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Falling Skies, or The Aliens Are Coming
Jun. 24th, 2011 10:03 amSo I finally watched the first two episodes of Falling Skies, the latest entry in the "aliens invade Earth and shoot plucky humans one-by-one" genre. On one hand, I liked what I saw - it was gripping, dramatic, and seemed internally consistent. On the other hand, as I implied above, there's a huge, gaping plot hole in this genre. The hole is "why not nuke us from orbit?"
Basically, if one wants to wipe out humanity and can travel here from another star system, one should be able to travel near the speed of light. An object the mass of a small car or a large artillery shell, traveling at 90% of the speed of light will, when it hits the Earth, scour the surface clean. It will also be undetectable until an instant before impact, and unstoppable. There are other means, including a shower of artificial meteors, to do the same thing.
The second part of the plot hole is that there's nothing on Earth that one can't get in bulk more easily elsewhere. Even water is readily available - several of Jupiter and Saturn's moons are essentially dirty snowballs. The only thing Earth has that's unique is biological products.
Fortunately for Falling Skies, they get this, so it appears that the aliens are looking for human slaves. (They attach a harness to the back and brain-base of human children.) Except this doesn't work, because in an industrial society, slaves are only useful for the type of grunt-work (cutting grass, cleaning, busing tables) that robots can do - and we see alien robots.
Lastly, assuming that one really wants sentient housekeepers, the least-desirable way to get them is to engage in close-quarters combat. A frequent analogy is that "alien technology is hundreds of years more advanced then ours is." So, let's do a thought experiment, and have an army of 2011 invade, say, Great Britain of 1811. (We'll assume the Napoleonic Wars ended early.)
The modern army, with air support, artillery and machine guns, will mow down the flintlock-armed British before the later get into range. Also, the British artillery will be useless against tanks at any range. But once the modern army gets into town, this range advantage disappears, and the artillery becomes shape-charge IEDs, capable of destroying lightly-armored vehicles.
What's even worse news for the moderns is that every drop of fuel (and they need a lot of drops) has to be imported, at least until wells are drilled and refineries built. Ditto spare parts, ammo and food. Existing roads and bridges will be nearly useless as well.
Now, some of the logistical problems facing the modern army can be minimized by careful planning (fuel efficiency becomes critical), but still, close combat gives up the invader's chief advantage. I would suggest that the desired solution for the invaders is the extortion option. Simply put, the aliens show up, stage a sufficiently-impressive military demonstration, and say "give us what we want or we'll take it."
So, it looks to me as if the aliens in Falling Skies haven't thought through their attack very well. Despite that, I'll still be watching the series.
Basically, if one wants to wipe out humanity and can travel here from another star system, one should be able to travel near the speed of light. An object the mass of a small car or a large artillery shell, traveling at 90% of the speed of light will, when it hits the Earth, scour the surface clean. It will also be undetectable until an instant before impact, and unstoppable. There are other means, including a shower of artificial meteors, to do the same thing.
The second part of the plot hole is that there's nothing on Earth that one can't get in bulk more easily elsewhere. Even water is readily available - several of Jupiter and Saturn's moons are essentially dirty snowballs. The only thing Earth has that's unique is biological products.
Fortunately for Falling Skies, they get this, so it appears that the aliens are looking for human slaves. (They attach a harness to the back and brain-base of human children.) Except this doesn't work, because in an industrial society, slaves are only useful for the type of grunt-work (cutting grass, cleaning, busing tables) that robots can do - and we see alien robots.
Lastly, assuming that one really wants sentient housekeepers, the least-desirable way to get them is to engage in close-quarters combat. A frequent analogy is that "alien technology is hundreds of years more advanced then ours is." So, let's do a thought experiment, and have an army of 2011 invade, say, Great Britain of 1811. (We'll assume the Napoleonic Wars ended early.)
The modern army, with air support, artillery and machine guns, will mow down the flintlock-armed British before the later get into range. Also, the British artillery will be useless against tanks at any range. But once the modern army gets into town, this range advantage disappears, and the artillery becomes shape-charge IEDs, capable of destroying lightly-armored vehicles.
What's even worse news for the moderns is that every drop of fuel (and they need a lot of drops) has to be imported, at least until wells are drilled and refineries built. Ditto spare parts, ammo and food. Existing roads and bridges will be nearly useless as well.
Now, some of the logistical problems facing the modern army can be minimized by careful planning (fuel efficiency becomes critical), but still, close combat gives up the invader's chief advantage. I would suggest that the desired solution for the invaders is the extortion option. Simply put, the aliens show up, stage a sufficiently-impressive military demonstration, and say "give us what we want or we'll take it."
So, it looks to me as if the aliens in Falling Skies haven't thought through their attack very well. Despite that, I'll still be watching the series.
