Charlie Stross15h ago

SF STORY PREMISE:

SETI program decodes an alien signal clearly targeting us.

Hi! We see you're still facing the Great Filter! We want to help! Based on your anatomy per broadcasts we decoded, here is a blueprint for a device that will solve your problem!

Humans: decode blueprint.

It's for an improved guillotine.

Show threadKevin
@cstross Well sounds like a good idea for invading a planet. Send them the blueprints for a "send me to heaven"-device that actually just kills them in a way they can't comprehend. A certain percentage of people will fall for it and off themselves. Incidentally many of them would have also been the grunts sent to defend the planet.
9:47amTusky
Show threadCharlie Stross3h ago

@tiberiustribun

Why would you want to invade a planet?

(That's a serious question. If you're human-equivalent people with viable interstellar travel your tech is as far beyond ours as a Soyuz capsule is beyond a flint hand axe. You can *transport a fricken' commensal biosphere* good enough to support your kind of life. Why mess with ours, it's dangerous, untamed, and unexplored! (At the viral/bacterial level.)

Show threadKevin2h ago
@cstross well if we're talking human equivalent then things like greed, the pursuit of power and plain stupidity are still on the table aren't they?
Show threadCharlie Stross2h ago
@tiberiustribun Yes, but space is vast and there appear to be roughly three orders of magnitude more planets than stars out there. Nobody else conceivably needs *ours* for any purpose. Which leaves religious evangelism-adjacent beliefs as the most plausible reason for them turning up in our neck of the woods (everything else is a long way behind).
Show threadIsaac Ji Kuo2h ago

@cstross @tiberiustribun There's also the Predator motive. They evolved to enjoy hunting and fighting, and so it's more fun to invade Earth than to simply exploit resources from defenseless asteroids or whatever.

As for tricking humans into killing themselves, that could be just for the lols. It's not much cost to send a signal, so any random sicko could send them.