hkmaly

It's true that US has lot of almost empty space. In Europe, the cities (and industries) are much more packed. There are rumors Egypt has nuclear weapon program. No matter if true, someone might decide it's worth few nukes. I agree with South America and rest of Africa. Something over three billion years ago? Unless we are dealing with something like in Turtledove's short story "The Road not Taken" where discovering FTL tends to cause civilizations to stop advancing, so the Aliens had black powder weapons against automatic rifles. Discovering FTL TOO SOON. But yes ... even in less extreme cases than the ones described in that story (according to wikipedia), there is possibility of meeting aliens with unbalanced (compared to us) technology for various reasons. With single exception: with FTL technology, you CERTAINLY can use kinetic weapons (asteroids). This may actually explain the "discovering FTL very soon": what if you can LITERALLY find negative-mass matter on most planets but someone stolen ours? Optimized for attack. Not optimized when you admit enemy will fire as well. If one country launch their nukes, at least two countries would respond, and both would counterattack on very similar list of targets. Some neutronium would work just fine for increasing Mars' gravity. I would guesstimate about the same amount as Mars' current mass. I don't know if that's "exotic matter" by your definition. I was attempting to quote something ... "exotic matter industry" was industry dealing with not only producing exotic matter, but also using it to control small singularities (black holes) and wormholes. Exotic matter is usually matter with negative mass. I didn't said we can't, I just said bigger planets are easier to find so logically we find more of them. But I must admit I'm not doing my own statistics. What about automatic probes with detection equipment spread around? THEY may be 5000 light years away but the closest probe might happen to be just 50 light years from Earth ... Or delivering upgraded weapons ... but yes, invasion which would take multiple centuries to get here would be at serious disadvantage. I think there are several human commanders which, even planing colonization attempt, would pack lot of weapons "just in case". Especially if they have some replicator technology and packing weapons is just matter of having the files and energy to replicate them. Note however, that colonization attempt would at least mean they won't target us because of Jar Jar. They may be convinced to call off the invasion if it wasn't supposed to be invasion from start. I suddenly have this mental image of Earth being invaded by alien Greenpeace activists who curb stomp us to save the environment. That actually makes sense. They are not interested in us, but diverse ecosystem not yet devastated by industry ... well, ok, partially devastated, but in much better shape than theirs, because their industry had more time to devastate it before they finally developed the FTL technology.

I really like the image but I really don't like the story. Seems like too strong personality change to me ...

It might be little stretch calling what Fox wears French maid outfit. However, it's likely closest to it from what Nanase has. The lust object part, meanwhile, is almost confirmed in the comment by how unconvincingly Dan denies it. Although Nanase might not actually do it for that reason ... yet. I think she's preparing/rehearsing something for Ellen. And yes, this strip was reason why I suggested Nanase as target for blame this time.

True, there is this risk as well. We can't really compare if our speed of technological progress is better or worse than average. We can meet aliens which would be so surprised by our technology they wouldn't close their mouths until after WE conquer THEIR home planet ... or aliens who will do mistakes hurrying here out of fear we will match their technology level before they get here. ... or, we may get aliens who are able to predict EXACTLY how fast we invent things. The first transmission we catch on the first prototype of FTL radio will start "-mly welcome the civilization of planet Earth to our communication network." ... ok, they did get it few seconds wrong. This reminds me the novel where aliens arrived on planet just days before it's sun explosion hoping they can save someone and was surprised noone is home. They later found that despite their primitive technology, natives build fleet of slow generation spaceships and evacuated on them. The alien commander was able to find the direction they flied, easily caught up and started first contact, despite his second of command joking that they should be careful with this determined species as their galactic republic outnumber them only like twenty billions to one. Just twenty years later, that note was no longer funny. Let me guess. One of the non native civilizations is a group called "Men" who were apparently from a planet the Earthlings called "Mars". And the other civilization is a group called "Women" from a place called "Venus". I was thinking actual three different spaceflight capable civilizations meeting on Earth, but your idea isn't bad either. Except the aliens would need to be very stupid or very sloppy in Venus observation to believe anyone looking remotely human lives there.

Also, did Susan really considered chance of success of that plan or did she rejected because of not being cool enough? Standard procedure. But Tedd isn't supposed to be in this story line. Neither is Nanase, who could be good target for blame in this case as well.

This is again about how similar they are. If their biosphere is incompatible, removing ours with bombardment would be safer than hoping they can modify it before some pathogen adapts to them. If they are compatible or close, they might actually be able to use their biochemistry knowledge to engineer such bioweapon. That's assuming they haven't been watching from somewhere nearby for the past couple decades. Of course. If they have cloaking devices or are careful and willing to risk, they may be watching from close. But ... exactly how much effort they are going to put into such project? It's likely they would want to have some idea about our civilization BEFORE spending resources to sending some probe or ship here. Unless they have cheap FTL engine and rotate big teams of experts every three months (their months, not ours) because we somehow happen to be most interesting civilization in galaxy which I somehow doubt ... That would make it easy for aliens to blend in. Alien commander: What do you have to report on the natives, scout? Scout: I apparently won first place in something called a cosplay competition, sir. Unlikely. Maybe second place. That's assuming StarTrek scenarists were able to guess much better than expected ... or had outside info. On the other hand, aliens would certainly need to try very hard to count how many actual alien civilization visited the Con. "The mission on Earth was success ; we made first contact with two different civilizations. Neither of them turned to be native there but I'm sure we can make contact with Earthlings later." That's awfully wasteful. Bury it. Nevada has salt mines perfect for this. You could almost just make a big pile out in the Sahara desert and cover it with a really big tarp. Aliens with the ability to move an invasion force across space might have other technological advantages that would be capable of sorting the radioactives out of the soil. They may also have different regulations for radioactivity and be not willing to risk underground water contamination or something similar as much as we do. Those tend to be on more places than expected. Especially considering the "military assets" are build on separate locations PRECISELY to make sure it will be hard for enemy to hit all of them at once. And the nuclear arsenal is not exactly optimized, even after several attempts to disarmament we have much more nukes than needed. I don't have access to real strategic plans for nuclear war, but I wouldn't count on anything in Europe or North America to be safe. Some parts of Asia and probably Africa may survive, yes ... Impacts on Mars and Earth might seem too coincidental. Not so much. The idea is to send one swarm of projectiles hitting both, not two obviously separate asteroids. Also ... even if it would seem too coincidental, what do you think we will do with that information? Unless they already have exotic matter industry and can afford to install singularity into Mars core I think that main reason we are finding bigger exoplanets is that bigger exoplanets are easier to find. If the aliens have done their homework, they would know that a few impacts in the right places could destroy the human's food supply and get them fighting among themselves. If they REALLY done their homework, they would know that impact on Jerusalem on 25th December will start religious wars. That may be easier strategy: they can likely generate strong EMP bursts more effectively than we do and cripple most of our technology without any nuclear fallout, AND they don't even need to know that much about us, just looking at how much junk we have in orbits will tell them enough to consider this strategy. If they have FTL engine, they probably have other technology capable of defeating us easily. If they don't, it means it took them centuries to get here ; getting impatient now is improbable and would be sign of very bad planning. In fact, most likely, they are going to send automatic ships before the ones with themselves, and those automatic ships will launch attack in the time window created by fact automatic ship can accelerate faster than ships with crew. ... not speaking about the possibility to launch attack in time window obtained by NOT DECELERATING. If they accelerate to 0.5c to get here fast, anything which they WONT bother slowing down (like ... empty fuel tanks) would be much more effective than any asteroid AND will arrive months if not years before the invasion force. If they would be able to aim it good enough ... Or, if we consider the EMP plan, again, it's likely possible to fire the EMP pulse from something which is flying through our solar system in high speed ; you need to almost stop to start invasion.

Actually, Larry was only willing to learn after VERY strong wake-up call. Lot of "Larrys" never got such call. Luckily there are people who became willing to learn easier.

They send a few teenagers to make crop circles, tip cattle, and go joyriding with whatever poor schlubs with no witnesses they can find. While the conspiracy theorists are busy with all that, they go to the conspiracy theorists' mothers' homes and convince them they should throw out any boxes that haven't been opened in over a year. Then they just pick up the boxes that contain the conspiracy theorists' comic book collections. That sound like good strategy. In fact, it sounds like so good strategy they don't need invasion. The radiation to stop being radioactive. What, you want to lift all that to orbit and transfer somewhere else? IMHO even the "standard" nuclear war will irradiate most of Earth. It will still have magnetic field, that's true. It might actually be good strategy to send the asteroids both to Mars and Earth. First, it will create diversion. Second, why not start both terraforming projects at same time? And, actually, for someone capable of moving between stars, sending few asteroids might look much simpler than landing and starting invasion. It might even require less energy if they plan to return the invasion force to orbit eventually.

If they have counterfeiting laws even nearly as strict as those we have in Denmark, copied issues of Action Comics #1 would be no good. They would just land the forgers in jail. Either you present the cashier with the actual comic or you can go look for groceries elsewhere. ... how many astronauts did Denmark got on Moon? (It's true that counterfeiting laws makes more sense than disallowing copying completely. On the other hand ... how exactly would ANY original of Earth's comic got on different planet before the invasion?)

Aliens would have to already be interested in something approximating our planet's chemistry and temperature or they'd just move on and leave us alone. Whatever humans may have done to the Earth, it ought to be trivial for aliens who want to make Earth their home. A little CO2 here, some landfills there...Nothing compared to terraforming Venus or Mars. Venus and Mars are unlikely to be their only other alternatives. And terraforming Earth AFTER we fire our nuclear weapons might easily take longer than Mars. Let's see ... gold is one of the least reactive chemical elements, resistant to most acids. It's extremely malleable, you can make very thin wire from it. In fact, you can make so thin leaf from it it's semi-transparent. It's also third most conductive metal (after silver and copper, and copper corrodes). Even if we didn't like it, it would still has many uses in electronics. I'm pretty sure species (or nation) which is unable to realize that information can be copied for free can't be advanced enough to leave orbit of their home planet. Take US for example: It wasn't able to send astronaut to Moon since prolonging the copyright from 28 years to 50 years after author death.

It's not much different than anything else that a person can take interest in. It certainly depends on the person though, some may always get enjoyment out of something, but others after a while might decide it's not doing it for them anymore and look for something new. I don't think I stopped enjoying anything I used to enjoy. Although it's true that there are things I abandoned for something with higher ratio of enjoyment to time. Like, most of TV. Or westerns. Why not both? (Also, I'm pretty sure BDSM as term was deliberately widened to raise society acceptance to some more extreme parts of it. That, or the BDSM scope is more slippery than I though.)

I would expect they would be able to recognize the fact that there are hostilities between several countries and even civil unrest, and if they've been watching us for some time, they should have a decent idea about the geopolitical landscape. Remember: they wouldn't be able to watch what is actually happening - not in usable resolution at least. They will only have the broadcasts, and likely in bad quality, full of noise and/or errors. They may have like 10 minutes of something and lack the part before which could hint that it's fiction and/or history. And then another 10 minutes from something else. And another ... Of course that's more than enough to recognize there are (or recently were) hostilities between several countries, but may not be enough to get list of those countries or to put the geopolitical map together. I would count all of that as "boosting ego". With the amount of carbon dioxide in atmosphere and all those landfills and ... unless they like that, of course ... why am I tinking of this for your description : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Tripods Considering the deadly disadvantage of "...completely incapable of lying, finding it difficult to tell the difference between a novel and a biography. As such they are extremely gullible, taking everything told to them as indisputable truth." I'm surprised they took so long.

... are you implying fetishes can't last?

There are plenty of other things being broadcast that may make extra terrestrials want to exterminate us, I'd say more, but the politics thread is locked at the moment. Extra terrestrials would probably not understand our politics anyway. Or they may fail to distinguish between real politics, Galactic Senate on Coruscant, Imperial Court of Padishah Emperors and Seven Kingdoms of Westeros. Viruses basically-certainly would not be able to, being so reliant on the intricacies of cell function and the genome, hence e.g. bacteriophages cannot directly harm eukaryotes. So we're thinking bacteria, fungi, … which would not (initially) be adapted to parasitising the extraterrestrial life, but the extraterrestrial life would not be adapted or immunised against them [the microorganisms] colonising them [the extraterrestrials] and potentially causing harm either. Yes: the more specifically something is adapted, the less dangerous it will likely be - but some bacteria are rather generic. Something generally harmless for us can be deadly for them. Putrefying bacteria comes to mind.

The whole backstory seems convoluted really, and maybe best explained by video: If THIS is the BEST explanation, it's not worth trying to find out WTF. Right. Just about any inorganic material and most simple organic molecules (such as hydrocarbons) can be readily acquired from a lifeless planet, moon, comet, or asteroid. Lifeless, unarmed and with MUCH shallower gravitation well. It's extremely unlikely anything more complicated that the organic molecules from comets would be useful for you. Of course, you may be able to process simple stuff like sugar (with 50% probability actually) or alcohol, but those ARE on comets. Proteins? Fats? No. And sugar will NOT be worth it if you need to get it from gravity well of Earth. Of course, in most sci-fi, aliens are not only able to process each other food, they can actually like the taste (making luxury food possibility); they can also have sex and children with humans. ... ok, that may work. However, you need to be VERY careful about decontamination. Local microbes PROBABLY wouldn't be able to infect you, but ... there will be lot of them. One might be lucky. And the reason to subjugate is probably to boost your ego, because you likely have robotics advanced enough you don't need them as slave workers. There is another option: research. Aliens might be interested in our biosphere because comparing it to their own will help them understand both. ... considering they invaded inhabited planet for that, the goal for that research is likely biological weapon. Actually, maybe they are attacking us just because they want to test their strategy and weapons before attacking that other species which they really hate. Alternatively, as you already mentioned, they may actually hate us. Perhaps something we broadcasted was insulting to them. Like ... Jar Jar?

What makes you think she KNOWS? She may just guessed correctly. The "Because he's Tedd" explanation that Elliot gave to Ellen in http://www.egscomics.com/index.php?id=673 probably indicates that both Elliot and Ellen are accustomed to the "Tedd likes to wear female forms" idea by this point, though Elliot couldn't understand what cooking had to do with being female precisely because he knew that gender stereotypes such as cooking mean bullcrap when talking about a person who can change between male and female bodies on demand. Hmmmm ... well it was something over one month, so there was likely some interaction between them we didn't see ... and possibly some event which helped Grace guess the initial reaction, because she doesn't seem to pay attention in the apron case.

And the question of HOW can one of them be android in alternate universe is clearly answered: it's not CLOSE alternate universe, it's 100 years in future (the comic is happening in year 20XY, isn't it?) How did they answered the question why the robots are on earth there? Because that "natural resources" doesn't seem so likely to me, it seems we will deplete those far sooner.

YOU try to hit target while flying for first time. It doesn't seem so stressed to me, but if it is, it could easily be caused by inexperience with flying.

VPN. I could search google, but I don't have personal experience with anything and you can search google too, so I don't see the point. There are definitely lot of offered options, although many are paid. (Actually ... I do have experience with openvpn, but just the software, not the service they apparently also offer, and buying own server just to use it definitely wouldn't be cheapest possibility.)

Obliviousness/naivety seems to be a common theme for many toymakers. I think the key words are plausible deniability. Also, I can totally imagine the meeting where everyone realizes the problem but noone is brave enough to say it out loud. (Seriously - not only it would be embarrassing, they can also be sued for sexual harassment.) I think it was extremely good idea and, as mentioned on one of the deleted reviews, every girl should get one. If they are old enough to enjoy it, you would be naive to think they didn't tried already with something else. (Also, the surest way to make them try more? Forbid it.) Relevant comment on a relevant (old) thread. Yeah, very good note.

Depends on how much alternate the reality is. The reality of game IS alternate to the reality where you play it (from). Not close alternate, but still ...

Right. That's why it could be Grace. I wasn't sure about her, as it would make more sense with Susan and Charlotte Edit: Elliot though she's robot.

Oh. Didn't noticed. Thanks. Is youtube-dl blocked as well? EDIT: probably yes. The girl is Filia Ul Copt if not even that can be found from that video.

Going back to the ECO game I mentioned before, it kinda has a Majora's Mask twist in that there's a meteor that will hit the world you're in after 30 real days (game time passes more like minecraft so a game day is 20 minutes or so) So basically the goal of the game is to manage resources while learn new skills and technologies and try progress as far as possible before the end of the world. Some people I've seen play mention trying to build a bunker underground to try to survive the impact, but I dunno if it's actually possible. Bunker? What about technology to divert the meteor or colonize other planets? EDIT: Actually, the wiki for ECO mentions meteor is supposed to be prevented by technology.

Not sure if that's an actual cape, it appears to be part of that person's body. Exactly. But it LOOKS like one ... There is similar girl here (14:08 ... how can you make those links which send you in middle of video?) Ups. Fixed.