thinking about the Drake Equation...

[Grav_Moped]

We'll make great pets.

Explicit language warning ("the f-word" is used as an adjective -- skip to 45 seconds in to avoid).
Porno for Pyros' "Pets" from their self-titled 1993 album. YouTube link, video is static image of album cover.

The band was a side project by members of Jane's Addiction.

(I had to do some BBcode trickery to get the band name to render properly. )

 

[aramis]

1. Slaves
2. Cattle
3. Breeding stock ("Our previous Human colony failed for some reason.")
4. Science experiment subjects ("My daughter. She insists that she can win the science fair this time... with a Human exhibit.")
5. Organs and other body parts
6. Feel important by crushing someone else's civilization


Unfortunately, I think the above scenarios are too silly for most Traveller games.

Slaves can be a result of religious/cultural prohibitions of artificial intelligence. Generally, any non-martial role requiring intellect but for which general artificial intelligence (GAI) is prohibited, would be grounds for slavery.

Cattle have 3 basic uses: lunch, leather, lactation. A fourth is lawnmowing. Humans are suboptimal for all 4... but if a society has a religious requirement for eating the enemy, a captive human colony would definitely qualify as "enemy"...

Breeding stock is just a special case of 1, 2, 4 or 5.
Organs are just a special case of 2.
Military servitude is also case 1.

There is one element within case 1 that doesn't need religious nor cultural AI prohibitions: sexual slavery. Sexual slavery is the only case where humans beat droids once GAI is portable. Sexual slavery is the most common reason for enslavement in current situations.

 

[Condottiere]

Somewhat breaking the trend, a young Moore decided to write up a Totally Amazing Black Comedy adventure comic strip about two teenage alien miscreants who steal a time machine and head out to a little planet way out in the boondocks that no one else in the galaxy would ever care about called "Earth," all in part of an elaborate revenge scheme on their college dean for suspending them after he found stolen goods and laser guns in their locker. This story was originaly published in issue #317 (May 21, 1983).

 

[Commander Truestar]

Not once has the math told us how many potential worlds out there provide for sellers of Drakes Cakes?!?!

 

[Drew]

1. Slaves
2. Cattle
3. Breeding stock ("Our previous Human colony failed for some reason.")
4. Science experiment subjects ("My daughter. She insists that she can win the science fair this time... with a Human exhibit.")
5. Organs and other body parts
6. Feel important by crushing someone else's civilization


Unfortunately, I think the above scenarios are too silly for most Traveller games.

To serve man. I think they want something other than beyond meat on their diet plan.

 

[bookwyrm]

1. Slaves
2. Cattle
3. Breeding stock ("Our previous Human colony failed for some reason.")
4. Science experiment subjects ("My daughter. She insists that she can win the science fair this time... with a Human exhibit.")
5. Organs and other body parts
6. Feel important by crushing someone else's civilization


Unfortunately, I think the above scenarios are too silly for most Traveller games.

9.Trade. Trade useless trinkets to the hairless savages for valuable metals, minerals, radioactives, interesting biologicals, etc...
10. Soldiers. Through slavery or treaty, used as low tech cannon fodder/meat shields against another interstellar civilization.
11. Entertainment. Battle Arenas, Death Game Shows, Intelligent Alien Zoo Exhibit, etc...

 

[Enoki]

12. Irrelevant. That is sort of, We can come, you can't stop us, and we don't give a $*!+ about you because you are irrelevant to us... Think of them as a race of interstellar cockroaches...

 

[atpollard]

Cattle have 3 basic uses: lunch, leather, lactation.

I just had this mental image of aliens GMOing humans for increased lactation … and now I can’t get rid of it!

However, humans are 98.6 degrees F internal temperature … the ideal incubator for alien larva.

 

[Enoki]

13. Teen aliens on a "joy ride." They've come to prank us, do donuts in the atmosphere in their ship, and generally make a really big nuisance of themselves... Maybe they do the equivalent of TP the planet...

 

[Condottiere]

Disguise, fashion.

 

[Rigel Stardin]

Used as a vacation world...?

Jokes on us???

 

[Condottiere]

 

[robject]

I'm sure I already said this, but it seems to me that Drake got it backwards, and Fermi got it right.

Although lack of data is still lack of data.

Fermi paradox - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

 

[Jame]

I'm sure I already said this, but it seems to me that Drake got it backwards, and Fermi got it right.

Although lack of data is still lack of data.

Fermi paradox - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

I think there's something they overlooked:
Aliens are just very far away.

 

[Grav_Moped]

I think there's something they overlooked:
Aliens are just very far away.

And long, long ago.

 

[aramis]

13. Teen aliens on a "joy ride." They've come to prank us, do donuts in the atmosphere in their ship, and generally make a really big nuisance of themselves... Maybe they do the equivalent of TP the planet...

Or as a hunting expedition... (See also Hunter Planet: The All Australian Roleplaying Game, where the aliens, who look largely like stuffed toys, are taking safari hunts in Northern Australia...)

9.Trade. Trade useless trinkets to the hairless savages for valuable metals, minerals, radioactives, interesting biologicals, etc...

There is no point in trading for anything but biologicals - the metals, minerals, radioactives, and pretty much all other mono-elemental molecules other than Oxygen, Florine, and a couple others are obtainable more easily off world than on - the most useful super-silicates are deep beneath the crust on earth, but are plentifully found in asteroids at/near surface. If they can get to our system, they can raid the materials easier than getting them from us.

10. Soldiers. Through slavery or treaty, used as low tech cannon fodder/meat shields against another interstellar civilization.

Soldiers, voluntary or not, are essentially slaves. When it's compulsory, it's a period of slavery. When volunteer, in almost all, it's a term indenture.

11. Entertainment. Battle Arenas, Death Game Shows, Intelligent Alien Zoo Exhibit, etc...

Again, just variations on enslavement.
A few poli-sci majors I knew in the 90s wanted to ban the practice of all experimentation upon and placing in zoos of the other apes on the grounds that keeping animals that intelligent in captivity is slavery.
I'll note that having seen the interactions of several ASL-trained apes with their keepers after having taken 2nd year ASL... they were signing about as clearly as my nephews (who are children of deaf adults) did at age 4. Or me after 1 semester of ASL.
They also have been demonstrated to have a concept of self - they can spot things on themselves and groom themselves in a mirror. (Lemurs don't always pass that one. Some dogs and cats do, some don't...)

 

[bookwyrm]

There is no point in trading for anything but biologicals - the metals, minerals, radioactives, and pretty much all other mono-elemental molecules other than Oxygen, Florine, and a couple others are obtainable more easily off world than on - the most useful super-silicates are deep beneath the crust on earth, but are plentifully found in asteroids at/near surface. If they can get to our system, they can raid the materials easier than getting them from us.

There is a point to trading. At a minimum, trading is what raiders do when they can't get what they want raiding.

As to your other point, someone could 'raid' our solar system of valuable resources while leaving Earth alone. I can imagine our surprise when we explore our solar system and find all those resources are gone.

 

[kilemall]

There is a point to trading. At a minimum, trading is what raiders do when they can't get what they want raiding.

As to your other point, someone could 'raid' our solar system of valuable resources while leaving Earth alone. I can imagine our surprise when we explore our solar system and find all those resources are gone.

No to mention mess with our understanding of cosmology if natural ratios of resources are not there anymore, or cut us off from building FTL drives.

 

[whartung]

Thing is, with abundant resources, and easy/cheap trade, it may well be easier to trade for them rather than build up the local capacity to extract them. So, I think there can certainly be a market for raw materials, even for older, more established systems.

 

[Enoki]

Another not mentioned possibility is they come here to make contact but are so alien in nature we can't figure out what they want. Instead, their contact attempts amount to a form of insanity to us. It might be something like the anime Otherside Picnic. In this case, it wouldn't be so much an alternate reality / universe, so much as they are injecting and altering our reality in ways that are beyond our technology and understanding.