Why wasn't Earth destroyed in ID4?

[18-Till-I-Die]

Something that one should note, is that the only reason why the Earth survived the alien attack was...

A--they were forced to use our own satellites, thus they probably had to tailor their computer systems to match ours, and THAT is probably why they were open toa computer virus. This is a flaw in their plan, but it would NOT have been a fatal one if not for...

B--we captured one of their ships, undamaged. Something they probably had no idea we had done, seeing as they welcomed it back so openly, and most importantly...

C--Jeff Goldblum was smart. Not just smart like MIT smart, but "LOLZ!! I SMART!" like a comic book genius. Not only did he discover a hidden code that the thousands of other Earth scientists and technicians missed including scientists who had been STUDYING the aliens, but he also developed a virus to hurt their systems, and figured out how to defeat their shields using it. Basically this kind of smart in ONE GUY is impossible, it's writers fiat that he existed. If not for his "Science1!!1!!" powers we would have been toast since A and B are not fatal flaws in the aliens' plan.


Essentially he defeated the aliens by Deus Ex Machina power, not because of any particular fatal flaw in their plan. Had he, say, died in Washington then no one would have been able to do this stuff, that was made fairly clear by some of the "stunned" reactions by his peers at his ability to come up with this plan.

Either they were all stupid, or he was rediculously smart. Either way the fight was rigged for Earth.

[Target2006]

Jeff Goldblum is ok I guess, but nobody can beat the african tribesmen who took down their city-buster with spears! They didn't need nukes or warplanes or even metal weapons. Loincloths and wooden spears all the way!

Its in the montage of destroyed city-busters at the end so it must be true.

[18-Till-I-Die]

Jeff Goldblum is ok I guess, but nobody can beat the african tribesmen who took down their city-buster with spears! They didn't need nukes or warplanes or even metal weapons. Loincloths and wooden spears all the way!

Its in the montage of destroyed city-busters at the end so it must be true.

Seeing as Africa is, like, an inch away from the Middle East geographically they were probably damaged by a ME fighter strike (the UN had planes in the ME, as seen in the movie) and it staggered out over the African savanah before the antigravity drives blew out and it went down. That or some African nation used surface-to-air missiles to take it down. Either way i doubt the tribesmen did it alone.

[Stark]

A--they were forced to use our own satellites, thus they probably had to tailor their computer systems to match ours, and THAT is probably why they were open toa computer virus. This is a flaw in their plan, but it would NOT have been a fatal one if not for...

This isn't necessary. All they did was use the satellites to relay a signal: this hardly requires building their entire computer systems to be 'compatible' with ours - as if 'communications satellite OS' is compatible with Macs, anyway!

[Lonestar]

Jeff Goldblum is ok I guess, but nobody can beat the african tribesmen who took down their city-buster with spears! They didn't need nukes or warplanes or even metal weapons. Loincloths and wooden spears all the way!

Its in the montage of destroyed city-busters at the end so it must be true.

...How the Hell did you ever come to that conclusion? Do you think the seagulls must have destroyed the one in Sydney as well then?

[Shroom Man 777]

He's joking.

Shields or no shields, the Africans would've killed them all in the end, anyway. Because It Is Not Safe In Africa.

Afterwards, maybe some of them make a safe crash landing in the rivers. They exit their spaceships and try to swim for it. And then they get eaten by hungry hungry hippos. In Africa.

[Target2006]

You're right, I'd forgotten those brave seagull warriors. They swarmed that ship for hours.........................for no result whatsover. Then one seagul had the clever idea of writing a better computer virus while carrying a small nuke in its beak. A very small nuke.

[Lonestar]

He's joking.

I know he was, I was just trying point out what a dumbass joke it was.

[Molyneux]

Something that one should note, is that the only reason why the Earth survived the alien attack was...

A--they were forced to use our own satellites, thus they probably had to tailor their computer systems to match ours, and THAT is probably why they were open toa computer virus. This is a flaw in their plan, but it would NOT have been a fatal one if not for...

B--we captured one of their ships, undamaged. Something they probably had no idea we had done, seeing as they welcomed it back so openly, and most importantly...

C--Jeff Goldblum was smart. Not just smart like MIT smart, but "LOLZ!! I SMART!" like a comic book genius. Not only did he discover a hidden code that the thousands of other Earth scientists and technicians missed including scientists who had been STUDYING the aliens, but he also developed a virus to hurt their systems, and figured out how to defeat their shields using it. Basically this kind of smart in ONE GUY is impossible, it's writers fiat that he existed. If not for his "Science1!!1!!" powers we would have been toast since A and B are not fatal flaws in the aliens' plan.


Essentially he defeated the aliens by Deus Ex Machina power, not because of any particular fatal flaw in their plan. Had he, say, died in Washington then no one would have been able to do this stuff, that was made fairly clear by some of the "stunned" reactions by his peers at his ability to come up with this plan.

Either they were all stupid, or he was rediculously smart. Either way the fight was rigged for Earth.

He had an degree from MIT...in Science!

No, not 'science'. Science!
Comic bookiness aside, it was nice to see the smart guy save the world, rather than act as a villain.

[CaptainChewbacca]

Jeff Goldbloom must've gone to the Gaius Baltar school of omni-genius.

[CaptHawkeye]

Jeff Goldbloom must've gone to the Gaius Baltar school of omni-genius.

That, or he was sucking Q's cock every minute he wasn't on camera.

Afterwards, maybe some of them make a safe crash landing in the rivers. They exit their spaceships and try to swim for it. And then they get eaten by hungry hungry hippos. In Africa.

Wasn't their a post movie novel that claimed decent numbers of the Aliens survived their crash landings and waged a guerilla war against humanity?

[Adrian Laguna]

Seeing as Africa is, like, an inch away from the Middle East geographically they were probably damaged by a ME fighter strike (the UN had planes in the ME, as seen in the movie) and it staggered out over the African savanah before the antigravity drives blew out and it went down. That or some African nation used surface-to-air missiles to take it down. Either way I doubt the tribesmen did it alone.

You forget that there is one country in Africa with a very decent military, South Africa. It could easily have been them.

[Winston Blake]

Why? Can't the aliens have some kind of future radio that can bypass the moon?

Then they wouldn't have to use our satellites to broadcast the countdown, and Our Heroes would all have been killed.

One solution would be that the mothership had line-of-sight to at least one satellite in a comfortably high geosynchronous orbit, while being out of view of the Earth itself.

Of course, the next question is: why should being behind the Moon protect the mothership from being nuked? If they've got missiles that could kill it if it was near-but-not-behind the Moon, then shouldn't those missile have been able to curve around to hit something on the far side?

[RogueIce]

Of course, the next question is: why should being behind the Moon protect the mothership from being nuked? If they've got missiles that could kill it if it was near-but-not-behind the Moon, then shouldn't those missile have been able to curve around to hit something on the far side?

Wouldn't an ICBM's MIRVs splitting apart be a bit of a problem?

Also, it took Apollo 11 four days (IIRC) to get to the moon. I don't know if an ICBM or whatever would be any faster (or if they could even get there in the first place) but maybe they figured they didn't have the time.

Additionally, they might have sent fighters to take out the various rocket bases on the planet (as they did with Will Smith's MCAS...El Dorado IIRC). Which would make things more difficult for reaching the moon (or behind the moon, wherever the thing was).

Finally, wasn't the mothership shielded too? If they couldn't nuke a city destroyer, why would they have any better luck against the mothership?

[Teleros]

Finally, wasn't the mothership shielded too? If they couldn't nuke a city destroyer, why would they have any better luck against the mothership?

I can't remember for certain, but I'd be surprised if it wasn't given the smaller ships were.
Although I've always wondered if simply throwing a bigger nuke at one of the city destroyers would have worked. A big 32MT nuke might've taken it out (unlikely, but we only ever see small-scale nukes etc being used on them so I wouldn't completely rule it out). Would've been amusing to see this whopper of a starship suddenly taken out by one of our piddly little missiles though .

[LaserRifleofDoom]

Gaius Baltar must've gone to the Jeff Goldbloom school of omni-genius.

Fixed. Remember which came first.

[Lord of the Abyss]

Although I've always wondered if simply throwing a bigger nuke at one of the city destroyers would have worked. A big 32MT nuke might've taken it out (unlikely, but we only ever see small-scale nukes etc being used on them so I wouldn't completely rule it out). Would've been amusing to see this whopper of a starship suddenly taken out by one of our piddly little missiles though .

Well, it was already amusing to see the aliens use those whopper starships at short range to roughly match what we can do with our piddly little missles at intercontinental ranges.

[Lonestar]

Finally, wasn't the mothership shielded too? If they couldn't nuke a city destroyer, why would they have any better luck against the mothership?

Besides the "bigger nuke" theory,(which I scoff at), no doubt the aliens use liquid Tiberium technology, which caused a chain reaction.




...it was probably a bigger nuke that got a lucky hit on a critical system.

[Losonti Tokash]

Instead of sending swarms of fighter planes at a flying fortress the size of a city, why the hell didn't they try and nuke the things once the shields were down? Or even some SAMs, once the fighters were empty?

Goddammit, you guys ruined this movie for me.

[The_Last_Rebel]

Who's to say someone didn't use nukes? Although conventional high explosives worked fine on their weak spot, though in that case timing is everything...howsabout a fuel-air bomb?

As for the mothership, yeah, it was probably shielded from the outside, but that's not gonna work when a nuke goes off inside it.

I figure the warhead on a missile that size would only be a couple hundred kilotons, so instead of blowing a ship that size to bits like it did, it should have instead wound up a burned-out hulk in space.

[Lonestar]

Who's to say someone didn't use nukes? Although conventional high explosives worked fine on their weak spot, though in that case timing is everything...howsabout a fuel-air bomb?
.

I don't think that would have done a damn thing on a city-ship.

[RogueIce]

Although I've always wondered if simply throwing a bigger nuke at one of the city destroyers would have worked. A big 32MT nuke might've taken it out (unlikely, but we only ever see small-scale nukes etc being used on them so I wouldn't completely rule it out). Would've been amusing to see this whopper of a starship suddenly taken out by one of our piddly little missiles though .

Probably because it wouldn't have worked. They blew up the city ships by hitting the weapon (as it was charging to fire, remember; don't know if it would have made a difference though) and causing that chain reaction to make it go boom. After all, when the shields went down they were hitting it all over but they couldn't do enough damage. I don't know if the conventional weapons you listed would either, or for that matter a nuke even (depends on how tough those hulls are).

Enough nukes probably could, but that relies on them A) having that many nukes handy and available where they were and B) willing to live with the radiation later (I'm guessing those ships weren't too toxic given the people dancing around them, but then we don't see the long-term affects do we?).

That's also a bit of the problem with fuel-air bombs or whatever. The US force we see probably didn't have them handy, especially since they're probably whatever forces survived from other raids, and those were outfitted for air-to-air (though I wonder where they got the planes from but not the pilots...oh well). Maybe in other battles we didn't see they had some heavier stuff on their attackers.

[Teleros]

After all, when the shields went down they were hitting it all over but they couldn't do enough damage. I don't know if the conventional weapons you listed would either, or for that matter a nuke even (depends on how tough those hulls are).

The fact that those missiles were damaging the ship's hull is cause for hope. The problem though is that a nuke would waste a lot of its energy in an explosion as not all of it would go directly into the ship. Even so, I'd expect it to do bad things to those ships, even if it doesn't completely destroy them.

Enough nukes probably could, but that relies on them A) having that many nukes handy and available where they were and B) willing to live with the radiation later

I can't remember what they said about the USA's nuclear silos if anything, so not sure about (A). For (B), I think they were prepared - they did do the whole thing about "using nukes on American soil" before trying the stealth bombers on one of the ships. Granted a 32MT nuke means a lot more collateral damage and radiation but my impression was that they were desperate enough to nukes - therefore why not use a proper one?

[RogueIce]

I can't remember what they said about the USA's nuclear silos if anything, so not sure about (A). For (B), I think they were prepared - they did do the whole thing about "using nukes on American soil" before trying the stealth bombers on one of the ships. Granted a 32MT nuke means a lot more collateral damage and radiation but my impression was that they were desperate enough to nukes - therefore why not use a proper one?

How many tac nukes do we still have? I don't know if they would've ICBMed every city destroyer. Anyway, that would also depend on them deciding to bring those to Area 51. Which they might not have done (they did seem surprised when a city destroyer was moving in on them; I don't think they were planning on fighting it out there).

As for their desperation...well, keep in mind for the final battle they were all there too (hell didn't it get pretty much over the base by the end?). I doubt they'd let loose with nukes right over their own heads.

Other countries in other battles might have though. We just didn't see it.

[Baal]

Although I've always wondered if simply throwing a bigger nuke at one of the city destroyers would have worked. A big 32MT nuke might've taken it out (unlikely, but we only ever see small-scale nukes etc being used on them so I wouldn't completely rule it out). Would've been amusing to see this whopper of a starship suddenly taken out by one of our piddly little missiles though .

Probably because it wouldn't have worked. They blew up the city ships by hitting the weapon (as it was charging to fire, remember; don't know if it would have made a difference though) and causing that chain reaction to make it go boom. After all, when the shields went down they were hitting it all over but they couldn't do enough damage. I don't know if the conventional weapons you listed would either, or for that matter a nuke even (depends on how tough those hulls are).

Enough nukes probably could, but that relies on them A) having that many nukes handy and available where they were and B) willing to live with the radiation later (I'm guessing those ships weren't too toxic given the people dancing around them, but then we don't see the long-term affects do we?).

That's also a bit of the problem with fuel-air bombs or whatever. The US force we see probably didn't have them handy, especially since they're probably whatever forces survived from other raids, and those were outfitted for air-to-air (though I wonder where they got the planes from but not the pilots...oh well). Maybe in other battles we didn't see they had some heavier stuff on their attackers.

We have no way of knowing if bigger weapons would have worked. Look at those explosions on the side of the ships when the shields were down. They were pretty impressive explosion considering that the ships were all carrying air to air missiles which generally have very small warheads.

If I am remembering right the average Sidewinder AAM has a 10 lbs fragmenting warhead. Pretty small if you think about it. Planes are not destroyed by the missile itself. The missiles are too small to destroy something as large as a fighter or bomber. AAM's take down planes because the average plane is so fragil that if you mess up its structure in even a minor way it litterally tears itself apart.

So we see the earth bound alien ships taking pretty heavy deamage from really small warheads set on direct impact explosion instead of proximity detonation.

Obviously the alien ships are kind of like ST ships in that they heavily rely on their shields for strength and their armor sucks royally or doesnt exist at all.