The [Final] Frontier - Space Part Three (The One with Aliens)

Today’s topic is conceptually simple. We’ve covered so far colonizing space, mining space, so now we’ll talk about socializing in space – with aliens. Yup… alien Twitter/Facebook/Instagram or whatever way aliens so choose to socialize. Not really the socializing part. The alien part.

First off I will start by stating that I do believe there is intelligent life somewhere in space. Can’t really say I know at all where. I can’t really say that I believe they’ve even been to our solar system or planet, though that is entirely possible – just not plausible. My exploration of the possibilities of alien life within my Book of the Shadows is very limited. I think that with maybe one or two exceptions, all “aliens” in my story are quintessentially humanoid – human in form and function, not diminutive or discolored, or even reptilian (Lucifer Hawks notwithstanding).

Whether you take a religious perspective or a scientific one, or perhaps even one somewhere in between, I think it is highly probable that there exists somewhere out there in the absolutely huge universe where there is a race of beings with comparable or greater intelligence to us.

What do they look like? No idea. Anyone that tells you they know for certain is either confused or lying. We have some clues to what traits they would posses based on certain factors, but those are guideposts, not a formula of what they must look like.

But there is a case for them being more humanoid than anything else. Human form is not the end-all be-all of intelligent life. But the human form is key to the way in which we were able to become the dominant species on this planet. Our size, the shape of our cranium, the fact that we are bipedal, opposable thumbs, are all factors that combined gave us an advantage over other life forms on this planet and enabled us to evolve as the apex species on the planet.

If we knew what planet our alien friends were coming from, if we had an idea of what other life forms on that planet looked like, we could establish ideas about what it would take for a space-faring species to emerge as the dominant species on their own planet. How long they’ve been a space-faring species is important too as evolutionary processes would continue, thus if they’ve been in space for many, many, many generations they may evolve a different set of characteristics relative to when they first entered space. And of course there is also the idea of genetic manipulation; have they messed with their physiology or biology in some way to better acclimate themselves to space travel or living in space, or possibly for reasons of vanity.

Vanity comes to my next point; what will aliens act like? Aliens in entertainment tend to get cast in one of two categories; either as ruthless and aggressive villains looking to kill us and take our planet, or as angelic benevolent arbiters of peace and understanding.

Both are likely wrong.

The chances of an alien civilization being aggressive are unknown. Aggression towards others comes from a few places, but one is fear of the unknown or concern for one’s safety. Do we pose a threat to any alien civilization that may come for a visit? Likely not. The technology needed to even reach us in our little corner of the universe, and the ability to apply that to least of all weapons, means that we’d be lucky if we didn’t appear like microbes in the dirt compared to any alien civilization. The idea of something like War of the Worlds or most any sci-fi story dealing with humans and aliens so long as the timescale is in our modern era, is laughable. There is not likely to be any real, honest comparison between our capabilities and theirs

However, that makes their coming here for a fight less likely. As we pose no real threat, there is little reason to come here as an aggressor. They might not be particularly friendly, but it isn’t likely they’ll be coming here specifically looking for a fight.

They also won’t necessarily be benevolent, for the same reasons. Benevolence implies doing something for someone else’s sake, not your own. The idea that a race of aliens will travel light-years to help us be all we can be as a species is more optimistic than even I care to be. It seems to be more fantasy than anything. Could they help us? Could they offer technology, knowledge, to guide us to a better future than we would otherwise reach? Perhaps, but it will likely be for their own ends, from the malicious to even the comparatively passive like wanting to observe a science experiment.

It will likely be the military or the scientists that we will first make contact with. We can assume that under most likely incarnations of alien society, the military arms and the science arms will be the most active in space exploration. It will be mostly the same reasons we here on Earth go to space; understanding, research, and resources. Again, however, I think science is more likely than military. You deploy your military when you need to project power or to defend against an enemy. As we pose minimal threat to advanced space travelers, there is little reason to project power or a disproportionate defense. We already can see that vast parts of this area of our galaxy have little signs of possible life. An alien civilization that can travel space freely will likely not bother deploying military assets for searching space beyond a research scope, hence the scientist option I posit.

I also have some doubts about coming to our small planet for resources. Again, even we are near the point where we can lasso asteroids to mine for their mineral deposits. So far as we can tell no elements on Earth are unique to Earth. There would likely be a much greater rate of return by focusing on planets, moons, and asteroids in their own neighborhood than looking for our tiny dot of a planet in the vastness of space to use up what relatively few resources we have left.

That being said, some sort of drone is most likely to be the first physical encounter we have. Why? It’s a difficult thing to put a living thing in space. Biological entities need food, water, likely oxygen… adding all that to a ship for a long journey is more difficult than a drone or a robot that needs none of those things.

Expect that it will be autonomous as well. Unless the aliens have some kind of method of communication that we can’t even envision, it will almost have to be an autonomous robot of some sort. Even at the speed of light if you’re talking about a drone light-years from you, sending it instructions will at the same time take light-years. That sort of lag is way too much to reliably count on sending instructions and the like. Imagine trying to input your PC’s password and waiting over a year for it to respond, or worse for it to respond only to tell you that you put it in wrong or something like that. So, any drone that comes our way will either have a basic pre-programmed routine, or will have a high enough level of sentience that I can act and react as its creators would like… presuming there’s no malfunctions or anything like that. Because of this communication issue any alien vehicle that comes our way if not directly inhabited, will not likely be in direct contact with anyone of that species.

When you realize this, it makes the whole idea of an alien encounter a little more cold and unfeeling. But I doubt aliens will be as taciturn as a species as some tend to theorize. Despite the way many tend to consider emotions as a barrier to intelligence and a detriment to related activities, emotions also are one of the foundational aspects of our position on this planet as a dominant species. Our emotions help to both fuel us to move forward, and limit us to prevent overreaching too far, or at least such that there is someone to pull us back. Emotionless beings exist on our planet. They’re called sociopaths and psychopaths. They tend to be highly self destructive, and don’t tend to work too well with others. It’s highly doubtful that any advanced society that can traverse large expanses of space is going to be completely amoral or emotionless.

So that’s what aliens will be like. They might not look exactly like us, but will likely share some common physical traits to us. They may hold different values than we do, but they will have emotions. Whether they are violent or not will depend on what it is they actually want to do and how we respond to them, but it’s not likely they will come here specifically looking for a fight. And when they do come it is first most likely be some form of autonomous, at least semi-intelligent, drone or robot piloted vehicle, or an actual alien, not remote control like our current drone technology.

No one really knows when we’ll actually find signs of alien life in the universe. We could discover it tomorrow, or we could be still searching centuries from now. There’s no real way to tell. We can be relatively certain that it’s not anywhere nearby. And there is the distinct possibility that we really are the only intelligent creatures in this universe, or the most technologically advanced. But for now, it’s all just a matter of possibilities. There’s still so much we don’t know.