Plans for Guerrilla War Against Invading Space Aliens

Defense Department consultants, Travis Taylor and Bob Boan, have published a plan for an earthling uprising against invading space octopi. Their outline for anti-alien guerrilla struggle appears in their book, An Introduction to Planetary Defense: A Study of Modern Warfare Applied to Extra-Terrestrial Invasion.

So should you be building your bunkers in the woods and studying up on how to blow little green men to smithereens? At least some analysts believe that the likelihood of such an attack is remote.

As for me, I'm more worried about a future robot uprising. 

Comments

thoreau | April 25, 2007, 11:01am | #

Ron, don't underestimate the deadly peril posed by Gliese 581.

http://www.nature.com/news/2007/070423/full/070423-5.html

Or perhaps you're just naively assuming that the market will provide the necessary transhuman modifications to mount a defense against alien technology?

:)

VM | April 25, 2007, 11:01am | #

And Robert Preston will recruit the starfighters hier

Ryo | April 25, 2007, 11:05am | #

This book will sit nicely on my bookshelf next to: The Zombie Survival Guide and How To Survive a Robot Uprising

You can never be too prepared...

David | April 25, 2007, 11:08am | #

I can't imagine that any of these tactics will be of much use. I mean, if their technology is advanced enough to get them here, aren't we pretty much fucked?

MP | April 25, 2007, 11:09am | #

Wow. How can their colleagues ever take them seriously again?

SugarFree | April 25, 2007, 11:09am | #

Our ultimate weapon?

Psychosomatic hypochondria!

Take that, you damn aliens!

Queen's Gambit Declined | April 25, 2007, 11:09am | #

I am willing to wager that when an alien invasion comes, our unpreparedness will immediately be documented in H&R as further proof of government's worthlessness:

"If they had only eliminated capital gains taxes, the free market would have come up with an alien-defense system..."

Cracker's Boy | April 25, 2007, 11:10am | #

"Run! Run! How Best to Serve Man!! It's a cookbook!!!!"

CB

Marc | April 25, 2007, 11:10am | #

Pungi sticks worked pretty well against the elephant-like invaders in Footfall. So I'm sticking with pungi sticks. As I wrote in high school:

Pungi stick, pungi stick
Wooden stick will make you sick!

Cracker's Boy | April 25, 2007, 11:11am | #

QGB - yeah, the government did so well last time the US was attacked.

CB

Will Allen | April 25, 2007, 11:14am | #

Well, maybe we will be looked upon as cute little pets by the vastly superior aliens. I have a dog and a cat that have it pretty damned good.......

Marc | April 25, 2007, 11:17am | #

QGD -- In all fairness, it would be blamed on the assault weapons ban, not on the capital gains tax.

SugarFree | April 25, 2007, 11:18am | #

Maybe we can release our Strategic Reserve of Attack Trolls to harass their comment boards. We could finally get them to do something useful for once.

"For an alien invasion run by a race that calls themselves the Quarth, you sure don't know fleen!"

thoreau | April 25, 2007, 11:21am | #

Our spammers will deliver the computer virus that brings down their shields, allowing the handful of people with legal concealed carry to attack the mothership.

mediageek | April 25, 2007, 11:22am | #

Bah!

Everyone knows that Slim Whitman, blasted at full volume will kill an alien dead.

violent_k | April 25, 2007, 11:24am | #

Everyone knows that Slim Whitman, blasted at full volume will kill an alien dead.

Does Slim get loud when he's drunk?

Hugh Akston | April 25, 2007, 11:24am | #

I think a guerilla war against a technically superior force of invading aliens is not a total lost cause.

We're getting plenty of tips from the Iraqis.

thoreau | April 25, 2007, 11:25am | #

No doubt Lonewacko will make much of the fact that the alien space ships entered the atmosphere south of our border and then headed north.

mediageek | April 25, 2007, 11:26am | #

I'm not convinced that guns will help us out when fighting aliens...

jimmydageek | April 25, 2007, 11:27am | #

We should build a steel cage all around the continental U.S.

oooooooooh yeaaaahhhh!

henry | April 25, 2007, 11:28am | #

"I can't imagine that any of these tactics will be of much use. I mean, if their technology is advanced enough to get them here, aren't we pretty much fucked?"

The answer is "yes, obviously", but that kind of makes for a very brief book or film. Since it appears certain that there are no other advanced inhabitants in our solar system, we are very likely talking about "manned" interstellar space travel here. Unless you posit some sort of upcoming historical/technical "break" ("the Singularity") we are so far away from that technology that anyone else who could manage it would necessarily have godlike powers in comparison to us. So, until we have at least the rudiments of such technology ourselves (either accrued gradually or after the great techorapture), it is rather pointless to discuss resisting alien invasions--it makes about as much sense as discussing a caged cat resisting a human with a loaded shotgun. The end result is preordained.

JW | April 25, 2007, 11:34am | #

Soooooo, what's the plan? Board with a nail in it?

VM | April 25, 2007, 11:35am | #

ohshit. NAUGHTY, JW. just got coffee out of the nose. argh. (sneeze sneeze)

*takes bite out of turkey sandwich. the turkey is dry

Chucklehead | April 25, 2007, 11:41am | #

And Robert Preston will recruit the starfighters hier

That's oldskool, VM. The latest troops have been selected through Half-Life Deathmatch servers...

NoStar | April 25, 2007, 11:42am | #

Will Allen,
Will you think it such a good life when you are taken to the vet to be spayed or neutered?

crimethink | April 25, 2007, 11:44am | #

So, Hizzoner Bloomberg is only the leading vanguard of the many-tentacled warriors?

kevrob | April 25, 2007, 11:45am | #

RB: Are you up-to-date on your Robot Insurance?

Kevin

D.A. Ridgely | April 25, 2007, 11:45am | #

What? No one has suggested yet Bailey is in the pocket of Big Alien?

Aresen | April 25, 2007, 11:53am | #

Nostar beat me to it.

Also, what makes you think we'll be treated like dogs or cats? Maybe we'll be lab rats.

OTOH: Considering what we've done with selective breeding in dogs and cats, it would be kind of interesting to see what the aliens might do with us. I wonder what the human equivalent of a border collie would be like? Would you cross Claude Van Damme with Ann Coulter to get a human pit bull?

jimmydageek | April 25, 2007, 12:02pm | #

Maybe them Bostonians were on to something with their all out attack on mooninites.

If you have a problem with that maybe you should take that up with Mr. Laser. -Ignignokt

The innocent shall suffer... big time. -Ignignokt

Will Allen | April 25, 2007, 12:03pm | #

I'm so obviously cute and good-looking, Nostar and Areson, that I'll be put out to stud. And only bred with similarly attractive pets. Kinda like a captive Buck Turgidson; at least a 100:1 female to male ratio. In contrast, you won't be getting any. :)

Wild Pegasus | April 25, 2007, 12:11pm | #

As for me, I'm more worried about a future robot uprising.

I, for one, welcome our new robot overlords.

- Josh

Aresen | April 25, 2007, 12:21pm | #

Sorry, Will Allen, you're destined for the burlap sack and the river. ;P

VM | April 25, 2007, 12:31pm | #

Aresen -

this, hier is what will happen to Mr. Will Allen...

[evil laughter]

Shannon Chamberlain | April 25, 2007, 12:32pm | #

I, for one, welcome our new ant overlords, and sincerely hope that they like pets.

brotherben | April 25, 2007, 12:49pm | #

My neighbour, Gorf, is the self professed defender of his starcastle by means of his astro-blaster.

A Motie | April 25, 2007, 12:51pm | #

..Just give us chocolate.

ed | April 25, 2007, 1:42pm | #

Whatever the alien overlords do to us, I'd bet my last crumb of dungeon food that they got here in pointy-nosed spaceships with delta wings and a plexiglass canopy that are of absolutely no use in the vacuum of interstellar space but look good in the movies.

Timothy | April 25, 2007, 2:01pm | #

I, for one, welcome our new invertebrate overlords.

Lost_In_Translation | April 25, 2007, 2:05pm | #

Undoubtedly, Will Smith will save us, so there's nothing to worry about.

John | April 25, 2007, 2:13pm | #

Ultimately, germ warfare would be our only hope. If they are some sort of carbon based air breathing lifeform, chances are they won't have immunity to our bugs. Yeah, they will probably have complex air breathers and will have the tech to develop some very effective anti-biotics, but we can also develop our own germs without them knowing it. The trick will be having the labs in safe places to develop them and being able to loose the things on them and also developing germs that don't kill us to. It will be tough, but at least it is a chance.

Lost_In_Translation | April 25, 2007, 2:19pm | #

John,

The common cold has killed more alien invaders than any other disease. Maybe we should just send a whole bunch of sick children to take down their army.

Stevo Darkly | April 25, 2007, 2:19pm | #

Ultimately, germ warfare would be our only hope. If they are some sort of carbon based air breathing lifeform, chances are they won't have immunity to our bugs.

Yes, this is the only thing that will ultimately bring their war-tripods crashing to a halt.

LarryA | April 25, 2007, 2:26pm | #

Defense Department consultants, Travis Taylor and Bob Boan, have published a plan for an earthling uprising against invading space octopi.

So, Joe, why haven't they been labeled anti-Semitic?

I can't imagine that any of these tactics will be of much use. I mean, if their technology is advanced enough to get them here, aren't we pretty much fucked?

Not necessarily. Harry Turtledove wrote an interesting little story called The Road Less Traveled. Turns out everyone else in the universe, early in their technological ages, stumbled across a simple, cheap, non-polluting source of unlimited power.

Earth, however, never made that critical discovery so it had to limp along on electricity, fossil fuels, nuclear power, explosives, etc.

So the invaders land in their super-powered ships which use wooden torches for light and hand signals for communication, step down and line up in ranks, pull out their flintlock rifles and pistols, and get a hell of a rude shock from tanks, M-16s, jet aircraft with guided missiles, etc.

Guy Montag | April 25, 2007, 2:26pm | #

If Dennis Kucinich is any indication of what the rest of them are laike the only thing we have to worry about is laughing ourselves to death. I had no idea that he was a smithereens fan.

Undoubtedly, Will Smith will save us, so there's nothing to worry about.

Yea, but what if they are running an MS OS instead of that Apple/UNIX stuff?

Eric the .5b | April 25, 2007, 2:37pm | #

Well, there are only two things you can do in an alien-invasion story set in the present day - either handicap the aliens in some way or come up with a new take on the defeat of humanity. War of the Worlds did both, though it made a lot more sense back then than the latest movie version ever will. :)

(I mean, really. The aliens came to Earth thousands or millions of years ago and set up tripods wherever they thought cities might spring up? WTF? We just don't notice any of these big, metal things a few tens of feet under construction sites? The aliens don't just set up shop on the totally undefended planet millions of years ago or notice the hostile microbes that kill anybody of their species that breathes the air?)

Eric the .5b | April 25, 2007, 2:44pm | #

(And why would the aliens insist on caching equipment on Earth for later use instead of bringing in gear that was up-to-date? How many of the tripods were still underground at the end of the movie because they failed to start up? :D)

henry | April 25, 2007, 2:45pm | #

"Not necessarily. Harry Turtledove wrote an interesting little story called The Road Less Traveled. Turns out everyone else in the universe, early in their technological ages, stumbled across a simple, cheap, non-polluting source of unlimited power.

Earth, however, never made that critical discovery so it had to limp along on electricity, fossil fuels, nuclear power, explosives, etc.

So the invaders land in their super-powered ships which use wooden torches for light and hand signals for communication, step down and line up in ranks, pull out their flintlock rifles and pistols, and get a hell of a rude shock from tanks, M-16s, jet aircraft with guided missiles, etc."

This moronic science fiction--there is so much more to interstellar travel than "power" you'd have to be somewhat of an idiot to take the premise seriously.

Eric the .5b | April 25, 2007, 2:50pm | #

Ehn, Turtledove's not a moron. Haven't read that particular story, but it was presumably either humor, a little better-explicated than that, or both.

P Brooks | April 25, 2007, 3:02pm | #

What does the American Enterprise Institute's plan look like? (since that's the one we'll use...)

John | April 25, 2007, 3:26pm | #

"(I mean, really. The aliens came to Earth thousands or millions of years ago and set up tripods wherever they thought cities might spring up? WTF? We just don't notice any of these big, metal things a few tens of feet under construction sites? The aliens don't just set up shop on the totally undefended planet millions of years ago or notice the hostile microbes that kill anybody of their species that breathes the air?)"


What you mean with Steven Speilberg and Tom Cruise on the project, they couln't come up with a coherent or even sensible plot? I for one am shocked!!

The real problem with the whole alien invastion idea is why would they stumble onto us, a small planet in a decidedly unfashionable section of the galaxy and what would they want with this planet? Presumably if you can travel the universe there has got to be better places than here. Actually, even thought it is a cheesy movie, Predator offers probably the most realistic scenerio of alien invasion; Earth as hunting preserve for high end intersteller rednecks.

SugarFree | April 25, 2007, 3:27pm | #

AEI Plan is shrouded in mystery, but I known for a fact that Step 17 is "Have sex with their 5-breasted women."

Hmmm... three extra breasts...

ed | April 25, 2007, 3:32pm | #

The aliens would be justified in wiping us out if only in retaliation for Will Smith's crimes-against-humanity "acting" job in Independence Day.

Aresen | April 25, 2007, 3:49pm | #

ed

I agree with your assessment of Independence Day. What really frightens me is what they might do if they've seen Jane Fonda in Barbarella.

stuartl | April 25, 2007, 3:49pm | #

Ron, interesting that that the link you provide on alien civilizations discounts the probability of life in systems with red dwarfs, yet the potentially habitable planet just found orbits a red dwarf.

And besides, look at all the degrees the authors have, they must be right. Pay no attention to the fact that they all have been living at the DoD trough for at least 2 decades.

ed | April 25, 2007, 4:15pm | #

Aresen,

I looked at Barbarella again just the other day and it holds up well, especially on pause.

NoStar | April 25, 2007, 4:17pm | #

What nonsense! Any Twilight Zone fan knows that aliens are easily repelled by Andy Devine playing an harmonica.

ed | April 25, 2007, 4:26pm | #

Or better yet, Devine playing a tuba.

JW | April 25, 2007, 4:43pm | #

Eric--Don't try to rationalize one, if not the, of the stupidest fucking movies in the cinematic history.

Even the presence of Tom Cruise couldn't make it any worse than the writers already did.

Chris Innes | April 25, 2007, 4:49pm | #

All we would have to do is take a leaf out of The Simpsons -

Kodos: What's your report Colonel Kang?
Kang: The Earthlings continue to resent our presence. You said we'd be greeted as liber-ators!
Kodos: Don't worry, we still have the people's hearts and minds (holding up a human heart and brain).
Kang: I don't know, I'm starting to think that Operation Enduring Occupation was a bad idea.
Kodos: We had to invade, they were working on weapons of mass disintegration.
Kang: Sure they were!

A Caveman | April 25, 2007, 5:08pm | #

Well, my advice is this: When some lame-ass alien race decides to crashland a useless third of it's population - all it's hairdressers, chartered accountants, management consultants, etc - just give up and go extinct. It's way better than sitting through all the damned committee meetings.

juris imprudent | April 25, 2007, 6:50pm | #

Yea, but what if they are running an MS OS instead of that Apple/UNIX stuff?

Nothing to worry about - they'll reboot long before they enter our solar system. Assuming of course that the last patch didn't leave them stranded around Alpha Centauri.

Eric the .5b | April 25, 2007, 8:45pm | #

Thoreau:

Or perhaps you're just naively assuming that the market will provide the necessary transhuman modifications to mount a defense against alien technology?

Naively? :) First item here Researchers are already working on mecha and battlesuits (and we have a few decades worth of manga and anime on the subject to help engineers get the ever-important "looking cool" aspect down pat).

Besides, these devices give us an important early-warning system, as a friend pointed out to me. If the prototype is a week from being fully operational and the only available pilot is an angsty teenager, that's when the aliens attack. :D

You Know Who | April 25, 2007, 9:11pm | #

Are you sure that's not a plan for a guerilla uprising against the Central Intelligence Agency?

Karen | April 25, 2007, 9:21pm | #

I really wanted to read this report until I figured out that only the Feds could make an alien invasion boring.

Stevo Darkly | April 25, 2007, 9:44pm | #

Harry Turtledove's "The Road Not Taken" was a great, funny, and thought-provoking SF story. It was not "idiotic."

Point of clarification: What most nonhuman races discovered was not described as "a cheap source of power," but an unexpectedly simple and easy way of creating antigravity and moving objects faster than light -- very early in their histories. I think it was either "Road" or its sequel "Herbig-Haro" that mentioned a race that flew bronze starships because they hadn't yet discovered how to work iron.

Defense Department consultants, Travis Taylor and Bob Boan, have published a plan for an earthling uprising against invading space octopi.

"So, Joe, why haven't they been labeled anti-Semitic?"

Er, huh?

Wouldn't that be "anti-cephalopodic"?

Pro Libertate | April 26, 2007, 8:51am | #

If Clarke's Childhood's End really happened, then I, for one, would welcome our Overlord overlords.

Eric the .5b | April 26, 2007, 11:20am | #

Er, huh?

There was a post some days back about a picture of Bloomberg with tentacles being accused of being anti-Semitic propaganda.