A couple thousand years from now, you witness an attack on a planet.

I think I should've added a winky smilie. It was supposed to be tongue-in-cheek.

 

No, they have life destroying technology. We already have that right here, right now.

 

No, we don't have the technology to destroy all life on Earth in the time it takes for a passing spaceship to pass.

 

Set this guy on them: -

 

Sure we do. But I didn't limit a time frame in my post, nor did I explain the population of the planet you see attacked and the size of the planet and its habitable landmasses. Also, I didn't say that we could destroy all life on our planet. If we discovered a planet with a small population in its early stages, say a few hundred million, with mostly ocean and only a few small continents, it's not beyond our ability to wipe out all life on their world right now as long as we can get our weapons to it. Our countries have about 15,000 nukes, and a load of chemical and biological weapons.

 

Yay!

Cheers!

Sorry, but you've lost me here. That ship can destroy a whole planet (even if we're just talking about surface destruction, making it uninhabitable) but its weaponry can't hurt me? My suspension of disbelief is powerfully stretched.

Again, my tech is super-duper-mega advanced, but I have no boarding system? I'm willing to buy this one a little more than the prior conundrum but only a little bit more.

I observe only, engage my cloaking device and follow. If that ship can't travel any great distance then it's from somewhere local. I want to know from where because I need some context for what I just saw. All I have now is etic data for a culture and an action. I have no way to contextualize. I need that context in order to form a better idea of what I just saw. I also need to know, given that it seems this ship is from somewhere close (relatively speaking) if it is at all representative of the actual level of tech this culture possesses. What if I blow that ship out of the sky only to discover that it was built with the minimum needed reqs to do what it did and that, in fact, on HomeWorld there is a fleet of ships that are the real bad-boys that can squash me without even leaving space-dock.

 

No, it can and does destroy life on the planet. Please see the post right above yours.

You have one, of course, but getting on theirs is a different story.

And you make very good points in the next paragraph.