Alien Invasion!

[countofio]

Ok, I have an idea for a set of scenarios based on Aliens coming to destroy us. Now an alien fleet would never have to land in order to wipe out all our cities and about 90% of humanity. In order to defend ourselves from this orbital bombardment we would need to get some ships into orbit to fight them.

Well, what do we have to go into orbit?
3 Space Shuttles (for the moment)
maybe a couple of Soyuz capsules
some nuclear weapons
(are we boned or what?)

I'm imagining either a missle salvo payload for the shuttle or one of the lasers from the cancelled 'Star Wars' program in the payload bay. maybe the anti-satillite soyuz capsules proposed during the Cold War. Then trying to launch all of these vehicles within a limited amount of time. Also taking into account that it takes us a minimum of 5 minutes to get into space and the fact that there's only one Crawler to get the Shuttles Launched. Diffent scenarios for different amounts of time and tech level of the aliens.
4 days for aliens of equal tech to us
less time for more advanced aliens
More time for less advanced/biologically naturally spacefaring aliens(they throw ROCKS!)
and of course one for an alien culture that appears right above the Earth and Destroys us.
We could have some realistic additional craft for the greater amounts of time, such as X-15s hurriedly modified for space combat. (I don't remember how many were made)
Try launching as many as you can!
Show our "impressive" space fleet.
But, again, try to make it realistic.
The World depends on you!

 

[adamb193]

Uhh if they can travel the stars, and want to destroy us we'd be pretty defenseless. Unless we find people who know morse code, have an Apple laptop, and an alien spaceship that crashed and upload soome sort of virus, they probally use windows or something. Then we take down their shields down and put anyone who can fly into fighters and blow them up with anti-air missles and fly into their main weapons, sounds like a movie. But we'd be screwed.

 

[willy88]

If they wanted us dead, they could just fire a relativistic bomb at us. Boom, done. No more humans.

 

[countofio]

:rofl:
nice, but we could travel the stars easily if we could just get off our planet. So an alien culture at our tech level is not unrealistic.

Besides, the idea is to get a bunch of realistic spacecraft in orbit in a short period of time, the weapons would just be really cool.

 

[adamb193]

:rofl:
nice, but we could travel the stars easily if we could just get off our planet. So an alien culture at our tech level is not unrealistic.

Besides, the idea is to get a bunch of realistic spacecraft in orbit in a short period of time, the weapons would just be really cool.

It'd just take us a few hundred thousand years, if they wanted us dead they could kill us from a few hundread light years away.

 

[countofio]

I disagree, but, again, that's not the point.
The point is having a scenarios to launch the entire space fleet on a short time scale. If it helps, think of the invasion just being a big rock and this being the last ditch effort.
And, please, no more defeatist attitudes.
"Optimism, Captain!"
-Dr. Phlox, Enterprise

 

[n122vu]

Bah! Resistance is futile. We will be assimilated.

 

[Hartmann]

A single 10 km asteroid launched by aliens can do the work, or two better, it could be impossible to evade or destroy by human missiles or spacecrafts.

and alien spacecraft could destroy communication and defense satelites, making impossible the coordination between hearth forces.

After a year of darkness, a lot of people would die by the lack of food , economic and industrial disintegration and aliens could land and invade easily the planet

 

[Pilot7893]

The sad truth is, at our technological state, if an alien race capable of making it here decided "oh hai we want your planet", we'd be screwed.

 

[Brycesv1]

i think wed be screwed without even knowing we were screwed. they could have sent nanobots into the atmosphere hundreds of years ago and they are only waiting for their twitchy leader to press the killswitch

 

[Jarvitä]

The solution is, obviously, to set up a screen with the diameter of earth on the Sun-Earth L1 to protect us from aliens setting the sun off, then tricking them into destroying Mars instead the second time around.

Let's see how many people get the reference...

 

[Artlav]

Not quite that impossible a scenario.
Anyone read Niven&Pournelle's Footfall?

The aliens might want our planet, and want it intact.
But, they are not thinking the way we are, having no idea about space resources, and are driven by a sort of religious purpose.
In that case, ground assault and precision orbital bombing is their only option, no planet-splitting RKKV's or life-wiping rocks.

So, the first wave of defense will pretty much be wiped out without causing much damage, then some long-term war plans are to be executed.

 

[T.Neo]

I suppose there might be a slim chance of targeting ships within range (i.e. LEO) with ICBMs. That might not work if the aliens have shielding or countermeasure techniques, and it will likely fry all sats in LEO.

If the attackers planned some sort of a ground assault, I think we'd be quite capable of handling it, with the world-war type technology that we have and (thankfully) have never used.

Even if their technology would be vastly superior to our own, we could wage a guerilla war against them- look at the Vietnam war, where a group of jungle fighters essentially defeated the most advanced military force on the planet.

That is, of course, unless the aliens have biosuits equipped with body-splattering tesla weapons.

 

[Ghostrider]

Even if their technology would be vastly superior to our own, we could wage a guerilla war against them- look at the Vietnam war, where a group of jungle fighters essentially defeated the most advanced military force on the planet.

There is a little problem with this strategy: no Western country can do (or rather, would do) the most rational thing to do when faced with such a situation, which is to gas the opposition out of existence. Our hypotetical alien invaders would have no such qualms. To quote Dalek Sec, it would not be a war much as it would be pest control.

That is, of course, unless the aliens have biosuits equipped with body-splattering tesla weapons.

If they don't have CIWS or forcefields that wouldn't be much use, we have Javeling fire-and-forget antitank missiles that would either destroy the armor or kill their operator, and even if they have cooling systems I doubt they could survive a prolonged exposition to heat - something that we can make out of very little material.

 

[T.Neo]

Our hypotetical alien invaders would have no such qualms.

Are you sure? We might be able to kill them with coffee extract, or vodka...

If they don't have CIWS or forcefields that wouldn't be much use, we have Javeling fire-and-forget antitank missiles that would either destroy the armor or kill their operator, and even if they have cooling systems I doubt they could survive a prolonged exposition to heat - something that we can make out of very little material.

Yes yes, but the body-splattering weapons!

 

[Ghostrider]

Are you sure? We might be able to kill them with coffee extract, or vodka...

Or gold. Worked with the Cybermen. Glitter gun anyone? The ladies absolutely love the weapon...

Yes yes, but the body-splattering weapons!

Has anyone thought that Neill Blomkamp seems to be a videogame fan? Most of the alien weapons seem to have leaped out of a FPS title. One of them is similar to Half-Life 2's Gravity Gun and the "body splatterer" weapon operates a lot like the Instagib Rifle from Unreal Tournament, even if it resembles more a Ripper in shape.

Anyway, the weapons used by many fictional aliens are grossly inefficient. Why waste the energy to explode a body when all you need is to stop it from moving. We've been doing it for ages with very little energy expenditure.

 

[JamesG]

Just infect humans with a virus that renders them sterile. Within 100 years no more humans.

Or if you're in a hurry or just have to get your hands dirty, neurtron warheads over cities. Wait a year for the the radation to drop off and then mop up the surviving population.

Or just land, say "Take me to your leader", and have this brilliant philosophy that causes instant world peace and harmony and the secret to the perfect cup of coffee, that has all of Earth's population bowing down before their new benevelolent masters.

 

[T.Neo]

Has anyone thought that Neill Blomkamp seems to be a videogame fan?

I wouldn't be surprised, with the many videogame inspirations/references thoughout the film. He was going to do a Halo film, after all...

Anyway, the weapons used by many fictional aliens are grossly inefficient.

Indeed. But they do have a cool factor...

We've been doing it for ages with very little energy expenditure.

Yeah. Bullets ftw.

Just infect humans with a virus that renders them sterile. Within 100 years no more humans.

Or better, an engineered ebola-type virus that kills in weeks. Within a few months, no more humans...

I think some sort of gamma ray weapon would be best for eliminating humans. Not only would it kill us off, but it would eliminate the pesky biosphere on Earth, while leaving the atmosphere, etc mostly intact.

 

[JamesG]

Would depend on if they wanted our biosphere intact or needed to tweek it to suit them.

You wouldn't want something that was particulary nasty like an ebola or a zombie producing bug, because it would get quarentined burn itself out quickly. You want something slow and insidious that slowly infects the entire population and only then does its thing.

 

[RisingFury]

while leaving the atmosphere, etc mostly intact.

Nope...