Philosophical scenario - A chance meeting

[narf poit chez BOOM]

I got this one from a short story I read; I thought it would be interesting to see what solutions people might come up with that are different from the one in the book (The situation is resolved peacefully in the book).

Your race has one solar system. You are captain of the first exporatory vessel. While investigating a nebulae, you encounter, by seeming chance, an alien vessel appearing to be of roughly equal technological capability, although you can't be sure they don't have advancements you don't - This isn't RPG tech, where everything is equal.

You proceed to make peacefull first contact. At about roughly the same time, the same problem occurs to both you and the other captain - How do both of you survive? You have only one solar system. You cannot, under any circumstances, risk it. If you leave the nebulae and return to it, the other ship may follow or track your ship somehow. They may be hostile and wipe your race out. They may fear you and wipe you out. From what the other captain said, they realize the same problem with regards to you.

On the other hand, peaceable trade would more than double your races' chance of survival - And peace would be desirable, in and of itself.

Plus, you have no certain way of telling just how well armed and armored the other ship is compared to yours.

The question is, how do you ensure the survival of your race?

[NullAshton]

Send an omnidirectional singal about the meeting, so that the aliens won't know which way to look for you, and to alert the people back home. Then go for peace, if possible.

[Atrocities]

I like the Chinese point of view on this subject. That being, if you were on an island with nine other people, and there is only enough food for ten days, how long could you survive if you eliminated the other nine people?

[geoschmo]

Atrocities said:
I like the Chinese point of view on this subject. That being, if you were on an island with nine other people, and there is only enough food for ten days, how long could you survive if you eliminated the other nine people?

Well, food for ten days for ten people would feed one person for 100 days assuming it's dry goods or canned food.

You might be able to stretch that a bit if you eat the other people too.

[Arkcon]

Both ships are exploring space for a reason, yes? You need to mine asteroids for mineral resources, need new worlds for colonies, etc. So just appear to go about your business, and watch that other ship. You may be able to work out a collaboration, and peace may grow from that.

Heavy Metal magazine used to do this thing called "Galactic Geographer" or some such foo. It was sort of a sci-fi take off of National Geographic magazine. It discusses humanities first contact with an alien race, centuries before the fictional excerpt occurs:

A spacecraft exploring deep space asteroids for usable metals finds something on the sensors -- metallic, and moving. First slow, then fast, sometimes random, sometimes not. It's a spaceship. The two ships tail each other for a while, playing "Crazy Ivan", hiding from each other, then catching each other. Finally, they faceoff. There are no universal translators. They "agree" to meet in an EVA, they bring scientific instruments to study each other. They could have bought weapons, but didn't. After study, they were no closer to understanding each other than they were before.

Now the Galactic community spans hundreds of star systems, and has dozens of species -- but these first contact aliens were never seen again.

[Arkcon]

Not if they're chinese, you'll just be hungy again an hour later.

[narf poit chez BOOM]

Y'know, I was kinda hoping people would post solutions...

[capnq]

I would favor a totally Darwinistic approach. If your species can't survive contact with an alien culture, it doesn't deserve to.

Try for peace; if that doesn't work, fight to the last man. Failing to try is worse than trying and failing.

[Will]

Well, since both are exploring, it is only a matter of time before one or the other stumbles upon their counterpart's solar system. So, best way to handle it that I can think of is broadcast information about the meeting, and just keep exploring. That's what the ship was doing in the first place. It isn't likely that an exploring ship will continue heading out radially from its starting point, so there isn't a risk of the other ship heading in the exact opposite direction to reach the solar system, and if they follow, they'll just be exploring the same places. Hopefully the lack of precise information on the home location of either would allow enough time for more in depth communication to occur to get a better feeling for motives, peaceful or otherwise, and time to prepare.

[Starhawk]

I would stall for time send an omnidirectional communique to Earth warning them to build BIG ACTUAL warships (dedicated to killing and the general blowing up of things) I would then try for peace with the Alien.....if we couldn't get anywhere with that I would try to continue exploring.....if he followed i'd nuke him......if he boards me and I can't win I nuke us both.....if I am losing and he is winning I go for the RAMMING SPEED!


This is the best option as if he continues to follow AFTER negotions failed he ain't likely comin' to give all the good little boys and girls presents.

It ALSO gives Earth time to build at least a FEW FTL heavy warships to defend our solar system/attack theirs.



OR you could do it the way my Icarans did.....nuke the nearest alien colony.....then the nearest alien ship....then return home victorious heroes and have your nation begin building a dedicated warfleet.