I'd say it's absolutely alright to do this. Aliens will not be like foreigners. They will be ENTIRELY different. You will have more in common with a jellyfish than with a race from the stars. A sentient alien race (with high enough technology to leave their planet) would have interests completely alien to ours, and the existential risks would be too high to even imagine. Since there's no way of knowing or understanding their intentions towards us the only logical option would have to be to seek their destruction, as they would try to do to us. It's very sad, but something like the Federation is impossible.

Communication would be top priority. They may come for certain resources, if they want - I dunno - some radioactive element that - as far as we know - can't be made for weaponry, and they're militarily dominant, I'd just show them where to find the stuff they're looking for and help them extract it, hoping that they'll assign some kind of rights to us. But if we're militarily dominant, we should simply stay dominant and not engage. There's a lot of ifs.

To any half competent spacefaring species mass extermination is amazingly easy. Simply push a large enough rock in the direction on the enemy planet and sit back to watch the fireworks. Of course if any of the enemy happen to survive on off planet ships of their own (which is highly likely, otherwise it would be hard to imagine how we ended up at war in the first place) then they could just as simply do the same to us.

War in the space age between two similar species will be a fool's game.

Of course if you're lucky enough to encounter an intelligent species before they achieve interstellar travel (such as our own) you're in luck. Simply park your ship in orbit and tell the local governments you need them to give you whatever you want. If they refuse keep leveling cities until they agree. You simply can't lose.

Indeed, if you did it well enough there's no need for the majority of the population of your "slave" planet to even know you're there. As long as their leaders cough up the system works. All the locals would notice was that their economies are suddenly performing far worse than they used to, their leaders seem more out of touch than usual, and that despite producing more food and resources than they could ever possibly use for some reason half the population never seems to have enough.

Another question; would you yes/no reserve a special place for Patrick Stewart in dealing with any issues that may arise?

Redhouse: How would you communicate with a species that doesn't speak, like, at all? I agree, though, communication is key for anything.

Octavious: You have shown my the light, man. May our alien overlords be ever merciful.

don't take the wrong side of this hypotherical species war. Obi will claim that you are attacking the victims of the holocaust.

Don't be silly, Vexx. It's not happened here. There would be other signs to watch for if it had. Traditional space loving nations like the US would suddenly be ordered to scrap things like manned missions to Mars or the space shuttle. Warning shots fired by the aliens would likely result in a few devestating tsunamis, or even entire cities being made out of bounds because of "nuclear accidents". Traditional military powers would start slashing their military budgets.

You see? We're perfectly fine

I guess one thing you should do is bow to them when you meet them. Bowing shows respect, because you're making yourself smaller (hence, more insignificant) than the other person.
Then, you just have to walk around with a person and point at stuff human beings made. Point out people working together on something big (a building) to convey the idea of us being an intelligent species and in some way or another relate to them.
Subtletly would be important, as grand gestures could indicate aggression.

@ Redhouse

Unless they evolved from creatures, such as the rhino, who clash heads to show dominance. If so bowing could be seen as an aggressive act. And don't whatever you do smile... just incase they're herbivores who find the sight of incisors to be about as friendly as we consider sharks to be

Well shucks, Orcavious. That last one blew everything out of the water... Unless of course, only a certain military power is trying to develop the weapons to free us, using distant wars as a excuse for the massive spending secretly thrown at uberweapons... !!

He'd got you there, redhouse, you never know how your "peaceful" gesture will be received. Even among ourselves that one culture considered trivial, others consider the a grave insult. Thumbs-up, I believe? Also waving your with your left hand...

No, you bow and make yourself progressively lower as they don't pick up the signal, up until the point where you lie down on the ground, to show passiveness. Probably lying in front of them perpendicularly would be the best. All of that very slowly, so as not to create suspicion and give them to observe what you're doing and reflect on this.

Of course when I say you, I mean anybody beside myself. I'd be coordinating this whole process from a safe distance.

Wow, dude, have you no pride in your humanity? xD

Golly, just bending over and letting the aliens have their way with you... not a bad idea, really. You dirty, dirty perv, you. ;D

In all (limited) seriousness, if aliens ever came to Earth army-first, my stance would be to shoot first and ask questions later. No well-meaning species would come with their army leading the way. If it was one or two ships, this: http://static.fjcdn.com/large/pictures/80/46/804643_3620839.jpg

What if they're rocks that see microwaves? We truly cannot imagine what these lifeforms may be like, so if we're in a position to destroy them them we ought to do it. The risk of our own annihilation is just too high. This naturally applies only to high-technology sentient life, of course. If we find space-cavemen I see no reason to pursue this course.

@Vexx.
Shooting first is a terrible idea. Let's compare our arms with the arms of a hundred years ago, and those arms with the arms a hundred years before it.
Then, think about the billions of years it took from the first traces of life on this planet to man being able to escape the gravitational field of its own planet.
In other words, technological development is extremely rapid with respect to the development of life; the difference in strength would probably be incalculable, so modesty is a good way forward; either you are much stronger than they are, and the modesty never mattered, or they are much stronger than you are, in which case modesty probably serves well, even it it means going to the point of being obsequious.

Yeah, I was gonna add that we'd probably get wiped out, but that was obvious enough. But I /did/ say that shooting first should only be considered if they come with their army leading the way, penetrating our planet en mass. I mean, from space, it would be obvious how militarily we weak we are compared to them ("are those little metal things running around the best they have?").

But, maybe, your right. We should let them shoot first. ;)

Advancing into the unknown with your army leading the way isn't too unreasonable a policy...

How is this not an election theme?

It is if you vote for Vermin Supreme.

Because they never talk about the important things, obviously. ;D

Have you guys ever read the ender's game books? There's even one in the series called xenocide. The whole series addresses this issue, and they're great books.

They are. I think they're behind this thread...

I've read them, favorites of mine too, but I'm not sure they appropriately adress the realities of that situation, I consider his work sudo science fiction, a lot of fantasy elements involved.

Are you serious? I believe that book is hailed by nerds everywhere as "pretty damn realistic". I'm inclined to agree; most of the space toys seemed fairly sold to me. Even humanity's relation to the Buggers seemed plausible--they invaded us twice, albeit without knowing we were sentient (I think this is a stretch, considering that non-sentient probably won't have defended themselves as viciously as we did), so we responded in the most human and self-preservative way possible: full out war.

Though, now that I think of it, their extermination /was/ an accident... Ender had even been told /not/ to destroy the planet.

"I'd say it's absolutely alright to do this. Aliens will not be like foreigners. They will be ENTIRELY different. You will have more in common with a jellyfish than with a race from the stars. A sentient alien race (with high enough technology to leave their planet) would have interests completely alien to ours, and the existential risks would be too high to even imagine. Since there's no way of knowing or understanding their intentions towards us the only logical option would have to be to seek their destruction, as they would try to do to us. It's very sad, but something like the Federation is impossible."

This is completely and utterly moronic. You admit we wouldn't know their intentions but in the same goddamned sentence presume to know that the alien life would seek to annihilate humanity. If you don't know their intentions, -you don't know their intentions- and -cannot assume anything.- There's such a thing as communication, and we don't know that it is impossible between the species. We aren't given -any information whatsoever- except that the aliens are sentient.

Ender didn't even know it was the real thing until after he had finished. Bean figured it out early on, but Ender hadn't a clue. That was by design because Mazor and Hyram figured he wouldn't be able to do what had to be done if he knew it was for real.

Yeah all those books are great. I think you have to judge whether xenocide is justified by each individual situation, so I'm not gonna debate the point. But I will say that Ender's xenocide was justified because they were unable to communicate with the aliens and could only assume that they were hostile from previous encounters.

Holy christ you people and your collective punishment hardons make me sick.

PE is obviously an alien mole, I say we kill him first.

Any creature that's capable of non-organic interplanetary travel will be able to communicate. It might be difficult, but there are enough universals (mathematical or physical formulas, for example) that something could be worked out.

I genuinely do not understand this. How can it not be immoral? The argument seems to boil down to "They might kill us some day," which is equally true of tigers and honeybees.

Don't worry, if we ever get attacked by pointy eared stalk-eyed space Nazis we can resurrect Churchill from this old napkin he used.