you are the nightmare fuel race

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Junghalli
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Re: you are the nightmare fuel race

Post by Junghalli »

Purple wrote:But why would the aliens care what humans think? From what I understand from this thread they are aliens with starships and the ability to do what ever they dam well please. Humans are a bunch of hairless monkeys whose greatest feat of space travel was to stick three of their kind on top of a really beefed up ICBM and shoot them to their satellite. Seriously, what can the humans do? The aliens can just crash a big rock on their heads if they get too annoying.
The OP didn't give enough information about the aliens' capabilities and motivations to say that there's nothing humans could do to harm or inconvenience them, and (IMO) this thread is boring if the answer to the OP is "I do whatever the fuck I want because I'm invincible and unstoppable."
bilateralrope
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Re: you are the nightmare fuel race

Post by bilateralrope »

Purple wrote:
The Yosemite Bear wrote:It did when I said that the Aliens know of the humans and consider them a potential OUTSIDE CONTEXT PROBLEM which means they have the potential to end the civilation of the aliens
Er... no. Outside context problem is a most meaningless phrase. It only means that they consider humans some sort of problem (undefined) that is outside of some sort of context (again undefined).
It's a well known phrase among some groups, originating from one of the Culture books. But since there was the possibility for people not knowing it, I linked to an explanation of what it means in on of my previous posts. Since you didn't read the link the, I'll just quote it this time:
This novel is about how the Culture deals with an Outside Context Problem (OCP), the kind of problem "most civilizations would encounter just once, and which they tended to encounter rather in the same way a sentence encountered a full stop."

This is a problem that is "outside the context" as it is generally not considered until it occurs, and the capacity to actually conceive of or consider the OCP in the first place may not be possible or very limited (i.e., the majority of the group's population may not have the knowledge or ability to realize that the OCP can arise, or assume it is extremely unlikely). An example of OCP is an event in which a civilization does not consider the possibility that a much more technologically advanced society can exist, and then encounters one. The term is coined by Banks for the purpose of this novel, and described as follows:
The usual example given to illustrate an Outside Context Problem was imagining you were a tribe on a largish, fertile island; you'd tamed the land, invented the wheel or writing or whatever, the neighbors were cooperative or enslaved but at any rate peaceful and you were busy raising temples to yourself with all the excess productive capacity you had, you were in a position of near-absolute power and control which your hallowed ancestors could hardly have dreamed of and the whole situation was just running along nicely like a canoe on wet grass... when suddenly this bristling lump of iron appears sailless and trailing steam in the bay and these guys carrying long funny-looking sticks come ashore and announce you've just been discovered, you're all subjects of the Emperor now, he's keen on presents called tax and these bright-eyed holy men would like a word with your priests.
But, even if they did have the power to walk all over the humans, your plan of using humans as incubators still doesn't make sense.
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Re: you are the nightmare fuel race

Post by Simon_Jester »

Purple wrote:But why would the aliens care what humans think? From what I understand from this thread they are aliens with starships and the ability to do what ever they dam well please. Humans are a bunch of hairless monkeys whose greatest feat of space travel was to stick three of their kind on top of a really beefed up ICBM and shoot them to their satellite. Seriously, what can the humans do? The aliens can just crash a big rock on their heads if they get too annoying.
It seems to be your habit to presume upon your own invincible power and start doing terrible but poorly-thought-out things.

Aren't you Romanian? I'd think you'd remember Ceausceau in terms other than "but this time, we'll do it properly.
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Purple
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Re: you are the nightmare fuel race

Post by Purple »

Simon_Jester wrote:
Purple wrote:But why would the aliens care what humans think? From what I understand from this thread they are aliens with starships and the ability to do what ever they dam well please. Humans are a bunch of hairless monkeys whose greatest feat of space travel was to stick three of their kind on top of a really beefed up ICBM and shoot them to their satellite. Seriously, what can the humans do? The aliens can just crash a big rock on their heads if they get too annoying.
It seems to be your habit to presume upon your own invincible power and start doing terrible but poorly-thought-out things.
Well this is SDNet. And you can't really blame me when the only possible hint to the opposite is an obscure literally reference.
Aren't you Romanian?
Er... no. Not even close. As in not even close to the 3+th digit in your American miles.
I'd think you'd remember Ceausceau in terms other than "but this time, we'll do it properly.
However if I were I would more or less happily confirm this bit.
It has become clear to me in the previous days that any attempts at reconciliation and explanation with the community here has failed. I have tried my best. I really have. I pored my heart out trying. But it was all for nothing.

You win. There, I have said it.

Now there is only one thing left to do. Let us see if I can sum up the strength needed to end things once and for all.
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The Yosemite Bear
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Re: you are the nightmare fuel race

Post by The Yosemite Bear »

no it's a fairly well know sci-fi term for basically the equivalent of a cultural grade extinction level event potentiial encounter.
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