I think about this sometimes as well and laugh at it. Consider:
An army from 1916, just 100 years ago, would get completely demolished by an army today. If the current day army fought smart and fought with victory as the goal (over, say, minimizing civilian casualty) it might not sustain a single casualty. That’s only a difference of 100 years.
Now, consider the age of the universe. Current estimation has it at 14,000,000,000 years old. An intelligent civilization that is 99.999% similar to our age to us would be 14,000 years ahead of us. They would look at us the way we look at the people at the end of the Stone Age.
There is a presumption here. I am presuming that technological advances continue to increase over time and that we are not at or near the peak of what can be accomplished technologically. If that is true - and we have no reason to believe it is not - then an alien army that is 99.999% similar to our age would be capable of destroying us with almost no effort at all.
Now, I’m not saying any alien race will kill us. It’s possible that a civilization that advanced has moved past the need for conquering. It’s an unknown and the idea that we’d be able to put up much of a fight is, well, unbelievable.
So, suspend your disbelief and enjoy it when Jeff Goldblum defeats a superior alien force with a computer virus. That’s what escapist fantasy is all about, after all.
Yup. I think the one that probably got it the closest was 2001, a Space Odyssey.
YOU SAID: “I am presuming that technological advances continue to increase over time and that we are not at or near the peak of what can be accomplished technologically.”
Occasionally it is published that a bill was introduced around the turn of the century that everthing that was signifiant had already been invented..... That was in the 1890’s or so when the car was just beginning to replace the horse drawn carriage.
In electronics, you ain’t seen nothing yet compared to what’s coming. Ditto everything else too....
The thing about the computer virus, is that an advanced civilization may not have ever discovered that little particular technological appendage.
In the case of humans, it may have been the unique way our computers, operating systems and programming languages first happened to develop and interact that gave rise to them. To say nothing of the very devious human brains that first conceived of the idea.
Such a thing might never occur to an alien and the absence of viruses wouldn’t necessarily hold them back in any significant way... Until they had the misfortune of meeting Jeff Goldblum. :-)