Why are aliens always more advanced than us??
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UberNoodle — 15 years ago(December 03, 2010 08:27 PM)
So what? Proxima Centauri is the closest star at only 4 light years away.
Or, only 4 years from Proxima Centauri. [to travel to earth]
Or, while Bush was president. [the time it would take to develop LS tech]
Well, at least 4 years longer. [the age of this civilisation]
Fair enough assertions but does that star support life? Is that life of a level of civilisation and development sufficient enough to have discovered LS technology "white Bush was President"? Is that civilisation capable of applying that technology to a war effort against Earth, a planet they may not even be much aware of? Does that civilisation even have the resources or geopolitical factors required to create even a couple of LS craft appropriate for such a purpose? Additionally, there are more factors involved other than technology and will. Does this alien civilisation possess the cultural cohesiveness required to become first a Planetary civilisation, then a Solar one, and then beyond? We humans have not even truly become planetary, in the sense that by that definition we should have reached a level of unity, cohesiveness and technology which we do not yet possess. It is unlikely that we will leave our solar system in any meaningful way until we acheive that step first.
The Voyager 1 spacecraft, launched on Sept. 5, 1977, is 11 billion miles away
from the sun, and is using no energy at all, other than inertia ( read: no
energy )
And unless it can exert the same energy against that intertia, it can't stop. The Voyager is also not a craft capable of transporting and supporting an invasion force. Besides, could an invasion force maintain lightspeed for 'at least four years' and all that that may require, without consuming a lot of energy resources of all kinds? How much energy is needed for just invading the next nation on Earth?
The Helios missions to the Sun both reached a velocity of 153,800 mph
Which is not light speed, which is what the poster was clearly referring to. No matter how fast Helios was, it is not the speed of light and far from such technology. The poster's point was that we humans are far from the mark required to invade another solar system, let alone send people far into our own. Weren't you asserting that an alien invasion need only require a minimum of 4 years? Helios' speeds are therefore unimportant. Are we four years away from large scale LS travel?
Why not? I want to see some more wrong information from you.
And are theories about worm-holes TRUE information? Such simplistic thinking is contrary to what science is all about. Only last week, NASA found new life that threw out a certain definition many poeple may have considered "true" and not "wrong".
Destruction by the fusion reaction of a nuclear warhead is not a "created
weakness". It's a fact.
Fair enough, but the poster was speaking in generalities towards the genre, not just this film. So, since you've taken your "hair-splitting" tact, thats "one down, several thousand to go" for you.
Well, not unless we had nuclear warheads. [about aliens being no threat]
Thank god ants don't have nuclear weapons.
You used the "why not?" argument above, so accept it here. If a race is capable of sending an invasion force at the speed of light to the Earth, especially after (this is your assertion) just inventing the technology recently; and if that society is advanced enough in all the other areas required for such a journey and pupose (and to enable it to happen in the first place) - WHY NOT allow them to have a means to repell most attacks, even nuclear warheads? -
Promontorium — 14 years ago(May 08, 2011 11:50 PM)
Your smartass retort got stupid when you tried to suggest an invasion force travelling light speed wouldn't need any more energy than a drifting satellite.
The WHOLE ISSUE is light speed energy. Voyager is a drifting can of metal.
That's like comparing the energy of a drifting newly hatched spiderling with our completion of the international space station, it's moronic. For an alien race to get here, even 1 light year away, it would take far superior technology than our own. -
king_of_bob — 14 years ago(August 28, 2011 07:40 PM)
How sad that rather than address the factual rebuttals to your asinine post you chose instead to resort to school yard insults.
Prof. Farnsworth: Oh. A lesson in not changing history from Mr. I'm-My-Own-Grandpa! -
king_of_bob — 14 years ago(August 28, 2011 07:36 PM)
So what? Proxima Centauri is the closest star at only 4 light years away.
So traveling at the speed of light, it would still take them 4 years. Think about how long it would take us considering our fastest ship doesn't even travel a decent fraction of the speed of light.
Or, only 4 years from Proxima Centauri.
Once again, MUCH farther and faster than we can currently travel.
4 years?
4 years is a very long time when you consider they would have to take everything they were going to need for the trip with them to begin with.
The Voyager 1 spacecraft, launched on Sept. 5, 1977, is 11 billion miles away from the sun, and is using no energy at all, other than inertia ( read: no energy )
It's traveled 11 billion miles in 34 years. A light year is about 6 TRILLION miles. So in 34 years, it's hardly made a dent in it's first light year.
The Helios missions to the Sun both reached a velocity of 153,800 mph.
Irrelevant. This is still incredibly slow if you want to travel between stars. The speed of light is about 186,282 miles per second.
Prof. Farnsworth: Oh. A lesson in not changing history from Mr. I'm-My-Own-Grandpa! -
lokis_angels — 11 years ago(January 06, 2015 01:59 PM)
Who are you (or anyone) to tell them aliens what technology they can or cannot have? Just the fact we can't do these things doesn't mean nobody can.
I actually liked the fact nothing of this is being explained. It's like "we're here, deal with it."
I also likes the fact the aliens needed our brains to operate, though I am a bit stuck on how that works. Obviously a new brain is no biggie, just when Jarrod gets used, he's able to think for himself and in favour of his girl, in fact an enemy. Maybe because he had looked at them twice or something. -
zender8584 — 14 years ago(September 22, 2011 04:26 PM)
Actually, if they are able to fly at near the speed of light, they don't need to bring nearly 4 years of supplies to go 4 light years as measured at the home planet. True, 4 LY would pass at their home planet, but in their frame of reference, spacetime would be compressed.
No evidence (to date) that Proxima Centauri has gas giants (or terrestrial planets for that matter). It's possible, though not certain, that you need a gas giant in a solar system to evolve intelligent life if it is to evolve on a terrestrial planet otherwise the constant bombardment by debris will reset the evolutionary clock too often.
But, my gut feeling is that interstellar travel, if it is possible, will not be straight lines through spacetime as we currently concieve it, but some technology which we haven't even thought of that allows shortcuts. Whether you call that wormholes, or white holes or whatever. Sadly, none of us will be alive to ever find out. -
fluffchop — 11 years ago(March 06, 2015 04:04 AM)
I think you're uneducated. A light year is the DISTANCE light travels in one Earth year. Time isn't compressed?!?!?! 4 Lights years don't pass?!?!?! at their home planet? A ship travelling a DISTANCE of 4 light years at the speed of light takes 4 years.
Until a unified field theory is decided upon, not one with string theory or loop quantum gravity, we will never know how to overcome gravity.
Magnetism and Electricity are inexorably linked. Gravity and mass are linked by light which behaves both as waves and particles.
What is the mass of light if it travels at the speed of light? Ok so light from a 25watt light globe has how much energy?
It must be that one can travel at any speed without requiring infinite energy. We just don't understand gravity yet, or it's opposing force. It has to be there. We just can't see it.
This movie blows by the way. Utter crap, a waste of time watching it. I'm sure the directors think they're the Wachowski brothers with this crap. Oh look honey, they went for an open ended ending so they can have a sequel that nobody wants.
Scientologists love Narnia, there's plenty of closet space. -
Taylorfirst1 — 15 years ago(November 19, 2010 08:03 AM)
At least in this movie, the aliens did not have super impenetrable shields. That cliche has been done since at least "Earth vs. the Flying Saucers". The makers of this movie got slightly more creative giving the aliens self repair abilities and overwhelming numbers. It was nice to see some of the alien drones get taken out during the battle, made it a little more exciting. Still a B-movie though.
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howard_w13 — 15 years ago(November 19, 2010 10:18 AM)
The way I see it; they're probably observing us from afar. If they have the technology to travel here; wouldn't it be safe to assume that they also possess the means to watch us? Besides; it would kinda stupid for them to travel all the way here to this planet with no clue as to what expect.
Either way; I still can't over the lack of creativity in this story.
The movie has a plot hole?!?
EVERY FRIGGIN' MOVIE HAS A FRIGGIN' PLOT HOLE!!!!! (_) -
UberNoodle — 15 years ago(December 03, 2010 08:40 PM)
How could they oberve us unless they have a kind of spy network already in place here, or have sent probes. Otherwise, they'd need some kind device capable of seeing Earth in sufficient detail from light years away. How would those probes or spys get the information back to the home planet? Physical transport could take years, even at the speed of light. A broadcast would require focus and power that could be easily percieved and intercepted by "Earthlings". Otherwise, a broadcast is also slow. If anything, such data could be years or even decades out of date, or more actually. Perhaps they have technology to bend space and time.
That these factors are overcome with ease, would be more of a stretch than lightspeed travel.
And for all we know, the ships were generation ships, travel sub-light speed, in search of a new home. In such a case they may have indeed set forth with little knowledge of where they may end up. That's what humans will do when we leave the solar system, and we have done it also in countless SF stories. -
king_of_bob — 14 years ago(August 28, 2011 07:42 PM)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Von_Neumann_probe#Von_Neumann_probes
Prof. Farnsworth: Oh. A lesson in not changing history from Mr. I'm-My-Own-Grandpa! -
darkside2501 — 15 years ago(November 21, 2010 08:02 PM)
Because they made it here to begin with.
Also, there are plenty of movies/series where aliens are not more advanced technologically than humans:
-Star Trek
-Invasion of the Body Snatchers
-Avatar
-Starship Troopers -
spam-1164 — 15 years ago(December 05, 2010 01:55 AM)
As evidenced by your list, technological advancement is not the only kind. In Star Trek we humans were actually far far behind the other races in terms of technology when first contact occurred with the Vulcans. In Invasion Of The Body Snatchers the aliens possessed superior methods of control due to their very nature. In Avatar the natural fauna (and, to some extent, the flora) of the planet gave the aliens an edge in the war. In Starship Troopers the aliens had evolved to develop a range of biological advancements over us from telepathy to colonisation and even ground-orbit artillery.
It really is difficult to come up with any film where aliens are less advanced than us if you don't only count the level of technology, but you're right, that is due to the fact that they managed to get here in the first place. -
roblov1 — 15 years ago(November 25, 2010 04:10 PM)
Try to come up with a coherent statement next time. This wasn't remotely funny or intelligent. Whatever you were attempting to do, you failed miserably.
I find it truly pathetic that the author of the original comment is whining about typical movies where the aliens have superior technology and others are talking about man's evil nature. Everyone pining for the 'noble savage' alien is pathetic. It is likely that any alien we do encounter that aggressively enters our solar system would be intent on wiping us out as quickly as possible. If they're carbon based, they would probably try to use our planetary resources. Our only chance would be much like The War of the Worlds and the Europeans first entries into the Americas having microbes kill off the aliens because they don't have any resistances to our diseases. Anything else would just be wishful thinking.
Aliens won't use a Windows OS or Apple for the fanboys out there so no Independence Day scenarios. Sorry.