Can a Monoculture Race ever compete with an 'Earth'?

[Monroe]

Basically can a race of aliens who never warred with each other ever compete with a race such as the Klingons or humans or you name it that have had wars their entire history without a HUGE technological and numerological advantage?

Just look at WWI. Technology had changed so much and while we had wars such as the British Boarder Wars no one apparently caught on. Now imagine on a technological scale of starships in any sci-fi universe. Could they ever stand against a race that has had a history of fighting each other?

[Nickswitz]

I really don't think so. I mean even within Earth's culture's the ones that fought the most won the most, it's why the US is so high up in tech, they like blowing crap up, same with Russia, they have so many internal wars you would think that they should be falling apart, but the ones that have the most in-fighting seem to be doing the best.

However, a world that everything is purely devoted to scientific research would be a great idea in theory until the first group of someone like the Klingons came along, and they would be wiped out completely. And they wouldn't stand a chance because they wouldn't have had any reason to build up any military technology. Unless they had neighbors that were constantly on their asses about stuff they would have no need. So in theory it would be nice because they would have the best Scientific technology, thats all they would build up, and would cause their eventual downfall.

[Mikey]

Well, we only have oursleves as an example, so it's hard to say how an alien culture would react. But on Earth, nothing has ever stimulated economical, social, and technological change so much as war.

[Sionnach Glic]

Indeed. Conflict breeds technological advances as both sides try to find a super-weapon that will allow them to conquer the enemy with minimal casualties. The technology created in this way will then propogate through the civilian market. Without war tech would still progress, but at a far slower pace.

[Nickswitz]

Yes, and as I stated before, the first other people to come and want the technology will just come and own them completely as they will have such a lack of skill in weapons...

[Tyyr]

How do you know? Is this a virgin culture that has never run into a belligerent alien race? I'd imagine anyone who's been out in a place like the ST or SW universe would have learned quickly about unpleasant races. Unless we're the very first culture they've run into I'd imagine they'd have gotten used to the idea.

[Mikey]

Indeed. Nothing would indicate that the culture in question has never encountered hostilities with other species.

That said, however, if we look at intra-planetary war as "steps" in the development of technology, a polycultural world would definitely have an edge.

[Sionnach Glic]

The simple fact that we're discussing an alien race means that we can't say much for certain. My previous comment here was comparing a hypothetical Earth where there was never any conflict to our Earth.

[Mikey]

In that case, we'd wipe the floor with "them."

[Monroe]

The simple fact that we're discussing an alien race means that we can't say much for certain. My previous comment here was comparing a hypothetical Earth where there was never any conflict to our Earth.

Alright let's go with that then. A hypothetical Earth that some how has the same technology as our Earth. I think our Earth would win because of the eons of warfare that has taught us how to fight. And humans have united in the past against outside threats (Persia invading Greece for example).

[Lighthawk]

The simple fact that we're discussing an alien race means that we can't say much for certain. My previous comment here was comparing a hypothetical Earth where there was never any conflict to our Earth.

Alright let's go with that then. A hypothetical Earth that some how has the same technology as our Earth. I think our Earth would win because of the eons of warfare that has taught us how to fight. And humans have united in the past against outside threats (Persia invading Greece for example).

Well duh. That's like saying an army squad could win against a boy scout troop.

[Monroe]

Alright how's this to even the war?

Humans of 1913 Earth

vs

Humans of Utopia a world with technology about equal to today.


You got a lot of things in the way. Humans in WWI didn't fight too intelligently and you have everything from computers to atomic energy between the two powers.

[Sionnach Glic]

Modern humans carpet nuke 1913 Earth with no resistance.

Harry Turtledove actualy wrote a somewhat similar book series on this. Aliens that, with a few exceptions, had tech roughly on par with 1980's Earth invade in the middle of WW2. Except the aliens are complete rookies when it comes to warfare due to their Empire being united and having no enemies, their only advantage over 1940's Earth being their technology.

[Monroe]

Modern humans carpet nuke 1913 Earth with no resistance.

Harry Turtledove actualy wrote a somewhat similar book series on this. Aliens that, with a few exceptions, had tech roughly on par with 1980's Earth invade in the middle of WW2. Except the aliens are complete rookies when it comes to warfare due to their Empire being united and having no enemies, their only advantage over 1940's Earth being their technology.

The Modern humans wouldn't have nuclear weapons.

I wondered how the Turtledove story would work. I saw the series on the shelves and wondered why it wasn't a complete curb stomp.

[Sionnach Glic]

Modern humans carpet nuke 1913 Earth with no resistance.

Harry Turtledove actualy wrote a somewhat similar book series on this. Aliens that, with a few exceptions, had tech roughly on par with 1980's Earth invade in the middle of WW2. Except the aliens are complete rookies when it comes to warfare due to their Empire being united and having no enemies, their only advantage over 1940's Earth being their technology.

The Modern humans wouldn't have nuclear weapons.

I wondered how the Turtledove story would work. I saw the series on the shelves and wondered why it wasn't a complete curb stomp.

In Turtledove's series, it actualy makes a fair bit of sense that it's not a total curbstomp, with a fairly good list of reasons as to why humanity wasn't simply ground into the dirt. (spoilers ahead)

Firstly, and perhaps most importantly, is the fact that there are serious restrictions on how the Race (the aliens in question) deploy their nukes. The invasion fleet is just the predecessor to a larger civilian colonization fleet. Their job is to pacify the planet; not glass it. They need the planet and its resources or they'll have waste an incredible amount of time, money and effort all for nothing. Because of this, Atvar, the fleet's commander, is hesitant to just nuke any centres of resistance. While he does eventualy make the decision to deploy them, he only hits certain select targets.

Secondly is the fact that the Race wasn't expecting any real resistance. The Race generaly takes things slowly and carefully, and have only encountered two other species before running into humans. With all previous races (including their own) being mostly united under a world-wide goverment, technological development was rather slow. Their initial probes arrived during the days when the most powerful weapon on Earth was the mounted knight. They weren't expecting humans to jump to aircraft and tanks in the space of a few centuries. So while they still have quite a bit of a tech lead, it's nowhere near as much as they'd anticipated. Indeed, in the very first novel one of their landed starships is wrecked by shelling from hidden German artillary pieces.

This unexpected resistance also causes other problems. The casualties that the Race experience is far higher than they'd anticipated, eventualy leaving them without sufficient manpower to properly secure the entire planet and forcing them to focus their offensives on certain regions.
While their tech may have been better than 1940's Earth's, their troops don't really have the skills necessary to use this advantage to their full capacity. Their troops were all trained in preparation for terrorising medieval peasants, and the closest thing they have to veterans are a handful of former police officers who joined the invasion fleet. Earth, on the other hand, is right in the middle of its largest war yet. So it's a case of poorly trained and inexperienced sodliers with advanced tech going up against experienced veteran troops with relatively primative tech. It's not enough to swing the ballance in favour of humanity, but it helps to further rack up the costs for the invasion fleet.

That's not to say that the Race doesn't have huge advantages initialy. On the contrary, they're wiping out entire bomber formations with jet fighters and routing entire Panzer divisions from the very get-go, and manage to secure themselves quite a nice chunk of territory. But the heavy casualties and rapidly adapting human defenders start to take their toll and eventualy force the invasion fleet to agree to a ceasefire, with the Race cotrolling large portions of the southern hemisphere (with Australia as their HQ, IIRC).