Alien Invaders or Zombie Apocolypse?

[otakuryoga]

so the question is which world would you rather find yourself in:
the one that has been conquered by the skitters (Falling Sky)
or the one being terrorized by zombies(The Walking Dead)
since both have fallen to about an equal level of Post-Apoc disorder

[Fan]

The Walking Dead, because at least then the threat is something vaguely human, and I don't have to worry about teleporters and laser guns.

And the upside of the walking dead is that I can fly to Russia, where it is COMPLETELY LEGAL to own a 40mm artillery gun as a civilian.

[ThirdEmperor]

It depends. What level of technology do the aliens possess, and how much of the population would be turned into zombies?

[Forum Explorer]

hmm with just the details of would I rather fight advanced aliens or zombies then I would go with zombies. However if I had more details then my choice would vary. Like the type of the aliens and the difference in tech levels as well as their purpose in coming to Earth and their unity. There are a lot of variety in aliens.

[Kyberwulf]

Zombies..
Cause Aliens Seems Silly
and contrite

[Tengu_temp]

Both at once. Because that means I'm in Plan 9 from Outer Space.

[The Glyphstone]

Do the aliens accept human collaborators?

[Mindfreak]

Zombie apocolyspe. Because at least then you know exactly what they want and how to stop them.

[Traab]

Zombies are way easier to kill than aliens in general. I mean, most zombies tend to be shambling swarms, I can handle that. Zombies rarely have ray guns. Or the intelligence to get to my second story apartment with disabled stairs.

[Forum Explorer]

Zombies are way easier to kill than aliens in general. I mean, most zombies tend to be shambling swarms, I can handle that. Zombies rarely have ray guns. Or the intelligence to get to my second story apartment with disabled stairs.

Yes but the chance to loot advanced tech is the appeal of fighting aliens.

[Traab]

Yes but the chance to loot advanced tech is the appeal of fighting aliens.

Yeah if,
A) You can kill the alien holding it without getting atomized.
B) You can figure out how it works.
C) They dont just pull a protoss and glass the planet from orbit.

[Forum Explorer]

Yeah if,
A) You can kill the alien holding it without getting atomized.
B) You can figure out how it works.
C) They dont just pull a protoss and glass the planet from orbit.

Or the technology isn't bio-based. That's why I would only choose to fight aliens if certain conditions were met.

On the other hand

A) I don't necessarily need to kill the alien or fight the alien

B) Depending on the pysiology of the aliens simple observation may be enough to figure out the basics

c) I doubt the aliens invading would simply glass the planet out of spite.

[Traab]

Yeah it depends on what they are after. If its purely resources they might, slag the top 10 feet of the earths crust, then do their alien magic/science to strip mine the planet of all minerals and such that are below that point. If they want human slaves for some reason then probably not. Or if they want to expand an intergalactic empire.

[Forum Explorer]

Yeah it depends on what they are after. If its purely resources they might, slag the top 10 feet of the earths crust, then do their alien magic/science to strip mine the planet of all minerals and such that are below that point. If they want human slaves for some reason then probably not. Or if they want to expand an intergalactic empire.

If its pure resources going after Earth would be a bad idea considering the ease of getting those resources on an uninhabited planet would be. So I think slagging Earth is out.

[thubby]

zombies.

fighting aliens means fighting a war against vastly superior technology (if they got here, they have better tech, period), unknown tactics and abilities, and if they're smart, we have no way to fight back.

zombies are annoying and relentless, but predictable, short ranged, and stupid. they're more like a minor natural disaster than an enemy.

[Ravens_cry]

If, for whatever reason, aliens from another star wanted us dead, simply sending a few of the asteroids our way would do it pretty handedly.
ZOmbies, definitely, zombies, as long as it doesn't play like a zombie movie.
Stupid, shambling hoards? Target of opportunity my friend, target of opportunity.

[Kageru]

Zombies. Normal zombies of the slow and stupid type who need to bite someone to infect him just aren't that dangerous outside of zombie movies. Honestly they need to turn a huge number of humans before humanity has time to react. And if they are slow zombies and if there is just one outbreak it's simply impossible for them to spread very far. Let's say they walk a a pace of 5 km/h. In 3 days the absolute maximum area they could spread over is a circle with an radius of 360 km (and 3 days assumes a very slow reaction from the human side). Yeah they could get lucky and step into a train, but if they start eating the passangers it won't go unnoticed. At the beginning a zombie or two might be transported to a hospital, but it will be the nearest hospital.
And once an organized counterattack starts...

[Fan]

Zombies. Normal zombies of the slow and stupid type who need to bite someone to infect him just aren't that dangerous outside of zombie movies. Honestly they need to turn a huge number of humans before humanity has time to react. And if they are slow zombies and if there is just one outbreak it's simply impossible for them to spread very far. Let's say they walk a a pace of 5 km/h. In 3 days the absolute maximum area they could spread over is a circle with an radius of 360 km (and 3 days assumes a very slow reaction from the human side). Yeah they could get lucky and step into a train, but if they start eating the passangers it won't go unnoticed. At the beginning a zombie or two might be transported to a hospital, but it will be the nearest hospital.
And once an organized counterattack starts...

I assume they'd be runners, and it'd be an aerial infection with the only survivors being those who were naturally immune.

[The Glyphstone]

I'm still maintaining that if the aliens are after anything short of genociding all human life, I for one will welcome our new alien overlords.

[Dr.Otaku]

hmm with just the details of would I rather fight advanced aliens or zombies then I would go with zombies. However if I had more details then my choice would vary. Like the type of the aliens and the difference in tech levels as well as their purpose in coming to Earth and their unity. There are a lot of variety in aliens.

after only 2 episodes its hard to tell
as they brought up in the show....they travel here from another star but are usin human slaves to collect scrap metal :smallconfused:

[Traab]

I'm still maintaining that if the aliens are after anything short of genociding all human life, I for one will welcome our new alien overlords.

Im hoping for an alien annexation. They dont want to enslave us, just incorporate us into their empire. Give us some new tech to bring us up to spec, and I welcome my new role in the Galactic Empire.

[Whiffet]

Alien invaders. See, I know a guy who has already prepared for the zombie apocalypse... and he hates my guts. My most likely fate would be this guy knocking me unconscious and making it easy for the zombies to reach me.

Alien overlords are a preferable fate.

[warty goblin]

The way I see it, there's a couple possibilities for Ye Olde Alien Invasion.

1) Just after very basic resources. Seems unlikely, basic things like hydrogen, oxygen, iron etc should be available for cheaper and probably closer to home. On the upside they've got no immediate reason to want to vaporize us, and given the expense of killing everybody on the planet some incentive to not want to. The downside is that they're after all our stuff, for which we'd probably be stupid enough to fight them. I'd expect one of those short and extremely decisive wars with seriously skewed fatalities.

2) After the interesting stuff. By which I mean the biology. Living things synthesize a lot of chemicals, at least some of which may very well be unique to Earth. These may very well be worth a spot of interstellar conquest. In which case humanity is screwed, because any alien worth their flying saucer is going to notice that we're Threat Number One to the stuff they slithered across a batch of lightyears to secure. At this point the most efficient course of action would be to release a nasty little targeted plague that kills 99% of humanity, then park the survivors someplace nice and contained to keep them from doing any further damage.

3) After the real estate. Habitable planets are probably not exactly common, so it's quite possible our extraterrestrial buddies are after new places to pitch their enviro-tents. Since we've spread over most of the planet's land area, it's quite plausible any major colonization would require the indigenous humans to be located elsewhere. Probably not a happy outcome for us. It's also easy to imagine that the aliens are aquatic, in which case space isn't so much an issue as is our habit of dumping all our garbage into their prospective backyards.

4) Looking for cheap labor. Well, the good news here is that they wouldn't want to kill all of us. The bad news is that we're now supposed to produce goods for aliens, which probably differ significantly from goods for humans. Expect a major drop in quality of life and some serious disregards for human rights.

5) Bringing Civilization: Galactic Edition. All those nice tentacle-heads have picked up on what colossal bastards we can be, and have decided to step in and remedy it. For our own good of course. Since humans and aliens are likely to have somewhat...divergent ideas about morality, humans tend to not like having their culture changed, and the aliens are the ones with the rayguns, this also probably ends badly for us. Either that or they just mind-control gas everybody, then turn us into cheap labor. Or their three-headed gods demand our immediate conversion or destruction.

Still, any of the above would be more interesting than zombies. And at least some of my scenarios don't necessarily result in the horrible death of most of the species, assuming humanity isn't the bunch of morons history gives every reason to believe them to be.

[Traab]

Yeah the only real upside to zombie apocalypse is seriously lowered real estate prices. :p At least alien invasion has the potential for upsides. Btw, I see two variations for scenario 1.

Independence Day. Alien species that travels on world ships and steals all material needed to continue on their trip.

Spaceballs. They ruined their own planet, and they have to steal resources from others to bring back home. Operation Vacusuck.

[Ravens_cry]

6:Cosmic Crusade.
They received our broadcasts . . . and they are offended by something. So much so they want to exterminate the filth from the universe that is us.
Not a whole lot we can do even if they have crossed the mind blowing distances between stars with inventing advanced weaponry.
Like I said earlier, dropping rocks on us would do the trick handedly. Unless they have found a "short-cut", travelling between stars will require accelerating great masses to great speed.
Applying the same skill set to asteroids will do MASSIVE DAMAGE, dinosaur killing, world ending, damage.

[Forum Explorer]

I think the most likely would be 3 or 5. 6 is the third most likely.


Though depending on the transportation rock dropping might not be that efficent or easy.

[The Glyphstone]

I think we should eliminate the kinetic bombardment/dropping rocks scenario, because it really doesn't count as an 'invasion' in any real sense of the word. if they're invading, that means boots/claws/psuedopods on the ground, so to speak (and yes, technically they could colony-drop us into oblivion and then land troops, but that's not an 'invasion' either).

[Ravens_cry]

I think we should eliminate the kinetic bombardment/dropping rocks scenario, because it really doesn't count as an 'invasion' in any real sense of the word. if they're invading, that means boots/claws/psuedopods on the ground, so to speak (and yes, technically they could colony-drop us into oblivion and then land troops, but that's not an 'invasion' either).
How is it not an invasion? Any beachhead in the past 100 years (or more ) has first being bombarded with artillery. It's the same thing. Also, compared to cosmic distances, anywhere within our solar system is practically invading home turf. It took less then 30 years for Voyager 1 to reach the Heliopause, getting near interstellar space. It would take 73,600 at these speeds to reach the nearest star.

[warty goblin]

]Like I said earlier, dropping rocks on us would do the trick handedly. Unless they have found a "short-cut", travelling between stars will require accelerating great masses to great speed.
Applying the same skill set to asteroids will do MASSIVE DAMAGE, dinosaur killing, world ending, damage.
Dropping rocks is actually rather hard. The ones you'd be interested in dropping tend to have a lot of mass and to not be very close to Earth to begin with. That means it takes a lot of energy to get them where you want them, and you've got to be very precise about it as well. Earth's not exactly a large target, and it's moving quite fast. Slamming the planet with an asteroid is of course doable, but it's not particularly easy.


I think the most likely would be 3 or 5. 6 is the third most likely.


Though depending on the transportation rock dropping might not be that efficent or easy.

I'd personally figure some combination of 2 and 3. As far as we know life of any sort, let alone complex multi-cellular life, is very rare. Obviously since we're talking about aliens we're assuming it's a good bit less rare than we currently can demonstrate, but it's still likely safe to say it doesn't show up just anywhere. Scarcity alone could make it interesting, and another sapient species could potentially get a lot of value out of a whole new world of life. Given the diversity of life on Earth, all of which seems to share a common origin, Earth-things would be very distinct from those appearing on other worlds. New foodstuffs, the ability to cheaply synthesize chemicals they may not otherwise have easy means of producing, an entire new realm of genetics to play with, there's a lot of potential here. Kill off the infestation of mushy ape-things and it's got some nice views as well.


edit-quote fun!

How is it not an invasion? Any beachhead in the past 100 years (or more ) has first being bombarded with artillery. It's the same thing.

Only if you ignore about a dozen orders of magnitude. It's rather like saying a friendly pat on the back is the same thing as getting run over by a freight train. Scale matters.


Also, compared to cosmic distances, anywhere within our solar system is practically invading home turf. It took less then 30 years for Voyager 1 to reach the Heliopause, getting near interstellar space. It would take 73,600 at these speeds to reach the nearest star.
Which is why anything that gets here is likely to be capable of going faster than light, a machine, or otherwise functionally immortal.

[Ravens_cry]

Dropping rocks is actually rather hard. The ones you'd be interested in dropping tend to have a lot of mass and to not be very close to Earth to begin with. That means it takes a lot of energy to get them where you want them, and you've got to be very precise about it as well. Earth's not exactly a large target, and it's moving quite fast. Slamming the planet with an asteroid is of course doable, but it's not particularly easy.

Neither is sending a robotic probe at 10 percent light speed and that is among the easier methods of interstellar flight.



Only if you ignore about a dozen orders of magnitude. It's rather like saying a friendly pat on the back is the same thing as getting run over by a freight train. Scale matters.

Of course it does, but as an offensive weapon, it serves the same function. Crush the crunchies and their infrastructure so they can not fight back.



Which is why anything that gets here is likely to be capable of going faster than light, a machine, or otherwise functionally immortal.
Faster then light is either impossible or required handling universe levels of energy from what we know of now. Fling just about any matter fast enough and it will do the job of asteroids at lower speeds

[Traab]

Only if you ignore about a dozen orders of magnitude. It's rather like saying a friendly pat on the back is the same thing as getting run over by a freight train. Scale matters.


Indeed it does, but you are missing the scale yourself. This isnt invading europe. This is invading the entire planet. Large scale bombardment has to crush a rather large amount of area to be of much use on a planetary scale. Big Bertha aint going to cut it on this one. That being said, there is a range of size between "burns up in the atmosphere" and "wipes out all life on earth" size asteroids. Best part is, if its done right, it can be interpreted as a catastrophic meteor shower instead of enemy action, allowing them to simultaneously weaken us, and perhaps even trick us afterwards. "Oh we saw the swarm heading for you but could not get here in time to stop it. Let us help you rebuild!" Now they have their pseudopods on the ground and by the time we realize whats happening its too late. All hail our new alien overlord! (Dont blame me, I voted for kodos)

[grolim]

Earth's not exactly a large target, and it's moving quite fast. Slamming the planet with an asteroid is of course doable, but it's not particularly easy.

Except that it is moving in a very predictable path. No matter how fast something is going, if it is going in a straight line or a known path is is FAR easier to hit. Even our low tech space program can tell you where each planet will be on any given date, how else do we hit mars etc with our probes. It would be much more difficult to fling the asteroid than to hit Earth, the hitting is the easy part.

That's like saying it would be hard to hit a bullet train that is moving at a constant speed on a set of tracks that can be seen. Just figure out how long it takes for your bullet to get there, how fast the train is moving, and plot where on the tracks the train will be at the end of travel time and boom.
Any species capable of interstellar travel can plot a course to hit a planet before their first cup of coffee in the morning.

[The Glyphstone]

How is it not an invasion? Any beachhead in the past 100 years (or more ) has first being bombarded with artillery. It's the same thing. Also, compared to cosmic distances, anywhere within our solar system is practically invading home turf. It took less then 30 years for Voyager 1 to reach the Heliopause, getting near interstellar space. It would take 73,600 at these speeds to reach the nearest star.

Because as mentioned, it'd a matter of scale. Any sort of kinetic bombardment by asteroids as a 'softening up' technique wouldn't result in weakened, battered human beings as easy prey for the alien armies...it's result in the alien forces landing and taking over newly uninhabited real estate. I don't count it as an invasion unless you leave someone alive to fight back, and rock-dropping wouldn't do that - even a single asteroid would cause global devastation.

[warty goblin]

Indeed it does, but you are missing the scale yourself. This isnt invading europe. This is invading the entire planet. Large scale bombardment has to crush a rather large amount of area to be of much use on a planetary scale. Big Bertha aint going to cut it on this one.

I understand the scale just fine. I also understand the inverse square law - if you're invading China it takes a lot less energy to hit China with something small than it does to hit Kentucky with something large enough to have an effect on your actual target. Besides which, if you can invade Europe using a barrage of conventional sized explosives, you can invade Europe and the Continental United States using a barrage of conventional sized explosives. You'd just need more of them.

Besides, the most interesting thing about Earth is that it has life on it.The more of that the aliens destroy, the less their conquest is worth when they're done. As I see it precision is what any sensible interstellar conqueror would want, either through guided/very accurate weapons or targeted biological and chemical agents.


That being said, there is a range of size between "burns up in the atmosphere" and "wipes out all life on earth" size asteroids. Best part is, if its done right, it can be interpreted as a catastrophic meteor shower instead of enemy action, allowing them to simultaneously weaken us, and perhaps even trick us afterwards. "Oh we saw the swarm heading for you but could not get here in time to stop it. Let us help you rebuild!" Now they have their pseudopods on the ground and by the time we realize whats happening its too late. All hail our new alien overlord! (Dont blame me, I voted for kodos)
Of course there's plenty of size options, and dropping stuff from orbit is a nice form of not particularly close air support and strategic bombardment. On the other hand so is pointing your UFO's tailpipe at Washington DC and revving the engine a bit.

As for sneaking up, as long as FTL travel really is impossible we'll see anything coming well before it starts moving asteroids around. Quite probably with our naked eyes.

[Knaight]

Dropping rocks is actually rather hard. The ones you'd be interested in dropping tend to have a lot of mass and to not be very close to Earth to begin with. That means it takes a lot of energy to get them where you want them, and you've got to be very precise about it as well. Earth's not exactly a large target, and it's moving quite fast. Slamming the planet with an asteroid is of course doable, but it's not particularly easy.

That is, other than the one orbiting us. If you are just trying to wipe out humanity, so as to be able to mine the planet or some such, it should do the trick on its own. Of course, the life here is by far the greatest resource to anything capable of space travel, so that goal seems unlikely.

[Ravens_cry]

Because as mentioned, it'd a matter of scale. Any sort of kinetic bombardment by asteroids as a 'softening up' technique wouldn't result in weakened, battered human beings as easy prey for the alien armies...it's result in the alien forces landing and taking over newly uninhabited real estate. I don't count it as an invasion unless you leave someone alive to fight back, and rock-dropping wouldn't do that - even a single asteroid would cause global devastation.\
Depends on the size and speed. But a invasion merely requires you to, well, invade, it has nothing to do with crunchies surviving.

[The Glyphstone]

\
Depends on the size and speed. But a invasion merely requires you to, well, invade, it has nothing to do with crunchies surviving.

No, but it does ruin the scenario that was originally proposed - it's not much of a choice between "zombies" and "aliens" if "aliens" mean we're all dead before the invasion starts.

[Ravens_cry]

No, but it does ruin the scenario that was originally proposed - it's not much of a choice between "zombies" and "aliens" if "aliens" mean we're all dead before the invasion starts.
Yet another reason to choose zombies. If aliens wanted us dead, we are dead, and there is little to nothing we could do. That was my point.
Zombies, despite their lack of pain response, go in massive herds that do not take cover and are slow moving and unarmoured. Why wouldn't you want that compared to beings with the ultimate high ground?

[The Glyphstone]

Yet another reason to choose zombies. If aliens wanted us dead, we are dead, and there is little to nothing we could do. That was my point.
Zombies, despite their lack of pain response, go in massive herds that do not take cover and are slow moving and unarmoured. Why wouldn't you want that compared to beings with the ultimate high ground?

Because there's an equally valid potential the aliens don't want us dead. Maybe the visitors will be from the Galactic Federation, having finally judged us technically and socially advanced to be welcomed into their organization.

[Ravens_cry]

Because there's an equally valid potential the aliens don't want us dead.
Then they can use smaller, slower rocks. I would still rather have zombies compared to a hostile alien presence. Hostile mind, if they genuinely came in peace, I want to talk to them. But that is definitely not an invasion.
Edit in response to your edit: And my first question would be "Why?" It would be like telling someone wading up to their ankles in a pond they get to join an international yacht club that regularly does circumnavigations.

[The Glyphstone]

Then they can use smaller, slower rocks. I would still rather have zombies compared to a hostile alien presence. Hostile mind, if they genuinely came in peace, I want to talk to them. But that is definitely not an invasion.

What kind of zombies, though? Romero shamblers, or 28-Day-Later sprinters? Can they develop intelligence or unique mutated strands a la Left 4 Dead? There's as much variety in the walking dead as there would be in aliens.

[Giggling Ghast]

Both at once. Because that means I'm in Plan 9 from Outer Space.

Your stupid minds! Stupid! Stupid!

As I have recurring nightmares about being eaten by zombies, I'm going with aliens here.

[otakuryoga]

What kind of zombies, though? Romero shamblers, or 28-Day-Later sprinters? Can they develop intelligence or unique mutated strands a la Left 4 Dead? There's as much variety in the walking dead as there would be in aliens.

original post sets the parameters on both the zombies(The Walking Dead >AMC< )
and the aliens(Falling Skies >TNT< )
---chosen because as i said...similar level of post-apoc civ in the 2 series...just a different cause

so really suprises me we got all these "rocks from space, bam we are dead" posts as they most definately did NOT drop rocks on us from space(i dont think anyway...they never really SAID what happened to take out most of the cities, but it was implied as a ship carried weapon)

[Velarias]

I'm still maintaining that if the aliens are after anything short of genociding all human life, I for one will welcome our new alien overlords.

I concur. If it means survival i will glady point the way of the Human resistance camp to our new Tentacaly masters!:smallbiggrin:

In addition the choice of zombies or aliens really boils down to either overwhelming numbers (zombies) or advanced military tech (aliens). Either way we would be in deep water. We might stand a chance against the zombies though.

Unless Wesker shows up,:smalleek:

[Six]

Zombies. For a variety of reasons. Far easier to simply avoid, until they starve to death from killing all their prey/all their prey avoiding them. Evolution would give us victory.

[thubby]

as someone once pointed out in an article on why zombies arent a problem.
any issue that can be solved with indiscriminate violence won't be a problem very long.

[rayne_dragon]

Zombies. Generally, zombies seem to be a lot less dangerous (they have to get inside your skin to infect you), intelligent, and quick than any type of alien invader. Super-strong, ultra-quick zombies might be rather worse than somewhat inept 'grey'-type aliens, but that's kind of the extreme cases.

Although, a War of the Worlds type scenario where the aliens die from germs would actually be a lot easier to deal with than a zombie apocolypse, so maybe that has some merit. Still, my vote is for the zombocalypse.

[chiasaur11]

Why choose one or the other?


http://www.ufopaedia.org/images/6/6c/Chryssalid.gif

This smiley little fellow is called a Chryssalid.

Custom engineered biological weapon. Some of you know them already. You can spot them by the wet trousers. Or the grin. Get away from the grinning ones.

As for my vote? Unless I get the codename Storm 1 or the Earth's last line of defense is flinging around jets that take hits like tanks, atomic missiles, cannons that can tear through sixteen inches of steel, and science teams that view "impossible" as a challenge and build man portable death rays and power armor in six months, zeds.

Zombies are a problem a good military can rip to shreds. Aliens, we aren't likely to have a chance.

[Ricky S]

Zombies! There can be no other choice. They give you the chance to fulfill your wildest dreams and build a new society.