First contact with aliens

>First contact with aliens.
>They want to tell us about their lord and savior Jesus Christ

How would we react?

>First contact with aliens
>They look exactly like us and dress a lot like us and speak English in an odd but perfectly understandable accent/dialect
>They claim we're a long-lost colony of their empire and request we rejoin the rest of the species and the empire
What would your gut reaction be, Veeky Forums?

Die because our immune systems aren't tailored for fighting their pathogens, and vice versa.

Also and

Immediate suspicion and differing opinions on the validity of the belief they had infiltrated us already and what their intent is.
I.E. are they assuming our form to fuck with us in some way.

I'd laugh my fucking ass off.

Same as above.

I hate them, I hate them I hate them. I want them to die because they look like me. I want to kill them because they look different. I want to burn their bones and glass their cities. I want to turn their temples to ash and salt the earth so that nothing to grow. I want to poison them so deeply that their grand children get cancer! Fuck them fuck their planet and fuck this universe, they may look like us but only the we can carry the pyre of hate into the cold womb of oblivion. JE SUIS HOMO SAPIEN

I'm going to go out and assume that if aliens made peaceful contact they'd go through great lengths to avoid just that scenario

and if they're not making peaceful contact then well, I'd worry more about the relativistic masses hitting every single city on the planet within a 24h period

also if they don't use DNA there might be enough biochemical barriers between us pathogens can't affect terrestrial life

An immediate outcry to trade anatomy textbooks would be made, I imagine, with medical scientists that are actually military-paid eager to know if we're the same race.

If we are, then we would either turn into xenophiles (our first aliens were just like us, that's cool I wonder if the others are just as cool!) or unite with them to kill anything that doesn't look like us (only us vaguely humanoid creatures can exist ever cleanse purge kill).

There would be confused panic, and huge resistance movements if we weren't able to maintain some vague idea of cultural individualism. Implying we can even say Earth has some overarching cultural identity besides "fucking nutjobs trying to shoot each other all the time" anyway.

someone would start writing a new fapfic obviously

We tell them we already nailed him to a piece of wood

GW would sue.

>First contact with Celts
>They look like Romans
>Kill the barbarians
What do you think, user?

...

when it comes to humans, the answer is always war followed by sex.

Well, it wasn't long before we fought a war with them, then several more wars, then we conquered them, then everything went to hell.

wiki.travellerrpg.com/Interstellar_Wars

Wasn't that how first contact with the Centauri in B5 played out? Before we found out that Centauri anatomy is ludicrously nonhuman?

>Lost colony
>Speaking a language that came after Latin
Kek, no, kill the faggets

Fuck off, we're full.

Pic related.

are we the barbarians? or they?

keep in mind we invented frozen lemonade and fisting

First you try to fuck it
Then you try to eat it
If it hasn't learned your name, you better kill it kill it kill it kill it

This.
Humanity has the tendency to murderfuck it self, yet alone another intelligent species.

On the other hand, they invented the plumbus and the jellied nutrition-cube.

The beautiful aliens, the beautiful aliens

Sounds great, what could possibly go wrong?

>First contact with aliens.
>They look like us.
This implies that we have the same ancestry.

Ten quid says that either we, or the aliens that look like us figure out timetravel, travel back in time and reshape other races in their image by creating life on their planets with their genetic information.
That's what I would do.

We're very nearly identical to bonobos monkeys, genetically. What do they and the other chimps spend most of their time doing?

Status games, and mating, right? Even more than eating.

So we run into an alien that looks like us? Can't eat it, so I suppose we'll start engaging in status games with them and trying to get laid with them. How many interspecies threads on this site or in sci fi/fantasy in general orbit around status displays and mating?

I think an alien encountering humans for the first time would be stunned by how much time we spend having sex (often in ways or with precautions that make mating futile because it won't result in conception). Hell, in some stories even sometimes with non-humanoid species. When you see monkeys in the wild, the constant social mating makes sense. High-status humans often engage in rampant mating (celebs, politicians, the rich). I don't think other animals given intelligence would put that much effort into the sex act (though partner selection no doubt would still be important).

Status displays will make more sense to aliens, no doubt, since it's inherent to any social animal. You have a social group, it requires a hierarchy to coordinate it, and with that privileged position comes the ability to opportunistically put your own interests above the group's collective interests. Therefore you have competition for the leadership position, therefore a rich variety of ways to fight for that position.

>This implies that we have the same ancestry.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Convergent_evolution

>are they assuming our form to fuck us in some way.
FTFY

>How many interspecies threads on this site or in sci fi/fantasy in general orbit around status displays and mating?
>How many posters on this site are sexually frustrated macho assholes?

Get your head out of your ass. Veeky Forums is not a good example of normal human behaviour.

Human-looking aliens would imply either (most likely) some kind of hidden progenitor race, or would show that the human form is way more effective than we give it credit for.

kek, this

>What do they and the other chimps spend most of their time doing?

Bonobos fuck, chimps brutalize things.

We're the happy medium.

Well, ok, the bonobos seem to be the happy ones. But we're in between at least.

>Status displays will make more sense to aliens, no doubt, since it's inherent to any social animal.

So they have a decent grasp of the nature of social beings, yet specifically sex as a social interaction confuses them. Are you sure these are aliens, and not just Americans?

Sex

That depends. Do they act like us as well?

Maybe. It could be that a human-like form is ideal for getting the virtuous cycle going that created our large brains. Most species get just enough intelligence to do what they need and stop, while we kept going until we hit biological limitations, probably due to a feedback cycle between our capabilities and our environment.
We're not fast enough or strong enough or prolific enough to use the strategies that work for other species, intelligence (and tenacity) is the only thing we had going for us.
It may take a special niche to get to our level, while everybody else tops out the way dolphins or chimps or whatever do.

They act like uptight christians
Momoko from Ghost Stories

>This guy thinks Celts look like Romans.

Human intelligence and empathy evolved as part of a biological arms race between early hominids. It's a lot easier to tell when an individual isn't pulling their weight within a social group when you can mentally put yourself in their shoes, and recognise their behaviour as parasitic. It's also a lot easier to fool other members of the group when you can come up with original and innovative lies. And so early hominids were under pressure to constantly try and outsmart each other.

The fact that this process occurred in a species with opposable thumbs is pure happenstance.

>The fact that this process occurred in a species with opposable thumbs is pure happenstance.

I'm not so sure that's the case. Developing a survival strategy based directly on tool use must have fed into our need for intelligent cooperation.
Probably the next smartest species we know of are the New Caledonian crow, which are similarly all about the tool use. Those little guys solve things that baffle chimps -- and chimps don't use tools nearly as much.

>or in sci fi/fantasy in general

C+, work on your reading comprehension

Interspecies mating is a recurrent theme in sci fi. I'll leave aside fantasy except to say that the examples are even easier to find. Sex with software is practically cliche these days: Star Trek's holo-crushes, 30 Evocations has a man wanting to marry his instructional subroutines, AI sex in nearly every genre with AI. The reptilian aliens in V had a baby with a human, as did the skinjob robots of BSG. Almost the first scene in Babylon 5 had interspecies sexytimes-- again a recurrent theme. Star Trek has humans mating with just about anything that moves: vulcans, betazoids, klingons, romulans, and, in one weird twist, the Voyager 6 space probe (pic related).

Pretty much anything that could be considered a character can and has been an object of lust in fiction. Holes or protrusions are strictly optional. I'm trying to think of a sci fi setting with alien characters that DOESN'T bring this trope up.

In gaming, GURPS Transhuman Space has almost everything mating with everything else, including the Astropus uplifted octopus concubine species and a US air force Autonomous Kill Vehicle. The city of Abydos in Banestorm has a zombie bordello. Obviously in nearly every game you have incubi/succubi; demons whose only point is interspecies mating. D&D interspecies sex is a perennial topic: just dragons alone could fill a thread, and whole categories of characters depend on interspecies relationships.

In summation: you're an asshole.

>Bonobos fuck, chimps brutalize things.

Bonobos are a kind of chimp. Admittedly, the common chimp is pretty brutal. I don't know that we're in between, so much as we are torn between both. Hell, bonobos are pretty brutal themselves.

You're confusing status as a claim on resources with status as a mechanism for assortive mating in particular. And I'm not saying that this would confuse them so much as being totally alien. An outsider might understand why the behavior happens, but still be amused at how much time humans spend making sexual displays and performing partial pseudo-copulations despite not actually being available for mating.

Humans are available for sex and exhibit mating behaviors whether they're in a fertile period or not. That's comparatively unusual. A race with a mating season would compete over food, resources, territory, and maybe ACCESS to mates, but unless it's mating season they wouldn't be making sexual displays. They'd find other ways to channel their competition.

>the nature of social beings

Obviously, this will vary from species to species. So they'll have a grasp of THEIR social nature, just as some of us have of ours. The real question is how much of our social nature stems from our biology and how much is intrinsic to intelligent interdependence itself. I gave a very abbreviated justification for why status and hierarchy would likely be universal rather than human-specific. Just as examples: the work of William Ouchi (business), Ian MacNeil (law), Ronald Coase (economics), James March (knowledge theory), and Richard Emerson (sociology) are all based on premises that aren't specific to human psychology or biology. They're all founded in the fundamental logic of self-interest itself, and from different social sciences.

(As opposed to behavioral economics, which is based on human psychological biases. Though some economists are trying to determine if these biases themselves are driven by underlying characteristics of social behavior rather than human cognition.)

"and not just Americans". Huh? Are you going to disclose where you're posting from? Or is nationalism the outlet for your frustrated flaccidity?

Source: you have absolutely no idea.

Seriously, human evolutionary development is way too much in its infancy to draw any conclusions at all. Especially sweeping ones like this. A typical paleoanthropologist would not agree with what you just posted.

It's very possible that social intelligence was driven by mating competition. I've heard that theory before and it's a solid idea. But to say that it occurred entirely independently of tool-making/tool-using and other modes of abstract thought is totally unsupported by the evidence currently available.

>When they use honeywheat instead of white bread for sacrament
They're heretics, the lot of them.

We invented Candwiches.

I'm onto you AM

am i missing a joke? its just a picture of space

You say as you use water for the sacrament.
Boggs was right.

youtu.be/yqbAnkBekqI

That's not how it fucking works. Like, are you fucking serious? Do you have any idea the kind of probabilities would be necessary to produce such a thing in the Universe? Why do people with no understand of biology or evolutionary biology insist on this bullshit opt-out to the need for even the lowest level of critical thought?

You seem angry, user.

>How would we react?
More positively than if they didn't look like us.
Still terrible.

Also probably means we are engineered to come out this way and we must eventually join with the rest of our brothers to meet/kill our father.

I am. I am angry that people are completely misusing biological concepts they don't understand at all to justify ridiculous leaps. Humans only developed as we did due to a serious very highly specific circumstances. The idea that this would happen on another planet--and that you could just explain away the details with "muh convergent evolution"...

I understand that the premise for this scenario is ridiculous. The issue is that this kind of idiot uses convergent evolution EVERYWHERE. No matter how inappropriate. They fill in all the blanks in their world-building with that bullshit.

>"muh convergent evolution"...

I agree but it's literally not the only way that it can happen.

We could be just engineered by another race so we all looks similar and the people in-universe are unaware or try to explain it away to justify their own "special" heritage/culture (same reason why religious nuts or deviant art OCs exist).

>first contact with aliens
>they look and dress a lot like medieval Norsemen, and speak a language Scandinavians can sort of understand
>they claim to be descended from Vikings that were abducted by a now-dead race of aliens, freed themselves, and then brought about the end of said race
>they are very glad to have rediscovered Midgard, and offer us the plunder of a thousand worlds if we go a-viking with them

how would you react?

>We could be just engineered by another race so we all looks similar and the people in-universe are unaware or try to explain it away to justify their own "special" heritage/culture (same reason why religious nuts or deviant art OCs exist).

Right. In fact, it makes much more sense that this is the thing. The issue I have is when people try to use convergent evolution for Hard Sci-Fi, Soft Sci-Fi or Fantasy. Admit it's magic or a precursor race or some bullshit. Don't act like you're not being an idiot, dammit. A creature that naturally occured with 40% silicone as part of its body, and evolved to sapience from worms is not going to look like gray humans. No amount of "convergent evolution" can justify that.

Fuck right the fuck off. Who do you think you're fooling?

Convergent evolution still isn't a bad concept, but making it look human... yeah dumb.

It could make sense for post sigularity societies to have similar forms though, namely flying databases in space.

why i ask them why after thousand of years and contact with advanced civilization they still stick to that retro thing fucking hipsters

>Convergent evolution still isn't a bad concept

You're right. It does happen on Earth, even. The issue I have is when people stretch it so much and then act like you're the idiot for questioning it.

>It could make sense for post sigularity societies to have similar forms though, namely flying databases in space.

Yeah, I mean, maybe. I'm not 100% on ' moving' on the moving/copying debate. I figure there would be many post-singularitarians that share a similar view. High-tech but no uploading, y'see?

Yeah, convergent evolution would explain humanoids, where they are roughly shaped like us -- two arms, two legs, a head -- as that's a pretty effective shape for an intelligent tool user.
But it won't make them look just like humans.

Muh dik

This

>vikings
>winning a battle

We would join the Imperium obviously.

Oh, definitely fuck.

They're Viltrumites after all

we'd fuck them
literally

How would /they/ react?
That's key to our reaction

fuck them

Want to get my hands on some of their DNA and run some tests. My bet is that past the surface, we're nothing alike.

No doubt they'll try and pass it off by saying it's a clerical error by claiming that we're Beta 12 and they were looking for Beta 9.

Let me get my axe.

Plundering is not about fighting battles, it's about taking everything shiny and nice before oganized resistance forms.

Implying murrica would not fuck it up for everyone because they could no longer be the top bully.