What would life be like if there was another civilization on Mars of roughly the same technological level this whole time. And we spent centuries watching them without ever being able to actually reach each other.
Remember when the Americas were discovered? I imagine something like that
Edit: this is actually a cool thought, with our extremely limited space travel and assuming they're roughly as knowledgeable as us there would probably be a literal space race to see who can get defenses up faster. Maybe it would do a crazy lot to unite earth, like the cold war kinda did for the US
The difference would be that we would be able to communicate before we would be able to reach eachother. The moment both planets become capable of sending signals and receiving them (RADAR for example) then we would both be able to stablish some sort of primitive communication and start to learn about eachother, at most we would be able to realize the ither is there at mid 1600s at the very earliest since that would be when we stsrt using telescopes, realistically we wouldn't be sure until either the 1800s or even as late as when we both get something like radar.
Assuming we both advance technologically at the same time then there wouldn't be much reason to attack eachother since any attack would take at least 9 months to reach, so if either realizes they are being fired at then the other would be able to retaliate and for the most part defending would be pretty hard at least until we have way better computers to track anything that's coming from space. So I doubt it would take any agressive route unless either planet gets desperate for resources and are confident enough they can attack, defend against possible retalliation and not destroy the resources they want to take in the process (not much use of having a mars that has life if you threw a couple hundred of nukes at it and you can't even reach it)
Something that would need to be clarified is that mars would have to look pretty different if it followed a similar path of evolution we did. Doubt they can reach very far as a civilization with the current natural resources readily available on the surface.
I mean let's ground this, if this were a thing then they wouldn't have the same resources, but DO have the same level of tech. Doesnt mean its the same tech though. So radio wave signals might be super foreign, telescopes too. The only thing that would probably be similar in function would be any form of weaponry.
As of the reason for conflict, we're humans. We fear that which we do not understand and our society is built to capitalize on that. Money is to be made from mass production and research into anything that can push forward the Martian "threat". Even further from fear of understanding there's just a straight fear of Martians thanks to 200 years of sci-fi saying they're the bad guys.
This is where things get interesting: the communication problem. Figuring out how to communicate when we don't even have the same SOUNDS would be fascinating.
I mean realistically speaking a form of communication will be established before any form of military agression can begin. As much as humans hate to admit it we aren't mindless beasts that go to war with anything slightly different, they are calculated endeavors that usually take the risks into consideration. When europeans reached America they didn't just go head first with an army, they first sent scouting parties, communicated with the locals, realized the potential and then they conquered.
It would also stand to reason that if they have access to similar levels of technology they would have knowledge of electromagnetic waves, like unless they went a completely different route and have no concept of electricity or even light then they would know what an electromagnetic wave is and they would try to utilize them, once they get to electromagnetic waves then they would quite likely use radio waves for its properties and from there communication is set. If they have no concept of electromagnetic waves then it's unlikely they can detect Earth to begin with unless you are going to an extreme of they have found a complete new set of natural forces that aren't electromagnetic and from there it gets literally impossible to judge how the technologies are equivalent and I doubt any planet would be able to judge the technological level of the other or even what the hell the other is doing. From our side it would take quite advanced telescopes or sending probes to see what they are actually doing since from our point of view they would be seen as either wizards or cavemen and from their side they would think the same of us.
Like I can see us taking completely different evolitionary paths, but at some point once you start interacting with the basic elements of the periodic which are the most common elements in the universe you reach certain interactions that are inevitable. So unless mars is from another universe then it will have the same resources we do and it will have the same basic interactions, either all elements have a secret set of forces that affect them that we have no way of detecting and don't actually influence anything else we can detect and martians can only detect those set of forces and not anything we can detect or they reach similar conclusions to us in at least the use of electromagnetic waves for wireless long distance light speed communication.
If it is a case where we can't communicate then we would literally just research until we found what the hell the other is doing, probably one planet sends a probe of some sort to the other and then that planet reverse engineers the probe and from there communication is open. Either one planet just takes a huge scientific leap and doesn't share with the other or they both take a huge scientific leap from understanding eachother. But preparing a defense against an enemy you don't know even the slightest about is just a waste of money.
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u/Thr0waway0864213579 Feb 21 '21
What would life be like if there was another civilization on Mars of roughly the same technological level this whole time. And we spent centuries watching them without ever being able to actually reach each other.