams, and
transpacial tubes into the heart of important installations were used with
abandon. And if you vaporize a planet's ecosystem, no worries - you
probably
have matter-energy conversion by now, so terraforming can be done
quickly.
But if you postulate a slightly lower tech level, with usable planets harder
to find, you REALLY don't want to pulverize the planets you need to capture.
You want the eco-system intact, and (preferably) at least some of the
planet's inhabitants alive. The Pfhor, from Bungie's Marathon series are an
example of this; a race of intergalactic slavers, their m.o. is to zap the
defenses, capture as many people as they can (by going down on foot), then
turning the rest into "sub-atomic salsa". In emergencies (like, if your
species is surprisingly tough), they can make your sun go nova and get rid of
a potential threat, but when they go to get the slaves they need to go in on
foot. And if you're too tough to attack, they try to sell you some of
their wares...
But that leads us back to the conversation of some months ago, debating
whether space battles were even feasible...if you set your technological
level too low, ground actions become more necessary, but also more
expensive...ah, trade offs, trade offs.
Also, if your aliens are suspiciously human-like, instead of actually
ALIEN aliens ("Wow, you look just like us humans." "Yes, but we, uh, have pure
green blood, not tainted red blood!" "You even speak flawless English!"
"Uh...universal translator, yeah, that's it..."), they may want to take over
and rule the planet instead of destroy it. Enslave the men, rape the women,
educate the children in their own ways, destroy the old gods and put up their
own, and all that. The usual conquests and raids familiar to Earth
history, just taken into space.
I'll be quiet now.
Date: Wed, 14 Jun 2000 06:35:27 -0400
Subject: Re: Crowbars
> >On this note, I was thinking of a way to have an alien race
Anyway,
> the
> I read a novel a few years back (don't remember title) in which
Out of print but I really reccomend this book. The gist of it was in the Three
Laws of Alien Interaction.
[1] Wimps don't get to be the top species on a planet.
[2] Aliens will consider their survival to be more important
than our survival.
[4] Aliens will assume that the first two laws apply to us
as well. If you discover an new alien race, there is a chance that they will
destroy your own species. What sort of chance of species death are you willing
to risk? One percent? Point five percent? Remember, your entire race is at
stake. The logical answer is zero percent. If you can destroy the newly
discovered race, do so. This would explain the Fermi Paradox. All the other
races are either extinct or hiding.