Hypothetical situation

[Zero]

We develope the capabilities necessary for inter-stellar travel, and begin expansion into the stars. We find an earth-like planet that already contains many life forms. Among them are human beings, in the equivalent of a midieval era. They're the same as us biologically. What would you conclude?

[Robert Walper]

We develope the capabilities necessary for inter-stellar travel, and begin expansion into the stars. We find an earth-like planet that already contains many life forms. Among them are human beings, in the equivalent of a midieval era. They're the same as us biologically. What would you conclude?

Probably transported there from our planet, or us from theirs at some point.

[Xenophobe3691]

We develope the capabilities necessary for inter-stellar travel, and begin expansion into the stars. We find an earth-like planet that already contains many life forms. Among them are human beings, in the equivalent of a midieval era. They're the same as us biologically. What would you conclude?

Something fucked up is going on, and we were damn lucky to escape the grip of the theologists. Because, we all know, in Outside Context Situations, humans fail miserably.

[Quadlok]

Oh No! You forgot to say Rarrr!!!

Either outside interference from an advanced alien race, or just an extremely unlikely coincidence.

[Admiral Valdemar]

I'd assume an OCP in progress and expect a subsequent revelation shortly after discovering identical organisms following our historical path on a planet other than Sol III.

[Zero]

I don't see how you could say coincidence to that, but I suppose if the environments developed similarly enough... maybe. To Rober Walpert... how did this occur?

[Admiral Valdemar]

Coincidence? The chances of such a find happening are so small, you're looking at base ten probabilities in the sub-zero region. There's no appreciable way to explain this without resorting to some insane theory or simply admitting something weird is happening.

[Noble Ire]

My first reaction would be:

"God Damn it Q, stop doing that."

[Robert Walper]

I don't see how you could say coincidence to that, but I suppose if the environments developed similarly enough... maybe. To Rober Walpert... how did this occur?

My first theory would be that one of the planets had a previously advanced civilization (now extinct) that launched "seeds" of humanity out.

[Predator]

We know that we evolved here - did they evolve there coincidentally, or upon examining their fossil records and the other animals on their world, do we find that they seem out of place on their planet?

[Nephtys]

First thing. I find out if they have familiar sounding gods. If so, we start digging in Egypt and the Arctic immediately, and start looking for Thor.

[wolveraptor]

It obviously points to some outside power manipulating the humans species. I would guess that aliens extensively manipulated our evolution, and (somehow) even our history, throuhg as of yet unknown means. So I'd go looking for these interfering xenomorphs.

[Nieztchean Uber-Amoeba]

First: Assume we've come to an Out-of-context problem and stop short of really figuring it out.

Next: Examine their culture, history and fossil records to discover how their history, religion go, and whether they fit into the fossil record.

And if none of those yield satisfactory conclusions:

PRAIII-IIII-IIISSSEEE JESUS!

[wolveraptor]

I don't think this would really be proof of God, or at least not an omnipotent, all powerful being. Such a being that wanted to convince us of his/her/its existence could simply snap his/her/its fingers and hardwire that belief into our brains. Or, if he/she/it didn't want us to find out about he/she/it, he/she/it would prevent us from discovering evidence of he/she/it at all.

If you define God in the way the Norse did, then yes, we have some extremely powerful, near-god-like aliens working here.

[GrandMasterTerwynn]

We develope the capabilities necessary for inter-stellar travel, and begin expansion into the stars. We find an earth-like planet that already contains many life forms. Among them are human beings, in the equivalent of a midieval era. They're the same as us biologically. What would you conclude?

The only sensible thing that can be concluded. Some point in the last 160,000 years, humans were taken from Earth and transplanted onto this planet by some unknown interstellar alien civilization who took on the expensive task of transplanting live cargo from one system to another for reasons all their own.

The evidence for humans evolving on Earth is so firm that to deny it would be, frankly, delusional. Thus, these outlanders had to originally come from Earth. And since, there is no evidence of a highly advanced civilization of humans having developed on Earth before us, the humans on the new planet couldn't have gotten there by themselves. Thus, the only logical conclusion we can draw is "outside alien interference."

[SirNitram]

Things we know:

1) Space is big, other intelligences could have evolved.
2) Interstellar flight is viable.
3) Probability does not favor this being a random chance.

They were transplanted. Until we find out why and by who, go to heavy alert and break out the big guns.

[Coyote]

Arming up and getting paranoid may seem like a good idea, but I'd caution against going too paranoid. Under these circumstances, it's painfully obvious that the aliens could have wiped us out already if they were inclined to do so. Since they took the trouble to transplant and provide for them, we can theorize that they are benign, probably motivated by scientific curiosity that centers on social structures and growth, and that they are very, very patient.

[Lone_Prodigy]

Arming up and getting paranoid may seem like a good idea, but I'd caution against going too paranoid. Under these circumstances, it's painfully obvious that the aliens could have wiped us out already if they were inclined to do so. Since they took the trouble to transplant and provide for them, we can theorize that they are benign, probably motivated by scientific curiosity that centers on social structures and growth, and that they are very, very patient.

Or that they were waiting for obesity to become socially acceptable and wide-spread, so that they could begin the harvests. Whether good or bad we would know that there are aliens, and that alone would warrant a massive increase in arms programs by virtually every government.

[Robert Walper]

I wonder just how likely it would be that humans would pick a fight with aliens, or even act aggressive towards them. You'd think a species capable of transplanting humans so early in our history wouldn't exactly be defenseless or stupid. They might even be potentially more aggressive than we are.

[Zero]

Sailors used to put two pigs on an island, a male and a female. Because they weren't part of the natural ecosystem, they would quickly become dominant, and when the sailors came back, there would be many pigs. Just seeing a correlation between this and what you folks are saying about the aliens who probably did this shit...

[wolveraptor]

That's impossible. Inbreeding should make them all die out.

[Ender]

Things we know:

1) Space is big, other intelligences could have evolved.
2) Interstellar flight is viable.
3) Probability does not favor this being a random chance.

They were transplanted. Until we find out why and by who, go to heavy alert and break out the big guns.

Consider what we know of them in this situation:

These unknowns are powerful enough to take a large enough part of the population to support a stable gene pool across the stars without us ever noticing it. On top of that, the lack of logic obvious logic behind such an endevor implies that this is something small compared to the resources they would have available to them.

Getting hostile is possibly the single biggest mistake we could ever make, and likely the last one we would.


And what is an OCP?

[XaLEv]

And what is an OCP?

OCP stands for Outside Context Problem. It comes from Excession by Iain Banks:

An Outside Context Problem was the sort of thing most civilisations encountered just once, and which they tended to encounter rather in the same way a sentence encountered a full stop. The usual example given to illustrate an Outside Context Problem was imagining you were a tribe on a largish, fertile island; you'd tamed the land, invented the wheel or writing or whatever, the neighbours were cooperative or enslaved but at any rate peaceful and you were busy raising temples to yourself with all the excess productive capacity you had, you were in a position of near-absolute power and control which your hallowed ancestors could hardly have dreamed of and the whole situation was just running along nicely like a canoe on wet grass... when suddenly this bristling lump of iron appears sailless and trailing steam in the bay and these guys carrying long funny-looking sticks come ashore and announce you've just been discovered, you're all subjects of the Emperor now, he's keen on presents called 'tax' and these bright-eyed holy men would like a word with your priests.

[Junghalli]

Pretty much the same thing happens in my own SF universe.
I would assume they were taken from Earth at some point by an outside agency and put there. It's the most reasonable explanation.

[Sharpshooter]

"Holy shit! It's Mondas!"