RAR. Aliens? have been detected. You must advise POTUS.

[FaxModem1]

Mr. President,

In order for us to have ways to defeat or fight this, we would need more information. Right now, it could be a civilization's toy that came to us, or it could be the last gasp of a dying empire. We have no way of knowing until we can analyze it.

Because of that, I recommend we focus on brute forcing a translation on the transmissions coming from the probe, and that we realize that we are the baby in the cradle. It could be the burglar or the nanny coming into the bedroom, either way at this stage all we can do is cry out and hope that it helps us, or be silent and hope it goes on its merry way.

If we information that indicates that its at a much lower level of sophistication than that, and we're more on par, then it is a different story, but until then: we're the baby in the cradle.

Charles Woods, civilian adviser.

[TimothyC]

Mr. President,
I recommend an immediate increase in ASAT capable platform procurement including the SM-3 missile along with allowing further export to Germany, Spain, and South Korea. I also recommend that we accelerate THAAD, GBI and AL-1 production and development.

Tango Charlie,
DARPA

I'm sorry Director, I understood some of that, but you just gave me a bunch of other acronyms I don't understand.
I came from Harvard with a degree in political science, which many of you understand, is not a real science.
I'm a personal assistant.
I am just a civilian politico, serving at the pleasure of the President.
The most high tech thing in my office is a 2 year old Blackberry!

Would you expand and expound on all this please.

My apologies.

While DARPA continues to develop dedicated anti-satellite systems, the majority of the systems that we have at the moment are ABM systems. The SM-3 is a development of the Standard Missile and can be used on any AEGIS or APAR ship that mounts strike length VLS cells (this includes the American Arleigh Burke and Ticonderoga, Dutch De Zeven Provinciën, Japanese Kongō and Atago, Spanish Álvaro de Bazán, and South Korean King Sejong the Great class ships). You may remember several years ago when the US Navy shot down USA 193 with an SM-3 missile launched from the Ticonderoga class cruiser USS Lake Erie. It is known that Raython, the missile's builder can up production significantly from the current levels with little to no further capital expenditure.

Upon further review, DARPA is withdrawing the recommendation for further GBI procurement, but maintains the recommendation for further Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) procurement and transferring the YAL-1 Airborne Laser program back to a procurement program, reversing earlier decisions to maintain it as an R&D program. These programs, combined with USAF X-37 spaceplane, and the 100 kilo-Watt laser that the USN is testing would allow for the United States to have even a thin defensive shield, and the X-37 would potentially open up new avenues for space access.

-Dr. Tango Charlie,
Director, Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency

[Night_stalker]

Mr. President,

In order for us to have ways to defeat or fight this, we would need more information. Right now, it could be a civilization's toy that came to us, or it could be the last gasp of a dying empire. We have no way of knowing until we can analyze it.

Because of that, I recommend we focus on brute forcing a translation on the transmissions coming from the probe, and that we realize that we are the baby in the cradle. It could be the burglar or the nanny coming into the bedroom, either way at this stage all we can do is cry out and hope that it helps us, or be silent and hope it goes on its merry way.

If we information that indicates that its at a much lower level of sophistication than that, and we're more on par, then it is a different story, but until then: we're the baby in the cradle.

Charles Woods, civilian adviser.

Already trying to blitz their language, but given we have no point of reference, it could take a while. IN addition, the data from the Casini project seems to be unaltered. That being said, if it turns out to be a AI, we're F***ed.

Alan Smitheee, Deputy Director, Information Assurance, NSA

[bz249]

Already trying to blitz their language, but given we have no point of reference, it could take a while. IN addition, the data from the Casini project seems to be unaltered. That being said, if it turns out to be a AI, we're F***ed.

Alan Smitheee, Deputy Director, Information Assurance, NSA

Not necessarily Mr. Smitheee,

while they might be way more advanced than we are, there are some limitations for a computer. Especially for a computer designed to operate for a long time. First and foremost the higher the miniaturization level the more important the position of a single atom would be, the faster the processing speed the more heat is produced, thus the likelihood of atomic jumps increases. All in all, the very fundamental laws of physics predicts an inverse relation between the operational lifetime and the capabilities of a computer (of the same volume). Add to the mix, that this thing should survive the radiation in outer space (and unlike structural materials which represent a stable equilibrium, computers are in a metastable state... otherwise they can not function) so it should have massive redundancies (or a really heavy shielding), which can only be done at the cost of capabilities. However a really large spacecraft can house a really large and powerful computer.

About the main alien craft: according to the latest informations I got its albedo is fluctuating, though it is close to a very perfect mirror. A really unusual finding. However knowing the optical properties of the SDA-1 craft, it is not completely useless trying to locate it on earlier photos. A very interesting question whether this really high albedo is a recent phenomenon (thus something deployed by the craft not so long ago) or a more inherent property of the SDA-1 craft. Anyone with astrophysics specification might answer if the mirror like object could be a solar sail.

bz

Vice Chairman, Independent Material Scientist Trade Union

[Uncluttered]

Already trying to blitz their language, but given we have no point of reference, it could take a while. IN addition, the data from the Casini project seems to be unaltered. That being said, if it turns out to be a AI, we're F***ed.

Alan Smitheee, Deputy Director, Information Assurance, NSA

Not necessarily Mr. Smitheee,

while they might be way more advanced than we are, there are some limitations for a computer. Especially for a computer designed to operate for a long time. First and foremost the higher the miniaturization level the more important the position of a single atom would be, the faster the processing speed the more heat is produced, thus the likelihood of atomic jumps increases. All in all, the very fundamental laws of physics predicts an inverse relation between the operational lifetime and the capabilities of a computer (of the same volume). Add to the mix, that this thing should survive the radiation in outer space (and unlike structural materials which represent a stable equilibrium, computers are in a metastable state... otherwise they can not function) so it should have massive redundancies (or a really heavy shielding), which can only be done at the cost of capabilities. However a really large spacecraft can house a really large and powerful computer.

About the main alien craft: according to the latest informations I got its albedo is fluctuating, though it is close to a very perfect mirror. A really unusual finding. However knowing the optical properties of the SDA-1 craft, it is not completely useless trying to locate it on earlier photos. A very interesting question whether this really high albedo is a recent phenomenon (thus something deployed by the craft not so long ago) or a more inherent property of the SDA-1 craft. Anyone with astrophysics specification might answer if the mirror like object could be a solar sail.

bz

Vice Chairman, Independent Material Scientist Trade Union

This is some interesting Data Mr. Smithee.

What kind of weapon would we need to use on these things?

You have my permission to look for the craft in earlier data. Coordinate with the NSA if you need computer power.

[Night_stalker]

I would have to defer to my AI expert, but I believe that either a EMP, or some form of physically destroying the equipment where the AI is stored, like say smashing it in with a fire ax, would be a counter to a AI. Naturally, given it's currently 821,190,000 miles from Earth, that means what ever we send will be vulnerable to Electronic Warfare attacks. Given that any of our Space shuttles, probes, or rockets weren't exactly designed to work with hacking attempt in mind, we have a problem. If it has a AI, AND it's hostile, all we can do is let it get within range of a ASAT weapon, or we let it get within range of a Minuteman-III, and detonate the warhead, hopefully knocking it out with the pulse.

That being said, we have to consider the side effects of detonating a nuclear weapon in atmosphere. If we detonate it, the radiation will be spread across a decent chunk of the planet. I don't exactly have figures, but it would hardly be good for us. Then we have to consider the damage that the EMP will do to our infrastructure. For example, if we detonate a large device at about 250 to 312 miles over Kansas, the EMP will cover most, if not all of the continental US. It would knock out anything running on a electronic circuit. Planes would crash from the sky, we'd lose any and all satellites located over and near the blast zone, and there'd be chaos, to say the least. First Responders would be hampered by the fact that they'd have no radios, no electronics, no vehicles, nothing save what is strictly mechanical.

[open_sketchbook]

I am not certain, but I am fairly sure that the shielding nessesary to operate in space would be enough to stand up to any EMP weapon we could deploy. The NASA guys should be able to confirm. That is if their computing is being done electronically in the first place. They may have some form of quantum computer that would laugh off an EMP.

That might not even do it in the first place. AIs are just software, and can run anywhere that has enough space. We don't actually know how much processing power we'll need to pull off self-awareness yet, but it's significantly less than what the human brain has (we don't use the space all that efficiently). The aliens could drop a bit of self-propagating code onto the internet that proceedurally generates a simple AI on any computer with enough juice, and the next thing you know every kid with a new gaming rig has a malevolent personality living in their computer dedicated to wrecking our infastructure. We could knock out their craft and still have the economy come down around our ears; perhaps they even fire off a nuke or two by getting into our network and phoning up our nuke subs with a generated voice and cracked nuke codes. At least we don't have an automated factories they can hijack, so they can't actually conquer us digitally. Just cause havoc and potentially make us kill ourselves.

Dr. Layton Dreer
Transhuman Institute for Artificial Intelligence

[Eternal_Freedom]

Mr President,

As requested by Mr Woods, I have confirmed with my astronomer colleague and can confirm to you that the distnat object divided itself. That is, thw two part's combined mass are approximately the same as the original. It has not repeat NOT replicated itself. Since I first received the report there has been no change in it's orbit

We've been bouncing some pretty wild theories around down here about why it's done this, but the most prevalent is that it's preparing another probe to send into the solar system. Either to us or to another item of interest like Saturn. I stress that this is the theory, we won't know until it starts moving

On a side note sir, DDI has asked me to pass on a report to you. We've had a report from agents in China. The politburo has been meeting far more frequently than normal in the past week, and the meetings are longer too. Sadly we don't know what they discuss, but we here at CIA think it's a safe bet that they're on to us by now, either by finding it themselves or (more likely) picking up on our sudden interest and frequent meetings

More information as soon as it's available Sir
Dr Wallace, DDS&T

PS. What progress has been made with contingency plans for an Ark?

[Uncluttered]

PS. What progress has been made with contingency plans for an Ark?

The only thing done about an "Ark" has been to discuss it.

Somehow I think we're going to need something better than a wooden boat.

[open_sketchbook]

Comparatively speaking, a wooden boat is about all we can manage anyway. If they got here, they can run us down, and it's not like we can hide in space. And where would we go? If the tech is even workable, can we hope to pull it off in time (probably not). The Ark concept is unworkable. We should focus our resources on averting rather than escaping.

Dr. Layton Dreer
Transhuman Institute for Artificial Intelligence

[Eternal_Freedom]

My apologies if my remark seemed flippant Mr President, I meant, what contingency plans are availble if we need shelter for a possible attack

[madd0ct0r]

Charles Ronson, US Ambassador to the United Kingdom of Britain and Northern Ireland

Gentlemen, I have received the following communication from the Prime Minister of the UK. The president feels you should be made aware of it.


Mr President, old friend!

What is up there?

How big is it?

How long do we have until it hits us?

ps. When you announce this publicly, as I am sure you will it would be advisable to have your closest allies standing on the platform behind you. We're all in this together.

message ends


I am not privileged to read the former minutes of the meeting. The UK seems to be assuming that there is an asteroid inbound.
I suspect the PM will also do his best to make political capital of it. The 'special relationship' is very important to him, and given current UK domestic politics I suspect he desires a distraction.

There is a significant risk he will attempt a news-coup.

[Uncluttered]

This was most unexpected.

I hate it when I'm the last to know something.

[NecronLord]

Mr President,

Cassini's next close approach to SD-1 has begun, and there have been significant developments. The SA-1 probe has now been detected entering a denser region of Saturn's Magnetic Field, and it has now changed its behaviour. It is emitting considerable amounts of heat and light, having deployed a series of net-like cables, the area within which appears to be... flourescing.

Significant broad-band RF radiation is also being emitted by SD-1, this has not interrupted the signals from Cassini, though it has increased packet-loss. This is not an attack on Cassini, as it would be much easier to interrupt its signals by other means. We have retasked radio-telemetry analysis teams to examine SD-1 emissions, and would welcome NSA management of this project on the off-chance that any information we extract has a harmful content.

Radio-telescopes have detected similar signals from SDA-1, and we will likewise forward this data.

There appears to be an interruption in the local magnetic field as well, but we are not able to fully analyse this at the current time. We do not have visuals but estimate that we will in several hours as we work to interpret further download from Cassini. The Brits would be quite useful, the Lovell Telescope is still the third largest steerable telescope we've got, and the more of those we have on board, the more telemetry we can get, faster.


I suggest First Contact Council for the name of the current body working on this matter.

~ Charles F. Bolden Jr
Administrator, National Aeronautics and Space Administration
Maj. General USMC (Ret.)

[Eternal_Freedom]

I concur with General Bolden on this matter Sir. The Brits not only have a handy large steerable telescope but they also have some of the best people in the world for analysing it's data.

Sir, I strongly recommend that we bring in the Brits at this stage. As said by the Ambassador and confirmed by a recent report I have received, they seem to think we've found an asteroid coming at us. Bringing them on board not only gives us the help of their scientists for analysing the data but also might prevent their government from pre-empting our announcement with the wrong information. Having the Brits say it's a big rock and then us saying it's aliens would only confuse the situation. When we go public, we need to be as clear as is possible as to what's up there.

Dr Wallace, CIA DDS&T

[NecronLord]

Additionally, we are having our people take a look at the data to see what, if anything, SA-1 is interested in, but at the moment, we don't have much information.

I am hereby re-designating SDA-1 to SDA-1a and 1b, defining SDA-1b as whichever has the higher Right Ascension in its current location. SDA-1 will be used while referring to both objects.

Mr President, we'll form a working group to look at weapons options. Can someone get me an inventory of nuclear bombs available and their weights? My staff warn me to remind you that this will be a violation of the Outer Space Treaty.

~ Charles F. Bolden Jr
Administrator, National Aeronautics and Space Administration
Maj. General USMC (Ret.)

[Night_stalker]

NSA also agrees with bring in the Brits. At this point, we may end up needing their help, so bringing them in now may make our job a lot easier. Plus, I want the codebreakers at Bletchley Park on our side, and trying to help figure out their language. Be aware that this will only apply to their spoken language, written languages are out of the question without samples.

Just out of curiosity, has anyone checked Dreamland for anything that might reach low orbit? Last I checked, the Skunkworks based out of there have pulled out miracles before...

Alan Smithee, Deputy Director, Information Assurance, NSA

[Night_stalker]

Additionally, we are having our people take a look at the data to see what, if anything, SA-1 is interested in, but at the moment, we don't have much information.

I am hereby re-designating SDA-1 to SDA-1a and 1b, defining SDA-1b as whichever has the higher Right Ascension in its current location. SDA-1 will be used while referring to both objects.

Mr President, we'll form a working group to look at weapons options. Can someone get me an inventory of nuclear bombs available and their weights? My staff warn me to remind you that this will be a violation of the Outer Space Treaty.

~ Charles F. Bolden Jr
Administrator, National Aeronautics and Space Administration
Maj. General USMC (Ret.)

Currently we have about 450 Minuteman-III nuclear missiles, each armed with a 475 KT warhead, about 500 nuclear bombs, which can be delivered by either B-52 or B-2, and about 1,152 Trident SLBMs, armed with a MIRV capable of holding 8 warheads of the same type on our Minuteman-IIIs, or some smaller ones. The MIRVs can be upgraded to hold 12 warheads, but we would have to violate the START I treaty to do so. The Tridents are located on our Ohio-class missile submarines. We also have about 100 Nuclear capable Tomahawks, but none are deployed at this time.

Regarding the treaty, I would like to say informally that we should F*** the treaty, and start worrying about our survival as a species. They can arrest us later. That also applies for the START I treaty.

Alan Smithee, Deputy Director, Information Assurance, NSA

[Eternal_Freedom]

Most definitely agreed on that one Sir. If we bring in the Brits, and if/when we inform the Russians and the Chinese, I suggest we quietly discuss with them the possibilty of voiding such treates until the situation has passed. We should of course ignore such treaties ourselves as may be necessary to make preparations

We can deal with diplomatic incidents resulting from broken treaties after the fact. If anyone is still around to argue about it that is

[Uncluttered]

I know this is a bit if a tangent, but:
I'm a politico, which is why we have some of you along for technical advice.

So, tell me Ladies and Gentlemen....
Do we have any useful designs that we don't use, because they violate the test ban treaty?
Is there some sort of Nuclear powered canon, or Nuclear death ray?
What I would give for a real Stargate under Cheyenne mountain right about now.
Is there anything nuclear power would give us, that is more safe and affordable than we use now
What can we build soonest?
I mean, really safe, not "mostly" safe.

On a side note. How soon can we get another probe to saturn?

-OnionBreath, assistant to the POTUS

[TimothyC]

Additionally, we are having our people take a look at the data to see what, if anything, SA-1 is interested in, but at the moment, we don't have much information.

I am hereby re-designating SDA-1 to SDA-1a and 1b, defining SDA-1b as whichever has the higher Right Ascension in its current location. SDA-1 will be used while referring to both objects.

Mr President, we'll form a working group to look at weapons options. Can someone get me an inventory of nuclear bombs available and their weights? My staff warn me to remind you that this will be a violation of the Outer Space Treaty.

~ Charles F. Bolden Jr
Administrator, National Aeronautics and Space Administration
Maj. General USMC (Ret.)

DARPA Director here General. While the exact disposition of devices and their weights is classified, the majority of our current arsenal is made up of B-61 devices or devices with cores from the same design family, which mass in the 550 kg range and are roughly a foot in diameter and roughly five feet long. If we needed to, we could redevelop devices in the 6 inch diameter, 2 foot long range with some lead time.

-Director DARPA

[Uncluttered]

Just curious, what advantage would a 6 inch diameter, 2 foot long bomb be over a 5 foot long, 12 inch diameter bomb in our current situation?
Related; If we put a bomb on a probe like C-P, could the aliens detect it?

-OnionBreath, assistant to the RAR POTUS

[NecronLord]

Mr President,

New information from Cassini Phoenix Mission has given us our first images of SD-1. We've been able to create a partial 3D model of the spacecraft and get a clearer look at it. It appears to be based on some kind of fractal pattern, with its entire surface covered in what may be engraved lines, or very fine metal overlaps, linking into a wider pattern made of its cables. We can speculate that this pattern continues beyond our ability to percieve it possibly into the microscopic. We can determine several points where it has sustained damage, presumably from meteroids.

Working on our defences, we could potentially retask lunar mission proposals as launchers for "service modules" with nuclear warheads, perhaps in some kind of Multiple Independantly Targetable Vehicle system. In the short term we can have a shuttle mission launched by the end of the week to carry nuclear weapons to the ISS for loading on board Russian Progress automated vehicles for launch toward any incoming object from the ISS, in the abscence of heavy lift vehicles. Other than that we'd be talking about ICBMs which while capable of putting objects in orbit aren't built for missions beyond that. We've already assigned a working group to look at the fastest way to develop both new probes to reach the Saturn 'sub-system' and rockets to deploy things into Earth orbit, but neither looks like it's feisable within the year, at best.

There's a whole host of nuclear-based options for space-travel, Mr OnionBreath, but right now, we've got the people and expertise to work with rockets, and while atmoic solutions are definately worth looking at, aside from Project Orion, these are things we'd need to get academics working on before we even begin to consider building them. The thing we can build soonest is undoubtedly rockets; they're what we've been building, and what we've the know-how to build. Bigger, heftier rockets, but rockets nonetheless. Maybe something along the lines of Sea Dragon, if we really want to be adventurous.

Attached (Project Orion, a history & Sea Dragon, Giant Rocket)

~ Gen. CF Bolden, NASA.

[Night_stalker]

Good news. The NSA codebreakers have managed to get a breakthrough with the SA-1 data! It seems taht all it's transmitting is just broadband noise, nothing else. In addition, we've also discovered that "the architecture of the probes might be a cellular automata, 2-state 5-symbol universal Turing machine." We've also decided to try and simulate the probe's internal mathematics by doing a simulation, in a secure, isolated environmental. We're going to be running it on a virtual machine simulating the architecture, which we took from a Caltech student's submission to a educational project.

Basically, it's set in a server cluster, located in a shipping container, with no external connections,s ave for water and diesel supplies. In addition, all data sets from th probe will be submitter via 3 1\2inch floppy disks, after which, the disks will be smashed and incinerated. All data thereby derived will be displayed through displays only, and they'll be video taped for reference and review. We also have set up a second trailer, which is outfitted with all the staff and tools needed to study the output, and for extra safety, has been airgapped.

The only thing coming out of that 24-7 monitored, and isolated from populated areas trailer, is whatever theories and conclusions the eggheads can come up with.

Alan Smithee, Deputy Director, Information Assurance, NSA

[TimothyC]

Just curious, what advantage would a 6 inch diameter, 2 foot long bomb be over a 5 foot long, 12 inch diameter bomb in our current situation?
Related; If we put a bomb on a probe like C-P, could the aliens detect it?

-OnionBreath, assistant to the RAR POTUS

These are not bombs, they are devices. A smaller device could be lofted more easily and in greater numbers. The effectiveness of placing a device on a probe similar to C-P would be limited by the detection range and sensitivity SA-1s equipment.

-Director, DARPA