Imagine there was another Earthlike planet in our system

[Nagol]

Sure, OK. We have no disagreement there, just a definition thing. I put that under 'communication' but I have no objection to putting it under 'trade'. Just a word.

Just think of all the extra realty TV shows we can make for trade and get similar value in return! Oh wait, this isn't a horror scenario, scratch that!

 

[Joker]

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. If the fear of dying off as a species is palpable enough, we will gladly bankrupt the world if it means we have a chance of survival.

Granted, everything we say here is speculation. If contact had been made in the 20's/30's before WWII, before the Cold War, we might be more trusting and more curious. Such a discovery, however, would have come right after WWI and during the Great Depression so we may not be as innocent as I think.

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.

I agree my little joke about planet-busting weaponry is fanciful and silly, but you can't underestimate our ingenuity concerning destructive devices. We will find ways to kill things if need be.*

I do think that communicating for decades is the first thing that will be done. But while this happens, 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.

If such research concludes that it isn't feasible to attack them, either because of fear of retaliation or as you posit that we don't have the resources, I assume that we will then develop planetary defense systems.

I think, overall, if a military exchange isn't likely, that it will be a positive thing for the world as a whole. Maybe I'm a bit too optimistic but I think such a discovery would help develop a collective human identity, eroding a lot of the social and economic issues we face today. Of course, it could easily go into a different direction. People using the discovery of another species as an excuse to further their own agendas.

As someone pointed out, once technology reaches a certain point we can create a waystation between Earth and Mars when the bodies are closest. Assuming they have a desire to meet us in person this could be the start of face to face diplomacy before we start sending stuff to each other's homeworld.

* Concerning the invention of the flamethrower: "That man over there, I want to set him on fire but he's just too damned far away."

 

[Joker]

And about weaponry:

Isn't it possible to send weapons with high kinetic potential their way? Something like a long needle made of wolfram flung around the sun. Surely the tech doesn't exist yet in either delivery or targeting but if possible would seem like an effective and efficient way to deliver destruction, assuming there's enough wolfram or similar material.

You just have to be careful about the needle turning back time, that's all.

 

[Nagol]

And about weaponry:

Isn't it possible to send weapons with high kinetic potential their way? Something like a long needle made of wolfram flung around the sun. Surely the tech doesn't exist yet in either delivery or targeting but if possible would seem like an effective and efficient way to deliver destruction, assuming there's enough wolfram or similar material.

You just have to be careful about the needle turning back time, that's all.

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.

More likely, the Martians would be considered a future threat and a lot of money would be diverted to handling a bunch of potential scenarios deemed farther in the future than the imminent threats telegraphed by water fluoridation. ICBMs would be constructed for Cold War use, but each would cost more as they get outfitted with the potential to get boosted out of orbit. So in the end, the stockpile would be reduced to only destroy the Earth a few times over.

Pre-emptive first strike by either side is deemed improbable and made more unlikely as each side builds launch detectors and trackers to "help" with communication and cultural exchange missions.

 

[Morrus]

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

No, that would be an astonishingly dumb thing of me to think! I hope I haven't given the impression that I'm talking about anything other than current capabilities.

 

[Bullgrit]

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.

Would Earth be more likely to form a one-world government? Or would nations be even more divided? And assuming the Earth-like Mars also has many, many nationalities and languages, would this help or hinder the interplanetary communication and trade?

***
[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.]
***

Bullgrit

 

[Janx]

Water? Why fight us for it when it's so plentiful in space? Just go to Europa and take as much as you want.

Water was just an example. If not water, then Women. Half our population is Women. Mars Needs Women!

 

[Umbran]

Oi, go afk for one evening, and look what happens!

Eventually, we may setup a Midway station between Mars and Earth for the first direct contact meeting. Something where it's only half the distance for both parties.

You realize that Mars and Earth are not at rest with respect to each other, right? They're both moving in separate orbits. At the closest possible approach, if all the timing is just right, the planets are 33.9 Million miles apart (this approach has not happened in the period of recorded history, btw). At their farthest, when they're on opposite sides of the Sun, they can be 250 million miles apart. There's no one place to put a Midway station.

 

[Umbran]

You're making the assumption that we know that they're not concerned with territory.

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.

With the tech we are talking (chemical rockets), moving and supplying enough people to take and hold territory against billions of inhabitants is not possible. The supply lines are *YEARS LONG*. As in, "At the very minimum, it takes over a year to get anything from home."

And, if you did take it, there's not a whole lot you can do with it. You can't mine it for minerals - the same physics means shipping bulk materials is too expensive to be profitable. You cannot use the land - even if they are oxygen breathing, water-needing folks like us, the root biology is different. As the saying goes, you have more in common with a rutabega than a Romulan - you are unlikely to be able to eat any of the stuff growing on the other planet. The same tech-level issue prevents "Marsiforming" efforts. The only things worth shipping back and forth are going to be made by the people - which you won't have if you kill them all!

You're also very level-headed and logical about this situation. Can you say for certain others will be the same?

Can you say for certain our leaders, most of whom are businessmen and graduates of law and not scientists, will be level-headed and rational about this?

Given the expense required to so much as try? Yes. Those kind of leaders are *very* responsive to the Bottom Line.

 

[Jdvn1]

We also could exchange science. Odds are good they'll be farther along in one science and us in another. Trading notes would likely happen.

This made me think that some of this already happens on an international level. There's a language barrier that slows the effect (an interplanetary language barrier would be interesting...) but this is isn't entirely dissimilar from a opposite-sides-of-the-world scenario.