Star Wars/Trek vs. "Independence Day" Aliens

Spetulhu · Post by **Spetulhu** » 2005-12-25 09:39am

LordShaithis wrote:IIRC, there are a number of African countries that have a squadron or two of MiG-21s and the like lying around. Hard to find up to date numbers.

There's also the question of how many fighters they keep operational. Spare parts and fuel cost hard cash that El Presidente can use for something else if there's no immediate need for fighters. Whole squadrons may be left out of the initial fighting just because they can't be deployed fast enough.

Post by **Darth Wong** » 2005-12-25 11:38am

Considering how low they hover and how large (and apparently volatile and fragile) the target is, I would think that a few guys on the ground with RPG-7s could get the job done. All they have to do is wait till the thing opens up its belly-plates to reveal the weapon, and then hit the weapon.

The weapon is the size of a small apartment building; if a bunch of drugged-up Somalis can eventually score a hit on a moving, juking BlackHawk helicopter at 1000 ft altitude, they can easily hit an essentially immobile object the size of a small apartment building at a couple of thousand feet.

brianeyci · Post by **brianeyci** » 2005-12-25 12:11pm

Is it just me or is anybody finding the image of the alien city-killer hovering over Mogadishu getting pummelled by thousands of rounds of RPG-7 quite hilarious and absurd. I'm imagining an army of frothing Somalians firing their AK-47's and RPG-7's at the thing continuously for days on end even when the aliens have their shields up (hey shoot it enough it'll fall down eh). Then the shield goes down and every RPG, AK and god knows what else in the city opens up taking advantage and as the weapon opens up a few dozen rounds of rocket-propelled grenades hit and the little fuckers laugh their ass off as the 24 kilometer ship goes down in a blazing glory. Mogadishu is supposed to be the arms black market of the world, no telling how much ammunition they have stockpiled.

And yeah, 18 hit it right on the spot, the aliens were defeated by Jeff Goldblum. Groan.

Brian

Durandal · Post by **Durandal** » 2005-12-25 01:23pm

One possible rationalization for the incredibly stupid virus thing was that the Area 51 researchers had developed an emulation layer for the aliens' operating system and some sort of code compilation suite based on what they had reverse-engineered from the captured fighter. From there, Goldblum was able to write a virus using what they had.

This would imply that the aliens' computers, like ours, work in binary.

Nephtys · Post by **Nephtys** » 2005-12-25 02:43pm

Durandal wrote:One possible rationalization for the incredibly stupid virus thing was that the Area 51 researchers had developed an emulation layer for the aliens' operating system and some sort of code compilation suite based on what they had reverse-engineered from the captured fighter. From there, Goldblum was able to write a virus using what they had.

This would imply that the aliens' computers, like ours, work in binary.

Binary makes sense. Transistors are very simple and flexibile electronics, and there's no reason for them not to unless they have some better system. But that doesn't excuse from for having the ability to remotely deactivate their shielding for extended periods of time.

If I've never seen a Mac, maybe learned how they work awkwardly and used one for a few hours, I'm not going to break into Mac computers at the Pentagon and disable America's ICBMs. Yet, with the shield example, you could do that to these aliens on planet Zargublax.

nickolay1 · Post by **nickolay1** » 2005-12-25 05:12pm

Darth Wong wrote:Considering how low they hover and how large (and apparently volatile and fragile) the target is, I would think that a few guys on the ground with RPG-7s could get the job done. All they have to do is wait till the thing opens up its belly-plates to reveal the weapon, and then hit the weapon.

The weapon is the size of a small apartment building; if a bunch of drugged-up Somalis can eventually score a hit on a moving, juking BlackHawk helicopter at 1000 ft altitude, they can easily hit an essentially immobile object the size of a small apartment building at a couple of thousand feet.

An RPG-7 warhead has a 4.5 second fuse, so it may not have ample range.

LongVin · Post by **LongVin** » 2005-12-25 05:40pm

Well they did hit Blackhawk helicopters at a few hundred feet. So its possible for them to hit the charging superlaser since the tip of it is probably only a 1000 feet off the ground.

LongVin · Post by **LongVin** » 2005-12-25 05:43pm

Update: I just checked the maximun range is approx. 700 meters. Its effective range is 200 meters.

http://www.defense-update.com/products/r/rpg.htm

Vendetta · Post by **Vendetta** » 2005-12-25 06:25pm

If RPG-7s wouldn't do the job, Stingers (or SA-16s) certainly would. 1-8km range, and a 3km celing, and HE warheads.

nickolay1 · Post by **nickolay1** » 2005-12-25 08:47pm

I doubt that Somalis would have access to those.

Nephtys · Post by **Nephtys** » 2005-12-25 10:59pm

nickolay1 wrote:I doubt that Somalis would have access to those.

The Afganis do, so why can't they? Everyone these days can buy dirt cheap russian missiles, or have surplus American stuff from the 80's.

LordShaithis · Post by **LordShaithis** » 2005-12-25 11:18pm

When "Star Trek vs X" turns into "Somalia vs X" and Somalia is in the fight, we can pretty much agree Star Trek wins, right?

brianeyci · Post by **brianeyci** » 2005-12-25 11:33pm

Er not really, I think that Delta Force operators and Navy Seals at the Mogadishu debacle would slaughter Federaton forces even with their light weapons and humvees, as would the Somalians with fully automatic weapons. A hundred Somalians on a Federation starship could wreak a lot of havoc, although they would just be "guys with weapons" as I heard a soldier in a Black Hawk Down documentary put it, no training and probably would be put down by redshirts, but that was before Nemesis. Now I'm not so sure although shipboard forcefields could probably contain the Somalians and if they locked the turbolifts and jeffries tubes and flooded the deck with gas they'd be roasted (why didn't they do this in Nemesis argh).

Star Trek won a long time ago.

Brian

Post by **Darth Wong** » 2005-12-25 11:36pm

LordShaithis wrote:When "Star Trek vs X" turns into "Somalia vs X" and Somalia is in the fight, we can pretty much agree Star Trek wins, right?

Assuming the Fed forces have Jeff Goldblum's hacking skills, yes. If not, it's a different story.

brianeyci · Post by **brianeyci** » 2005-12-25 11:56pm

Nobody's put any evidence forward for the aliens being able to damage Federation ships with their peashooters. Plus the alien city-killers have a lower limit of what, X kilotons on their shields, whatever a US Stealth Bomber can deliver. The alien main-weapon seems to be a chain-reaction weapon, the kind of thing Federation shields are supposed to be optimized for, it takes forever to charge up forever to open.

As long as there's a Federation Admiral who orders his fleet to raise shields and shoot the Federation wins (and intelligent enough to shoot the main weapon when it opens up). Given the Federation tactic of usually targeting the weapons systems of an enemy ship they'll probably do it and once then word will get out to the rest of the Federation, dancing African tribesmen and praying Hindus celebrate. It's a clear Star Trek win.

Brian

Gil Hamilton · Post by **Gil Hamilton** » 2005-12-25 11:57pm

The ID4 aliens fail because what they do with a massive and vulnerable supercannon that requires a 24 km wide weapons platform we can do with a few nuclear weapons. Is there a good reason why they couldn't have just bombarded our cities with bombs rather than hover over with with massive battlestations and zap them?

Adrian Laguna · Post by **Adrian Laguna** » 2005-12-26 12:02am

Gil Hamilton wrote:The ID4 aliens fail because what they do with a massive and vulnerable supercannon that requires a 24 km wide weapons platform we can do with a few nuclear weapons. Is there a good reason why they couldn't have just bombarded our cities with bombs rather than hover over with with massive battlestations and zap them?

Because if they did, the Deus Ex machina required to save humanity would be along the lines of Jesus Christ showing up and going "ALL YOUR FLYING SAUCERS ARE BELONG TO ME BITCHES!" and he goes all Wrath of God on the Alien's asses.

SoD? I have no clue, because the stupidity involved is unfanthomable. "Hey, instead of building small nukes that we can drop from orbit let's make 24km battleships that need to shoot at point-blank range in order to do anything!"

Gil Hamilton · Post by **Gil Hamilton** » 2005-12-26 12:07am

Adrian Laguna wrote:Because if they did, the Deus Ex machina required to save humanity would be along the lines of Jesus Christ showing up and going "ALL YOUR FLYING SAUCERS ARE BELONG TO ME BITCHES!" and he goes all Wrath of God on the Alien's asses.

SoD? I have no clue, because the stupidity involved is unfanthomable. "Hey, instead of building small nukes that we can drop from orbit let's make 24km battleships that need to shoot at point-blank range in order to do anything!"

The Jesus thing would be pretty awesome.

brianeyci · Post by **brianeyci** » 2005-12-26 12:09am

Occam's Razor prevails, they don't have bombs and their city-killing weapon only has a range of a few thousand feet so they have to hover over the cities like that. Sounds pretty stupid for planet locusts not to develop a way to exterminate from orbit but although life in the galaxy is probably common, beings with huge brain cases and no natural defenses may be an uncommon evolutionary path. Maybe the aliens just haven't fought anybody with any teeth yet. Their "fighters" or attack craft might not be dedicated attack craft at all but some sort of transport craft or shuttle pressed into the role (their performance certainly leaves something to be desired, with their technology base the aliens could certainly design a more potent fighter with air-to-air missiles). Their "city-killers" might not be dedicated city-killers at all but just huge extermination machines. Whatever it is, the aliens can't bomb from orbit, so they reek.

Brian

LordShaithis · Post by **LordShaithis** » 2005-12-26 12:41am

Let's get back to the hundreds of doped-up untrained machete-wielding Somali militia running loose aboard the Enterprise. That was a much more entertaining proposition.

LongVin · Post by **LongVin** » 2005-12-26 12:49am

LordShaithis wrote:Let's get back to the hundreds of doped-up untrained machete-wielding Somali militia running loose aboard the Enterprise. That was a much more entertaining proposition.

lol. How much power does it take to overcharge the remote forcefields in the hallways? The Somalis might be able to disable them by throwing themselves against the fields.

Nephtys · Post by **Nephtys** » 2005-12-26 01:34am

brianeyci wrote:Occam's Razor prevails, they don't have bombs and their city-killing weapon only has a range of a few thousand feet so they have to hover over the cities like that. Sounds pretty stupid for planet locusts not to develop a way to exterminate from orbit but although life in the galaxy is probably common, beings with huge brain cases and no natural defenses may be an uncommon evolutionary path. Maybe the aliens just haven't fought anybody with any teeth yet. Their "fighters" or attack craft might not be dedicated attack craft at all but some sort of transport craft or shuttle pressed into the role (their performance certainly leaves something to be desired, with their technology base the aliens could certainly design a more potent fighter with air-to-air missiles). Their "city-killers" might not be dedicated city-killers at all but just huge extermination machines. Whatever it is, the aliens can't bomb from orbit, so they reek.

Brian

It's likely then given the massive size and lack of military function, that the city-sized motherships are mining and harvesting craft, which perhaps use the chain reaction weapon in a role it was not intended. Perhaps it's like a mining tool set on certain settings, which happens to be handy in crumpling civilizations.

That would explain how they don't just nuke cities from space, a capacity ANY interstellar civilization should laugh at. And the fighter ships WERE pretty roomy, perhaps indicating they can serve cargo roles. Or perhaps it was just their atmospheric performance that was abysmal, compared to deep-space.

brianeyci · Post by **brianeyci** » 2005-12-26 03:20am

Western military doctrine, the hoplite, the legion, the Medieval Knight, massed fleets of bombers, the machine gun... how different would our history have been if just a few events didn't happen. It's possible that alien civilizations simply have no concept of war as mankind knows it, no combined arms, no tanks (remember the gathering of aliens on the platform no tanks IIRC), no aircraft designed for air superiority. Then, no anti-aircraft guns on their motherships, no combination of different weapons to deal with different threats like on a modern naval warship. No guided missiles, no artillery, no chemical or biological weapons (although these take time to develop the aliens had been scoping out humans for awhile), no concept of tactics. The alien fighters don't seem to launch until the Black Knights are in spitting range. The fucking aliens designed their weapon, if its particularly vulnerable they should wait until their attack craft establish air superiority before opening up the damn thing.

Hell, the aliens were so stupid that they didn't use their own satellites to co-ordinate their attack. It should be a ridiculously simple proposition for each alien ship to have a clock and time the attack perfectly, or to drop their own satellites rather than depend on the enemy's.

Brian

Nephtys · Post by **Nephtys** » 2005-12-26 01:44pm

Why do you even need to time the attack perfectly? Even if each ship fired within an hour of each other, with the shoddiest vending machine clock, or an alien egg-timer, would that have really changed a thing?

Ender · Post by **Ender** » 2005-12-26 02:34pm

LongVin wrote:
Noble Ire wrote:
That doesn't seem like a weapon at all. Perhaps the "weapon" is actually a drive of some sort, which happens to detrimentally affect everything behind it? I can see the ships maneuvering over the cities with secondary drives, and then igniting primary interstellar drives for an instant to wipe out the city.
Prophet of Regret style, interesting idea.

That aside, does anyone recall how deep Area 66 was supposed to be? The alien superweapon was apparently capable of penetrating through that much ground, most of which I assume to be solid rock.
The movie had two conflicting points when it comes to the crater size. There is never a shot of a crater after the use of superlaser the shot is always taken on a horizon showing the remains of the city.

The conflicting points are:

1. The president receives a message that NORAD was taken out by a superlaser blast. Now Norad is bult deeply into a mountain range and was designed to withstand hits from all but the most determined nuclear attacks.

2. BUT later on when the ship is over Area 51 the General tells everyone that they should be safe from the blast because they are deep enough underground but the people on the surface would all be killed.

I've got an amazing solution here - If the first shot didn't get through - *gasp* maybe they shot again!