Independance Day aliens vs Loki and Avengers

[Axton]

Summerize relevant points please, I don't have neither time nor the energy to read a multi page PDF file nor should I, you made the claim you have to back it up.

The material provided backs it up. No offense, but I'm not going to serve you the meal and then feed you by hand on top of it. Dig in.

[Lord Revan]

Summerize relevant points please, I don't have neither time nor the energy to read a multi page PDF file nor should I, you made the claim you have to back it up.

The material provided backs it up. No offense, but I'm not going to serve you the meal and then feed you by hand on top of it. Dig in.

It's not how it works. The forum rules are clear on this matter, the person who makes the claim must provide the evidence. I don't have to do anything, the task of providing the evidence is on YOU, no-one else.

This might come as a surprice but this forum is a hobby for me, not my employment, so as result I simply don't have time nor the energy to dig thru a multi page to document to see you're not full of shit or intentionally lying. By all means post the link to the source but you MUST summerize the relevant parts to show that you understood the material and just didn't pick what you thought back up your claim without looking in deeper.

You're not the first nor the last person to post link and say "the evidence is there you look it up", so take a free tip from an old timer the staff doesn't like that so you shouldn't do it.

[Axton]

Summerize relevant points please, I don't have neither time nor the energy to read a multi page PDF file nor should I, you made the claim you have to back it up.

The material provided backs it up. No offense, but I'm not going to serve you the meal and then feed you by hand on top of it. Dig in.

It's not how it works. The forum rules are clear on this matter, the person who makes the claim must provide the evidence. I don't have to do anything, the task of providing the evidence is on YOU, no-one else.

I've done that. The onus is on me to provide it; correct. It then falls to you to read it. If you want the Cliff's Notes version, I'm not going to do that. Substantiation was requested, it's been provided. If you now choose not to take what you asked for and what you've been given, it's no longer any of my concern.

[Axton]

Since you apparently can't be bothered, however, to read the information you ask for, let me copy the single most relevant bullet point:

Nuclear weapons contain SNM, which produces suspect signatures that can be detected. It emits radiation, notably gamma rays (high-energy photons) and neutrons. SNM is dense, so it produces a bright image on a radiograph (a picture like a medical x-ray) when x-rays or gamma rays are beamed through a container in which it is hidden. Using lead or other shielding to attenuate gamma rays would make that image larger.

Of note: lead does not block detection. It blurs the image.

The relevant point is that, based on the rest of these beings technology, for them not to be able to detect the alien physiology of the occupants of their fighter is ridiculous. For them not to know that the fighter entering there ship was not deployed by their own ship and, therefore, ought to be suspect, is ridiculous. For them not to be able to detect a weapon capable of destroying their ship, which has been brought inside their ship is ridiculous.

They are interstellar buffoons.

[Terralthra]

I don't think you understand the material you posted. The sentence you posted says that if you x-ray something with fissile material, because the material is dense, you'd get a big blob, because it's dense. The blob does not, by itself say it's nuclear material, only that something there is super dense. Using lead or some other such material to block the gamma ray signature would also show up on an x-ray, because you need dense material to block gamma rays, but again, that wouldn't show "there's a nuke here", it would show "this section of what you're x-raying is big and dense." A ship capable of atmospheric reentry in the shown amount of time at the shown speed at the shown size must also be quite dense, hence, x-raying it to see if there's a dense thing inside it would be mostly pointless. You would have to have an x-ray detector *between* the missile and the rest of the ship to keep it from just being blown out by the overlap with the fighter's hull.

[Axton]

Good point. Do we know what the fighters' hull is made of? Odds are it isn't lead. Seems highly unlikely that it is, at least, since we tend not to use a lot of lead in our own aircraft as far as I know, and since -- aside from energy shields -- F/A 18s were easily the equals of the alien fighters in atmospheric conditions.

In any case, pointing out that nuclear detection is possible with Terrestrial technology is seriously lowballing the expectations for the aliens, since they've conquered, y'know, interstellar travel and all that.

That still leaves us with points 1 and 2:

1. They were either incapable (or not sufficiently aware of the battlefield) of detecting a ship they hadn't launched entering their mothership.

2. They were either incapable (or not sufficiently aware) of noticing that that ship was not being piloted by members of their own species, let alone of their own crew. Sure, they had a digital "doorbell" -- one that an Apple Macbook defeated. Not terribly effective, that.

The equivalent scenario would be a U.S. aircraft carrier in Vietnam full of people failing to notice an F4-U Corsair with a nuke, piloted by robots, touching down on the flight deck.

The questions that should have arisen never did, apparently: WTF, why is there a 40 year old plane on our deck. WTF, that's not our plane. WTF, who the hell is that in the cockpit, and WTF is that it's carrying.

I say again: The ID4 aliens are, collectively, a species of idiots.

[Terralthra]

You mean the questions that the ID4 aliens clearly did have, given that the FTC alien opened the cockpit cover to look inside? Come on.

[Axton]

That, again, does not speak well of their tech. There's a hydra of evidence pointing to the incompetence of the species. Even if they couldn't scan their own ships externally, shouldn't they be able to remotely scan their own ships internally? These guys can't do anything the Chitauri can't do, and based on the canonical evidence, it sure seems like they can do a hell of a lot less. And the Avengers beat the Chitauri. I think it's safe to call this contest a slam dunk in favor of the Avengers.

Additionally, if we assume a shared universe for the purposes of evaluating how long the Roswell attacker ship has been available for study in ID4, we should also assume that shared universe in this scenario, where entities like S.H.I.E.L.D. -- in whose mission statement the ID4 aliens' existence would fall -- would have the same access.

Basically, take the same people who beat the aliens in ID4 without the Avengers. Now give them the Avengers. It's no contest and no question.

[Axton]

To address a point upthread: Yes, the ID4 attacker fighters are shielded. No, the Chitauri troops and their hoverbikes aren't. Think back to what happened to all the Chitauri still standing when the portal was closed -- they all collapsed. That's why they didn't have shields -- they were drones and built to be expendable.

[Lord Revan]

Here's an intresting question. Why would the ID4 aliens assume their fighter was compromised in the first Place, it's a decent policy when your opponent is roughly equal to you in strength but Earth in the film clearly was not and the aliens didn't have any land bases people could sneak inside, so why would their first reaction be "that must a compromised fighter with a nuke onboard" instead of "*sigh* another malfunction". It took a rather unlikely chain of events for earth to get just 1 fighter and even that one barely worked.

[Axton]

Here's an intresting question. Why would the ID4 aliens assume their fighter was compromised in the first Place, it's a decent policy when your opponent is roughly equal to you in strength but Earth in the film clearly was not and the aliens didn't have any land bases people could sneak inside, so why would their first reaction be "that must a compromised fighter with a nuke onboard" instead of "*sigh* another malfunction". It took a rather unlikely chain of events for earth to get just 1 fighter and even that one barely worked.

So they just wrote it off when they lost it in Roswell? Even that is still sloppy as hell. And in the battle, they're sending their ships out. So one comes back, they wouldn't notice and wonder why? The things fire directed energy weapons, but had the battle been going long enough for any of the other fighters to need to return to the hanger and resupply? Didn't appear so. So the other fighters are going out, why's this one coming in? Apparently there's nobody monitoring that to raise the question. Also sloppy.

[Lord Revan]

Sloppy sure but understandble, since it's not as likely as you imply for humans to be able to gain access to functioning technology and humans have nothing that could hurt them anyway so it's nowhere as big of a sin as you imply it to be, since humans getting a semi-functioning fighter was highly unlikely to begin with and they did become curious about the craft.

[Axton]

Underestimating your enemy and being sloppy still shows a distinct level of ineptitude. And in the case of ID4 -- canonically -- it proved disastrous. The proof is not in the theory; the proof is in the results. The ID4 aliens, going by their results, are retards.

The Chitauri, as led by Loki, are understandably arrogant. Loki has good reason to think that his army of alien drones is unstoppable. He has taken the Avengers' internal conflicts into account, amplified them, and exploited them.

The ID4 aliens' arrogance is simply idiotic. They didn't know their enemy. They didn't even bother to keep track of their own technology which might be compromised after falling into the hands of their enemy. They should have known the humans had one of their ships. They should have known that because they lost their own technology on Earth 40 years prior. Their arrogance was staggering compared to Loki's and Thanos'.

The out-of-universe explanation of the difference is simply that Joss Whedon tells a tighter story than Dean Devlin and Roland Emmerich. But we can't use that in a debate of who would win. In-universe, the ID4 aliens are just pathetically stupid.

[Axton]

By this same token, the Empire in Star Wars are likewise fucking morons. They knew full well the plans for the Death Star had been compromised. What did they do about it? They went and took the damn thing right to the people they feared would have found a weakness in it. Withdraw it away from the reach of those people? Nope! We're gonna plant it right in their backyard -- because we fear they might know how to destroy it!

And as happens every goddamn time the schoolyard punk with the biggest gun tries to flex on the little wimpy kid, the little wimpy kid smashes that schoolyard punk.

Fuckin' durp!

That's how it always works. In every ficton. The bigger you build up your Big Bad, the harder your Big Bad gets embarrassingly thrashed.

Why is it the villains with the biggest guns always seem to have the weakest wits?

In this scenario, if the ID4 aliens had any brains whatsoever (though evidence says they don't) they'd take one look at the really, really angry green dude, the other dude in the tin can, the other dude summoning an electrical attack with a goddamn mallet and go..

Y'know, it would be totally fucking retarded if those guys destroyed us all.

Let's get the fuck out of here before they do.

[Axton]

And of course we have to leave out Deadpool. We have to. Otherwise the ID4 aliens aren't just fucked, they're fucking sodomized.

[Axton]

And of course we have to leave out Deadpool. We have to. Otherwise the ID4 aliens aren't just fucked, they're fucking sodomized.

And then there's The Regulator. Y'all completely forgot about that character. Basically, it's a built-in Marvel Universe Wins cheat character. In the even of an extra-ficton intrusion, the native characters win whatever the context is. Fight to the death, nuclear armageddon, game of checkers, doesn't matter.

When you brought the Avengers into it, you invoked The Regulator. MCU wins. Default. Uncontestable.

[NecronLord]

Good point. Do we know what the fighters' hull is made of? Odds are it isn't lead. Seems highly unlikely that it is, at least, since we tend not to use a lot of lead in our own aircraft as far as I know, and since -- aside from energy shields -- F/A 18s were easily the equals of the alien fighters in atmospheric conditions.

Robert Kennedy estimates that the hull material of the mothership at least, is denser than Osmium, and would therefore handily defeat x-ray and reflection scatter based nuclear detection means even mounted externally. If it's made of the same stuff the hull of the mothership is, which it might not be.

The equivalent scenario would be a U.S. aircraft carrier in Vietnam full of people failing to notice an F4-U Corsair with a nuke, piloted by robots, touching down on the flight deck.

Or the USS Cole? Military failure happens.

To address a point upthread: Yes, the ID4 attacker fighters are shielded. No, the Chitauri troops and their hoverbikes aren't. Think back to what happened to all the Chitauri still standing when the portal was closed -- they all collapsed. That's why they didn't have shields -- they were drones and built to be expendable.

And? That has no bearing on who captures the little blue planet. They can be drones. They can even be Thanos' animated toenail clippings. Beyond any effects that might have on their psychology, that's irrelevant - it only matters how well they fight.

The ID4 aliens' arrogance is simply idiotic. They didn't know their enemy. They didn't even bother to keep track of their own technology which might be compromised after falling into the hands of their enemy. They should have known the humans had one of their ships. They should have known that because they lost their own technology on Earth 40 years prior.

You realize that the implication of the film is that some or all alien-abduction stories are true, right? There was even a deleted scene that made it explicit that Russel's son had been abducted also.

The implication is that they have conducted hundreds or thousands of reconnisance flights to Earth and lost one (1) ship in the forty plus years they've done this.

That's how it always works. In every ficton. The bigger you build up your Big Bad, the harder your Big Bad gets embarrassingly thrashed.

Watch Skyline.

Falling Skies also has very competent bad guys, the Espheni have taken losses throughout the series but continue to bounce back with a new and horrible plan every time.

Other bad guys that spring to mind as capable and only defeated by complete deus ex machina, are the Replicators and Asurans from Stargate, and Stargate has three sets of undefeated villains, the Wraith, and the Drones from SGU.

The narrative structure of a feature film makes the bad guys often overlook things. But that's not universal. Things like the Matrix trilogy, where for all it's failings, it ends with peace forged between man and machine, the machines are never militarily defeated, exist.

Star Trek The Undiscovered Country ends with Peace with Klingons, who are not militarily defeated, while at the end of Star Trek First Contact, the borg defeat is not the result of incompetence on their part, nor is their civilization humbled; one ship is destroyed but that's the limit of it.

I could go on. Narrative structure often gives stories where drastically outmatched protagonists beat ostensibly superior antagonists, but not always. These are just sci-fi examples off the top of my head.

Watch or read 1984.

And of course we have to leave out Deadpool. We have to. Otherwise the ID4 aliens aren't just fucked, they're fucking sodomized.

And then there's The Regulator. Y'all completely forgot about that character. Basically, it's a built-in Marvel Universe Wins cheat character. In the even of an extra-ficton intrusion, the native characters win whatever the context is. Fight to the death, nuclear armageddon, game of checkers, doesn't matter.

When you brought the Avengers into it, you invoked The Regulator. MCU wins. Default. Uncontestable.

Are you having some sort of breakdown?

[NecronLord]

That's how it always works. In every ficton. The bigger you build up your Big Bad, the harder your Big Bad gets embarrassingly thrashed.

Just to keep harping on, please please broaden your scope of consumption of media generally and sci-fi in particular. I reccommend my favorite films of the 50s The Day the Earth Stood Still (featured in Independence Day!) and Forbidden Planet as a starting point.

Then Babylon 5; particularly the Shadow War arc. All of these feature antagonists that aren't - and cannot be - defeated by physical force, or even outwitted.

[Cykeisme]

The ID4 aliens are indeed arrogant and quite probably very dogmatic as well, but I wouldn't go as far as to describe them as retards.

I think it was an analysis on SDNet itself (a long time ago) that posited that, as a psychic race with a sort of "hive mind", the idea of computer security doesn't even cross their (hive) minds. Even their own brains offer them no privacy from everyone else.

Coupled with the fact that they have, presumably, been wiping out less technologically advanced civilizations without even a hint of resistance for quite some time now, they may never have had their misconceptions challenged.

Having had centuries or millennia of technological stasis may likewise explain why a 40-year-old craft doesn't look out of place; a lot of those fighters might even be be centuries old, with the design having been the same for much longer.

And of course we have to leave out Deadpool. We have to. Otherwise the ID4 aliens aren't just fucked, they're fucking sodomized.

And then there's The Regulator. Y'all completely forgot about that character. Basically, it's a built-in Marvel Universe Wins cheat character. In the even of an extra-ficton intrusion, the native characters win whatever the context is. Fight to the death, nuclear armageddon, game of checkers, doesn't matter.

When you brought the Avengers into it, you invoked The Regulator. MCU wins. Default. Uncontestable.

We analyze things while applying "suspension of disbelief"; that is to say, we look at the events, objects, and characters in the setting(s) involved as though they were real (as much as possible), mostly disregarding aspects like narrative themes. So while you are correct from a narrative perspective, we still analyze stuff here as though both movie settings were "real". Otherwise, the ID4 side of things would also have "humans always win" working for them, and combined with "Marvel stuff always wins", and general "good guys always win", there would be absolutely no question as to who would win if this was an actual movie.

[Axton]

Good point. Do we know what the fighters' hull is made of? Odds are it isn't lead. Seems highly unlikely that it is, at least, since we tend not to use a lot of lead in our own aircraft as far as I know, and since -- aside from energy shields -- F/A 18s were easily the equals of the alien fighters in atmospheric conditions.

Robert Kennedy estimates that the hull material of the mothership at least, is denser than Osmium, and would therefore handily defeat x-ray and reflection scatter based nuclear detection means even mounted externally. If it's made of the same stuff the hull of the mothership is, which it might not be.

The equivalent scenario would be a U.S. aircraft carrier in Vietnam full of people failing to notice an F4-U Corsair with a nuke, piloted by robots, touching down on the flight deck.

Or the USS Cole? Military failure happens.

To address a point upthread: Yes, the ID4 attacker fighters are shielded. No, the Chitauri troops and their hoverbikes aren't. Think back to what happened to all the Chitauri still standing when the portal was closed -- they all collapsed. That's why they didn't have shields -- they were drones and built to be expendable.

And? That has no bearing on who captures the little blue planet. They can be drones. They can even be Thanos' animated toenail clippings. Beyond any effects that might have on their psychology, that's irrelevant - it only matters how well they fight.

The ID4 aliens' arrogance is simply idiotic. They didn't know their enemy. They didn't even bother to keep track of their own technology which might be compromised after falling into the hands of their enemy. They should have known the humans had one of their ships. They should have known that because they lost their own technology on Earth 40 years prior.

You realize that the implication of the film is that some or all alien-abduction stories are true, right? There was even a deleted scene that made it explicit that Russel's son had been abducted also.

The implication is that they have conducted hundreds or thousands of reconnisance flights to Earth and lost one (1) ship in the forty plus years they've done this.

That's how it always works. In every ficton. The bigger you build up your Big Bad, the harder your Big Bad gets embarrassingly thrashed.

Watch Skyline.

Falling Skies also has very competent bad guys, the Espheni have taken losses throughout the series but continue to bounce back with a new and horrible plan every time.

Other bad guys that spring to mind as capable and only defeated by complete deus ex machina, are the Replicators and Asurans from Stargate, and Stargate has three sets of undefeated villains, the Wraith, and the Drones from SGU.

The narrative structure of a feature film makes the bad guys often overlook things. But that's not universal. Things like the Matrix trilogy, where for all it's failings, it ends with peace forged between man and machine, the machines are never militarily defeated, exist.

Star Trek The Undiscovered Country ends with Peace with Klingons, who are not militarily defeated, while at the end of Star Trek First Contact, the borg defeat is not the result of incompetence on their part, nor is their civilization humbled; one ship is destroyed but that's the limit of it.

I could go on. Narrative structure often gives stories where drastically outmatched protagonists beat ostensibly superior antagonists, but not always. These are just sci-fi examples off the top of my head.

Watch or read 1984.

And of course we have to leave out Deadpool. We have to. Otherwise the ID4 aliens aren't just fucked, they're fucking sodomized.

And then there's The Regulator. Y'all completely forgot about that character. Basically, it's a built-in Marvel Universe Wins cheat character. In the even of an extra-ficton intrusion, the native characters win whatever the context is. Fight to the death, nuclear armageddon, game of checkers, doesn't matter.

When you brought the Avengers into it, you invoked The Regulator. MCU wins. Default. Uncontestable.

Are you having some sort of breakdown?

My point in showing up the narrative element is this: No matter how competent the bad guys are, in any ficton, they lose. And the fact that the narrative has them ultimately being defeated means that some derpy little yokels find a way to defeat them.

The MCU is not populated, protagonist-wise, by derpy little yokels.

If a politician, a few fighter jocks, and an alcoholic Vietnam vet can beat the ID4 aliens, you can bet both your testicles the Avengers can pull off the same job without breaking a sweat.

[Terralthra]

My point in showing up the narrative element is this: No matter how competent the bad guys are, in any ficton, they lose. And the fact that the narrative has them ultimately being defeated means that some derpy little yokels find a way to defeat them.

And his point was that you're factually incorrect.

[Axton]

My point in showing up the narrative element is this: No matter how competent the bad guys are, in any ficton, they lose. And the fact that the narrative has them ultimately being defeated means that some derpy little yokels find a way to defeat them.

And his point was that you're factually incorrect.

So the protagonists of ID4 didn't win? Because it seems to me that they did. Or do you and he have a sooper-seekrit cut of the film where they lost?

[Axton]

Watch Skyline.

Falling Skies also has very competent bad guys, the Espheni have taken losses throughout the series but continue to bounce back with a new and horrible plan every time.

Other bad guys that spring to mind as capable and only defeated by complete deus ex machina, are the Replicators and Asurans from Stargate, and Stargate has three sets of undefeated villains, the Wraith, and the Drones from SGU.

The antagonists from Skyline, Falling Skies, and Stargate have no bearing on the question of this specific vs scenario. They're red herrings. The antagonists from this scenario are the ID4 aliens who, in universe, were bested by one fighter jock, a hilarious nurd with a laptop, and a drunk -- and that was after said antagonists had just about decimated terrestrial infrastructure. They still lost. Hilariously.

Put them up against the Avengers and you might as well slit the ID4 aliens' throats in their sleep. It's that much of a mismatch.

[Khaat]

Axton, the point of a "versus scenario" isn't to see who can play the "heroes win!" narrative trump-card hardest, loudest, or first. This is commonly seen in Trekkies when their answer is "but on the show, they do some cool, last-minute, pseudo-science-y thing and ta-dah! they WIN! So that will happen in THIS match-up!" (This is what happened in ID4, in case you didn't work it out: nothing they showed us in the movie explained why suddenly they were able to bridge a Macbook to an alien computer system that had only been reactivating in the last couple of days. David's inspiration is not the work, just the idea.)

We already know that on-screen "the hero" will win (by narrative default), before we even buy the tickets. Did you ever, for even a moment, think they'd have Tony Stark die in the cave in East Pluckistan in the first 15 minutes of Iron Man?
A: "Yes!" (making you a complete moron, unable to conceive that there were still 2 hours of run-time to fill)
B: "No, but I played along with the narrative, and let them build-in some tension for him to overcome! Yay! Hero!"

A useful (and entertaining) versus scenario discards the narrative trump-card first.
Now, evaluate the forces, strategy, tactics, and other resources (in-universe) shown to be available to each side, and discuss the logical outcome from those facts. [<- this is where the word "factually" in "factually incorrect" comes from!]

So in a non-narrative-trump-card ID4 versus scenario, yes, the plucky humans lose.

[Lord Revan]

Also the ID4 aliens lost because an highly improbable chain of events happened exactly the right way, was the chain of events possible of course but not probable by any stretch. It's like relying your personal finances on you winning jackpot on the lottery everytime you try, sure it could happen but it's so unlikely that it's not worth considering.

Saying the bad guys are stupid because they didn't read the script is just plain wrong, as we assume that parties involve don't know they're part of a fictional narative.