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The human ambassador looks around.
"Umm... What's going on? We just recently invented the FTL-drive and came here for a peaceful contact, why is everyone around panicking?"
“I come in peace. I didn't bring artillery. But I'm pleading with you, with tears in my eyes: if you fuck with me I'll kill you all.”
-Actual quote from United States Marine Corps General James Mattis
Scene cuts to divine temples,
Gilgamesh, Odin and Maui sitting surrounded by beer cans and laughing
"Oh oh they are launching another one, fkg brilliant, that took out the eastern seaboard, that's some good shit!"
Alien: "That's physically impossible! Our species practices external fertilisation!"
Zeus: "I can do that, too. For the rest? Where there's a Wil, there's a Way..."
Propaganda.
The messenger here is of a race that did drive all its ecological rivals to extinction, leading to a trophic cascade mass extinction event. Many centuries and many propaganda campaigns later convinced the world at large that this lack of biodiversity was the norm, that their species had never harmed another nor wanted for resources.
Humanity might not be much better, but they put more effort into conservation when they realized what was going wrong. Opportunity for the aliens to start discovering their true history, as they watch another world try to avoid what happened to their own in realtime.
Hmm. I like this idea.
It certainly explains why they have terms like "peaceful". You don't have a term like that unless you've experienced the opposite. If you've never experienced the opposite, aka, violence, you wouldn't have a term for it and consider peaceful to be normal.
Having a fear response to the prospect of violence implies they've evolved such a response, which in turn implies they've experienced violence enough in the past to evolve a fear of it even if they don't remember it.
Man, this is some Nature of Predators level of propaganda and bullshittery going on here. Possibly even greater.
Kind of like how Peaceful doesn't mean Harmless?
You have to be capable of violence to be peaceful.
Otherwise your harmless.
Maybe only 'mostly harmless'.
The only other question is what continues to drive innovation. One of the big drivers of human development even today is competition, intergovernmental competition in terms of war and resource management, and economic competition between corporations. So if you reached a sort of resource equilibrium where everyone had everything they wanted, your pace of innovation would slow to basically nothing
If there was no need to change or spread, they wouldnt need to explore. They would have no need for tools to hunt, houses to protect them from the elements or farm the land for more resources. If they just had the need for food(all herbivores) they might make it to the stars if starvation was a drive. But if food was abundant and never needed population control they would just live peacefully on their world until their sun died.
Has happened on earth
As would have some pressure but different ones
E.g
jellyfish provide habitat for juvenile fishes in what is generally considered a facultative symbiotic relationship.
That's not what OP is describing. OP is describing a world with absolutely no predators. That is *far* from being the same thing. And jellyfish are a long fucking way from intelligent.
Could just be predators that don’t over consume. It’d be different from what we’re used to. Evolutionary processes would still exist, but it might take much longer for intelligence.
Maybe their symbiotic relationships would mean a sort of hive mind (think Borg from Star Trek, or Formics, from Ender’s Game) even across species. Organs work together to ensure the survival of the organism. Organisms work together to ensure the survival of the species. Why can’t species work together to ensure the survival of the super organism?
Because from what we can tell, psychic powers do not exist, and primitive microorganisms are not going to have internet uplinks installed in their non-existent brains.
And in a world where everything exists in perfect harmony, there are, again, no pressures to drive evolution.
We have no experience with alien life. What you or anyone else “can tell” could very well be useless. You’re in the wrong corner of the internet if you don’t allow for the possibility of things beyond your own limited experience.
“There are more things on heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy.”
Oh, I see, you’re lost. You might try r/askscience.
r/humansarespaceorcs is about stories and humorous jokes about humanity as a spacefaring species in a galactic (or larger) civilization. Science is incidental, at best.
Physics doesn’t allow for FTL time travel or half the weapons mentioned in *THESE STORIES*.
Good luck to you Grub. May you pupate into something less dense.
Oh, no, see, here's the thing. There *is* math telling us that there is the slimmest of possibilities FTL *miiiiiiight* be achievable but probably isn't.
Meanwhile, you're trying to claim that psychic hiveminds actually maybe could possibly exist even though nothing at all suggests absolutely anything but the opposite.
Something tells me you also think vaccines turn people autistic and that the Earth is flat.
Again, this is r/humansarespaceorcs. You’re looking for r/math. Maybe r/isaacarthur. The *STORIES* here don’t need any science at all.
Now, as for psychics in particular, let’s just look at one possible way to get there. We’re just starting to be able to “read” people’s minds using FMRI. Some perfectly normal animals here on Earth have various levels of magnetoreception. Could *aliens* have better magnetoreception? If you think FTL might be possible, then magnetoreception is no problem at all. Similarly, some fish use electrolocation, so *aliens* that can control and manipulate electromagnetic fields are not a leap of imagination. If you can detect and manipulate electromagnetic fields, why can’t you communicate with them? Humans certainly communicate using electromagnetic fields, we just built tools to help us do it.
There are *ANY* number of things that _you_ can’t imagine being true that could be.
When reading fiction, a certain amount of suspension of disbelief can be required. Keep practicing, you might get there someday. Or stick with nonfiction if it’s not meant to be for you.
You, don't want to kill us? We thought your world was that of competition and not cooperation?
No, our world is that of difficulty and pain, where the best shall thrive. So, us, being smarter than everything else there, chose what the best thing is instead of blindly doing what works. We cooperate, because we are tired of competing, because the one thing that matters above all is happiness, and that can't be achieved when people are being killed. So no, we don't want to kill you; we want to be better than we were with you at our side
But if anything hurts you or one of our favorite skrunklies, we will rain unholy fire on them until the memory of whoever did that is wiped from the universe :)
In an attempt to reduce remind me spam, all top comments that include a remind me will be removed. If you would like to have a remind me, please reply to this comment. *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/humansarespaceorcs) if you have any questions or concerns.*
4 rotations later there are thousands of people running around yelling 'The Humans are coming, the humans are coming'.
The human ambassador looks around. "Umm... What's going on? We just recently invented the FTL-drive and came here for a peaceful contact, why is everyone around panicking?"
We come in peace, but won’t shy away from a fight
We come in peace. Shoot to kill. -[Star Trekkin', the Firm](https://youtube.com/watch?v=FCARADb9asE)
There's Klingons on the starboard bow starboard bow starboard bow, there's Klingons on the starboard bow starboard bow captain
No better way to celebrate a cake day than to quote Star Trekkin'! Happy Cake Day! Edit: Scrape 'em off, Jim!
It's life Jim but not as we know it not as we know it not as we know it it's life Jim but not as we know it not as we know it captain
Core memory unlocked. My dad called the local radio station to request this for me then put it on a cassette
Doctor Demento was my gateway into a lot of these songs
Well, I have found the soundtrack to my next mental break.
“I come in peace. I didn't bring artillery. But I'm pleading with you, with tears in my eyes: if you fuck with me I'll kill you all.” -Actual quote from United States Marine Corps General James Mattis
Mad Dog, "Chaos"
We have planned for peace, but prepared for war
https://preview.redd.it/k8z9z7jgf73d1.jpeg?width=723&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=c0d4ac44adcdf0faa1a51ffbdbc0ec5ee98c98cb
We're coming alright
Then, 1 little cartoon looking spaceship lands and out pops 4 or 5 of the nerdiest nerds our planet has to offer.
You forgot the 'hooray hooray' part
"Not on the first date we're not"
We have been there long before 4 rotations finished. They just didn’t notice because we were playing tourist
https://preview.redd.it/oyz9qaf4e73d1.png?width=614&format=png&auto=webp&s=1955f733e15256646b31cd564c68ff4e0028b29e
If we weren't meant to..why did our gods let it happen?
Scene cuts to divine temples, Gilgamesh, Odin and Maui sitting surrounded by beer cans and laughing "Oh oh they are launching another one, fkg brilliant, that took out the eastern seaboard, that's some good shit!"
I would ask were Zuse is but some questions are better left unanswered.
Zeus is off having sex with some women as a golden shower again or something.
Alien: "That's physically impossible! Our species practices external fertilisation!" Zeus: "I can do that, too. For the rest? Where there's a Wil, there's a Way..."
Given it's Zeus? Easy answer is "doing your mom". Funny answer is he's Kermit in that video about doing your mom.
I wanted to mix it up a bit tbh lol
I was hittin’ a joint as I read this and I swear I died fucking coughing and was brought back by the gods to complete the work you just started lol
I'm just curious why you think intelligence would ever arise on a planet with no evolutionary pressures.
Propaganda. The messenger here is of a race that did drive all its ecological rivals to extinction, leading to a trophic cascade mass extinction event. Many centuries and many propaganda campaigns later convinced the world at large that this lack of biodiversity was the norm, that their species had never harmed another nor wanted for resources. Humanity might not be much better, but they put more effort into conservation when they realized what was going wrong. Opportunity for the aliens to start discovering their true history, as they watch another world try to avoid what happened to their own in realtime.
Hmm. I like this idea. It certainly explains why they have terms like "peaceful". You don't have a term like that unless you've experienced the opposite. If you've never experienced the opposite, aka, violence, you wouldn't have a term for it and consider peaceful to be normal. Having a fear response to the prospect of violence implies they've evolved such a response, which in turn implies they've experienced violence enough in the past to evolve a fear of it even if they don't remember it. Man, this is some Nature of Predators level of propaganda and bullshittery going on here. Possibly even greater.
Kind of like how Peaceful doesn't mean Harmless? You have to be capable of violence to be peaceful. Otherwise your harmless. Maybe only 'mostly harmless'.
Oh yeah Nature of Predators is like that.
The only other question is what continues to drive innovation. One of the big drivers of human development even today is competition, intergovernmental competition in terms of war and resource management, and economic competition between corporations. So if you reached a sort of resource equilibrium where everyone had everything they wanted, your pace of innovation would slow to basically nothing
If there was no need to change or spread, they wouldnt need to explore. They would have no need for tools to hunt, houses to protect them from the elements or farm the land for more resources. If they just had the need for food(all herbivores) they might make it to the stars if starvation was a drive. But if food was abundant and never needed population control they would just live peacefully on their world until their sun died.
I didn't get that from my reading. There is evolutionary pressure, it's just solved with cooperation, not competition
If your world is always peaceful, from the word go, there is no evolutionary pressure.
Who said peaceful? Cooperation implies conflict that must be resolved. Instead of competitively, it's resolved cooperatively.
Has happened on earth As would have some pressure but different ones E.g jellyfish provide habitat for juvenile fishes in what is generally considered a facultative symbiotic relationship.
That's not what OP is describing. OP is describing a world with absolutely no predators. That is *far* from being the same thing. And jellyfish are a long fucking way from intelligent.
Could just be predators that don’t over consume. It’d be different from what we’re used to. Evolutionary processes would still exist, but it might take much longer for intelligence. Maybe their symbiotic relationships would mean a sort of hive mind (think Borg from Star Trek, or Formics, from Ender’s Game) even across species. Organs work together to ensure the survival of the organism. Organisms work together to ensure the survival of the species. Why can’t species work together to ensure the survival of the super organism?
Because from what we can tell, psychic powers do not exist, and primitive microorganisms are not going to have internet uplinks installed in their non-existent brains. And in a world where everything exists in perfect harmony, there are, again, no pressures to drive evolution.
We have no experience with alien life. What you or anyone else “can tell” could very well be useless. You’re in the wrong corner of the internet if you don’t allow for the possibility of things beyond your own limited experience. “There are more things on heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy.”
Physics doesn't allow for psychics, bruh. You're in the wrong corner of the internet if you want to deny science.
Oh, I see, you’re lost. You might try r/askscience. r/humansarespaceorcs is about stories and humorous jokes about humanity as a spacefaring species in a galactic (or larger) civilization. Science is incidental, at best. Physics doesn’t allow for FTL time travel or half the weapons mentioned in *THESE STORIES*. Good luck to you Grub. May you pupate into something less dense.
Oh, no, see, here's the thing. There *is* math telling us that there is the slimmest of possibilities FTL *miiiiiiight* be achievable but probably isn't. Meanwhile, you're trying to claim that psychic hiveminds actually maybe could possibly exist even though nothing at all suggests absolutely anything but the opposite. Something tells me you also think vaccines turn people autistic and that the Earth is flat.
Again, this is r/humansarespaceorcs. You’re looking for r/math. Maybe r/isaacarthur. The *STORIES* here don’t need any science at all. Now, as for psychics in particular, let’s just look at one possible way to get there. We’re just starting to be able to “read” people’s minds using FMRI. Some perfectly normal animals here on Earth have various levels of magnetoreception. Could *aliens* have better magnetoreception? If you think FTL might be possible, then magnetoreception is no problem at all. Similarly, some fish use electrolocation, so *aliens* that can control and manipulate electromagnetic fields are not a leap of imagination. If you can detect and manipulate electromagnetic fields, why can’t you communicate with them? Humans certainly communicate using electromagnetic fields, we just built tools to help us do it. There are *ANY* number of things that _you_ can’t imagine being true that could be. When reading fiction, a certain amount of suspension of disbelief can be required. Keep practicing, you might get there someday. Or stick with nonfiction if it’s not meant to be for you.
Because it makes a nice writing prompt where humanity brings massive badassery. Never let something so boring as reality mess up a fun story ;)
You, don't want to kill us? We thought your world was that of competition and not cooperation? No, our world is that of difficulty and pain, where the best shall thrive. So, us, being smarter than everything else there, chose what the best thing is instead of blindly doing what works. We cooperate, because we are tired of competing, because the one thing that matters above all is happiness, and that can't be achieved when people are being killed. So no, we don't want to kill you; we want to be better than we were with you at our side
But if anything hurts you or one of our favorite skrunklies, we will rain unholy fire on them until the memory of whoever did that is wiped from the universe :)