Resisting an Invasion

[Razor One]

A wormhole opens up allowing a small alien fleet consisting of a damaged mothership, six cruisers, a dozen support vessels and a flotilla of fighters into the solar system.

The aliens are friendly and open up communications when they learn our language, beseeching us for aid. Their species have been driven almost to extinction by a predatory species that views all intelligent life, save its own, as filth and pestilence.

These Benefactors, as they later become known, offer all their knowledge, technology and expertise to the people of Earth in exchange for Earth's involvement.

They inform us that in 1 - 3 years, the enemy will be able to reverse engineer the technology required to safely traverse wormholes and assault Earth directly.

They also inform us that even without such technology, the enemy will be able to reach Earth within a century at most.

There can be no negotiation with the enemy. The only choices we'd be offered are "Killed with fire, killed with radiation, killed with corrosives, or the opportunity to kill yourselves".

Because the enemy are busy occupying former Benefactor territory and fighting off their surviving allies (to say nothing of stretched supply lines) the short term retaliation is likely to be relatively light with one of the Dreadnought class vessels coming through to deliver the beatdown.

Most Benefactor weaponry can be understood but not replicated due to lack of specialised materials available only on the other side of the Wormhole.

A Benefactor mothership can go toe to toe with a Dreadnought and win if it's in condition. The one near Earth is not and will need significant repairs before it is even marginally operational as a combat vessel.

Benefactors use a combination of shields and armor to defend their vessels. The enemy uses thick armor plating and massive firepower. Suffice to say that a stray shot striking the surface of a planet in a slugfest between a Mothership and a Dreadnought would level whatever unfortunate city happened to be in the line of fire at the time and raise up a significant amount of dust.

The enemy's primary weaknesses are Arrogance and Arrogance. It has to be mentioned twice because they are damned Arrogant.

Earth has between one and three years to prepare for their arrival and, failing a willingness to take the initiative and launch strikes against the enemy through the wormhole, a century before they're on our doorstep. Is Earth capable of resisting and, importantly, striking back?

[GrandMasterTerwynn]

We're not only fucked, we're sodomized with a telephone pole. Sideways. Without lube. You're asking whether a species with no appreciable space capability and no industrial space infrastructure can reverse-engineer and build ships from a civilization whose achievements in science and engineering are so far ahead of our own that their wormhole making equipment and energy shields might as well be elf magic. It'd take us much longer than your three year window just to decipher enough of their scientific and engineering understanding to not get our engineers instantaneously killed the moment they try something.

If that wasn't bad enough, your OP outright states that we can't duplicate their weaponry without their materials science. Which means we can't duplicate anything else. We can't even repair the ships that came here. Which leads us back to that whole sideways sodomization thing. Our best hope is that the Bad Guys have to take the slow route, giving us enough time to work out the biggest body that one of the Good Guys drives can safely push through a wormhole. Then hollow out an asteroid, stuff it with Earth's best and brightest, and bug out of Sol System and start random-walking until we're somewhere out of the way, where we can found a colony.

Even if their enemy has to take the slow route to get here, we're still fucked. Military personnel, such as the ones likely to be aboard the "good" alien ships, aren't jack-of-all-trades super-geniuses. They likely don't have the technical knowledge to tell us how to build the sorts of infrastructure needed to make ships like theirs. And there's also the question of how long they're going to live. We'd better hope they have really long life expectancies, otherwise we'll be in a pickle when the last of 'em buggers off due to old age.

Reverse-engineering isn't nearly as simple as TV and movies make it look. I implore you to use the search function . . . we've discussed the problems of reverse engineering before.

[Sarevok]

The only way we can win is if the aliens are as stupid and incompetent as RDA from Avatar. Like the RDA they have to intentionally designing their weapons in such a way that a primitive enemy has a chance to exploit and defeat them. So yeah we are looking at no orbital bombardment. Atmospheric fighters like Goul'd Hataks (high yet so moronically designed MiGs can slaughter them), tanks as stupid as Covenant Wraiths and infantry that fight like Jaffa (advanced rayguns yet tactics and equipment of a stone age army). If they follow this line of thinking then we may actually be able to replicate the retarded plotlines of Posleen books.

[LionElJonson]

I figure we do what we can to begin building the tools to build the tools, and if the enemy arrives before we can manage to achieve technological parity, we attempt to negotiate a method of killing ourselves that lets us stall for as much time as possible, like the One Child Policy of China. That should give us a few generations to refit our industry to a more equal level, as well as develop seed AI. Setting off the Singularity would probably be a big help.

[Sarevok]

I would not put stock in pulling off a singularity in a century. Reality is not a 4x game where you can allocate resources to rush a super project.

[Cykeisme]

Mweh, this is FTL interstellar travel, and judging by the description of what a weapon hit would do to a city, it's also power generation orders of magnitude that is also beyond what our understanding of physics says is possible.
We'd need to understand how to build the tools to build the tools to build the tools.

I figure we do what we can to begin building the tools to build the tools, and if the enemy arrives before we can manage to achieve technological parity, we attempt to negotiate a method of killing ourselves that lets us stall for as much time as possible, like the One Child Policy of China. That should give us a few generations to refit our industry to a more equal level, as well as develop seed AI.

They're hellbent on genocide; do you think they'll really give us a few generations of grace time? Even then, do you think they would so graciously give us the unmonitored privacy we'd need to develop super high technology and industry without them detecting it?
That would require them to be even more incompetent and more stupid than Sarevok described.

Setting off the Singularity would probably be a big help.

Hehehehe

[GrandMasterTerwynn]

I figure we do what we can to begin building the tools to build the tools, and if the enemy arrives before we can manage to achieve technological parity, we attempt to negotiate a method of killing ourselves that lets us stall for as much time as possible, like the One Child Policy of China.

When asked a question, the answer should not be "Well, I'll just assume my enemy is as pants-on-fire stupid as I am." I would assume that the Bad Guys, with their apparently extensive experience at wiping out other species, would be aware of such trickery and would reply "our orbital scans reveal you have a breathtaking quantity of military hardware on the surface of your planet and you are just the kind of species our 'kill-em-all' policy is aimed at. So we have a better idea. How about we sit back out of range of your crude launchers, and you launch all your nuclear weapons at yourselves?"

[GrandMasterTerwynn]

I would not put stock in pulling off a singularity in a century. Reality is not a 4x game where you can allocate resources to rush a super project.

In addition to that, what Lion-O-shitbird fails to realize is that AI singularity may not help. A super-intelligent AI might decide that it already embodies all the best parts of Humanity and then go on to use the rest of us a meat shield while it makes its escape. Or it might decide that the situation is untenable, since AI Singularity != having a space empire; so the best thing to do to preserve humanity is to use the rest of us as a meat shield while it escapes with the sum knowledge of the human experience.

[CBG]

Is the wormhole's position foreseeable for us, or at least the Benefactors?
If so, we would have a good chance of messing up at least the first enemy ship to arrive.
The Benefactors could lend us a hand with hauling stuff around solar system, and put an asteroid\asteroid field on top of the wormhole. Or put a few multi megaton thermonuclear warheads made into mines around it - enemy dreadnought comes through, mines detonate, enemy dreadnought has at least a few meters of it's outer systems melted off, hopefully crippling it enough for the Benefactor cruisers to finish it off or board it - maybye the enemy technology will be easier for us to reproduce\understand. Repeat as needed. That gives us a century to reverse engineer enough technology of both races to make solar system defensible.

Another idea is to use few of Benefactor support vessels to make a few human colonies in other parts of universe (assuming the wormhole technology can do it). Won't do much in the 1-3 years scale, except for making sure some humans somewhere survive in case solar system falls, but in century scale might help with the lack of specialised materials problem.

[bilateralrope]

I figure we do what we can to begin building the tools to build the tools, and if the enemy arrives before we can manage to achieve technological parity, we attempt to negotiate a method of killing ourselves that lets us stall for as much time as possible, like the One Child Policy of China. That should give us a few generations to refit our industry to a more equal level, as well as develop seed AI. Setting off the Singularity would probably be a big help.

If we can set off the Singularity in this scenario, what would stop them setting it off first ?

[Stark]

If the singularity is anything but the fever dream of incredibly stupid people, anyone who is ever going to encounter Earth will already have reached it.

[Star Wars 888]

There's too little information in this scenario. How powerful are these invaders?

[GrandMasterTerwynn]

There's too little information in this scenario. How powerful are these invaders?

Uh hello? They're powerful enough to have mostly wiped out a whole alliance of star empires. That alone makes them so many orders of magnitude more powerful than us that if they'd gotten here before the Good Guys had, it would've been a day's work for them to render us extinct.

[Junghalli]

In addition to that, what Lion-O-shitbird fails to realize is that AI singularity may not help. A super-intelligent AI might decide that it already embodies all the best parts of Humanity and then go on to use the rest of us a meat shield while it makes its escape. Or it might decide that the situation is untenable, since AI Singularity != having a space empire; so the best thing to do to preserve humanity is to use the rest of us as a meat shield while it escapes with the sum knowledge of the human experience.

It may be objectively right at that; escape could well be a much more tenable option for insuring the human species's survival than resistance.

At any rate if such is undesirable you should theoretically be able to program the AI not to do something like that, but of course that's just another obstacle in the way of a project that's hardly guarenteed to pay off. Might be worth it to try it anyway though, just because while it's a long shot it's not like we seem to have a whole lot of better options.

Of course, unless the hostile aliens conveniently happen to be luddites or something (and so are the Benefactors or else they should have defeated them)...

If the singularity is anything but the fever dream of incredibly stupid people, anyone who is ever going to encounter Earth will already have reached it.

This.

[Simon_Jester]

Basically, if we can't somehow block or close the wormhole we're doomed. If we can, we are merely almost certainly doomed, unless we assemble a colony expedition, create another wormhole to a distant corner of the galaxy out of the attacking enemy's reach, flee through it, and close it behind us.

[Star Wars 888]

Uh hello? They're powerful enough to have mostly wiped out a whole alliance of star empires. That alone makes them so many orders of magnitude more powerful than us that if they'd gotten here before the Good Guys had, it would've been a day's work for them to render us extinct.

That still isn't enough information for this scenario. How powerful are they? Mass Effect level? Star Trek level? Star Wars level?

[Purple]

Does it matter?
What do we know about them:

They are much, much stronger than the "Benefactors" who are in turn so much more advanced than us that it is impossible for us to reverse engineer their tech.

Or in other words, I would just comity suicide. Since there is nothing humanity can do to stay alive.

[lucretiabrutus]

I'd like to point out that, even should we be able to magically attain all the Benefactor's technology, the Benefactors and all their allies also had that technology and still lost. Since the Benefactors also had allies, it seems logical to assume that this is a war between interstellar empires, and these empires were destroyed so thoroughly and readily that the enemy can continue their war of expansion without taking time to consolidate their losses.
And we have one planet, with technology that has proven insufficiently powerful even when applied by an entire empire.

[Simon_Jester]

Does it matter?
What do we know about them:

They are much, much stronger than the "Benefactors" who are in turn so much more advanced than us that it is impossible for us to reverse engineer their tech.

Or in other words, I would just comity suicide. Since there is nothing humanity can do to stay alive.

...couldn't we just run away through another wormhole? Or load as many refugees as possible onto jury-rigged transports and send them away as fast as they can fly? The enemy can only chase so fast, and if you keep running from them, sooner or later you have a hope of outdistancing their pursuit.

[Purple]

...couldn't we just run away through another wormhole? Or load as many refugees as possible onto jury-rigged transports and send them away as fast as they can fly? The enemy can only chase so fast, and if you keep running from them, sooner or later you have a hope of outdistancing their pursuit.

In theory, but that relies on the enemy being stupid enough to let us.
Let's say, for the sake of argument that we somehow manage to create a fleet of ship Galactica style to run away on. What next?

Do we look for a new planet? How long until they track us to it? That is clearly not a viable option.

Do we try and constantly run? How long until the enemy who actually has a working infrastructure to exploit develops something to intercept us, or just plain faster engines?

I mean, running could only work if we were in a vacuum with the enemy locked in some sort of technological stasis. In reality, it would lock humanity in a struggle to run away on a bunch of ships we don't clearly understand how they work. Meanwhile the enemy would be free to build up from their tech base and make faster ships to attack us.


And, if we do manage to stay alive for long enough (something I doubt) things will only get worse as time passes.
The ships will inevitably need repairs and replacement parts. Things humanity can not realistically manufacture, especially not on the run. We will need food and other supplies, again something that will be hard to get without stopping and letting the enemy catch up.

So running blindly is also a non option.

[Simon_Jester]

In theory, but that relies on the enemy being stupid enough to let us.
Let's say, for the sake of argument that we somehow manage to create a fleet of ship Galactica style to run away on. What next?

Do we look for a new planet? How long until they track us to it? That is clearly not a viable option.

Do we try and constantly run? How long until the enemy who actually has a working infrastructure to exploit develops something to intercept us, or just plain faster engines?

The hope here is to run beyond the limit of feasible tracking: open a wormhole and close it behind you (or just open an unstable temporary wormhole). Or fly for two or three years away from Earth in a random direction: the enemy will pursue through the wormhole, but they can't easily search the entire area around Earth for several years' travel in every direction in a short period of time.

Of course, this depends on whether the technomagic star drives of this setting leave an easily trackable signature. If they don't, then it's really not that hard to outdistance pursuit by a large enough margin to stop and settle a new planet and try over.

So running blindly is also a non option.

Beats suicide.

[Purple]

Of course, this depends on whether the technomagic star drives of this setting leave an easily trackable signature. If they don't, then it's really not that hard to outdistance pursuit by a large enough margin to stop and settle a new planet and try over.

True, but considering the fact that the enemy is capable of detecting where the Benefactor ship is right now I would wager to say that some such trace must exist.

After all, if they are as you say not willing to search a small radius around earth why would they be willing to search the entire universe for 1 ship?

Beats suicide.

Does it?
Think about it. The Earth right now has some 6 billion people. And realistically we would be able to save maybe 1% of that. And even that is a stretch, 60 Million is a lot of people. And that means rather rigorous selection of those that get to be saved.

Would you be selected? I know I most likely would not be. After all, who needs a student/programmer/amateur writer like my self. I am certainly no new Hawking or Einstein. Certainly no one of importance for humanity. Hence the chances are I would not be selected to go.


But I think I have changed my mind. I wold not commit suicide. Instead I would buy a telescope and prepare popcorn. With some luck I may actually get to see some fireworks near the end. Do you think they would actually boil off the atmosphere and melt off the Earth's crust? For that, I would actually stay behind just to see it.


This said, humanity would stand a chance of running away from a while, but I already explained why it would be futile.

[Simon_Jester]

Of course, this depends on whether the technomagic star drives of this setting leave an easily trackable signature. If they don't, then it's really not that hard to outdistance pursuit by a large enough margin to stop and settle a new planet and try over.

True, but considering the fact that the enemy is capable of detecting where the Benefactor ship is right now I would wager to say that some such trace must exist.

Maybe a trace of wormhole activity is detectable but drive activity is not, not when the trail is years cold?

Look, we don't know enough to be sure. My point is that as a general rule, if you have that large a head start, you can outdistance a pursuer that doesn't know exactly where to find you. Because to chase you without an exact fix on the vector you took, they would need a geometrically increasing number of ships to search an ever-expanding sphere... at some point, it's just too large a diversion from their other resources.

Beats suicide.

Does it?
Think about it. The Earth right now has some 6 billion people. And realistically we would be able to save maybe 1% of that. And even that is a stretch, 60 Million is a lot of people. And that means rather rigorous selection of those that get to be saved.

Would you be selected? I know I most likely would not be. After all, who needs a student/programmer/amateur writer like my self. I am certainly no new Hawking or Einstein. Certainly no one of importance for humanity. Hence the chances are I would not be selected to go.

Excuse me.

Beats collective suicide.

[Junghalli]

Do we look for a new planet? How long until they track us to it? That is clearly not a viable option.

Hiding on a planet would be stupid. They're pretty obvious targets. Much more sensible would be hiding in a Kuiper Belt or Oort cloud. There's a lot of space out there to get lost in. The Oort Cloud is estimated to be a light year across. That's a lot of space to search through (I calculate a volume of about 2 trillion trillion trillion cubic km for a 50,000 AU sphere), and a civilization living out there could easily be semi-nomadic, using low thrust rockets to move slowly from one comet to the other in search of fresh resources.

Waste heat might be a problem but I imagine even megawatt light sources would be pretty dim over these kinds of distances. Even Pluto would outshine one by thousands of times at the same distance IIRC.

[Arachnidus]

Only option I'd see is stalling for time, then running like hell until we can find a way to kick some serious ass, maybe with a few surgical strikes in between. Research and build orbital defenses, exploit the Moon/Mars as a tactical position(likely just the moon, given the time and lack of knowledge regarding which direction relative to the Earth they'd advance from), and get to work on advanced travel technology to prepare for evacuation.