A "Showerthought" is a simple term used to describe the thoughts that pop into your head while you're doing everyday things like taking a shower, driving, or just daydreaming. A showerthought should offer a unique perspective on an ordinary part of life.
Except the moment you have orbital dominance over a planet then no amount of ground or atmosphere based weaponry matters whatsoever. All they would have to do is drop some mass from orbit and they can cause destruction far beyond even the most powerful nuclear weapons.
What you forget is that weapons are just an application of the sciences. Superior science = superior weaponry, even if the aliens haven't bothered to "spec into" weapons research.
Just steer a huge asterioid into the planet.
Footfall nails this. Aliens show up and drop rocks on us from orbit. The reason we prevail is the only plot I've read that makes sense.
How To Beat Aliens
They didn't invent the ships or tech they're riding in and aren't much, if at all, more advanced than us. Plus, we figure out their rigid social hierarchy and turn it on them. Also, we nuked Kansas.
Lots of scifi takes that route since we are very good at killing things. A well known version is the Asgard asking for help in Stargate SG-1 since they need more primitive tactics they've long ago forgotten.
Either that or they're just waiting to see if we destroy ourselves before they go to all the trouble of attacking us
I think if there are actual aliens and they are actually showing us that they can interfere with our nuclear equities its a last ditch effort to prevent us from killing ourselves without directly interfering. If they were involved in some sort of war I doubt we'd really be any use to them. If they're advanced enough to travel lightyears to our planet then our weaponry is as primitive as a cavemans club.
Then again maybe its humans are space orcs thing lol
This is my kind of thinking as well. While we may not be the only life in the universe, I imagine we're not exactly a common occurrence. Uncommon enough that they have the slightest interest in keeping us from not existing lol. And when I say "us" I mean life in general on earth, not specifically humans. It would be a fair solution for an advanced species to remove humanity if it meant other life gets to live, and that's unsettling/plausible.
Why would the aliens want to get rid of us, we're doing a fine job of that on our own
It's possible, but once we get involved in the war, we'll have the means of travel AND the guns, and of course, our insatiable desire to conquer.
They're better off leaving us alone.
Aliens please do not listen to this person we can be trusted with the secrets of interstellar travel and highly advanced weaponry.
Long ago when I had free time to read, I read a boom with a very similar plot. The aliens were soft and balloon like and couldn't fight but they had amazing technologies. They took the world's best special forces and went to go fight the war
During the trip to the Area of Operations, the humans hacked the aliens computers. It was easy because the aliens thought humans were stupid. Like you wouldn't put a very complex lock on a monkeys cage right?
The humans discovered the target was actually a peaceful race that had tons of resources the balloon aliens wanted.
Cannot remember the title, but thanks for reminding me of the slightly less shitty portion of my life. Peace.
Was it "The Damned Trilogy" by Alan Dean Foster by any chance?
On the minus side we are cannon fodder but on the plus side the blue alien girls are hot.
Building interstellar spacecraft requires advanced automation. Nuclear energy has obvious weapons uses. If there is higher density energy than nuclear, to power spacecraft, then it too can be weaponized.
If they'd need our help, it could only be fighter jets, and they'd need a capacity to hover in the enemy atmosphere, with a space ship large enough to act as an air strip. You can't drop tanks in the middle of nowhere without fuel and other logistics.
They won't. While it is unknown if there is intelaigent alien life it is known that none is anywhere close. When distances are measured in tens of lightyears for close thing they can't get here and back in time to make a difference. Most distances are measured something much larger. Just the milkyway is 25 thousand lightyears to cross.
note that are farthest detectable radio waves have gone maybe 100 lightyears: odds are your are dead before they know we are here.