One of the most commonly used tropes in science fiction is that of the notion of an alien invasion. Hundreds of variations on this theme have been written over the years, typically focusing on us having something that is useful enough for aliens to expend the time and energy conquering earth. While all of this makes for a good story, it doesn’t make for a good reality. After all, this planet has been here for 4.5billion years and does not appear to have ever been invaded. Why that is is anyone’s guess, but here are ten possible reasons why aliens might not invade earth.
10.
The Galaxy has nothing but room everywhere we look in the Milky Way we see star after star to the tune of billions and so far no one, other than our own solar system, has ever been shown to be inhabited by a civilization. Some of them may yet be, but we see no evidence of Kardashev type III galactic empires presenting this, or any other galaxy. In fact, so far, we have yet to see even aKardashev Type II civilization. This could change, but the one thing that can be said is that there appear to be millions of stars that are not being used for anything. Great nebulas rich in raw materials are not rare but seem to only be forming stars rather than being harvested by someone. Often in science fiction, raw materials are used as a justification for invasion. But in the great scheme of things, there appears to be no one picking the low hanging fruit much less looking at relatively sparse sources of raw materials such as our star system.
9.
We don’t make for good Slaves another common theme found in science fictionalised invasions is a desire for slave labour. This is not without precedent, a number of human cultures have employed it. But those cultures also were dealing with primitive technologies and required human labour. The problem is, biological human labour willsome day go obsolete. It already is in our world as technological unemployment increasingly becomes a problem. Simply put, robots can be better at it almost anything we do, if they become advanced enough. Any civilization in the galaxy capable of long-distance space travel and the technologies implied by it would likely have robotics so advanced that no biological labour at all would be needed. And besides, as long as you keep the technology under control and don’t go all crazy with artificial intelligence, mindless robots will never revolt. Humans would every chance we could make useless to the aliens.
8.
Our Planet is Fundamentally UselessYet another common theme within invasion sci-fi is the idea that earth, or we, have something alien civilization wants. This could be something like water or even information, and they invade to get it from us. Trouble is, we don’t have much of anything. Earth is nothing special, it’s made up of the same materials that we see out in the galaxy at large. Immense quantities of water exist in the universe, both in frozen and liquid form. In fact, it appears to be common in our own solar system, you see it almost everywhere. It’s much the same for information. What could we tell the aliens that they didn’t already know or couldn’t learn on their own? The truth is, not much. About the only information, we have unique to ourselves is information about ourselves. It’s highly unlikely that an alien civilization would expend invasion level resources on finding out what a potato chip is.
7.
We Are Very Likely Not TastySpeaking of foods, take a look at your planet. Surrounding you are millions of species, from bacteria to plants to animals. Now, ask yourself. How many of them would you eat? Out of all life on this planet, we eat the only a comparative handful of species. Many are fundamentally unpalatable, such as almost plants, but many are outright poisonous causing anything from intestinal discomfort to death. Now imagine an alien species with radically different biochemistry. They would have evolved on a world eating flora and fauna unique to that planet. It’s unlikely that anything here, or anything they might have, would be appealing to either species and there’s no guarantee that they even eat in the same way we do. Life here doesn’t always, so the idea of aliens eating us is a hard sell in the much the same way as an oak tree munching on pineapples would be. And, we might even be poisonous.
6.
Our Genetics Aren’t UsefulAnother culturally pervasive notion is that mating with an alien. From Captain Kirk’s green lady to The Alien’sxenomorph face huggers using us as a reproductive resource, there are many takes on this idea. But in reality, genetics doesn’t really work that simply. The vast majority of species on earth can reproduce with each other despite being related, there are no jelly-fish bonobo hybrids slithering about. And while parasitic types of reproduction occur, yay for the xenomorphs, that using a host as grounds for reproduction, not reproduction with a mate. Genetic compatibility with a species you have zero relation to, something truly alien from another world, would be so unlikely that lottery odds are better. But even if there was compatibility, would there be an attraction? Kirk’s green lady was a human in green makeup, remember. Alien life would be alien and might be about as attractive as kissing a face hugger. But there’s an even deeper problem hiding within this. Each day we learn more about genetics and DNA. While we don’t yet know everything, there will come a time when we have a full command of that science. It’s likely that an alien species capable of space travel would have that as well. Even if they didn’t have DNA of their own, which is unlikely, it’s still just a matter of chemistry. As a result, they could probably do whatever they wanted with genetics, possibly building DNA strands from the ground up to build any kind of programmable creature they wish. If so, what use would they have for our natural and rather messy DNA?
5.
The Human and the contents usually go unnoticed. Unless they bother us, we pass by their dwellings and rarely pay them any mind. Even less do we stop and speak to them. Only a scientist studying ants would take the further interest, but even then they typically don't plant a flag in the ant hill and declare themselves the new queen. We have to consider that aliens may have no interest in us at all. For anything. They may be a billion years more advanced and messing around with us might be no different than junking your idea for a Caribbean cruise in favour of trekking to a plain in Africa to study one specific ant hill that you once saw a picture of that may or may not even still be there. In short, why would you invade an ant hill?
4.
We’re More Interesting Alive Than DeadOr says they are interested. Say they are consummate scientists and historians interested in all aspects of alien cultures. This isn’t unreasonable, we certainly would be. And, well, have to say it, an alien ant hill would still be extremely interesting to us to the point that we would go to great lengths to study it. But what we likely wouldn’t do is willfully exterminate it in order to study it. Such things happen on earth, but for very different reasons than scientific curiosity. As a result, the scholar aliens probably would not declare themselves our overlords and planta flag in our cosmic ant hill, but instead, they might just show up, enter orbit and tell us not to mind them, they just want to watch us. With cameras everywhere.24 hours a day. For millions of years.
3.
It’s Not Worth It, Given the DistancesThe universe, is enormous in a way that can really be visualized in terms of earth travel. You can say that Alpha Centauri is 25 trillion miles away, or about 40 trillion kilometres, but it’s hard to visualize just how far that is. If you shrink the scales down and make earth the size of a grain of sand, that star is still several thousand miles away. That’s still extremely close in terms of the rest of the galaxy, so needless to say the distances involved for interstellar travel at sublight speeds are daunting and limiting. This works the same whether you are an exploration craft or an alien invasion force. The logistics of moving around the assets you need on those distance scales and the time involved changing the equations for whether you would invade and conquer a planet. With enough distance, no planet is worth it, especially when you consider that such distances also prevent you from anything close to realtime reconnaissance until you get close by. In other words, what you saw as a primitive civilization from the deck of your fleet flagship1500 years before you reached your target could well have developed advanced weaponry and technology by the time you were finally proximity to invade. That uncertainty would make any such expensive undertakings likely not feasible.
2.
We are Already Obviously and Flagrantly dangerous fi often depicts us as woefully unprepared for an alien invasion once it happens, but often the writers of that kind of sci-fi have to essentially tone down or negate the weapons we do have, most typically giving the alien shields that can withstand nuclear weapons. Little attention is paid to just how those shields function, and there really isn’t much of a basis for such a strong yet invisible shield of this type in science. But look at our weaponry in terms of sci-fi. If I were to tell you a story about an interstellar war where one side possessed weapons that had the effect of recreating a piece of a star right next to a space ship, you would assume that the ship would be destroyed. But, that’s more or less what a hydrogen bomb is, an advanced nuclear fusion device designed specifically to destroy something. While bigger bombs can be envisioned, thefact that we have H-bombs at all, and as acivilization achieved that technology so earlymeans that anyone else in the galaxy probablyhas them too, and that may be enough to keepotherwise hostile alien civilizations frommessing with us or anyone else. And, there’s more reason to think this thansimply blowing up the alien’s flagship. At sub-light speeds, we’re probably goingto detect a giant invasion fleet well beforeit gets close. But even if we don’t, if for some reasonwe don’t think we can target the alienswith a nuke or don’t have time, we can stilltarget ourselves with a full global thermonuclearexchange and go out in a blaze of glory andpoison the planet for the invaders. Such a thing could be arranged very quicklyon this world, minutes, on the orders of only handfuls of world leaders.
1.
Earth Itself Could Be Deadly Poisonous toBiological AliensThe biggest improbability in sci fi regardingalien invasions is that aliens could standaround on earth without a spacesuit. You can’t do that anywhere in this solarsystem other than earth. Same for any exoplanet we yet know of. Stand on Mars wearing little but a tee shirtyou are soon dead. The surface of Venus is way worse. In fact, you can’t even breathe in Earth’sown oceans without technology and fish likewisecan’t usually breathe the atmosphere. And even if you could breathe Mars’ atmosphere,you’re still dead from the sun’s unbridledradiation pretty quickly. And then there is the much lower atmosphericpressure. Point is, the universe is mostly deadly toyou anywhere except your home planet and thesame is likely true for aliens. But it gets worse. Your own planet in the past has been hospitableto life itself, but deadly for you. Go into the far future and it will be deadlyagain. You can only exist on your home planet undernatural circumstances for so long. While it’s hard to envision intelligentlife existing on anything but oxygen, thereare few chemical alternatives to run largebrains, the oxygen levels of atmospheres couldvary wildly, along with the other gases present. In short, Earth probably wouldn’t have the right mix for an alien to breathe, which wouldmake this planet virtually useless for conquestand colonization. So that’s ten reasons why real world extraterrestrialswould not invade earth. So you can sleep well tonight knowing thattomorrow you probably won’t wake up to yournew alien overlords. Unfortunately, there is another side to thiscoin, so expect a future video detailing tenreasons aliens might invade.
Comments
Post a Comment