Imagine there was another Earthlike planet in our system

Joker said:

Morrus, correct me if I'm wrong and please do, but it seems to me you think that because we can't do something now we can't do it ever.

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No, he isn't. He's arguing that we could not do it now, assuming a reasonable time of discovery in the past. What happens in the future is the future.

Umbran, I think, made the assumption that they are humanoid but what if they are a hive-mind type of aliens? Have you ever tried to have a conversation with an ant colony? Note, a drunken monologue doesn't count. You get nothing but a swath of red bumps and burning skin from that.

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Cue Ender's Game and the Bugger Wars? Per previous post, really not relevant. They cannot actually use our planet at the time under consideration, and we couldn't really use theirs. The only reason to go to war is fear that the other guy will, but the other guy has no reason to go to war!

This is where the interplanetary scenario differs from our Cold War. Our Cold War was ultimately over (proxy) control of real-world resources that could be used. The Russians presented a threat of taking over Europe and Asia, because they could have *used* Europe and Asia. At the tech level cited, the Martians have no use for Earth. We have no use for Mars.

We can only think of going to Mars to use it now because it is uncontested, and even then the economics make it a questionable venture. Make it so before you can get anything out of it, you have to demolish the planet, it becomes even less attractive.

We will find ways to kill things if need be.*

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Yes. My point is about the lack of need.

I'm quite positive that while we try to communicate and understand each other, running parallel to this endeavor will be individual militaries or global collaborations commissioning research into information gathering and weapons technology.

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Yes. So, let us think about that for a moment. How, exactly, are you going to test whatever weapons you develop? You sure as heck can't test them on Earth.

Derren said:

We can already send probes up to mars. Load them up with nuclear or biological bombs and you have your weapon. Of course you do not send one but thousands.
The capability to wage war is certainly there.

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Too bad we can't have a Death Star...

Umbran said:

No. I'm making the assumption that at the tech level under discussion, they *CANNOT* be concerned with territory. Taking the territory is not an option.

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Further, people only want territory they can use. Colonization of the New World was based on the possibility of trade. Modern day territorial disputes are often oil fields. What are you going to do with territory on Mars?

If you change the situation from planets in a solar system to countries on a planet, you can consider similar issues. We're not going to blow up a country on the other side of the world just because - we're going to at least attempt to be diplomatic with them first. If nothing else, you can make a lot more money that way with a lot fewer resources.

Bullgrit said:

Would communication between the worlds be open to whatever signals get thrown back and forth, or would governments clamp down on radio signals to keep the other world, (or their own world), from learning too much? For example, like how certain nations here on Earth control(ed) information.

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Difficult, because we use radio communication too much. Controlling transmission is easy enough - local authorities could find and shut down any transmitter powerful enough to be heard on Mars.

But, if you or they want to broadcast, the only way to prevent folks here from listening is to take away all the radio receivers on the planet, and all the components one might use to build a receiver - and that there pretty much kills your electronics industry, as the things you need to build a receiver are really basic. So, you can control who talks to the Martians, but not who listens in on the conversation between you. Collusion between human and martian governments could establish encryption protocols, but short of that, pretty much everyone knows who's saying what.

Would Earth be more likely to form a one-world government? Or would nations be even more divided?

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Eh. Pure speculation, here. You'd have to start including effects like what knowledge of another intelligent species does to religions around the world (both worlds, really). And that's going into areas that'd be outside the rules of EN World.

And assuming the Earth-like Mars also has many, many nationalities and languages, would this help or hinder the interplanetary communication and trade?

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We are used to conducting trade across a globe that has many languages and nationalities. I don't see that as an issue.

[I don't think the Iraq war bankrupted the US. If the Iraq war cost 100 billion, (using the number given in this thread), the US national debt grew 7,000 billion (7 trillion) since the war's start. So 1/70th part of the debt can't be the cause of bankruptcy.]

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No. No no no. The original estimates for a two-year engagement were $100 billion. But, when you start counting up all the costs (like including that it's gone way, way past two years, and adding in veterans benefits and such) the Iraq war has cost more like $100 billion *per year*. Total cost of the actions in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Pakistan are estimated to be at least $3 to $4 trillion, maybe as high as $6 trillion.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Financial_cost_of_the_Iraq_War

Whether or not it has bankrupted the US (the concept's a little fuzzy for an entity that can create money, after all), it has had notable negative economic impact.

No. No no no. The original estimates for a two-year engagement were $100 billion.

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I was just using what Morrus threw out, (since he was the one making the comparison/argument): "The cost of Iraq in the last ten years is under $100bn and it's bankrupted the world."

There are political spins to all the numbers, and even the link you give shows wildly varying figures depending on who calculates what information, and how. But even taking the worst at face value, the war cost is a smaller fraction of the nation's/world's spending, and is not the cause for any nation being "bankrupt" (read: in serious debt).

Bullgrit

Bullgrit said:

But even taking the worst at face value, the war cost is a smaller fraction of the nation's/world's spending, and is not the cause for any nation being "bankrupt" (read: in serious debt).

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Actually, it is. Because the world as a whole was running pretty much full-tilt before the war began - I don't believe any of the major nations involved was working with a major yearly surplus. Certainly, the US was already deficit spending before the war (the last balanced US budget was under Clinton, not Bush). Then, 9/11. The financial markets (upon which national budgets depend) took a *huge* nose-dive. And *then* we added what seems to be trillions in war-spending on top of that. That's serious debt land.

And that's as far as I go on that - so far, we are talking history and economics, not politics, but I won't edge closer to that line.

Nagol said:

Never try to fight gravity. You'll lose. The Martians have the advantage of being higher in the sun's gravity well. Anything we can throw at them, they can throw at us with just a little extra oomph or a little less cost.

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I wonder whether our planetary resources are greater, though? Sure, it's cheaper to launch from Mars toward Earth than vice versa, but we're much closer to the sun, and thus receive more solar radiation. I mean, I guess we don't know the size and composition of this hypothetical not-Mars that is capable of supporting life. But if we just plopped a green-blue biosphere on Mars as it is today, I believe we've just got a lot more resources.


As for what would happen, my stance is that rich wealthy and powerful Earthlings would get in touch with rich wealthy and powerful Martians and figure out they can profit from pretending to care about the hostilities between their nations. I mean, we know global warming is going to mess up our whole planet, but politicians get money from oil companies, so they deny the science.

The defense industry would love aliens, because they'd make tons of money building all these rockets with various doomsday payloads, and it would be very profitable. But the entities in power on each planet wouldn't want to ruin a good thing, so they'd keep milking the fear economy in order to feather their own nests.


Now Russ, you've been assuming traditional rocket launches. But there are other WAY more efficient methods of getting to orbit. They just require huge investments up front, and a lot of political and international wrangling to pull them off.

Could we achieve the technology to wage war? Sure! Invest 30 billion dollars in a launch loop. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Launch_loop

It's now $3/kg to send things into orbit. A Peacekeeper ICBM weighs 100 tons (100,000 kg), and 1000 of those (1 million kg) could annihilate civilization. So $3 x 100,000,000 = less than a billion dollars to launch those bad boys into orbit. Once they're out of our gravity well, getting them to Mars is comparably cheap. If we can afford to have that many nukes right now, adding on an extra $31 billion to get them into orbit is certainly doable.

Of course, this depends on the rest of Earth not getting up in arms about us getting arms up in space. But if we unified under the fear of extraterrestrials, hell yes we could destroy a Martian civilization. Let's just hope we build our launch loop faster. Wipe them out, wait a few centuries for the radiation to die down, then start colonizing. And since it would encourage us to rapidly increase our launch capacity, it would be great for the human race. Hell, considering the return on investment, and how much it would eventually improve the quality of life of Humanity to have a second planet, we'd almost be morally obligated to wipe the bug-eyed bastards out.

Jdvn1 said:

Too bad we can't have a Death Star...

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Just because people are too stingy
http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/461687407/kickstarter-open-source-death-star

Maybe it would help focus discussions if you (the OP) tell us the endpoint you want to arrive at, rather than try to massage the feedback to suit your purpose.

It sounds to me like you're looking to start a scenario where the Earth has (more or less) unified in opposition to a nearby planetary neighbor's inhabitants in an interplanetary war...and the implausibility of that happening with your starting conditions are vexing to you.

Happily, being fiction, all that needs be done to correct that situation is play with the assumptions a bit. For example:

1) If the aliens appear to be more capable than we are at space flight, and seem interested in Earth for some reason (ie - UFOs buzz us a lot), then Earth governments and people will be more nervous. This nervousness may or may not be warranted.

2) If the aliens are significantly different than we are in psychology or technological path, meaningful communication may be difficult or impossible. This doesn't guarantee war, but in conjunction with point 1, it makes war more likely.

3) If the alien planet has some unusual resource that can justify the massive expenses associated with space travel, then human beings might have interest in going there, in which case scenario 1 would apply to us buzzing them with 'ufos.'

4) If human technology is unusually advanced so as to make spaceflight easier, that lowers the bar for having interest in other planets. The idea that additional research could lead to a big breakthrough is unlikely without invoking space magic though...as long as we're limited by the laws of physics, space travel is going to be slow and expensive.

All of these points are at odds with the conditions set in the original post, but any or all of them would help satisfy the conclusion you seem to be aiming for.

As for the unified government of Earth...I suppose a case could be made for the idea that an inhuman 'other' could help human beings think of themselves as a single unit and overcome regional differences. But given the level of isolation from that other, I think it's unlikely to make a big difference in people's day to day lives. Realistically, entities like the UN might be more powerful, or more respected, but the nations of the world have too much rooting in history, ethnicity and culture to be so easily wiped out.

That doesn't mean that you can't have a one-world government in a fictional setting. It just means that the mere presence of aliens wouldn't alone plausibly justify it, in my view. But it could certainly contribute to other things, like a war of conquest, or something...

RangerWickett said:

Now Russ, you've been assuming traditional rocket launches.

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Yes, because something like our current level of technology was stipulated in the OP.

But there are other WAY more efficient methods of getting to orbit. They just require huge investments up front, and a lot of political and international wrangling to pull them off.

Could we achieve the technology to wage war? Sure! Invest 30 billion dollars in a launch loop. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Launch_loop

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The Launch Loop, and most other "economical" approaches to reaching orbit generally hinge on technology and engineering that does not exist to date. For example, the Launch Loop is 2000 km long, and it's middle is maintained at a height of 80 km! We do not know how to build such a thing. the estimated price tag on that is quite thoroughly speculative.