The Race Vs. Earth in 2010

[spartasman]

O.K, I've seen a few other threads about this, but it always seems to end up revolving about which fictional science fiction would best kick ass, or 'nukes the whole planet'.

What exactly would happen on earth if the the Race invaded today? How effective are the races nukes (as from what I understand they are low-yield) against modern electronics? How effective would the worlds military's be against a sudden invasion from space?

I have contemplated writing something to the effect of the above-mentioned instance, but I've been too lazy to do anything of the sort in the past. But I also don't want to write something that has an overtly obvious plot cycle. Personally, I might just write it to see how an M1 Abrams or M60 Patton do against a Landcruiser, but I'm not really sure where an invasion of Earth would go in today's world.

[CaptainChewbacca]

The only option the race would have would be to bombard from orbit. Any invasion they attempted would fail, because the US, NATO, and Russia can move around too much air power too quickly. Their land forces are on-par with 1970's military technology, a modern abrams would absolutely shred landcruisers. The race would have some initial success in their ground landings, but in the end they'd get destroyed worse than the posleen.

[Andehtron]

we'd likely have detected them as they neared earth from the outer edge of the solar system. Id imagine Earth would begin hailing them at baffling Atvar who was considering calling of the invasion in the real storyline.. Encoutering an nuclear armed world with almost the same level of technology as his forces would likely have him turn his fleet around. If he did attack, the fleet would be decimated. The killer craft would be swatted from the sky by the worlds airforces, even against 3rd world militaries they'd suffer massive casualties. Long and short, we win, they lose.

[Simon_Jester]

Yeah. Lizards lose hard; the question is whether they simply retreat when they realize how tough the target is going to be, or whether they try nuking the target from orbit to keep it from posing a long term threat.

I mean, the modern world is infinitely more capable of fighting alien ground and air forces than it was in World War Two, when humans gave the Lizards a run for their money. We're still at least as good tactically as we were then, and we have hardware parity.

The only option the race would have would be to bombard from orbit. Any invasion they attempted would fail, because the US, NATO, and Russia can move around too much air power too quickly. Their land forces are on-par with 1970's military technology, a modern abrams would absolutely shred landcruisers. The race would have some initial success in their ground landings, but in the end they'd get destroyed worse than the posleen.

Late 1970s? In some ways yes, definitely... though their ABM capabilities were pretty good. My impression was that they were more like Turtledove's idea of what 1990-vintage technology looked like. He missed a few things, of course.

[spartasman]

How effective are the anti-missile countermeasures of today's world? would they be enough to stop a nuclear bombardment, or even to stop any high-atmosphere detonations? Also, it's my understanding that the effects of EMP on technology and electronics is over-blown, would the U.S or European power and communications grids survive an EMP blast, or several?

[Simon_Jester]

With the possible exception of Moscow, I don't think any place on Earth is defended by a system that could stop warheads fired from orbit. Likewise, we have effectively no defensive measures capable of engaging large, well armored targets in space. This is mostly a conscious choice on our part: we have decided not to militarize space, and decided not to build ABM defenses (which might double as defenses against bombs dropped from orbit on ballistic trajectories), even though it is within our technical capabilities to do so.

I have been told by experts that the effects of EMP are overrated, but I am not qualified to judge exactly what those effects would be.

[spartasman]

Disregard the idiocy that was here before. Anyway, their are alot of countermeasures today, the Aegis system, Patriot missile batteries, and of course the Boeing YAL-1 laser system. Granted, these are not all completely effective, but if the Race was simply concentrating on high-altitude bombing with perhaps a few nuclear attacks on major population centers, I would have to think that the dozens of patriot batteries around New York would have some effect.

regardless, how would the Conquest fleet perform? I imagine that Africa would not be easy, given the large numbers of militias and dictatorships, but that would be the most likely place for the Race to jump first. South America would be even harder, given the tech possessed by many South American nations, not to mention the various drug cartels that operate out of jungles. In North America, most of the landing sites would be neutralized by the large air and ground forces, though a large enough landing might take some doing, especially by the National Guard units that would be operating M60's instead of M1 Abrams. Also, the highway system both in America would give the Race a substantial increase in mobility, not to mention the initial disorganization that the various Earth Governments would experience. Europe would be little different than the U.S, with russian and Polish forces quickly dismantling any Race footholds, except that maybe Poland would need a hand from the rest of the E.U. Asia would be interesting, China would kick ass, but I suspect that nukes would be used to demolish major Chinese cities due to their population. Australia would be weird, but I do wonder how well the Aussies would fare against the Race, given their being overcome in the original story.

[fb111a]

It has been a while since I read this, so my memory may be faulty, but there was something that sort of stuck in my mind: Wasn't there some line early on about how Atvar had not wanted to be the first to be known as a "Worldfleeer" or something like that?

I doubt he would have retreated...

[Mayabird]

*mod ninja kick*

It fits better here since it's not a story in progress and has nothing to do with actual writing, just slight SF RARing.

[Simon_Jester]

Disregard the idiocy that was here before. Anyway, their are alot of countermeasures today, the Aegis system, Patriot missile batteries, and of course the Boeing YAL-1 laser system. Granted, these are not all completely effective, but if the Race was simply concentrating on high-altitude bombing with perhaps a few nuclear attacks on major population centers, I would have to think that the dozens of patriot batteries around New York would have some effect.

I'm... not so sure. Patriot and AEGIS aren't currently rated to intercept ICBMs, are they? ICBMs are the closest analogy to orbital bombing.

I mean, if the Lizards try to swoop in with killercraft (fighter-bombers) they're going to be fucked in short order, but if they stay in orbit we don't really have anything worth mentioning to shoot back with. And there is one YAL platform, it is not combat-rated.

regardless, how would the Conquest fleet perform? I imagine that Africa would not be easy, given the large numbers of militias and dictatorships, but that would be the most likely place for the Race to jump first. South America would be even harder, given the tech possessed by many South American nations, not to mention the various drug cartels that operate out of jungles. In North America, most of the landing sites would be neutralized by the large air and ground forces, though a large enough landing might take some doing, especially by the National Guard units that would be operating M60's instead of M1 Abrams. Also, the highway system both in America would give the Race a substantial increase in mobility, not to mention the initial disorganization that the various Earth Governments would experience. Europe would be little different than the U.S, with russian and Polish forces quickly dismantling any Race footholds, except that maybe Poland would need a hand from the rest of the E.U. Asia would be interesting, China would kick ass, but I suspect that nukes would be used to demolish major Chinese cities due to their population. Australia would be weird, but I do wonder how well the Aussies would fare against the Race, given their being overcome in the original story.

Australia is considerably more populous and much, much better armed now than it was then. Moreover, if the US has any ability to send aid, that aid will probably go to Australia; they're one of our foremost allies and would be under extremely heavy attack.

I don't think the Lizards could maintain footholds on Earth today. There'd be too much purely conventional opposition, and the level of nuclear bombing they'd need to suppress that opposition would make the planet useless for colonization. So they'd either exploit their space supremacy to bomb us into the Stone Age, then tell the colonization fleet to turn around, or just give up and tell the colonization fleet to turn around. Quite possibly the former.

If we had militarized space defenses commensurate with what we could have built, they might not even try bombing us, simply because of the risk to the fleet... but then again, they might think it was their duty to neutralize us regardless.

[spartasman]

O.k, so, maybe I will write something like this, if I don't become disinterested and forget about it halfway through, that is.

So, if I write it like Harry Turtledove writes his stories, I'll be needing some viewpoint characters, does anyone have any idea's to that effect.

[Mayabird]

So, if I write it like Harry Turtledove writes his stories, I'll be needing some viewpoint characters. Does anyone have any ideas to that effect?

My first idea is that you should not write like Turtledove does or the Editing Poncho may strangle you. I've said it before, but Turtledove needs an editor almost as much as Ayn Rand did. The viewpoint characters are often completely useless to the story as a whole and only serve to pad out the already bloated books. And then there are gratuitous sex scenes which have nothing to do with the plot and only serve to go, "oh look at me writing graphic sex scenes with pussies so dripping wet and I have satisfied my under-18 male reader demographic now!"

My second idea for you, which isn't actually an idea but a suggestion also on possible pain of strangulation by poncho, is to learn the mechanics of writing, like just putting a goddamn -s at the end of words instead of this goddamn 's I see so very much. 's is possessive. The ideas aren't owning anything, and my anger issues aren't all georgia-related.

[Simon_Jester]

Spartasman, I probably have less of a beef with you than anyone else here and... for a moment I was tempted to volunteer to grab you so that she could get the poncho around your neck.

I understand that you have a genuine problem with grammatical writing, one that requires a great deal of painstaking editing for you to beat... but is there anything you can imagine yourself doing that would actually help? Because nothing you write in any style is going to get good press until it's written free of error. Even the worst published authors manage that; my understanding is that real publishing companies generally won't even look at your work unless you can do typo-free writing.

The Internet has lower standards, but on the high end of Internet readership... not all that much lower.

[spartasman]

well... I'm obviously not putting enough attention into what I write. The thing is, is that when I write something, I tend to lose interest fairly easily, so I end up writing it out as fast as I can before I drop the project. This, coupled with my general distaste over revision is a roadblock, but I guess there is nothing to do but overcome it.

But, other than my poor writing skills, I would, at least for the time being, to write something along the lines of a modern Race invasion. If for no other reason than to gain practice on my writing.

[Mystikal]

O.K, I've seen a few other threads about this, but it always seems to end up revolving about which fictional science fiction would best kick ass, or 'nukes the whole planet'.

What exactly would happen on earth if the the Race invaded today? How effective are the races nukes (as from what I understand they are low-yield) against modern electronics? How effective would the worlds military's be against a sudden invasion from space?

I have contemplated writing something to the effect of the above-mentioned instance, but I've been too lazy to do anything of the sort in the past. But I also don't want to write something that has an overtly obvious plot cycle. Personally, I might just write it to see how an M1 Abrams or M60 Patton do against a Landcruiser, but I'm not really sure where an invasion of Earth would go in today's world.

Either they attempt nuking from orbit, get handed Australia with the benefit of pissing of Stark so much his head explodes, or Conventional Military Conflict.

CMC=Rapestomp.

[guest]

You guys are missing one big point, the Race possess no ships with weapons capability. All their spacecraft are simply meant to transport troops and equipment from Home to their destination. As such the only way they had to use nukes was to drop a fleet ship into the upper atmosphere where it would launch a killercraft armed with a nuclear weapon. The only reason why they were able to nuke cities with such impunity during the worldwar series was due to the disparity between the capabilities of current earth aircraft and killercraft. IIRC the closest the race came to even thinking of using orbital bombardment during the entirety of all tosev books was in homeward bound when they thought of using a c-fractional ship to kamikazi Earth, otherwise they never even thought of such a strategy. Honestly, if the race showed up any time after 1950 and doesn't turn back they are screwed, facing off against IS-3's, patton tanks, skysweeper AA batteries, Mig 15's, and F-86's would put the humans on almost even terms with the Race. Not to mention that given the obvious motivation to get into space we would probably see orbit capable spacecraft within the first or second year of any war between humans and lizards.

Actually, if I may suggest, without actually changing the departure date for the fleet, you could choose to not fail physics like Turtledove did and have the Fleet arrive some time in the mid 1970's. What people seem to forget is that although the Race's spacecraft are capable of reaching half the speed of light, they cannot simply reach it instantaneously, rather they would spend half the journey accelerating to .5 c and then the other half slowing down again. The 24 year trip time mentioned in the books is way off the mark.

[Simon_Jester]

You guys are missing one big point, the Race possess no ships with weapons capability. All their spacecraft are simply meant to transport troops and equipment from Home to their destination. As such the only way they had to use nukes was to drop a fleet ship into the upper atmosphere where it would launch a killercraft armed with a nuclear weapon.

Are you sure about this? I could swear they had actual missiles.

Actually, if I may suggest, without actually changing the departure date for the fleet, you could choose to not fail physics like Turtledove did and have the Fleet arrive some time in the mid 1970's. What people seem to forget is that although the Race's spacecraft are capable of reaching half the speed of light, they cannot simply reach it instantaneously, rather they would spend half the journey accelerating to .5 c and then the other half slowing down again. The 24 year trip time mentioned in the books is way off the mark.

That would be interesting, of course. But given that the Lizards did their preliminary survey eight hundred years ago, it doesn't seem unreasonable to fiddle their departure date for the sake of preserving the core premise of the story.

[spartasman]

well, there is a thought, the Race invading during the 1970's. It would be a bit more realistic, relatively speaking. It would be more plausible for the Race to choose invasion during the 60's/70's, given that technology would still be a bit behind them. I can't begin to imagine what a sudden alien invasion would do to the tenuous relationship between NATO and the Warsaw Pact, but it would be fun to imagine how they would react. Plus, M60A2s against landcruisers would be an interesting match, or F-4 Phantoms vs Killercraft. Then again, 1970's tech would be much more prone to failing as a result of EMP blasts, which is something that the present-day scenario would have little to do with. I don't know.

[Mystikal]

You guys are missing one big point, the Race possess no ships with weapons capability. All their spacecraft are simply meant to transport troops and equipment from Home to their destination. As such the only way they had to use nukes was to drop a fleet ship into the upper atmosphere where it would launch a killercraft armed with a nuclear weapon. The only reason why they were able to nuke cities with such impunity during the worldwar series was due to the disparity between the capabilities of current earth aircraft and killercraft. IIRC the closest the race came to even thinking of using orbital bombardment during the entirety of all tosev books was in homeward bound when they thought of using a c-fractional ship to kamikazi Earth, otherwise they never even thought of such a strategy. Honestly, if the race showed up any time after 1950 and doesn't turn back they are screwed, facing off against IS-3's, patton tanks, skysweeper AA batteries, Mig 15's, and F-86's would put the humans on almost even terms with the Race. Not to mention that given the obvious motivation to get into space we would probably see orbit capable spacecraft within the first or second year of any war between humans and lizards.

Actually, if I may suggest, without actually changing the departure date for the fleet, you could choose to not fail physics like Turtledove did and have the Fleet arrive some time in the mid 1970's. What people seem to forget is that although the Race's spacecraft are capable of reaching half the speed of light, they cannot simply reach it instantaneously, rather they would spend half the journey accelerating to .5 c and then the other half slowing down again. The 24 year trip time mentioned in the books is way off the mark.

Half the Journey? Who says it take that long? Maybe a 1/4 accelarating to it. Half just coasting. 1/4 slowing down. Give or take. Can anyone do the math on the speeds that they were cruising at?

Oh and would the Lizards ever think of asking for a piece of settlement land in exchange for a tech boost?

[Samuel]

Why land? Why not build an orbital- do they have any pschological requirement to live planet side?

[spartasman]

I would be guessing that the Race would not appreciate being 'given' anything other than complete dominance over earth. Remember, they are just paving the way for the colonization fleet, so their prerogative is to conquer the planet. Without conquering the planet, they would have to turn around and tell the colonization fleet to turn home. However, if they were to invade in today's world, I would think that, given the right circumstances, few ships would turn around, and that they would be pursued by human ships, which would also be part of any story. Just imagine it, space marines storming the Emperors palace, clearing out resistance in the Hall of Emperors past, epic is too small a word.

[Mystikal]

Why land? Why not build an orbital- do they have any pschological requirement to live planet side?

Have they shown any capability to build a large orbital habitat?

[guest]

Half the Journey? Who says it take that long? Maybe a 1/4 accelarating to it. Half just coasting. 1/4 slowing down. Give or take. Can anyone do the math on the speeds that they were cruising at?

Oh and would the Lizards ever think of asking for a piece of settlement land in exchange for a tech boost?[/quote]

Well, just about every projected interstellar journey that anyone can think of figures on half the journey accelerating and half the journey slowing down. Accelerating for only a quarter and then coasting for about half the journey before turnover would be very inneficient, not to mention very un-racelike. And even allowing for that my point still stands, the fleet would not be able to reach earth in the 24 year period established in the books, it would be physically impossible given their level of technology.

[CaptainChewbacca]

Why land? Why not build an orbital- do they have any pschological requirement to live planet side?

Other than not having the supplies to stay in space indefinitely? The bulk of the people on the ships (yes, including the conquest fleet) came across in cryo-stasis. I'd bet they don't have the resources to keep them on the ships until they can think of a plan.

[hongi]

How effective would the worlds military's be against a sudden invasion from space?

If they decide that destroying major cities/population centres is a better choice than losing their invasion force to occupation, there's nothing we can do to stop them. Realistically, they leave us alone, or they blackmail us and force concessions or we die.

we'd likely have detected them as they neared earth from the outer edge of the solar system.

Detect how?