It was probably what you would expect. Faced with their insignificance and convinced that the lives of every human on the planet were in imminent peril, a very large amount of humans did what very large groups of humans do: they panicked and rioted and abandoned their collective pretense at society. But it turned out that our visitors from another world did not fly all the way to our planet to exterminate or enslave the human species. They sought cooperation. They wanted to educate and foster us. And so they did.
Within 100 years disease was not gone exactly, but it became rare enough to be seen as a shocking tragedy to the very few who ever felt or even witnessed it. Within 200 the population of planet Earth had quadrupled and spread to the nearby planets Venus and Mars. For the first time energy was so abundant it was free for all and its source wasn't going anywhere for another 4-5 billion years.
Within 1000 years we thought we had taken that giant step from child being guided and taught by their elders to something very much like peers to our alien visitors. But in reality, we were never children. We were something somewhere between an animal in a zoo and a field of grain.
We were to be protected so that we could grow. We were a resource. We thought our visitors were the pinnacle of intelligence and prosperity. Instead, they were a fleeing refugee. A beggar in the night, fleeing to an alley to consolidate what property they had left and to quickly find anything close at hand to try and prepare for the fight they knew would come when they were discovered in the morning.
They gave us so much. That's why it took so long to accept that they were fugitives. Thieves.
Is a person more noble when they put their loyalty in those who have helped them, those who sacrificed for them? Or if their loyalty belongs to a code of conduct? To ethics? The very behavior the best of us aspire to, which most of us abandoned so easily 1000 years ago?
It might just be philosophy, but that doesn't mean it doesn't matter. That question ended up killing more billions of human beings than anything in our history. So far. See, we know the cops are coming. They're going to find the beggar in the alley, and I doubt they're going to be happy with what the beggar made in the nighttime. And the best part is, we don't even know what the beggar stole in the first place.
Shiderme t1_j4wojqi wrote
Reply to [WP] Humans finally met an advanced interstellar alien civilisation. They are friendly to us: they help with political stabilisation and tech, they invest in us. Humanity becomes their protectorate. Turns out we're now a protectorate of galactic rogue state that is in a war with every other race. by PhilosopherActive677
It was probably what you would expect. Faced with their insignificance and convinced that the lives of every human on the planet were in imminent peril, a very large amount of humans did what very large groups of humans do: they panicked and rioted and abandoned their collective pretense at society. But it turned out that our visitors from another world did not fly all the way to our planet to exterminate or enslave the human species. They sought cooperation. They wanted to educate and foster us. And so they did.
Within 100 years disease was not gone exactly, but it became rare enough to be seen as a shocking tragedy to the very few who ever felt or even witnessed it. Within 200 the population of planet Earth had quadrupled and spread to the nearby planets Venus and Mars. For the first time energy was so abundant it was free for all and its source wasn't going anywhere for another 4-5 billion years.
Within 1000 years we thought we had taken that giant step from child being guided and taught by their elders to something very much like peers to our alien visitors. But in reality, we were never children. We were something somewhere between an animal in a zoo and a field of grain.
We were to be protected so that we could grow. We were a resource. We thought our visitors were the pinnacle of intelligence and prosperity. Instead, they were a fleeing refugee. A beggar in the night, fleeing to an alley to consolidate what property they had left and to quickly find anything close at hand to try and prepare for the fight they knew would come when they were discovered in the morning.
They gave us so much. That's why it took so long to accept that they were fugitives. Thieves.
Is a person more noble when they put their loyalty in those who have helped them, those who sacrificed for them? Or if their loyalty belongs to a code of conduct? To ethics? The very behavior the best of us aspire to, which most of us abandoned so easily 1000 years ago?
It might just be philosophy, but that doesn't mean it doesn't matter. That question ended up killing more billions of human beings than anything in our history. So far. See, we know the cops are coming. They're going to find the beggar in the alley, and I doubt they're going to be happy with what the beggar made in the nighttime. And the best part is, we don't even know what the beggar stole in the first place.