Ask Science
Ask a science question, get a science answer.
Community Rules
Rule 1: Be respectful and inclusive.
Treat others with respect, and maintain a positive atmosphere.
Rule 2: No harassment, hate speech, bigotry, or trolling.
Avoid any form of harassment, hate speech, bigotry, or offensive behavior.
Rule 3: Engage in constructive discussions.
Contribute to meaningful and constructive discussions that enhance scientific understanding.
Rule 4: No AI-generated answers.
Strictly prohibit the use of AI-generated answers. Providing answers generated by AI systems is not allowed and may result in a ban.
Rule 5: Follow guidelines and moderators' instructions.
Adhere to community guidelines and comply with instructions given by moderators.
Rule 6: Use appropriate language and tone.
Communicate using suitable language and maintain a professional and respectful tone.
Rule 7: Report violations.
Report any violations of the community rules to the moderators for appropriate action.
Rule 8: Foster a continuous learning environment.
Encourage a continuous learning environment where members can share knowledge and engage in scientific discussions.
Rule 9: Source required for answers.
Provide credible sources for answers. Failure to include a source may result in the removal of the answer to ensure information reliability.
By adhering to these rules, we create a welcoming and informative environment where science-related questions receive accurate and credible answers. Thank you for your cooperation in making the Ask Science community a valuable resource for scientific knowledge.
We retain the discretion to modify the rules as we deem necessary.
view the rest of the comments
Yes to the first assumption - with a caveat. To cross the width of space, their technology must be far ahead of ours. Imagine a modern army fighting one from the 18th century, and you could imagine what a tank, a machinegun, modern artillery or whatever other aspects would do.
BUT: There is also the point that we would fight locally, while they would need quite long-winded logistics. OK, they could mine asteroids, and if they have all the means of production, we would be f-ed.
Regarding the disease, well, any disease needs a host, and it is formed by evolution over millions of years to work on that host platform. Just imagine the aliens have a different interpretation of DNA, maybe for pairs forming a codon instead of three, or just different encodings of amino acids for their codons, and nothing would work. And that would assume that they are similar enough to actually have DNA.
What they could do, though, if they are technologically far ahead, they could probably synthesize a virus that is basically made to kill us off the planet before we know it.
So better not piss off any aliens that made their way to us... Gray lives matter!
In regards to the long winded logostics (I read this from a second hand account and I'm sure this idea is from some scifi book) -a really fun idea is that if the aliens would send a war fleet our way and it takes say 50 years to get here... it is reasonable to assume that in those 50 years the aliens will do some technological breakthrough in both drive and weapon departments that by the time the fleet would get here a more advanced fleet would already be fighting the war - possibly even already won.
I think the idea can be found in Ender's Game. As the story progresses further into enemy territory, he 'controls' ships which are increasingly outdated because those are from older fleets sent decades ago.