Here come the Space Vikings (RAR!)

[Zor]

In this scenario one day a set of twenty four objects about 250 meters across are detected by long range Radar coming in on earth from behind the sun. They appear to be cone shaped on an odd course at high speed and stranger still (and what gave away their position), seem to be decelerating and are approaching the earth. They make no response to radio. After a few days of reducing their speed they enter earth orbit and then descend point first towards the surface of the earth, easily flowing through the atmosphere in three clusters of eight: One is over Dallas, one is of Barcelona, One is Over Singapore where they hover about 1.2 km above the local ground in much the same way that bricks don't. As they get closer some people notice the symbols etched into their sides, particularly the odd hammer shape that some analysts say is familiar to anyone who's studied Norse Mythology.

Then from each of the strange craft open up 8 hatches. Four of each ship's set of which on each craft turn out to be gunports as each shows a 100-megajoule laser cannons extend themselves from the ships hull and begin targeting any military vehicle or artillery they can see that does not immediately run away and is in their line of sight. Fire that comes back at them is stopped a hundred meters from the craft by an energy shield. From the other four larger ones come a set of thirty two boxy vehicles and two thousand humanoid figures from each ship. They are each about 3 meters long, 3 meters tall, 12 meters, have about thirty discs attached to their bottom and have a set of two laser turrets on either side and can fly at speeds of up to 500km/h. The humanoid figures are clad in suits of armor and have packs that allow them to fly at 200km/h and carry energy rifles, backpack mounted rocket launchers and either an axe or a sword. Each of the vehicles carries sixteen of said Raiders. Both of them also have shields, if not exactly as resilient as those of their carrier ships. One of the transports is taken out by a lucky hit by an anti-ship missile and an RPG hit can take out a Raider and sustained pounding can wear them down, though their armor is still pretty resiliant (It takes anti-tank weaponry to bring down the APC like vehicles and the body armor of raiders offers excellent resistance to assault rifle fire). They begin touching down and looking for things, these can be jewelery that they throw into sacks, cars, plants, bits of artwork, fancy dogs and pets, video games and similar. They also include people that they think are worthwhile, most of which are attractive young adults of either gender but also include musicians, chefs and captured soldiers. Those that resist are shot with lasers, guided missiles and high explosive rounds. These they put into piles and they send down lighter vehicles that are little more than boxes with the disc shaped antigravity units. They also have devices which can sniff out explosives and small compact shield generators which can enclose them, which thwart a few IED attempts on plunder. As this happens they broadcast a playist of music. The styles are strange but the wierd thing is the lyrics, which appear to be in some sort of Nordic Language with a few east asian words thrown in as well. They also drop off large iron Hammer symbols on the Earth to mark their arrival.

After about eighteen hours of this, they return to their ships which close up and begin flying back into the sky and then fly out of the solar system. In total they've made off with hundreds of thousands of tonnes of cargo and over 40,000 people. A few days latter there is a Gamma Pulse at the edge of the solar system and radar contact on the raiding fleet is lost. Despite that a few squads of the raiders are left behind and are captured alive. Between that and study of the dead, they are surprised to find that these Raiders are, in fact, Human. Some of them have Nordic features, two are black, four are East Asian and most of them are ambiguously brown and there is a good mix of men and women among their ranks though all of them speak in the same vaguely Nordic language. After some interrogation and the services of a variety of Linguists, some answers are provided.

Roughly eleven hundred years ago, several groups of humanity were whisked away from earth and put onto an alien planet around seventy nine light years from sol. They were deposited into small clusters with a few villages, which in time grew into nations which fought each other. Eventually by entering into an alliance with the Japanese enclave, driving Crusaders out of the divested Chinese enclave to absorb it and naval dominance, the Viking Enclave got into a position in which could take over the entire planet over the next two and a half centuries. At the same time they uncovered technologies that the aliens had abandoned, which accelerated their development. As such, they pushed into space and have spent the last century establishing a budding interstellar Empire around their home star system.

Earth is fairly far away from their homeworld and has only recently been the subject of exploration. It is also more than a year away from their homeworld and they do not have FTL Radios. As such the Viking Emperor has little interest in conquering a world beyond her reach to rule and administrate and won't send armies and fleets to conquer earth. Which will not stop some of the Great Houses from sending long distance trade expeditions or launching raids as has been done with other systems. A 30 megaton blast would be sufficient to overwhelm the shields of one of the ships used in this raid.

What happens?

Zor

[Zixinus]

This is more ridicolous than usual, so I'll just leave this:

"Viking" means "raider" or "pirate". To say you're a viking is to say your are pirate. These people... are ridiculously frightening in that they have supertechnology and act like medieval raiders. I mean, seriously, they have the technology to return to Earth and attempt no communication at all? Just take whatever they like and go?

[Swindle1984]

What would we even have to offer them that would make it worth the effort? Resources? Plenty more closer to home, and without angry natives firing nukes at them. Gold? Ditto. Technology? Theirs is far more advanced. Slaves? Their technology should involve enough automation that slavery would be a waste of resources at best, and a threat of insurrection at worst. Hope they have decent medical technology too, because raiding earth means exposure to a bunch of diseases they've been separated from for a thousand years, like bubonic plague, or have never encountered, like ebola. Or just old fashioned influenza. The only thing they could get here that they couldn't get more easily elsewhere would be cultural, things like entertainment, and just how popular would books, movies, music, etc. in an unintelligible language be, anyway?

Literally the only other reason for "viking" raiders to show up is for shits and giggles. This is the equivalent of a sedan full of gangbangers driving into the swamps of Louisiana to fuck with rednecks whose trailer homes don't even have electricity, and burning a full tank of gas to do so.

[Lord Revan]

One must remember that in real life (opposed to Hollywood history) most members of the "viking" nations were farmers, traders or craftsmen by trade, with a small number of nobility or retainers/guards of said nobility. IIRC there was little to no people who were "fulltime" raiders.

And that's raiding the relatively profitble and rather poorly defended lands of the franks, the anglo-saxons or the irish in the west.

There's a reason viking raids to what is now Finland were practically non-existant, the local tribes were genrally poor, mostly quite spread out and generally decent fighters so it simply wasn't worth the effort to raid them. Trading with them for fur and other goods was much more profitble.

Vikings didn't perform raids for "shits and giggles" and one of the major reasons viking raids ended was that it simply became unprofitble to do so, due to the western and central European lands becoming much better defended.

EDIT:You must remember that loot you bring back from the raid must be of greater value then the cost of going to the raid in the first place.

[Sky Captain]

Their initial move likely would be interpreted as beginning of alien invasion. After all they first opened fire without provocation. A nuclear attack on carrier ships probably would be attempted although with anti gravity drives they could easily avoid missiles or destroy them with lasers and there is no nuclear missiles with capability of tracking moving targets and 30 MT warheads. So if a nuclear attack is attempted it most likely would fail.

After they leave major world powers would start a crash program to develop space based weapon systems and reverse engineer whatever advanced technology is left behind especially anti gravity drive, power systems and shielding if working examples are left in some wreckage.