Colonizing inhabited alien planets. (Hypothetical)

[Mihalik]

Let's presume there would be some deus ex machina solution to the problem of traveling interstellar distances, and we could achieve it somehow cost effectively and with reasonable travel times, but without reaching anything resembling a technological singularity. Let's presume we would find some way to do all this within the next 35 to 40 years.

Now let's presume we find an alien planet that is habitable or at least marginally habitable for humans and can sustain a native ecosystem of its own that is either suitable for humans or sustain a transplanted human ecosystem (read: we can eat the food and drink the water)

Let's also presume there is a pre information age, bronze to early industrial age civilization already existing on that planet.

Would we make direct contact or would we just observe and wait until that civilization reaches certain degree of technological development before we make contact?

Would we be repeating the sins of our past and attempt to "help" or "uplift" them by some form of benevolent colonialism? If they would be engaged in something like our Napoleonic Wars or World War 1 (which were the deadliest global wars before World War 2), would we intervene somehow to end it?
What if the morals of one faction would be recognizably benevolent while the other would be some sort of crazy supremacist genocidal group like our Nazi's, would we take sides?

We often ask the question what would happen if aliens make contact with us, but rarely how it would look like if we were the aliens?

Scenarios like James Cameron's Avatar are terribly simplistic and just reverse the roles in the typical Hollywood alien invasion movie, the invaders are magically beaten by some magical surprise solution, like in War of the Worlds, where an advanced alien race hasn't somehow discovered microbiology, or in Avatar where the "Living planet" rise up against the invaders.

[s_bushido]

Finding alien life that can even be contacted in the first place (because it's not just...pond scum, for instance) would be so momentous that I doubt anything would stop us from doing it...

But I don't see how interfering with the politics of a completely alien species would be anything but disastrous.

[Low Hanging Fruit]

We most certainly would interfere. I doubt it would be a purposeful elimination of their population. I would imagine at first we would try to avoid them as much as possible but the crossing of paths would eventually take place. If we were advanced enough to appear as gods to them than than I am sure we wouldn't have a problem posing as them. If they were advance enough to understand what we are I would think we wouldn't have a problem picking a side and helping them out to progress our own agenda. But either way a religion or choosing sides in a nation state situation much blood shed will / would happen eventually. It is the one constant in both religions and strengthening a nation over others.

They would get shit on. Simple as that. Specifically the first few when we have no idea what we are doing. After that it all depends on how we become.. what direction we go.. could be peaceful or total violence.

[PC2]

Societies with a higher scientific understanding take priority over those with a lesser one. It's that simple. We use that planets resources to further scientific advancement.

Carbon based life forms as we know them are pretty transient anyways, so the goal should be to work on superior forms of life.

[Planetarism]

You're very ambitious & hopeful, posting this kind of topic in the wee hours of the morning in a place as plebian & uncultured as mmo-c ;p

For instance, on a very different forum, my own type of post about this general subject was met with sillyness & no real response/fade to obscurity really fast.

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Ideally, and most probably in our near-to-mid-future-case - given the modern attitudes in the astronomical, bioethics & physics scientific circles (which would presumably form the near-totality of the people making decisions on the human space exploration mission), a space-faring civilization does not want to disrupt other sapient xenobiology's development & history. That's known as cultural contamination, destroying the chance for native cultural artifacts, technology, creative arts to be fully developed untampered by alien contact.

Which by the way, forms a most excellent reason as to 'Why have no aliens openly landed here/interacted with us' yet. It's widely accepted that the most correct way to handle it is 'let them develop a bit further until they are ready & mature for open interaction.

That's of course in addition to the Occam's Razor-derived Fermi Paradox Solver, which posits that the simplest reason why no aliens have 'found/contacted Earth's humans' with undeniable evidence so far, is merely that even in a ginormous universe with untold amounts of galaxies each containing billions of stars & thus yet another 'ticket in the lottery for intelligent life', the odds of any 2 or more of these civilizations to develop in any remotely contemporary timeframe & have the opportunity to meet/interact via interstellar spacefaring, are mathematically minute to a mind-boggling degree :/

In other words, species don't merely have to deal with light-years of distances. They also have to happen to develop space-faring technology at -just- the right, relatively small window of time another civilization also happens to be -present- (not self-annihilated or transformed into post-physical beings) and at a development cycle where mutual interaction is ethically(see above^) or even logically(e.g. blue aliens meets early hominids millions of years ago..) sound.

[Deleted]

I dont see where 'technological advancement' means that greed and other straits of our species no longer exist ? Of course we would strip-mine the whole alien planet if it benefits the immortal (thanks technology) upper 0,001%.

[PC2]

In other words, species don't merely have to deal with light-years of distances. They also have to happen to develop space-faring technology at -just- the right, relatively small window of time another civilization also happens to be -present- (not self-annihilated or transformed into post-physical beings) and at a development cycle where mutual interaction is ethically(see above^) or even logically(e.g. blue aliens meets early hominids millions of years ago..) sound.

If a portion of the universe (such as us) meets another portion of the universe that has zero to add to its own complexity beyond historical awareness, then there is no ethical issue.

I swear some folks would try to assign spiritual value to anything more complex than a speck of dust...

[Kuntantee]

Societies with a higher scientific understanding take priority over those with a lesser one. It's that simple. We use that planets resources to further scientific advancement.

Carbon based life forms as we know them are pretty transient anyways, so the goal should be to work on superior forms of life.

So according to you, Japan would take the lead and not USA? Your logic fails miserably. There is no such thing as "higher scientific understanding". Science is an international endeavor, that's how it works. You are talking about engineering capabilities which is combination of economical power, state of the art and social status.

[Amaterasu65]

If it was habitable but not inhabited, younger than Earth and pure, at first I guess we'd use extra resources and then after many years the elite could go and stay there away from Earth.
If it was habitable and inhabited, observing the inhabitants before contacting with them would be the better choice. If they are weak, we got nothing to lose by meeting them and taking advantage of their land, their knowledge. If, however, they are more advanced than us I'd rather not play badass and "invade" their land for diplomatic reasons.

[Medusa Cascade]

Depends how attractive the aliens are

[PC2]

So according to you, Japan would take the lead and not USA? Your logic fails miserably. There is no such thing as "higher scientific understanding". Science is an international endeavor, that's how it works. You are talking about engineering capabilities which is combination of economical power, state of the art and social status.

Except that's not my logic, you just made up a strawman. And the fact that you think there is no such thing as higher scientific understanding is laughable. Read some history, people used to have little understanding of life. Some thought that life came from a pervasive aura, they had a lower scientific understanding, we have a higher one.

[Deleted]

Let's presume there would be some deus ex machina solution to the problem of traveling interstellar distances, and we could achieve it somehow cost effectively and with reasonable travel times, but without reaching anything resembling a technological singularity. Let's presume we would find some way to do all this within the next 35 to 40 years.

Now let's presume we find an alien planet that is habitable or at least marginally habitable for humans and can sustain a native ecosystem of its own that is either suitable for humans or sustain a transplanted human ecosystem (read: we can eat the food and drink the water)

Let's also presume there is a pre information age, bronze to early industrial age civilization already existing on that planet.

Would we make direct contact or would we just observe and wait until that civilization reaches certain degree of technological development before we make contact?

Would we be repeating the sins of our past and attempt to "help" or "uplift" them by some form of benevolent colonialism? If they would be engaged in something like our Napoleonic Wars or World War 1 (which were the deadliest global wars before World War 2), would we intervene somehow to end it?
What if the morals of one faction would be recognizably benevolent while the other would be some sort of crazy supremacist genocidal group like our Nazi's, would we take sides?

We often ask the question what would happen if aliens make contact with us, but rarely how it would look like if we were the aliens?

Scenarios like James Cameron's Avatar are terribly simplistic and just reverse the roles in the typical Hollywood alien invasion movie, the invaders are magically beaten by some magical surprise solution, like in War of the Worlds, where an advanced alien race hasn't somehow discovered microbiology, or in Avatar where the "Living planet" rise up against the invaders.

putting aside the statistical impossibility of compatible biology, and the whole travel issues....

I'd hope we'd stay the fuck away. We have hopefully learnt from our past that you cant take a more "advanced" culture and live in harmony with a "less advanced" one, it will always result in the one culture being destroyed. Just look at the genocide of the Native Americans.

I'd expect the UN equivalent would quarantine the planet and prevent any form of contact other than remote study.

Personally I think we should stay away from any planet with life, sentient or not. We have fucked over one planet's ecology, we should not do it to another.

[Deleted]

If we are technically more advanced, we would kill them all, and get their resources for our own use (See: American history: Indians). Best would be if those aliens also tasted nice and we could eat them.
If they are more technically advanced than us, we would have to do anything to escape them, in the hope they never find out where we come from. If we do not manage to escape, they will do the first with us. If we manage it, we should try to advance to their technology, and once we reached it we should carefully try to kill them all.

[mittacc]

I would ssy that every aliens invasion movie we hav is simply a reflection of what we humans would do to an alien planet if we ever encountered one - we fear competition.

[Revi]

Are there profitable resources there? Because those aliens might have weapons of mass destruction.

[Deleted]

Just look at how 1st world deals with Africa for instance.

One part of society takes advantage of their poor situation and opens up factories, mines and such that brings little more than piece of bread for dinner to the locals, but generates net profits for themselves.
Other part of the society trying to help them out - UN, Red Cross, Red Crescent, others.
Third part of society arms them with weapons and benefits from conflicts.

We humans are not one single being. So to say, if we find a way to travel to another world and that way becomes accessible for many people, you can expect nothing different than what is described above.
Some will try to observe and record, some will try to "help", some will try to benefit by various means and methods.

If the space traveling isn't accessible to everyone, and for instance one country claims the discovery as their own property, there will be wars on Earth before we get the chance to explore said planet.

[Osmeric]

If the issue comes up -- if there actually are other intelligent species nearby -- then we are totally screwed. It means that something must destroy intelligent species before they can colonize the galaxy/universe (otherwise, one of those very numerous intelligent species would have colonized everything aeons ago and we would not be here.)

[Kyr]

We often ask the question what would happen if aliens make contact with us, but rarely how it would look like if we were the aliens?

ever watch star trek? the Prime Directive is non-interference with pre-warp cultures. it is at least mentioned in about half the episodes, the start of the last movie even made a big point of it.

realistic answer. if this was the only habitable planet we could find I imagine we would find a way to take it for ourselves regardless of what already inhabits it. If this were one of many habitable planets, some populated some not, I would think we would have a more open mind about leaving them alone and sticking to the uninhabited ones.

[Independent voter]

I would contact the aliens. If there are aliens on Earth right now and won't contact us because they have some stupid moral code, please shut up and contact us.

[Mihalik]

Are there profitable resources there? Because those aliens might have weapons of mass destruction.

On a serious note. That adds another layer of complexity to the question, because the question then would be, could we profitably extract and transport said resources? If transportation is feasible, it might be more profitable to extract resources from an environment that is not as hostile as the Jovian moons or the Kuiper belt would be.