Random alien show-of-force scenario

[Ilya Muromets]

I put this here since, even though this resulted from musing on the original The Day the Earth Stood Still film, the scenario as detailed does not fit that or any other sci-fi franchise I can recall. If there's a more appropriate section, then could a mod kindly transfer this there?

As in the film, an extraterrestrial force decides to pull a show of force on everyone on the planet. Instead of shutting down all mechanical and electronic equipment for some time, however, the aliens go for a more specific target. They choose to fry the solid-state components of every weapon and offensive military vehicle that need said solid-state components to function. That means guided missiles, fighter/attack aircraft, warships, and other such devices will be rendered completely non-functional. However, military vehicles whose primary purpose is transport or something else rather than active offense are spared, even if they are armed. Blackhawk helicopters or the like, for example, will still fly although any guided missiles it's equipped with won't work any more.

The alien force does not explain its purpose for doing so. An incredible number of mysterious bright lights just appear over every major population center on the planet, put on a light show, then disappear as quickly as they appeared. Their appearance causes the aforementioned military crippling, but spares everything else.

How would this massive crippling of much of the advanced military equipment all over the world affect, well, everything?

[Mayabird]

It's still science fiction, therefore goes in science fiction. Off ya go.
[line 2]

[Arachnidus]

Presumably, that'd force most of the world's forces based in modern tech back decades. No nightvision, no LADAR, no advanced communications systems, pretty much all of a modern airforce's craft...we'd have to roll back to World War 2 level technology, and by that point, the alien force would have made progress in having a complete tactical advantage over the world, even if they are not present to do any conquering.

[lordofchange13]

Can the planet make new weapons? If not then there will be supermeth-powered riots, looting would be through the roof. The middle east and other uprest countrys would over throw there goverment, what they going to do? Make a wall out of deactivated nukes?

[Darth Tanner]

If not then there will be supermeth-powered riots

Why? Its not like cruise missiles and tanks are used to suppress riots now, their lack isn’t going to trigger them.

The middle east and other uprest countrys would over throw there goverment

When did rifles and machine guns stop working? Just because the tank regiments can’t moe people down in the square anymore and the air is empty of jets doesn’t mean a disorganised mob is going to suddenly have the advantage over the police or military.

As to the OP it’s impossible to say what will happen without knowing what the aliens want and why they are doing this. Are they enforcing pacifism? If so they’re not doing it very well? Are they going to invade? Then why leave transportation still operating?

There would be panic and chaos but I'd imagine it would be limited as most people wouldn’t notice that the local airbase isn’t operating anymore and would be far more interested by the bright lights over all cities. On the other hand are jets going to fall out of the sky because if the lights are associated with the immediate deaths of thousands of people and fighter planes crashing into populated areas then there will be a bit more panic. However as I understood the original Day After Tomorrow aliens causing such deaths would have been avoided.

Does the effect continue once the lights are gone because otherwise it'd just be a busy period for the techs to replace all the damaged systems, all sides are going to be in the same situation so there would be no real advantage to launching attacks on anyone or reason to start engineering systems with WW2 tech that would not be affected.

[Simon_Jester]

When did rifles and machine guns stop working? Just because the tank regiments can’t moe people down in the square anymore and the air is empty of jets doesn’t mean a disorganised mob is going to suddenly have the advantage over the police or military.

No. But in a lot of these countries, the fraction of the organized forces which are strongly loyal to the regime isn't huge, and the population is very large compared to the armed forces. Without the threat of intervention by forces with heavy weapons, you will see quite a number of separatist movements and coup attempts.

That's especially true of regimes that rely on their superior weapons and access to those weapons to keep themselves on top. Israel, for example, is in really serious trouble because they can no longer threaten to use technologically superior weapons against their more numerous potential enemies. Interestingly, Saudi Arabia is in similar trouble, because the main thing that keeps them from being overthrown by their own religious fanatics is the great wealth and security their special relationship with the US supplies. If there aren't going to be any new F-16s for the Saudis to fly, and the old ones stop working... suddenly leaving the Saudis in power becomes less appealing.

Moreover, the advantages an organized force has in the modern era depend heavily on communications, and the communications playing field has just been leveled: the rebel and the police are both relying on civilian communications networks like satellite phones.

As to the OP it’s impossible to say what will happen without knowing what the aliens want and why they are doing this. Are they enforcing pacifism? If so they’re not doing it very well? Are they going to invade? Then why leave transportation still operating?

Beats me. Good question. That's sort of missing here: a show of force is useless unless some attempt at communication is involved. You have to tell people what your demands are, or they will react to your show of force randomly and will definitely NOT do what you want.

[Sarevok]

I think a lot of the components used in military systems are based on off the shelf products or have related civilian items. The militaries might able to replace things like microprocessors or DSPs by obtaining suitable commercial equivalents. Then a take a GPS guided bomb for example. GPS modules are available at low low prices. Military will find ways to take them, tie them to some suitable microcontroller design and make their bombs work. Its true that a lot of hardware wont work anywhere near previous performance. But it wont matter since the enemies guided weapons and sensors has also been equally degraded. The point is you can not rob modern Earth militaries of electronics without utterly wrecking the civilian sector as well because of how intertwined the two are.

[Solauren]

In the short, mid and long term; it costs money to get the tech stuff running.

I have no doubt a few shit-holes populations would feel empowered and try to overthrow their governments. They might realise they could have done it all along (provided the succeed). I have no doubt some shit-hole governments will go oppressing just to prevent that, however.

Short to Mid term - the price of electronics goes up as the military buys them up to get going.
Short to mid term - the mass refitting generates jobs.

Mid to Long term - a race to get military systems back up to specs, and find a way to prevent the 'show of force' scenario again, happens.

Mid to Long term - the aliens might cause humanity to unify to resist hostile outside invaders (now that we know they exist). This would probably be a major kick in the ass to space exploration efforts. If anything could be justified as having a military application, it will get funding as a possible defense measure.

Hell, this scenario, while in the short-term problematic, could actually, in the long term, really benefit humanity!

[Ilya Muromets]

Can the planet make new weapons?

Yes, they can make new stuff. The aliens only destroyed the solid-state components of the stuff I mentioned that they targeted in the OP. They do nothing to production facilities or anywhere else.

Beats me. Good question. That's sort of missing here: a show of force is useless unless some attempt at communication is involved. You have to tell people what your demands are, or they will react to your show of force randomly and will definitely NOT do what you want.

Well, that's just it. Instead of the usual "the aliens tell you what they want in perfect English" scenario, they feel that what they did is more than sufficient as a warning. Basically, for similar reasons as the aliens in The Day After Tomorrow -- as a "you can join us in space but behave yourself since we can fuck you up precisely" message. It's just that their idea of adequately conveying the message differs from that of humans.

[Norseman]

You know this would mean that hordes of rifle wielding fanatics suddenly become a perfectly viable army again... Which could have interesting knock-on effects all across the world. This could be one of the few scenarios where right-wing fantasies of third world hordes overwhelming the west might actually occur. That'd be amusing, the aliens attempt to create peace instead creates the greatest mass slaughter in human history.

[LionElJonson]

No, it wouldn't. Tanks and whatnot still work fine, other than minor things like night-vision, radios, electronic aimfinders, et cetera. The backup optical stuff will work fine, and radios could be replaced fairly easily, I'd think.

[Solauren]

Also, you have to consider that most of the 'overthrow the west' nutjobs would have to get to the West first.

I'm pretty sure that if a modern Western nation saw a horde of nuts with rifles coming towards their borders, and their scouts reported that are screaming about throwing them down, the response would still be carpet bombing.

You'd just be taking components from civilian craft as quickly as possible to do it. Or pulling an 'expendables' and having a cargo plane fly over the horde, dump fuel on them, and then light it on fire.

[Simon_Jester]

Beats me. Good question. That's sort of missing here: a show of force is useless unless some attempt at communication is involved. You have to tell people what your demands are, or they will react to your show of force randomly and will definitely NOT do what you want.

Well, that's just it. Instead of the usual "the aliens tell you what they want in perfect English" scenario, they feel that what they did is more than sufficient as a warning. Basically, for similar reasons as the aliens in The Day After Tomorrow -- as a "you can join us in space but behave yourself since we can fuck you up precisely" message. It's just that their idea of adequately conveying the message differs from that of humans.

Exactly. Since they failed to communicate anything, we may not even perceive this as the act of an alien lifeform. We may just think all military hardware was knocked out by an oddly selective natural disaster, or the act of a supernatural being, or who knows what.

One would think that aliens sophisticated enough to do this would have figured out (from experience with other primitive aliens, if nothing else) that if you're going to make a threat or demand, you need to communicate that threat or demand... or at the very least, take credit for your own show of force in order to make sure they don't just blame it on their gods and proceed as if nothing had happened.

But if the aliens ignore that, I suspect that what's likely to happen is more war and chaos, not less, as the world's modern arsenals are taken down and (as Norseman and I noted) "hordes of rifle wielding fanatics become a perfectly viable army again." The logistics would still present major problems for any "overwhelm the West" schemes, since transporting troops and supplies wouldn't be any easier than it had ever been, and since a variety of basic artillery and such would still work. But as I noted, governments that rely on their monopoly over sophisticated weapons are in serious trouble if they have hostile neighbors armed with large numbers of primitive ones.

No, it wouldn't. Tanks and whatnot still work fine, other than minor things like night-vision, radios, electronic aimfinders, et cetera. The backup optical stuff will work fine, and radios could be replaced fairly easily, I'd think.

Perhaps you are not aware of this, but the engines of modern motor vehicles use electronic computers. Fry the computer in a tank engine and the tank becomes a seventy-ton doorstop until replacements can be found.

Of course, if the aliens were dumb enough to ignore stockpiles of spare parts and production facilities, that may not matter, because those parts will be replaced in fairly short order... in which case their "show of force" accomplishes virtually nothing.

[EvilPie]

How hard would it be/long would it take to regain the capacity for nuclear war? Wouldn't the actual bomb still work, minus the electronics to detonate it? Kinda like what Solauren was saying, you could just dump them out of cargo planes with parachutes and a timer. Or would it be just as easy to repair the electronics of the entire bomber/missile/warhead all in one go?

A question. Do the aliens make any effort to show that they caused the event, or that they even exist? Even if they feel an explanation is unwarranted, wouldn't they at least make sure humans knew it was them? Like a flyover, or just showing up on radar. I still think that it would be clear that it was an artificial event from the selectivity of the damage, but that leaves aliens as one of many explanations.

Also, what about the satellite network? I take it civilian satellites would be untouched, but what about GPS, which are used by both? Do they aliens make special accommodations to preserve lives like in The Day the Earth Stood Still, like keeping airborne planes flying until they set down?

However as I understood the original Day After Tomorrow aliens causing such deaths would have been avoided.

Wait, the bizarre weather in The Day After Tomorrow was caused by aliens?! Man, that movie makes so much more sense now.

[Simon_Jester]

How hard would it be/long would it take to regain the capacity for nuclear war? Wouldn't the actual bomb still work, minus the electronics to detonate it? Kinda like what Solauren was saying, you could just dump them out of cargo planes with parachutes and a timer. Or would it be just as easy to repair the electronics of the entire bomber/missile/warhead all in one go?

It would probably be easier to repair the fuzing in one go rather than to try and improvise. Nukes are designed with a lot of safety lockouts and stuff; an unknown but probably large fraction of the triggering is controlled by electronics. Replacing that is a lot more reliable than wiring around it.

A question. Do the aliens make any effort to show that they caused the event, or that they even exist? Even if they feel an explanation is unwarranted, wouldn't they at least make sure humans knew it was them? Like a flyover, or just showing up on radar. I still think that it would be clear that it was an artificial event from the selectivity of the damage, but that leaves aliens as one of many explanations.

This is my main concern. I'd think that any alien species would evolve to realize that if they want another species to do something, they must communicate what they want done. That's fairly basic; anyone with such a minimalist concept of communication as we see in the OP would have a hard time cooperating well enough to understand the idea of a "show of force" at all.