Just watched Pacific Rim again and noticed that once again, the overwhelmingly powerful alien invaders lost because they failed to play their advantages straight. Ever since War of The Worlds it has become a tradition that alien invasions must be repelled through lame and contrived copouts or deus-ex-machinas in the last act and I hate it. Either though some sort of crippling and easily exploitable weakspot (say dire lack of network security in Independence Day, a curiously underprotected C&C center in Battle: LA) or terminal stupidity (naked invading aliens vulnerable to water in Signs).
My question is, is it possible to have a story where invading aliens with an overwhelming advantage that they use intelligently are repulsed in the end without it looking contrived? If the aliens from PacRim had instead of bothering with giant monsters instead had saturated Earth's oceans with toxins and lethal germs, would there have been a way for humanity to deal with that with just the means at their disposal? See, I think the only recent movie that showed aliens playing their cards straight was in Skyline. That movie was shitty, boring and filled with obnoxious characters, but it is, I think, a more accurate portrayal of what would happen if we were attacked by competent aliens. Spoiler
BTW, that is we would be beaten without much fuss on their side
Those "let's kick the alien invader's ass before breakfast" type of movies just don't cut it anymore. There should be something new.
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I think it's kinda difficult to have an alien invasion movie where we lose. Wouldn't be fun for most audiences to watch us become extinct on screen.
As far as a realistic plot, I've always felt that a good idea for a movie where the aliens are only slightly above us in tech level, and put everything they had into making the journey to our world because theirs was quite literally dead.
They didn't know we existed so they didn't bring RKVs or any massive kill-bot armies, but they were forced to try to invade anyways because we were being jerks and didn't let them colonize, they didn't have the fuel to go anywhere else...and invading is preferable to slowly starving to death in orbit.
So we have an alien invasion that does not *massively* outgun us, but the scale of the conflict is on par with a world war. Naturally there would be some eye candy and 'splosions, but the core of the movie could focus on a group of human soldiers behind enemy lines, or representatives from both sides trying to work out a peaceful solution despite their respective leaderships wanting to kill the evil xenos / humans. You know, something actually more interesting than a forcefield-protected martian machine vaporizing everything in sight.
Wouldn't we just nuke their ships in orbit though? Most modern ICBM's could put a bomb on the moon easy. So there should be no major problem in putting a bomb on a target that's in between.
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.
Well this is an interstellar ship with a roughly similar tech level to our own. Meaning I envision massive radiation shields / armor to protect against impacts while traveling at a high rate of speed. So nukes might not work very well. Also, they WOULD have some kind of weapons...so they might be able to shoot down ICBMs.
Borgholio wrote:Well this is an interstellar ship with a roughly similar tech level to our own. Meaning I envision massive radiation shields / armor to protect against impacts while traveling at a high rate of speed. So nukes might not work very well. Also, they WOULD have some kind of weapons...so they might be able to shoot down ICBMs.
If the tech is similar to our own that means no FTL and no massive speeds. It also means that armor is going to be very thin if they want to carry enough fuel to accelerate to any velocity or decelerate in ways other than a rather harsh landing. And shooting down ICBM's is an option, but we have a lot of them.
On a related note, it also means they took ages to get to us and have likely devolved into a race with no inherent sense of balance and serious problems with bone structure and muscle mass.
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.
Well I actually think they'd have the ability to travel at relativistic speeds. Certainly no FTL but if we had to evacuate Earth and if we had enough lead time, we'd probably put a good amount of R&D into engines that can push us to a speed where interstellar travel isn't too inconvenient.
Won't the laws of physics sort of trip us up on that point? Especially since you are assuming the ships are large or plentiful enough to carry a functioning population that is large enough to fight in a serious war as opposed to a bunch of frozen semen or fetuses.
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.
To be a realistic threat they have to be significantly ahead of us technologically, usually with magic tech to justify an invasion. Otherwise there is no real way they could get here with enough force to pose a threat. If a force was only just more advanced than us how are they going to get the millions of soldiers they would need to Earth, we can barely leave our planets gravity with small capsules let alone an invasion force.
If they are that far advanced to get here it tends to be difficult to justify without resorting to contrived acts of plot why we don't lose and get wiped out.
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How about a scenario where other aliens give us the tech to help repulse the invading aliens. The most obvious example I can think of is Animorphs, although this would be similar to how the superpowers supplied military technology to client states on the cheap. Maybe in this scenario Earth becomes a sort of client state. In this manner we are still somewhat disadvantaged but with some superior strategy we could take the day without relying on deus ex machina.
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mr friendly guy wrote:How about a scenario where other aliens give us the tech to help repulse the invading aliens. The most obvious example I can think of is Animorphs, although this would be similar to how the superpowers supplied military technology to client states on the cheap. Maybe in this scenario Earth becomes a sort of client state. In this manner we are still somewhat disadvantaged but with some superior strategy we could take the day without relying on deus ex machina.
That's another idea I had as well. Say some alien refugees from a distant war came to Earth and we let them live here. At some point, the aggressors track them here and attempt to enslave us as well. The refugees, who refused to give us tech that we could use against each other, decide to help us resist since we won't be fighting each other...we'll be fighting a common foe.
So imagine an M1 Abrams equipped with a particle cannon, or B2 bombers given the capability to fly into orbit to deliver their payloads. Could be lots of neat things happening there.
The main problem with a "realistic" way to defeat an alien invasion like in Pacific Rim is that there's no realistic way to defeat it, it's basically modern army vs. a roman legion in semi-open terrain, only way the legion has any true chance of winning is that if the army does something stupid, otherwise it's not so much of a battle as it's a slaughter.
Realistically speaking only real way to beat an alien invasion like this would be to show that they attacking aliens are already fighting a force about as strong as they are and humans only have make themselves too costly for conquest without making themselves too dangerous/annoying.
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There are three broad ways I can see an alien invasion being fought off:
- A major weakness within the aliens that humans can exploit. I can't think of an example that didn't require stupidity from the aliens.
- The aliens weren't prepared for an invasion, but went ahead anyway. While alien forces are superior, humans outnumber them. Needs a good reason why the aliens choose to start a battle they can't win.
- Alien assistance. Either from another aliens or from dissent within the invaders.
Falling Skies might be a series you want to look into as it's making use of the third option so it could lead to a plausible victory for humans.
Lord Revan wrote:Realistically speaking only real way to beat an alien invasion like this would be to show that they attacking aliens are already fighting a force about as strong as they are and humans only have make themselves too costly for conquest without making themselves too dangerous/annoying.
Could I suggest you Space Battleship Yamato 2199? There the reason Gamilon was slowly bombing Earth into oblivion is just that: Earth barely managed to fight off the initial attack, and after that they couldn't spare the ships necessary to finish the job due internal unrest and most of their fleet being tied up fighting Spoiler
Lord Revan wrote:Realistically speaking only real way to beat an alien invasion like this would be to show that they attacking aliens are already fighting a force about as strong as they are and humans only have make themselves too costly for conquest without making themselves too dangerous/annoying.
Could I suggest you Space Battleship Yamato 2199? There the reason Gamilon was slowly bombing Earth into oblivion is just that: Earth barely managed to fight off the initial attack, and after that they couldn't spare the ships necessary to finish the job due internal unrest and most of their fleet being tied up fighting Spoiler
the Comet Empire.
I've seen it, in fact it was partly my inspiration for my post
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If alien colonization mission launched few hundreds of years ago to Earth their survey telescopes at that time could only detect there is biological life here, but no signs of advanced civilization so there is no reason for them to pack military hardware on a mission where every ton of mass counts. Only serious weapons on their ship may be some sort of laser or particle guns to destroy incoming space debris while in transit at high speed. Obviously a system designed to deal with incoming rocks moving at thousands of km/s would trivially intercept any human missile. Essentially it would mean we can't hit alien ship, however thay also can't start a surface colony unless we allow them.
If aliens lack means to establish space based industry because there was no reason to pack neccesary hardware on a mission where habitable planet awaits it is plausible we could make them surrender on our terms.
Have the aliens arrive via technology not of their own design, but armor and weapons closer to modern Earth. They didn't build the ship, they just found it.
Maybe they used their found supership to orbitally bombard the last primitive civilization into submission. Brimming with confidence, they move on to the next one, Earth. They have a merry old time shooting us up, then something they can't fix/understand breaks and they are forced to make an emergency landing.
What if you did it as a trilogy and have the aliens actually win the first one, mostly wiping our military hardware and trained people away. The second movie is the few people with training left, going underground, stealing what tech they can, try and keep from being discovered, and getting ready for the battle in the third movie. This is the one were we start taking names, manage to capture a ship or two and damage the rest (Maybe they are refuelling and we sabotage it). End the movie with the uneasy begins of an alliance or maybe with them leaving for home, with us keeping as much tech as we can.
Purple wrote:Wouldn't we just nuke their ships in orbit though? Most modern ICBM's could put a bomb on the moon easy. So there should be no major problem in putting a bomb on a target that's in between.
No, ICBMs can't reach the moon, they can't even achieve orbital velocity - they have sub-orbital trajectories, which leave them totally within Earth's atmosphere. Only the big specialist multi-stage rockets can get beyond Earth.
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Purple wrote:Wouldn't we just nuke their ships in orbit though? Most modern ICBM's could put a bomb on the moon easy.
Wrong.
The United States' only active service ICBM, Minuteman III cannot attain LEO. FAS gives its speed at burnout (and thus an approximation of its Delta-v, as it is always launched relatively stationary to this figure) at 24,000 kph = 6.67 km/s ∆V
9.3 - 10 km/s ∆V is required to attain LEO. (Any number of references)
So no, they can't make LEO, let alone a lunar mission (you will find lower Delta-v values quoted for Earth to moon missions, but they refer to transfer from LEO to the moon; the delta V to a moon mission is greater than that to LEO.
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InsaneTD wrote:What if you did it as a trilogy and have the aliens actually win the first one, mostly wiping our military hardware and trained people away. The second movie is the few people with training left, going underground, stealing what tech they can, try and keep from being discovered, and getting ready for the battle in the third movie. This is the one were we start taking names, manage to capture a ship or two and damage the rest (Maybe they are refuelling and we sabotage it). End the movie with the uneasy begins of an alliance or maybe with them leaving for home, with us keeping as much tech as we can.
In order for that kind of partisan resistance story to work the aliens need a single point of failure that the partisan force can exploit in order to win.
Which is really hard to do without it smelling like Battlefield Earth.
One way you could do it is have the initial attacking force be far weaker than it appears. Say for example it's a single warship from an advanced race that got stranded here without support. So they have more than enough firepower to demolish our advanced civilization, but not nearly enough to actually hold the planet afterward. So they do just that, obliterating our armies and nations in the opening months. But they also spend what was left of their fuel in doing so. Now their only option is to carefully, very carefully land where they thing it's sort of safe for them now (every death is irreplaceable) and mine what ever resources they need to limp their way back home.
That way you can have a decent partisan story by virtue of the enemy being very strong and yet not. And having one point of failure (their starship) that you can threaten.
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.
A way to make them "plausible stupid" so we could defeat them: The "aliens" could be nonsapient machines; terraforming or probe bots. Perhaps malfunctioning, perhaps programmed by a species that didn't think there was any other intelligent life to worry about or didn't care. Such machines could have the superior technology needed to cross interstellar space, but still be defeated because they don't actually think. We figure out a weakness, and unlike a sapient opponent would they don't figure out a way to counter our exploitation of that weakness and we destroy them. And since they aren't actually purpose-built for fighting they are much more likely to have such a weakness.
To use the Roman Legion versus a modern force analogy from upthread, it would be less like a Roman Legion trying to defeat a modern army, and more like them figuring out how to sabotage a bunch of robotic bulldozers.
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Lord of the Abyss wrote:A way to make them "plausible stupid" so we could defeat them: The "aliens" could be nonsapient machines; terraforming or probe bots. Perhaps malfunctioning, perhaps programmed by a species that didn't think there was any other intelligent life to worry about or didn't care. Such machines could have the superior technology needed to cross interstellar space, but still be defeated because they don't actually think. We figure out a weakness, and unlike a sapient opponent would they don't figure out a way to counter our exploitation of that weakness and we destroy them. And since they aren't actually purpose-built for fighting they are much more likely to have such a weakness.
To use the Roman Legion versus a modern force analogy from upthread, it would be less like a Roman Legion trying to defeat a modern army, and more like them figuring out how to sabotage a bunch of robotic bulldozers.
That's fundamentally the scenario in Muv-Luv Alternative (when it's not being porn), the BETA are a biological Von Neumann swarm which don't actually recognise anything as alive other than their unknown creators, so humans from their point of view are just resources to be mined that inconveniently move around and cause undue wear and tear on equipment.
(As far as I can tell from the anime series the humans view the BETA as a problem which will go away on its own and therefore can be ignored in favour of nationalist bickering).
