Aliens without a nefarious plot...

[biostem]

So after watching the ID4-2 trailer, and also thinking back to series like Alien Nation and V, I was wondering how things would play out in a different scenario:


- A mothership lands in the middle of the Pacific and constructs an artificial island.

- The aliens establish contact with various human governments, and invite delegates to visit the island.

- The aliens give each delegate plans for cold fusion reactors, (note that these are "primitive" in comparison to what the aliens can produce, but still far beyond what we currently have). The aliens also upload these plans to the internet.

- The aliens offer to provide consultants to aid in the construction of these power plants, for a fee and a guarantee of the safety of said consultant.

-The aliens make it clear that they will not share their weapon, shielding, or FTL technology, but will share some technology that is below their current tech level, but still far ahead of what the humans have. Again, this is done for a price, so as to grow the aliens' Earth-wealth, (they plan on becoming a legitimate part of Earth's economy).

- The aliens will use their advanced technology to grow/cultivate various crops or resources for sale in the world marketplace - they will be careful so as to not flood the market and drive down the value of said commodities.

- The aliens possess teleporter technology, but they don't disclose this to the humans, and it is setup in such a way as to give the appearance that the alien so teleported has self-destructed instead. This is used only in extreme circumstances, such as if or when one of the consultants is attempted to be taken prisoner. If this does occur, the country or group responsible for this is "blacklisted", and will not receive any further support from the aliens.

- The aliens possess energy shield technology, and defend the seas surrounding their island to whatever extend international treaties typically recognize, (14 miles IIRC). Any craft violating their air/sea space will be given several warnings, and barring that, will be forcibly picked up/towed/escorted out of the area.

- There will be some form of constant surveillance of the area by the aliens, and if any force initiates combat against them, it will be documented and uploaded to the internet/world governments.

- Last but not least - the aliens will announce a limited number of immigration slots, which will be offered to various countries of the world, provided the applicants agree to certain terms, (basically something akin to a high tech lie detector test, an agreement by the applicant that they are not agreeing under duress or to spy on the aliens, that they will not try to undermine the aliens' efforts, that they will have no right to privacy during the stay, that they can leave at any time, and can be asked to leave at any time, that they agree to attend training classes, that they agree to cooperate with other applicants from differing/clashing cultures, etc).


In short, I want to know how the world would react if some highly advanced aliens created a homeland in the middle of the Pacific with the intent of becoming a new nation...

[Borgholio]

What is their OVERALL intent? If they are that advanced, why would they want to create their own nation on a primitive world? Do they intend to take over eventually or are they basically doing the interstellar equivalent of setting up a Wal-Mart in the middle of the suburbs so they can make money off the locals?

[Tribble]

What wealth would there be, apart from resources? And if they are that advanced, wouldn't they have the tech to easily extract it themselves while ignoring the middleman? Why would they care about humanity at all? Far easier for them to simply wipe us out and take the planet for themselves... unless their goal is to minimise collateral damage to the rest of the planet?

Also, who do you think is going to start shooting at them damn dirty aliens first? Because I'll bet there are more than enough religious nutjobs and/or warhawks around the world to ensure that someone is gonna pull a trigger or two.

[biostem]

What is their OVERALL intent? If they are that advanced, why would they want to create their own nation on a primitive world? Do they intend to take over eventually or are they basically doing the interstellar equivalent of setting up a Wal-Mart in the middle of the suburbs so they can make money off the locals?

That's part of what I'm trying to break away from - these aliens are basically a social species who want to find, interact with, and work with/potentially recruit or employ other intelligent species. Maybe they have an interest in things that humans create themselves, and not necessarily the raw materials, (since they could just mine asteroids for those). Perhaps these aliens really like certain human food, poetry, and art, and have a certain desire for actual items instead of just some high-res scan/print...

My point is that they are truly benevolent and are there because they like interacting with other species, (maybe there are even members from other worlds with the main constituent species).

[Borgholio]

Well if they really have no ulterior motive and they really do simply enjoy trade, exchanging knowledge and culture, and making friends...then I think after enough time we would gradually begin to trust them. We would not be happy being kept several tech levels below them however. Eventually we would want more advanced tech (especially FTL). What options would we have for obtaining such things for ourselves, since the visitors won't give it to us?

[Adam Reynolds]

This seems reminiscent of an alien version of the Peace Corps.

One problem I see is the question of why they haven't shown up until now. That fact alone would feel somewhat suspicious. Alien conspiracy theories might feel closer to reality than they do today.

[Zeropoint]

I give it six months at the outside before one of the major powers of Earth does something apocalyptically stupid.

[Paolo]

I give it six months at the outside before one of the major powers of Earth does something apocalyptically stupid.

You can count the number of nations that could actually project power into the Pacific on one hand, and given how circumspect they've been about dealing with one another I find it difficult to imagine one spontaneously erupting so suicidally after letting things get as far as the OP envisions. In fact, absent overt hostile action it's highly unlikely we'll see something like the usual "let's test the thing we know nothing about with nukes" scenario that pops up in so many of these stories.

I still think you work in a great deal of story conflict as nations test the limits of ET's patience with their attempts to bandwagon and/or balance against him, collect all sorts of intelligence on his works and habits, induce favoritism, embroil him in various disputes, and attempt to silo scientific and technical development from the windfalls ET decides to shower on mankind.

[Zeropoint]

Well, I wasn't thinking about "Let's try to nuke it and see what happens!" so much as "Aaaah! Their technological superiority is a huge national security threat for us! We need to steal their stuff!" while failing to realize that such an attempt is doomed to fail because of said technological superiority.

Okay, that might not be "apocalyptically" stupid.

[Broomstick]

What wealth would there be, apart from resources? And if they are that advanced, wouldn't they have the tech to easily extract it themselves while ignoring the middleman? Why would they care about humanity at all? Far easier for them to simply wipe us out and take the planet for themselves... unless their goal is to minimise collateral damage to the rest of the planet?

Maybe they want to set up a trading post/way station for their own trade networks and find that having friendly natives is less of a hassle than otherwise. Maybe having a largely intact planet is a tourist attraction for them as well

Also, who do you think is going to start shooting at them damn dirty aliens first? Because I'll bet there are more than enough religious nutjobs and/or warhawks around the world to ensure that someone is gonna pull a trigger or two.

Can't imagine ISIL is going to want to buddy up with them, just for starters...

[TheFeniX]

How "Alien" are these aliens? We talking like Star Trek prosthetics but essentially human? Or eldritch abominations of the insanity inducing variety that breaths chlorine and communicate through spewing clouds of cyanide into shapes through multiple nostrils?

I mean, there's going to be a big difference in first contact if you were dealing with something like the Supox vs the Ur-Quan.

What nations get an invite? Do they care about nations with a history of violence.... so.. a lot of them? What happens if the USA gets an invite and North Korea doesn't? Or vice versa? What happens when even their low-rate tech is being used by governments to ensure more misery? Not their problem? Do they start rating different societies? What happens to those people who feel slighted by their system? They cant' hurt the aliens, but why couldn't they beat up on some other countries that got access to some tech but have no real means to defend themselves?

The chance of them integrating with Earth as a whole is pretty low. It would be like a modern day USA intergrating, even if our intentions were 100% benevolent, with BC-era Earth governments. Everything about our world would have to look 100% back-asswards to them. They would control just about everything just by nature of existing. Governments are going to kiss their ass on every level to try and get access to technology and others are going to stir up shit because they are left out.

Not to mention to deluge of refugees they are going to have to deal with. Yes, they can easily send people away, just like other counties have done. And sending them to their deaths in the process.

Maybe they want to set up a trading post/way station for their own trade networks and find that having friendly natives is less of a hassle than otherwise. Maybe having a largely intact planet is a tourist attraction for them as well

That's what I was thinking. Like how Americans now romanticize Native American trinkets and certain people go giddy when it's "authentic." So, like the space equivalent of that... without all the genocide. "Try this Coca-Cola. Sugared water! with Carbon-dioxide injected straight into it! Made with love by native Sol humans."

Hell, maybe we're just the galaxy's pity charity project and they want to clean up the neighborhood by making us not suck.

[biostem]

The initial meeting would go out to all world governments. The instructions would be to send 1 diplomat and 1 assistant/aid, and to meet at some location in international waters at an appointed time. Once the time arrives, surveillance will be conducted to determine if the nations that responded are genuine or a threat. Obviously, this won't be able to tell for absolute certain, but how all the human craft and their crews behave, in close proximity to other nations' vessels, will tell a lot. When the situation has been deemed safe, an alien craft will travel to the coordinates, and the envoys brought on board. They will be warned that they must submit to a thorough screening before they can proceed any further, and any who refuse will be returned to their vessels. They'll all then be taken to the aliens' island, and presented with the reasons for the aliens' colonization and terms for various trade agreements...

[Joun_Lord]

What wealth would there be, apart from resources?

They came here to trade. They probably want access to our markets and our products. Having 6 billion possible customers to buy the GlorpglorpianPod music player and anal hair bleacher probably is a strong incentive to come here. That and having sole access to Earthican products. Where Earth doesn't have its own FTL or interplanetary trade connections, any offworld trade of Earth products has to go through them. Even taking a percentage of the profits of Coke, Justine Bieber CDs, and genuine Native Earther beads.

Presumably that is the reason for giving humans power plants and integrate themselves into the world market is to integrate human currency into the galactic market or something similar so humans can buy galactic junk and damn dirty aliens can buy human junk. Much like here on earth where there is an exchange rate for different currencies there would probably be the same for human money and alien money. We'd probably get a raw deal for awhile in the exchange rate. Most likely Earth would be the equivalent of a 3rd World nation, a place for cheap goods and labor and a great vacation location for tourists with their higher the local exchanging money.

I just wonder if the aliens would hinder Earth's development of FTL tech. They'd make a killing here with their sole access to off world markets and make a killing there with their probable sole access to Earth goods.

[FedRebel]

-The aliens make it clear that they will not share their weapon,

Not a problem, look up "Casba-Howitzer"

shielding,

depending on the type of 'shield'...

Ship Shields: The Air Force worked out a crude solution for Orion Drive ships, their "Big Book of Nuclear Space War" is still classified on the specifics. Basics that Dyson's son was able to publish are snap maneuvers (expose the fuselage just enough to fire, then use the nuke proof pusher plate to ablate incoming fire.)

Theater "Shields": what tech they are willing to share could possibly make saturation of ABM, SAM, and ASAT batteries economical, while not ideal...would make effective airspace denial

or FTL technology,

A pity, no room for negotiation on that? These aliens do know this planet's population growth is approaching a point of unsustainability, their charities not withstanding...we need breathing room. An ability to access Alpha Centauri for colonization would be nice.

but will share some technology that is below their current tech level, but still far ahead of what the humans have. Again, this is done for a price, so as to grow the aliens' Earth-wealth, (they plan on becoming a legitimate part of Earth's economy).

Problem with that is we do have our own (all be it) crude solutions, that are either unexplorable because of treaty (E.T.'s unannounced Pacific villa would negate those) or we're just missing the means for economic mass production.

Point is that limitation is extremely shortsighted, an apparent trivial gadget for them...could enable humanity to mass produce Antimatter, and another novel 'dime store' trinket to them...could allow humanity to build compact petajoule laser cannons...powered by the very fusion reactors they nobly donated on arrival.

The aliens will use their advanced technology to grow/cultivate various crops or resources for sale in the world marketplace - they will be careful so as to not flood the market and drive down the value of said commodities.

that's playing with fire a bit, because huge chunks of the human population are starving...the aliens uncanny ability to produce immense amounts of food in such a small area would drive human paranoia ("if E.T. is all 'sunshine and hugs'...why is Africa still starving?" etc. They will be encouraged to break the agricultural market at some point.)

The aliens possess teleporter technology, but they don't disclose this to the humans, and it is setup in such a way as to give the appearance that the alien so teleported has self-destructed instead. This is used only in extreme circumstances, such as if or when one of the consultants is attempted to be taken prisoner. If this does occur, the country or group responsible for this is "blacklisted", and will not receive any further support from the aliens.

So it's not an espionage or sabotage tool?

There will be some form of constant surveillance of the area by the aliens, and if any force initiates combat against them, it will be documented and uploaded to the internet/world governments.

poor choice in phrasing...elaborate,

What "area"? The region of the Pacific they inhabit? The whole Pacific Ocean at large? Or globally?

also...what if it's 'all' the world governments mobilizing for war?

Last but not least - the aliens will announce a limited number of immigration slots, which will be offered to various countries of the world, provided the applicants agree to certain terms, (basically something akin to a high tech lie detector test, an agreement by the applicant that they are not agreeing under duress or to spy on the aliens, that they will not try to undermine the aliens' efforts,

Yeah..that's not going to work out, many competent spies are well trained in the arts of bypassing that stuff. Plus the Aliens don't have an immediate gauge on 'humanity', these tests will have flaws until they can digest...about a century of psychological research...and a millennium worth of body language understanding

that they will have no right to privacy during the stay,

that will go like a fart in a space suit.

In short, I want to know how the world would react if some highly advanced aliens created a homeland in the middle of the Pacific with the intent of becoming a new nation...

Suspicion and paranoia

We'd see the US, Russia, and China forming a Strategic Alliance to "monitor" the Aliens and employ 'native' means of balancing the equation. Treaties are cast aside and Orion Drive ships are built to counter the Aliens supposed space superiority, all donated alien tech is militarized and used to enhance humanities capabilities to reach parity with the Aliens.

Good News: The US, Russia, and China eventually form a superstate (Russia has the resources, China has the economy, America has the knowledge and infrastructure) as progressively through the decades those nations wil have to work closer together and integrate their economies, industries and militaries.

Bad News: Smaller alliances, NATO (America), SCO (China), CIS (Russia), etc. become overwhelmingly dependent on their larger patron states, culminating in elected annexations

Worse News: E.T. will sh*t their spandex when they see what 7 Billion psychotic primates have done with their benign gifts with in 100 years...

An Armada of Antimatter propelled (thanks to the cheap fusion reactors making mass production viable) Orion Drive Warships armed to the teeth with enough firepower to make Grand Moff Tarkin blush..and make Captain Kirk crap his pants (The vanilla Orion "Battleship" the Strategic Air Command wanted in 1962 could take on the USS Enterprise...D), not to belittle man portable particle weapons that would outnumber humans 100 to 1.

...Cherry on top, humans are a xenophobic genocidal lot...also paranoid...very paranoid. E.T. will get an 'eviction notice'.

[Zeropoint]

A pity, no room for negotiation on that? These aliens do know this planet's population growth is approaching a point of unsustainability, their charities not withstanding...we need breathing room. An ability to access Alpha Centauri for colonization would be nice.

Extrasolar colonization is never going to be a relief for population pressure. The first issue is the huge number of people you'd have to move--right now we're getting about 77 million new people per year, net. That works out to over 200,000 people per day.

Second, if your goal is just to ship people away from the populated areas, it would be cheaper and easier to ship them to places which are closer and more hospitable, like the Empty Quarter of Qatar, Antarctica, or the middle of the Pacific Ocean.

[K. A. Pital]

Childhood's End.

Sorry, that was a short answer, but it is also much better than Independence Day type of alien invasion B-movie.

[Paolo]

A pity, no room for negotiation on that? These aliens do know this planet's population growth is approaching a point of unsustainability, their charities not withstanding...we need breathing room. An ability to access Alpha Centauri for colonization would be nice.

I'd settle for a few thousand good sized rocks just 300,000 km up. Room temperature. No mosquitos.

[Ziggy Stardust]

Can't imagine ISIL is going to want to buddy up with them, just for starters...

What could ISIL ever hope to do against them? The alien's base is in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. How would ISIL get there? They'd not only have to seize control of an airliner or a ship, but do so close enough to the middle of the Pacific Ocean for them to be able to reach the alien base (sidebar: the existence of this no-go zone would severely disrupt global air and shipping patterns ...), and before they even reach the designated territorial borders they will be hunted by, at the very least, the US Navy, and probably the Russian and Chinese ones, as well. It would be a difficult enough task for them to do it even ignoring the ability of the aliens to disintegrate them miles before they get close enough to damage anything, and even ignoring the fact that the major powers would be keeping the entire Pacific Ocean on pretty constant alert just to prevent any undocumented or unapproved contact with the aliens at all.

[Simon_Jester]

Not a problem, look up "Casba-Howitzer"

Le sigh.

We never actually built one of those, never tested a similar design, and have only theory as to how well they'd actually work, plus there are practical limits on how much shielding a nuclear shaped charge can overcome at long standoff ranges. If the aliens have viable beam weapons effective out to a few thousand kilometers, then nuclear shaped charges don't help much as long as one uses conventional rocketry. If they have energy shields, it is entirely possible (depending on how good the shields are) that they can laugh off a nuclear shaped charge at anything other than point blank range.

It's like saying your "counter" to main battle tanks is to take WWII antitank guns with iron sights and strap them to the backs of water buffalo. Your weapon is theoretically capable of harming its nominal target under favorable conditions. But the combination of short accurate range, poor target acquisition, glacial mobility, and lack of protection for the overall weapon system mean that you really don't have a "counter" in a meaningful sense.

shielding,

depending on the type of 'shield'...

Ship Shields: The Air Force worked out a crude solution for Orion Drive ships, their "Big Book of Nuclear Space War" is still classified on the specifics. Basics that Dyson's son was able to publish are snap maneuvers (expose the fuselage just enough to fire, then use the nuke proof pusher plate to ablate incoming fire.)

That's not shielding, that's armor, and it depends heavily on your ability to point in the direction enemy fire is coming from. If the enemy can engage from multiple threat axes, you lose. If the enemy has weapons that can fly past the zone protected by your pusher plate and hit you from the flank (say, their own nuclear shaped charge missiles, with superior propulsion systems), you lose.

Theater "Shields": what tech they are willing to share could possibly make saturation of ABM, SAM, and ASAT batteries economical, while not ideal...would make effective airspace denial...

I have no idea what you're even talking about right now. Also, why the fetishization of weapons? There are a LOT of extremely valuable technology that people today would give much to have, that has literally nothing to do with warfare.

Point is that limitation is extremely shortsighted, an apparent trivial gadget for them...could enable humanity to mass produce Antimatter, and another novel 'dime store' trinket to them...could allow humanity to build compact petajoule laser cannons...powered by the very fusion reactors they nobly donated on arrival.

Again with the weapons fetishization.

But seriously, do you really think that the people who've had this technology for (presumably) centuries haven't thought through the possibilities? They're going to be prepared for almost every application of the technology we can think of, unless they're amazingly stupid, which seems unlikely since they are the ones who figured out how to build starships to come to us.

Sure, we might conceivably be able to carve out some weird niche product that they haven't thought of, or (on the fighting side) engage in guerilla harassment that it's uneconomical for them to respond to. But we don't turn into an amazing super-threat just because they give us their own crappier technology, any more than Third World African countries become a serious threat to the developed world just because someone sold them a bunch of AK-47s and a few armed helicopters. Maybe the Third Worlders figure out something cunning by their own standards like mounting machine guns on pickup trucks for mobility. But that's not somehow a special amazing superweapon by the standards of the people who created the machine guns, or the pickup trucks.

So it's safe to assume that anything they freely give us, if they don't think it's weaponizable... probably isn't weaponizable.

Unless of course they are massively pacifist and don't know anyone as warlike as us. But the most likely explanation for that is that societies as warlike as us don't last long on the galactic stage. There are two explanations for that.

One is that every time such a warlike society emerges everyone bombs them into the Stone Age in a desperate attempt to avoid conquest by ferocious low-tech aliens, in which case we're screwed as soon as they read our history books.

The other is that such warlike societies self-destruct, in which case we're still screwed, except that this time we screw ourselves.

So in conclusion, IF we aren't screwed for reasons we can do nothing about, THEN the aliens are either as good at thinking of ways to use tools as weapons as us, or know someone else who is. In which case they probably have a pretty good idea of how their own technologies can be used in warfare, and are prepared for what will happen if we try to weaponize inferior versions of their technologies. Since they'd have already seen that in their own history.

It's like, if we gave gunpowder to a bunch of Iron Age city-states, we already know that if they get angry they'll try to invent bombs and muskets and cannons. Because that's what we did, only we're better at it than they are because we have more practice.

The aliens possess teleporter technology, but they don't disclose this to the humans, and it is setup in such a way as to give the appearance that the alien so teleported has self-destructed instead. This is used only in extreme circumstances, such as if or when one of the consultants is attempted to be taken prisoner. If this does occur, the country or group responsible for this is "blacklisted", and will not receive any further support from the aliens.

So it's not an espionage or sabotage tool?

I'm sure they could use it that way, but why would they bother?

also...what if it's 'all' the world governments mobilizing for war?

What's the incentive for doing that? Why join a coalition to fight a war against an enemy you cannot defeat (because their home base is in another solar system), and who has capabilities you cannot match (because their technology makes yours look like pointy sticks)?

In real life, the closest anyone ever comes to doing this is when large numbers of low-tech peoples band together against high-tech invaders or conquerors- in other words, they do it out of desperation and in self defense. That's not an issue here.

that they will have no right to privacy during the stay,

that will go like a fart in a space suit.

Real astronauts basically have no privacy. Members of the military agree to it. Lots of people would agree to it for money.

Hell, some people are creepy and exhibitionists and would probably pay you to take them up to your alien stronghold where they are informed in advance that they have literally zero privacy. Or pay extra for the 'zero privacy' part. Ew.

(Although we probably do not want those people being the ones to go make first contact with aliens. Best to recruit some actual professionals who don't like it but can accept it as the cost of doing business).

In short, I want to know how the world would react if some highly advanced aliens created a homeland in the middle of the Pacific with the intent of becoming a new nation...

Suspicion and paranoia

We'd see the US, Russia, and China forming a Strategic Alliance to "monitor" the Aliens and employ 'native' means of balancing the equation. Treaties are cast aside and Orion Drive ships are built to counter the Aliens supposed space superiority, all donated alien tech is militarized and used to enhance humanities capabilities to reach parity with the Aliens.

Good News: The US, Russia, and China eventually form a superstate (Russia has the resources, China has the economy, America has the knowledge and infrastructure) as progressively through the decades those nations wil have to work closer together and integrate their economies, industries and militaries.

Bad News: Smaller alliances, NATO (America), SCO (China), CIS (Russia), etc. become overwhelmingly dependent on their larger patron states, culminating in elected annexations

Worse News: E.T. will sh*t their spandex when they see what 7 Billion psychotic primates have done with their benign gifts with in 100 years...

An Armada of Antimatter propelled (thanks to the cheap fusion reactors making mass production viable) Orion Drive Warships armed to the teeth with enough firepower to make Grand Moff Tarkin blush..and make Captain Kirk crap his pants (The vanilla Orion "Battleship" the Strategic Air Command wanted in 1962 could take on the USS Enterprise...D), not to belittle man portable particle weapons that would outnumber humans 100 to 1.

...Cherry on top, humans are a xenophobic genocidal lot...also paranoid...very paranoid. E.T. will get an 'eviction notice'.

This is some very dumb posturing. You're making massive assumptions about what is and is not possible, what can and cannot be reverse-engineered, the limits of alien technology, and the stupidity of the aliens themselves. Plus outright lying about a lot of key technologies. And for that matter, begging the question of whether nuclear pulse propulsion actually works on the necessary scale, since nobody ever tried it and the engineering problems that would need solving are huge.

[Simon_Jester]

Addendum since I can't edit:

Again, the best analogy is what happens when people from high-tech societies in real life interact with people from lower-tech ones. Is there grounds for a peaceful relationship? Yes. But it is NOT plausible to say "what if the Bronze Age city-states take the innocuous gifts of shiny mirrors and glass beads and the handful of flintlock muskets they bought and turn them into OMG SUPER BADASS forces of UBERLEET WEAPONRY?"

Because realistically, the people handing over those technologies already know and have planned for what can and cannot be done with them. They have more experience than you of the military and economic potential of those technologies, not less.

[SpottedKitty]

Childhood's End.

Sorry, that was a short answer, but it is also much better than Independence Day type of alien invasion B-movie.

I can see that, but I was also reminded of the business ethics of the Outsiders from Larry Niven's Known Space.

[Zeropoint]

what if the Bronze Age city-states take the innocuous gifts of shiny mirrors and glass beads and the handful of flintlock muskets they bought and turn them into OMG SUPER BADASS forces of UBERLEET WEAPONRY?

You see, the plucky, inventive Bronze Agers with their innate talent for war could take those things and make periscope flintlocks that can fire from behind cover!

With decorative beadwork.

[Simon_Jester]

Yeah.

Plus, the ideas for how to invent 'good' weapons that occur to a society with no experience whatsoever in fighting while using the technologies in question are liable to be... pretty stupid. Even in real life, most new weapons had to be misused in a variety of ways before someone actually figured out how to make them work well. And that was with all the weapons being incremental improvements on what had existed before.

It took at least a generation for people to figure out that long range rifles and machine guns meant standing in big blocks of tightly packed soldiers was unnecessary. It took several major battles for people to understand that tanks require infantry support to break through fortifications. Air warfare went through all sorts of contortions dreamed up by theorists who radically misunderstood what was important in employing air power.

It took centuries for people who had fairly good horses to ride to figure out a basic innovation like "stirrups" to help them fight effectively on horseback.

Why would any of this become LESS true when dealing with exotic advanced technologies based on entire categories of physics we've never heard of... I cannot imagine.

[Rossum]

What wealth would there be, apart from resources? And if they are that advanced, wouldn't they have the tech to easily extract it themselves while ignoring the middleman? Why would they care about humanity at all? Far easier for them to simply wipe us out and take the planet for themselves... unless their goal is to minimise collateral damage to the rest of the planet?

1). Terrestrial biochemistry and life forms - While it's quite likely that the alien biochemistry is largely incompatable with terrestrial life (they aren't going to be eating steak anytime soon as a source of nutrition) and our human technology is centuries behind their own, Earth's biosphere has been evolving for millions of years and there might be something interesting to be found in our plant and animal life.

Velcro was supposedly invented by observing how some grasses spread their seeds by having little bur things stick to passing animals.
The mantis shrimp can shatter glass without touching it by 'punching' the water so hard that it boils.
Spider silk is a surprisingly strong material.
Peppers originally evolved their spicy flavors to keep insects and pests from eating them, but humans liked the taste so we cultivate them as a seasoning.

These aliens could be seeking to trade for samples of terrestrial flora and fauna (along with the data our scientists have collected on them) so that they can locate interesting evolutionary strategies or cheap sources of some chemical compound they might find interesting. Who knows? Maybe their planet never evolved things like snails or slugs and observing how these animals work gives them ideas on how to make some kind of... automated hull-repair robot that slides around the outside of their hull fixing damage? Or they find goat's milk to be a surprisingly flavorful seasoning when dehydrated and added to their nutrient-paste?


2). Human culture - Imagine a massive space-faring civilization with a Hollywood on almost every planet they colonize. Or if not, at least they have people constantly writing stories or making some form of entertainment. Now they come across Earth with a huge cultural history along with thousands or millions of movies, video games, books, folklore, etc.

Even if the rank and file soldiers or engineers aren't all that fond of human movies right now, they could have loads of publishers or whoever back home who love learning about (and bastardizing) the stories from other cultures. For all we know, the alien equivalent of 4Kids could be all for getting the rights for (or just copies) of all our best films and books so they can (badly) dub them for an alien audience and sell billions of copies across a dozen star systems.


3). They actually are after our resources, namely the resources in the asteroid belt or solar system. Thing is, strip mining the solar system takes time and it would be bad for morale if the guys working the machines kept hearing primitive radio transmissions from the humans wondering what's going on and begging for help with their global warming, natural disasters, wars, riots, plagues, etc.

Stellar politics aren't like simple planetary politics where you can just sit back and ignore the suffering of others just because they are on the other side of the planet. 99% of space is empty, so when you're building something on one side of the solar system, odds are good that you can get the occasional transmissions from another planet assuming they want to be heard and you aren't blocking those transmissions. That, and blowing up Earth from orbit would be considered a dick moves since there's nothing humanity could do to threaten them.

So, the alien MegaCorp or whatever sends down some help to Earth so that they can deal with all the questions humanity has, dole out some token bits of technology to show they are "helping uplift this young race" and just getting good publicity back home while they mine the hell out of some asteroids.


4). Our technology may be primitive, but there could be some interesting concepts the aliens can make use of and improve upon. Like... iPhones or AK-47s or surf boards or whatever. Or there are some ideas that both our civilizations had at one point or another, but only one of us had decided to pour massive amounts of resources into building say... Hoover Dam for humans, or a giant solar-panel covered desert for the aliens.

Or maybe their species had never really invented television or the internet like we have (as in, they do have video screens but they never used them to make movies or cartoon shows, with most of their entertainment being primarily audio like radio shows or whatever). As such, instead of sitting around watching TV, their culture took to the stars much earlier in their development and now have spread out. But on finding Earth, they do find our information-sharing technology to be surprisingly sophisticated (despite being not being as technologically advanced as their own).

As such, they plan to look through all of our technology to see if there is anything useful we have that they might have 'missed' in their own technological progression. To do that, they would obviously need to make contact with the scientists and designers who made that technology and get their help (at least in getting the basic concepts down first).

[LastShadow]

Personally speaking, it wouldn't work. while we as humans constantly preach togetherness and cooperation, we are suspicious, paranoid and warlike. If the Aliens came into this knowing before hand, that they would need to give us a lot of leeway, and be very very patient with us, the main powers could eventually come to some sort of accord.

But the hardcore mainline religious groups, would view them as abominations, especially if they look nothing like us. It would go against most religious beliefs.

In the end it would all break down, we are as a species, too inquisitive, to suspicious and too paranoid, also depending on when these friendly folk show up, it could go poorly also. If they showed up, say tomorrow, with every thing that has been going on lately, do you really honestly think it would end well? We constantly look gift horses in the mouth, we know we shouldn't but we do. America alone would screw up royally, our government would constantly attempt to infiltrate and learn about the aliens, we would deploy forces "just in case", and our politicians would panic.

Not to mention all the movies and media, that have ingrained in us a distrust of aliens, especially ones that show up and just set up shop. We are really really bad, as a species, at giving anyone the benefit of the doubt, especially in large groups.

God forbid the news gets involved, they will be in full tilt fear mongering mode the second the aliens show up....