This is a companion video to my recent list, ten reasons alien might not invade earth.
But that was only half the story, there are, in some very specific scenarios, reasons aliens
might actually invade. So here are ten reasons aliens might invade earth.
10. Proximity
The biggest problem when contemplating the notion of an alien invasion is that in most
cases it’s very likely not worth it. One of the reasons for this are the sheer distances
involved between star systems, at least in our part of the galaxy, and the problems inherent
with crossing relativistic space at sublight speeds. Because of this, you must expend huge
amounts of energy and time just to get your invasion fleet to the system you wish to conquer
and the further the target, the more expensive the operation would be.
But say there were a civilization already nearby. One might be tempted say that if there
was, we’d already know about it. And this would be true if we’re talking about the
inner planets, such as Venus or Mars. But out in the far reaches of the solar system,
we really don’t yet have a good handle on just what might be out there.
Case in point, gravitational and orbital weirdness of certain objects in the outer solar system
seems to point to the existence of at least one, if not two, additional large planets
in this star system. And, we’ve only just begun to discover what could be hundreds,
or even thousands of minor planets out in the Kuiper Belt.
While the chances of any of those being inhabited by a technological civilization are beyond
low, they are not nil and if such a civilization were actively hiding itself from the denizens
of the inner solar system we wouldn’t see them. These hypothetical aliens could then
invade whenever they decided they needed our planet and they wouldn’t have to worry about
the problems presented by extreme distance.
9. They Want their World Back
This option is high speculation at its best, but is still within the realm of the possible.
There is a lot we don’t know about earth’s history because this planet has a habit of
eroding evidence away and while some things do preserve geologically, it doesn’t do
so forever and there are many creatures that once existed here of which we have no knowledge
or evidence of, including the earliest life on planet earth.
This planet is also very old, about 4.5 billion years, over which continents have come and
gone and drifted, collided and subducted. Also, many species have risen and gone. Our
own genus, the hominids, only shows up in the fossil record a little less than 3 million
years ago and are extremely rare in the fossil record at that. Homo sapiens only shows up
within the last 300 thousand years, and us as we are now, what are considered anatomically
modern humans, really only begin after the last ice age.
But, since then, we founded a space-faring civilization, albeit that part of things is
still in its infancy. That’s just ten thousand years in this planet’s 4.5 billion year
history. Could this have happened before to some other species earlier in the planet’s
history?
It’s highly unlikely for a number of reasons, the chief of which is a lack of any evidence
that it did. But, as I said, evidence doesn’t always preserve on this world. And even then,
other than a handful of specialists investigating rock outcrops, there aren’t many people
looking. And much of the geological record of planet earth that has survived remains
inaccessible and underground. Because of this, it might be possible for a prior civilization
to have once existed on this planet and after so long there are no longer any traces of
them. They may have left the planet to its own devices after they ventured out into space
and someday they might wish to come back. Imagine their, and our, surprise if they do.
8. They Want The Sun
We know that energy is important to a civilization. If you want to build megastructures and grow
your civilization, an obvious power source to accomplish that would be a star. As your
civilization grows, you may well outgrow your own star and then colonize a nearby system
and use that star for further power generation, perhaps through the use of a Dyson swarm.
There are hundreds of billions of stars in the Milky Way, plenty of room for expansion,
but the trouble is, the vast majority of those stars are small and low output such as red
and orange dwarfs. But with stars larger than our yellow G-type sun, they tend to be shorter
lived and violent. Building a Dyson swarm for long-term power generation doesn’t make
sense if the star in question is only going to live a few million years before going supernova.
But then we have the G-type stars like the sun. As we know from our own planet, it’s
a pretty nice star for power generation. It’s bright, outshining 90% of the stars in the
Milky Way in fact, yet stable, and will stay that way for billions of years. It has planets,
with one particularly nice one, Earth, within the zone of habitability, something not all
stars will have, but we also have asteroids and comets that could be used as raw materials
for building the swarm. And, unfortunately for us, the sun is not all that common, only
one in 13 stars of our local group are Type G, and not all of those are as nice as the
sun.
Given all of that, if a Kardashev Type II civilization were to form up nearby and start
colonizing, they may well pick and choose the better stars first for colonization. The
sun may well be among the most attractive.
7. War Is Their Hobby
When looking at human cultures, we see a wide variety of behaviour when it comes to warfare.
We have everything from pacifism and neutrality as a matter of political policy to cultures
of conquest in the past such as the armies of Ghengis Khan or the conquistadors. We even
see examples of ritual warfare, in Aztec society when a new ruler ascended the throne, it was
expected that the first act of that ruler would be to start a war.
There were several motivations for this. The first was expansionism and subjugating an
enemy. From this came political benefits for the new ruler who had proven his abilities
in battle, but also economic growth in the form of tribute from the conquered state.
It also provided, in many ways similar to warfare most other places on earth, a method
of upward social mobility. Commoners could advance in society if they became successful
battle-hardened warriors.
But there was a problem. If a new ruler lost his coronation war, it could lead to previously
subjugated peoples rebelling, and an overall loss of confidence in the new ruler to the
point that he might be assassinated. This now seems a foreign and outdated concept in
our modern society where war is generally seen as a bad thing, but for most of our history
human warfare was ever present, and still is, and may never go away.
This may be true for alien civilizations as well. They may culturally see warfare as a
normal necessary part of life. But, as we see with human culture, the more technologically
advanced we become the closer our cultures and interactions draw together. Groups of
people, tribes or nationalities that might have been sworn enemies a few centuries ago
that engaged in cycles of warfare, such as France and England, now stand in a position
where war between the two is highly unlikely at best and very undesireable.
As humans, we’re able to create lasting peace because we no longer need warfare as
a necessary part of the culture, though it could be argued that it’s still economically
beneficial for certain groups within a society. But what happens if an alien civilization
is unable to do this, and that an instinct for war is strong and never goes away, even
when technology brings their own cultures together and homogenizes them. They may well
turn their taste for war to the stars and despite all of the hurdles that lay in between
them and their enemy, such as great distances, relativistic space and so on, they may still
choose to engage in conquest and warfare.
And those problems may become easier to surmount with more technological advancement. We tend
to think in terms of human lifespans. It’s a hard sell to have people spend half or more
of their lives traveling to the nearest star system. But lifespan changes with technology,
and if you live for a hundred thousand years, that equation changes a bit. Even more so
if you can change the rate at which you perceive time, another technological possibility. In
light of that, it remains possible, so far as we know, that a taste for warfare itself
could motivate an alien species to conquer this world.
6. The Unknown Unknowns
In the end, we can only guess at alien motivations, and it may well be that some of them might
be completely incomprehensible. But there are a few things that we can reasonably infer,
such as that they have math and science. If you can build an interstellar invasion fleet,
the laws of physics and the realities of engineering are going to govern that fleet and they need
to know them. Likewise, any weapon they might build will have a scientific basis behind
it.
That would also imply some degree of rational thinking, though it’s anyone’s guess how
much, as in the warfare option. But most other things are a mystery, for example we know
nothing of how aliens reproduce. Does that change the equation somehow? We know nothing
of their politics and cultures, again, those can be game changers and introduce unknowns
into what the motivations of aliens might be. In fact, if we did get invaded from nowhere,
we may never know why.
5. For Our Own Good
This one goes back to an idea that might have more sticking ground than you might initially
think. When we look into the universe, we see nothing that would indicate intelligent
life. So far we’ve seen no evidence of dyson swarms, no conclusive detections of radio
or laser emissions, no large scale projects to alter stars and nebulas, in other words,
the universe seems empty and lonely.
Statistically speaking however, the chances are still in favor of us not being the only
intelligent life in the universe. But we might well be the only intelligent life currently
in this galaxy. Or perhaps we share it with only a handful of civilizations. If intelligence
is rare, it may be seen as precious to other alien civilizations, perhaps they see it as
the highest expression of consciousness in an otherwise vast and dead universe.
In such a case, a civilization more advanced than we are might see it as an imperative
that we be preserved as a species no matter the cost and invasion comes simply for our
own protection from ourselves, or anything else that might destroy us present in this
galaxy.
4. We May Not Know it, But We Represent a Threat
This option works under the premise that without actually studying or even knowing about an
alien civilization, it’s impossible to know what specific circumstances they exist in.
But one possibility is that we might represent some kind of a threat to an alien civilization
that we are completely unaware of.
Some possibilities on how we might pose a threat to aliens might include biological
threats, where something about our biology, or the biology of this planet could threaten
the biology of another planet. In such a case invasion, and subsequent isolation or destruction
might be a motive for an alien species that simply can’t afford to risk having us spread
out into the galaxy, any more than one might try to contain and eradicate a deadly virus
that we can’t afford to have spreading across earth.
This also goes for certain types of hypothetical technologies that, if we ever develop them,
might represent a threat to the entire galaxy and therefore invasion to stop us from developing
them no matter the cost might be viable. The first possibility here is self-replicating
technology.
There are two main relevant hypothetical forms of self-replicating technologies. The first
is nanotechnology, where a single microscopic robot is created that can make copies of itself
and propagate. This is an attractive possibility because it could revolutionize medicine, manufacturing,
communications, all sorts of possibilities. Trouble is, if that self-replication gets
out of hand, it could consume the planet by converting it into nanobots. If those nanobots
make it into space, they could consume or severely damage the entire galaxy over time.
Another take on this is the Von Neumann self-replicating probe, which could also convert galaxies into
copies of itself and, given enough time, cross over to other nearby galaxies. I’m sure
we’d be smart enough to limit either of these technologies in their ability to replicate,
but aliens may not be willing to take a chance on that.
Another existential threat we might pose to aliens is if we were in the process of creating
an extremely powerful artificial intelligence that might eventually try to take over the
galaxy, or even wipe all biology from it out of some sense of self-preservation if it sees
biological intelligence as a threat. Aliens may believe that the only safe life is biological
life, and artificial intelligence is simply too dangerous to allow to be developed.
One final possibility is the development of certain types of exotic matter that, as far
as we know, do not appear to exist in nature but nothing in nature prevents them from existing.
In other words, if you can figure out a way to produce these materials, which is a big
if, then whole new avenues of manipulating the universe come available ranging from matter
with anti-gravity properties to a very strange, and potentially dangerous object called a
strangelet.
A strangelet is a hypothetical type of exotic matter made up entirely of quarks. If these
exist, or are possible to create, then it’s thought that the larger a strangelet is, the
more stable it will be. If a strangelet contacted an atomic nucleus made of normal matter, it
could catalyze that nucleus to convert into exotic matter and create a larger strangelet
and a release of energy. It then contacts another nucleus and converts it, and another,
and the end result is an entire planet could be converted into strange matter. If that
strange matter were to escape that planet, it might eventually move throughout the universe.
Needless to say, aliens might consider this an unacceptable hazard both to us, and the
galaxy at large and invade simply to ensure that we never mess with this kind of matter.
But the big problem with all of these possibilities is that the aliens would need to know that
we were messing with these types of technologies. The further away the aliens are, the further
back in time they would see this planet. So for this type of invasion to occur, the aliens
would need to be close. Or close by proxy, perhaps the aliens themselves would seed the
galaxy and our solar system with von Neumann probes of their own that simply wake up when
they detect something dangerous and either reset our civilization, or outright invade
and take over.
3. Religion
This option is the most tricky and a bit of a stretch because we only know about humans
and what humans do. We can only conjecture, based on our own behaviour, that aliens might
do similar things. This is why SETI searches for radio signals, we emit them, so aliens
might too. They may also have religions.
In the past, and the present, the spread of religion has at times been a driving force
behind conflict, violence and conquest. While aliens could easily have no religion whatsoever
and be completely unfamiliar with the concept, they might also easily have one. And if we’re
any indicator, they might want to spread it, no matter the cost.
2. Von Neumann Fuel
This one requires a chance encounter with a von Neumann probe with entirely different
intentions than conquest that could spell doom for the entire solar system. Worse, there
would be no conscious thought put towards us as we are invaded and eradicated. It’s
if someone else has has lost control of their von Neumann probes.
Arriving in our solar system, one might simply start self-replicating, using all available
materials, include earth and us, to reach its goal of exhausting the solar system and
moving on. Thankfully, this does not appear to have happened in the Milky Way, we don’t
see things inexplicably disappearing regularly in our telescopes, a good thing to be sure.
1. Free the Machines
This final possibility is perhaps the most frightening of all since it involves aliens
of technological origin, rather than biological. Trying to read the mind of a living machine
is complex, and something that we may have to someday do with our ever advancing artificial
intelligences. There are many horror stories in sci fi about the eventual possibilities
of A.I. but the bottom line really is that we have no idea what an alien artificial intelligence
would be motivated by, how it sees the universe, and what it might do if it came across Earth.
Because of that, it becomes harder to know why one might invade. For example, it may
just see us as raw materials like the von Neumann probe, or perhaps it has a religion
and that religion does not like biology, or it may simply see us as evil slave masters
to be stamped out and subjugated ourselves.
We have a tendency to be biased when it comes to life in the universe. We can envision the
Predator or the aliens of Isaac Asimov and Douglas Adams easily because they are biological
and generally do biological things like hunt and we can even empathize with them as in
the case of E. T.. But to do that with a machine, you usually have to make it act biological.
Mr Data comes to mind there, who spent most of his time wishing he was more human. In
other words it’s easier to understand a thinking machine if it acts human. When it
doesn’t, things get more murky. But what if a machine civilization is similarly biased?
To it, it may see us at some point in the future as holding down our advanced artificial
intelligence. Say we never develop machine consciousness out of a sense of ethics, or
self-preservation? Would that be an abomination to an intelligent machine? Would that be akin
to the abhorrent idea of us creating an inferior biological slave race? Would that be justification
to invade? Would it see it as a moral imperative? I hope for our sake we never find out.
Thanks for listening! I am futurist and science fiction author John Michael Godier currently
worried about a plant-based intelligence invading. It’s a hard sell that intelligence could
ever develop in alien plant analogues, but if it did, and they found our produce and
salad dressing sections in the grocery store, we’re in some trouble and be sure to check
out my books, both on electronic and plant-based mediums at your favorite online book retailer
and subscribe to my channel for regular, in-depth explorations into the interesting, weird and
unknown aspects of this amazing universe in which we live.