Every day, we use smartphones to send out
billions of texts while we watch just as many
YouTube videos. Our world is driven by the
Internet, and every second is filled with
busy information. Up in space, it’s the
opposite. No sounds can be heard there and,
even with its trillions of stars, it is still
mostly an empty void. On one fateful day,
however, everything would change. From a distant
star, an extremely strong signal is detected
by observatories all over the world. It’s
unlike anything we’ve ever seen before:
there are weird patterns and symbols repeated
over and over again. Suddenly, the transmission
is deciphered… and it turns out to be a
message from aliens.
Alien contact would be known as the most important
event in our history. Even the government
wouldn’t be able to keep a secret this big.
Scientists all over the world would collaborate
to discover as much as they could. Are these
aliens a hive-mind of bug-like creatures?
Gray aliens driving around in UFOs? How about
beings of pure light and energy? Whatever
new information they come up with would be
constantly updated on social media, such as
Twitter. With the internet being plagued with
fake news, however, paranoia would start to
grow. Crazy conspiracies would spread like
wildfire. Established religions would be questioned
and new ones worshipping these aliens would
start to pop up. But, in the lab, scientists
would finally crack the code to the message
and find out what these aliens really had
to say. Before they could do that, however,
something went very wrong.
In an instant, almost every major city shut
down. At the same time, worldwide banking
systems halted to a stop as the Internet became
too corrupted to use. Within a day, global
economies, communications, and computer systems
destabilized. But what could have possibly
caused this? The alien message, upon being
received, actually carried an advanced type
of artificial intelligence. It secretly snuck
into electrical grids and servers around the
world to gather as much information as possible
until destroying everything it found. This
information would then be sent back to the
aliens and, if we are considered too serious
of a threat, they would be the first to know.
Since sending spaceships over incredibly large
distances is expensive, even when travelling
at the speed of light, we probably wouldn’t
see thousands of giant UFOs shooting lasers
at us. Instead, when they see our destructive
technological growth as a threat, countless
swarms of alien machines would eventually
invade us. In response, the entire world would
put aside their differences to fight against
this threat. The firepower of the United States
and the army of China would join forces with
other countries to form humanity’s greatest
military. These forces, however, would not
be nearly enough to survive. Normal bullets
and projectiles wouldn’t leave a dent on
these machines, as they would be too strong
and evasive. Defence strategies would fail,
as the computing power of aliens would be
more than enough to see all of its flaws.
Even our last resort, nuclear weapons, wouldn’t
do much either because the machines would
just regenerate at the molecular level instantly.
If we somehow found a way to fight against
these machines, trillions more would simply
replace them by using their limitless energy.
With energy-harvesting megastructures, they
would use the power of entire stars against
us. In comparison, our use of fossil fuels
would only last us a few months against these
threats; meanwhile, they would keep attacking
us for millions of years without a single
problem. After all, if these aliens were advanced
enough to travel all the way here, they would
already be thousands of years ahead of us.
Our best bet would be to find a new planet
to live in or to hope that the aliens were
more peaceful than we initially thought.
Aliens could invade us for many reasons: we
could be enslaved to work for them, our planet
could be used for land, or maybe we’re just
in the way of their grand plans. Thankfully,
despite the billions of planets in our galaxy,
an alien invasion is highly unlikely. With
the endless potential of space, however, aliens
are just one among many that evoke infinite
wonder. We hope you enjoyed our look into
how aliens could attack us. Do you think we
will ever be invaded by aliens? Share your
thoughts, suggestions, and questions in the
comments below. Interesting, new content like
this is uploaded every week, so be sure to
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Wonder.
