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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Dannyalcatraz" data-source="post: 6113924" data-attributes="member: 19675">Taking time isn't really an option.  If they're as smart as we are, they will be as aware of the appearance of asteroids on unnatural trajectories as we would be, and would probably react properly- with extreme aggression and an eye towards retaliation.*In addition, if you want to thoroughly destroy a civilization as advanced as ours, targeting cities won't do it.  Our species is concentrated in cities, to be sure, but there are enough of us in rural areas- and at least as importantly, in mobile weapon platforms at sea**- that if you have any designs on landing on the planet after the meteoric bombardment, you have to go for complete annihilation.  So the 10km rock or its aggregate equivalent is your only choice.So once you've triggered the ELE on Mars, how long before the planet's environs are sufficiently restabilized for us to venture down and seize our spoils?And how much of the valuable knowledge and valuable materials- those created naturally as a byproduct of the metabolisms of living creatures as well as those artificially created by the minds of the decimated- would be eradicated in an orbital mass bombardment?If the aggressors had any plans to make use of the conqured world within a nation-state's lifetime, a bio weapon is really the best solution.Testing it would surely be a problem, but not insurmountable.  And in all honesty, if this were to be a global effort, it is highly probable the would be multiple teams at work on the same task.  It is likely, then, that by the time the drums of war had reached crescendo, not one, but several bioweapons would be deployable.Given their compactness, it is conceivable that all could be delivered with only a couple of launch vehicles.As things stand on this planet, we have trouble dealing with one super-bug epidemic at a time.  How would our alien targets fare against the release of the equivalent of the 1918 flu, the Black Death, smallpox, anthrax and Ebola being released on their civilization simultaneously?Assume, arguendo, that this attack were planned post-first contact.  As I suggested- drawing from history- such an attack could be as simple as delivering innocuous trade goods via our (possibly unknowingly complicit) goodwill ambassadors.  Imagine the engineered plagues' vectorization as our diplomats visited all of the major population centers...* assuming your target is at least as nasty as we are is a necessity.  If they're pacifists, well, they're S.O.L.** Mars may not have seas, but it is not inconceivable that any intelligent life on that planet may actually be at least partially if not wholly subterranean.</blockquote>

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