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<blockquote data-quote="jmucchiello" data-source="post: 6116786" data-attributes="member: 813">There's on assumption here that is being taken too literally. Just because the scenario states &quot;of about equal technological advancement&quot; does not mean the people making first contact can assume such. The people making first contact will probably worry that the martians might already have stealth satellites in orbit around Earth and plan to unleash their orbital mind control lasers on our unsuspecting planet unless WE STOP THEM!!!! Paranoia in the early years would be rampant. Having a top of the food chain species popup suddenly in your neighborhood will do that.Likewise as pointed out above, the knowledge that they are out there would likely take a decade or two after the early 20s because the radio systems would likely be incompatible and perhaps only appear as noise initially. It could be another decade after that before a common &quot;language&quot; was worked out where time delayed communication was even possible. (If like from the sun reaches earth in 8+ minutes, when the planets are furthest apart, communication delays can exceed 15 minutes. Even: &quot;Earth here. Come in Mars.&quot; &quot;Mars here. Go ahead Earth&quot; could take half an hour.) So WWII is still likely in that time frame. I think the real question is what impact this has on Earth. Does the United Nations become a strong world influencing (and respected quickly) body through which we communicate with Mars? Or do the soviets and the US (and a bunch of other self-important states) make Earth sound like it is run by 100 different mad men who don't talk to one another?</blockquote>

[QUOTE="jmucchiello, post: 6116786, member: 813"] There's on assumption here that is being taken too literally. Just because the scenario states "of about equal technological advancement" does not mean the people making first contact can assume such. The people making first contact will probably worry that the martians might already have stealth satellites in orbit around Earth and plan to unleash their orbital mind control lasers on our unsuspecting planet unless WE STOP THEM!!!! Paranoia in the early years would be rampant. Having a top of the food chain species popup suddenly in your neighborhood will do that. Likewise as pointed out above, the knowledge that they are out there would likely take a decade or two after the early 20s because the radio systems would likely be incompatible and perhaps only appear as noise initially. It could be another decade after that before a common "language" was worked out where time delayed communication was even possible. (If like from the sun reaches earth in 8+ minutes, when the planets are furthest apart, communication delays can exceed 15 minutes. Even: "Earth here. Come in Mars." "Mars here. Go ahead Earth" could take half an hour.) So WWII is still likely in that time frame. I think the real question is what impact this has on Earth. Does the United Nations become a strong world influencing (and respected quickly) body through which we communicate with Mars? Or do the soviets and the US (and a bunch of other self-important states) make Earth sound like it is run by 100 different mad men who don't talk to one another? [/QUOTE]

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