Author:
Taxonomy upgrade extras:
I'm working on an installment of a "certain" story and I am just trying to work somthing out. So, here is the scenario:
Over the last couple of months there have been sightings of 10' tall creatures that are bipeds, and are in battle armor. These creatures have rescued people from house fires, drownings, and all sorts of things like that. There have been 8 events in 4 western states; Washington, Oregon, Idaho, and Nevada. No shots have been fired; the events being over so quickly that no one had the chance.
Now, it is near dusk, in a downtown Portland location, in front of the building that houses, the FBI, and Homeland Security. Three members of a Family have been taken there for questioning after a bizare incident which took place in a huge local shopping center.
One of these strange creatures was encountered sitting in a lounge area with a little girl on his lap and a crowd of people has gathered. People are curious, and nervous but so far no one has been harmed. Some families; little children, teens, Moms and Dads are all listening to him talk.
An overzealous security guard had called the police, who called the FBI, who called Homeland Security. Somehow, an overzealous person has taken a pot shot at the Alien (Grok) and seriously wounded a little girl. Grok and the Girl disappear almost imediately through a huge hole that has just appeared in the ceiling over the Ice Rink.
Now, back at the Justice Center, a news crew has shown up and is taping from a park across the street. Suddenly, an Alien vessel, about the size of a big School Bus, silently appears beside the building, about half way up the 20 story structure. There is a hum, and then a cloud of dust. A hole appears in the building and Grok walks across a ramp into it. No shots have been fired.
So, here is the question.
How will the police, FBI and Military handle it? The Hollywood model of a massive battle, just does not work for me. The friendly Aliens have taken great pains to let people know that they are present but not to frighten anyone.
No, Bush is not going to get to Nuke Portland. There are four tactical fighters in town. There are no other tactical troops who can be gathered in less than 24 hours. There are SWAT teams.
Can this scenario play out peacefully?
Khadija Gwen Brown
Comments
The Day the Earth Stood Still
...has some similiarities to what you're writing. I'd suggest renting it, if you've never seen it or don't remember it well. You might get some ideas.
On the other hand you might not want to be influenced by a "classic" that's become a cliché.
I would think, even if it was clear their intentions were peaceful and no other government agency saw a need to get involved, the INS at least would. After all we're talking about undocumented aliens. Heck, they didn't even apply for tourist visas before arriving, did they? What were they thinking?
Response
Hi,
Just to let you know:
1. The Air Force would try to intercept the craft as soon as they can. There is an F-15 squadron based at the Portland airport. There should be at least 2 fighters sent there. Btw there are at least (16) F-15s there, not 4.
2. There will be only limited Army intervention (don't have the weapons/troops in the area). This will be Army Guard for riot control. Nearest Army base would be Fort Lewis in Washington State. Your main ground forces would be local police/swat teams, and they would need time to respond, at least 10-30 mins. FBI if they are in the building would have a limited ready weapons capacity (no assault rifles at the ready, the weapons would be in the arms vault).
The response is up to you as aggressiveness.
No collateral damage, please?
Well, I knew there were 4 ready hangars there. OK, so the real danger is how willing the fighter jocks to take the shot and have a whole bunch of collateral damage?
I assume that the TV crew is only going to broadcast a few minutes before someone blacks them out, I'd guess 10-15. Of course, people from the street are going to be calling home, and those who see it on TV are going to be rushing right over. As I think of it, local enforcement is going to have a really hard time controlling the situation.
Of course, I believe that the Hollywood model would be to mix it up right away. However, I would hope that since no threat has actually been made... Of course 10' tall Grok did just walk into their secure area and sit down for a chat. I made it happen so suddenly, that it was my hope that no one actually had a chance to get too alarmed.
In reality, the situation is actually extremely urgent because invading forces are a year away +/-. It is the objective of the Meridians to quickly establish contact without alarming people any more than nessessary. Then they need to get our industry building extremely advanced Weapone, space ships and all that.
Grok and his few thousand rebels are hoping that humans are much more resourseful and creative than they appear.
The British pulled together marvelously during WWII.
So, I suppose the issue is really are humans smart enough to know when not to fight?
Air Force response
Contrary to popular fiction and movies, USAF pilots are not shoot first hot shots. They will have orders before taking off on what kind of response they are permitted, and at least initially they will not be permitted live weapons except maybe if they are attacked. Now, if your friendly aliens are smart enough not to block the command channels the permitted level of response will be dictated by ground-based command.
And if the aliens are smart enough to do a little survellience first, they will know how to do things in a non-threatening manner. For instance, deploying their landing gear/legs/skids is seen as an indication of non-hostile intent as Earth aircraft can not perform high-G combat maneuvers with their gear down.
I know all this because my next-to-oldest brother is a retired USAF major, who served as an asst. squadron commander and flew both the F-4 and F-15. Every movie that had fighter combat scenes he would pick apart in terms of accuracy, and of course tell us all about it at great length.
KJT
"Life is not measured by the breaths you take, but by the moments that take your breath away.”
George Carlin
There Is A Way Gwen For A Peaceful Ending
The F.B.I. will with the C.I.A. spread disinformation while they and the military investigate. You can give them sympathetic agents and a General that will not try to keep the aliens because he fears an invasion or wants ti befriend them so has to gain any new technology.
May Your Light Forever Shine
May Your Light Forever Shine
Oh, Yeah, disinformation.
Isn't that what Bush did to us 5 years ago?
After 911, what I saw the government doing scared me so bad that I hit the wall. We no longer live in a pre 911 world. I saw things happening at the city, county, state and federal level that made me feel like we would be flying a swatztica as a flag. It was so chilling that I can not keep talking about it.
Fortunately, there are also some good people working in government and they stopped a lot of stuff that you and I don't want to know about. I really do think that 911 was done by Bush himself.
It is odd, because there are all sorts of congressinal reports going around saying he is a crook but he is still in the white house. Scary isn't it?
Sigh
Geez, Gwen.
"Happiness is when what you think, what you say, and what you do are in harmony."
Mahatma Gandhi
"Happiness is when what you think, what you say, and what you do are in harmony."
Mahatma Gandhi
Well, what't that posta mean?
Are you mad at me? Am I gona get a spankin'
Spankin'
Don't you wish. ;)
Aardvark
"Happiness is when what you think, what you say, and what you do are in harmony."
Mahatma Gandhi
"Happiness is when what you think, what you say, and what you do are in harmony."
Mahatma Gandhi
Bad Aliens
Don't like that scenario because a few random savings wouldn't prove peaceful intent, and arbitrarily disintegrating property with powerful, unknown technology wouldn't make anyone feel safe on a couple of levels. In fact, I'd partly blame the aliens for creating the incident where the child was harmed. Someone getting upset and fearing for the safety of a child in the lap of an unknown creature is not an unreasonable reaction.
Turn it around and ask yourself if Earth people decided to do the same thing: what if an Earth man in battle dress lured a small alien child into his lap, where he had complete power of life or death over him/her/it? I imagine the alien mother and a whole lot of others would be extremely upset, not reassured. The first question in any negotiation with them might be, why the hell didn't you just ask permission first?
Aardvark
Burke: Look, this is an emotional moment for all of us, okay? I know that. But, let's not make snap judgments, please. This is clearly-clearly an important species we're dealing with and I don't think that you or I, or anybody, has the right to arbitrarily exterminate them.
Ripley: Wrong!
Vasquez: Yeah. Watch us.
From the movie, Aliens
"Happiness is when what you think, what you say, and what you do are in harmony."
Mahatma Gandhi
"Happiness is when what you think, what you say, and what you do are in harmony."
Mahatma Gandhi
This is extremely urgent business here.
Yes, well, it really is extremely urgent that the whole of Earth get on the task of preparing to defend themselves.
I know that I am in danger of revealing my true level of maturity here. giggle. I was thinking of something similar to "Starship Troopers" but this is way before the invaders have discovered Earth. Yes, I know that the movie was aimed at 11 year olds. :)
One of the premises here is that the Oort cloud acts sort of like an attenuation shell for Radio signals and the such, so has concealed us to some extent. The Oort cloud is said to be about 2 light years in diameter.
Some of you science guys, please be gentle with me?
I read a series ...
... a while back by Gregory Benford, I believe, although I could be wrong, where a species was sending out robot-controlled world killers to wipe out all intelligent species. Another species, who'd had their home world destroyed by them, attempted to warn the Earth (although, I think it was too late to prevent the Earth from being destroyed).
They managed to rescue several thousand people, and many of them were children, who the aliens raised as a group aboard ship, the basis for the pretty good "G-15" TG series, I think. Sad story. The essence, as it applies to this conversation, is that these aliens contacted Earth's governments carefully as not to alarm anyone. :)
As for "Starship Troopers" -- don't you go dissin' my man, RAH. :) That novel won the Hugo award for 1960, and is on the reading lists of four of the five US military academies, as well as the recommended reading lists of the US Army, Navy and Marine Corps. Many of the military concepts for the fictional concepts for the book's "Mobile Infantry" were adopted by the US. Damned impressive.
Aardvark
Quotes by RAH:
Sin lies only in hurting other people unnecessarily. All other "sins" are invented nonsense. (Hurting yourself is not sinful - just stupid).
The difference between science and the fuzzy subjects is that science requires reasoning while those other subjects merely require scholarship.
Political tags - such as royalist, communist, democrat, populist, fascist, liberal, conservative, and so forth - are never basic criteria. The human race divides politically into those who want people to be controlled and those who have no such desire.
Women and cats will do as they please, and men and dogs should relax and get used to the idea.
You can have peace. Or you can have freedom. Don't ever count on having both at once.
***
"Happiness is when what you think, what you say, and what you do are in harmony."
Mahatma Gandhi
"Happiness is when what you think, what you say, and what you do are in harmony."
Mahatma Gandhi
RAH and movies
Heinlein's stories were pretty much always butchered whenever somebody tried to make a movie of them. Starship Troopers is a great novel, but I didn't even bother to see the movie.
You should finish the "political tags" quote. The rest of it is very applicable these days.
KJT
"Life is not measured by the breaths you take, but by the moments that take your breath away.”
George Carlin
Political Tags
Yeah, that Political Tags quote is the most vague, requires careful parsing, and I'm not so sure it's as applicable today as it was decades ago.
Paul Verhoeven had a thing against the philosophy of "Starship Troopers" -- witness the uniforms, which resembled the Nazi SS, and the mindless glee where children and teachers were stomping on cockroaches in a symbolic effort to "do their part" against the great enemy, nicknamed the "Bugs," neither of which were a part of the novel or in the spirit of it -- but the concept of the book was simply too powerful; Verhoeven couldn't screw it up. Good movie to watch.
Some more quotes I like:
Courage is the first of human qualities because it is the quality which guarantees the others.
The worst form of inequality is to try to make unequal things equal.
~Aristotle
War is an ugly thing, but not the ugliest of things: the decayed and degraded state of moral and patriotic feeling which thinks nothing worth a war, is worse. A war to protect other human beings against tyrannical injustice; a war to give victory to their own ideas of right and good, and which is their own war, carried on for an honest purpose by their own free choice - is often the means of their regeneration.
~John Stuart Mill
Aardvark
"Happiness is when what you think, what you say, and what you do are in harmony."
Mahatma Gandhi
"Happiness is when what you think, what you say, and what you do are in harmony."
Mahatma Gandhi
Such a Sci Fi Buff.
Ok, well, 10-20 years ago, I read a Sci Fi Novel by ??? in which there was a Space Navy, though I can not remember where the story went. One thing I remember about the story is that the Officers of both genders, dress uniforms were skirt suits. I think the Ladies had the option of going for all the sequins and things. I believe that on duty, everyone wore jump suits.
Do you have any idea who that was?
It seemed like there used to be sort of a GOB club amongst writers. Peirs Anthony, Heinlein, and a few others seem to be writing almost all the good stuff.
Later, I really enjoyed the Pern series. I think the series that most captured my heart is David Weber's "Honor Harrington" series.
I loved EM Forester's writing. His story about Corvettes on the North Sea held me with an Iron grip. I think he also did the Hornblower series. One day, I found myself reading Barbara Cartland out of despiration.
Finally, I discovered John Norman, and read about a dozen of his books, though as a writer he is truely C grade. I always felt that he was sort of whining about the dominant women in his life and his books were a way to "put them under his thumb".
Oh my gosh, I have bubbled along.
Gwen
David Weber
This is really unrelated to your question, Gwen, but I would recommend you read some of the works of David Weber. Karen J turned me on to his works with his novel "In Fury Born". It was, quite honestly, one of the most amazing sci fi novels I have ever read and featured one of the most incredible female characters I have ever encountered, in the form of Alicia DeVries. If you don't weep for her at the end ... well I question your humanity. Weber also has a very popular series focusing on another female, Honor Harrington.
To address your question more directly, I think the response would depend entirely on who is in charge, and just how strong that individual is. A logical, level-headed and strong leader would be able to control the situation and limit any response, while a more hot-headed, weak person would tend to acquiesce to more reactionary views.
Scott
-- Moliere
Bree
The difference between fiction and reality? Fiction has to make sense.
-- Tom Clancy
http://genomorph.tglibrary.com/ (Currently broken)
http://bree-ramsey314.livejournal.com/
Twitter: @genomorph
David Weber is my favorite Author.
I have read almost everything that he wrote. Honor's statement as she returned with her fellow captives, "I'm sorry we are late", still rings in my mind. I read the whole series through "On Basilisk Station all the way to the end.
He and John Ringo did a nice series which included "March Upcountry"
Thank you all so much for giving me some direction. :)
Khadija Gwen
Negotiation
It would be treated as a hostage situation. They would surround the facility, evacuate near-bye people, and have a trained individual try to initiate contact. If the aliens are truly peaceful, they will be given a chance to show it.
Meanwhile going straight to violence does not make sense, since even the biggest hot heads don't want to get their asses fried. And in this situation the thought process would be that these aliens having a bigger frying pan than do the locals.
Having read that...
I am filled with new resolve to finish this puppy. :)
I hope that you all enjoy it when I post "Changed by Aliens, Chapter 3"
I know that I am perhaps not a brilliant writer, but I have fun.
Gwen
Troops
[email protected] There is a small place called Ft. Lewis Washington . When I was in , every base had a quick reaction force . One could be dispatched . The commanding Officer COULD have the sence required to pour piss out of a boot . He could be made the go between and arbitor for the aliens .
Cavrider----Just another " Grunt."