That actually sounds like a great idea! The people became ignorant and trusted their advancement to much which eventually led to their downfall. I actually got this idea when watching an episode of Ancient Aliens. I like the series, not for their fact, but for the entertainment value. It's amazing how many ideas you can get from watching a series like that.
"Alien contact" means talking to a living alien, or at the very least an alien robot or drone. DNA fragments cannot "shape" anything. They are simply mixtures of chemicals like a drop of soya sauce.
Then send some drone along with the DNA (which would live for hundred million years if they don't have the password to destroy it)
You're assuming the alien race has some interest in talking. They could be determined to eradicate us with the minimum expenditure of effort, or worse yet, they might pay no more notice of us than we would to soil grubs on a highway construction zone.
Well another way to kill off a species, get them all addicted to video games, Mt. Dew, and string cheese. Eventually they will begin to drop off like flies from various things like strokes, blood clots, heart attacks, etc.
They could also introduce new technology like smartphones, so the race gets addicted to texting and no longer talk. Eventually they stop making real contact with each other and stop reproducing.
Very true. Then they could start producing some drink that makes people extremely impaired so that when people's due get out, they crash and kill their selves.
I do agree, as a couple folks have mentioned, is that perhaps the most certain way, with humans realizing that they are running out of time, is to do something with reproduction. PD James wrote a book about this a while back -- something was happening to the sperm counts, which were decreasing significantly and inexplicably (although you could explain due to all sorts of environmental factors, radiation accident, lots of nuclear bombs, etc.) The idea was inspired by a real life news article about how sperm counts were decreasing.
There was an episode on Stargate SG1 with the same scenario. They came into contact with a superior race that provided technology and help for earth. They also provided medicines that could cure pretty much everything. The only thing they didn't tell was that these medicines made all the women infertile leading to the extinction of the human race.
Maybe. I don't know if you'd even have to go that far. Maybe just have radiation in the atmosphere/area where people are. It could be some combination of factors.
I remember that episode. However, it didn't render all women infertile. I think 5-10% were spared so this "benevolent" race had a supply of slaves.
Here's an example right out of current affairs: Global warming reveals ancient virus strains in melting ice. Our immune systems have lost the ability to deal wit these ancient viruses and now they are reanimating after their frozen slumber. Another idea is to go reverse War of the Worlds. The advanced civilization lands on a world and through malice, or carelessness contaminates themselves. Just because a race is advanced doesn't mean that greed, jealousy and the like don't exist. If you;re going to have a story at all then you have to have an antagonist, several is usually better than just one. You can really romp all over the protag's day with with a virus and a bad guy.
How about a deadly virus outbreak? The virus was created in a lab, and designed as a weapon to pollute the air of an entire continent with a half life of about a century. The virus itself doesn't kill people, but it slowly eats away their intelligence and makes them more aggressive. Eventually turning them into zombies, but not like you see normally in the movies. They still remember their lives and are not ferociously hungry. They are just incredibly violent, and the slightest annoyance can send them on a killing spree. What winds up happening is an accident actually launches several missiles filled with the virus onto the advanced race's planet. 90% of this advanced races species has been infected, and they are looking for a place to not only get materials needed to develop a cure, but also one with life to do tests on. So they are not looking to colonize Earth, but rather, use the human race as test subjects and take certain elements from earth to help them cure the virus.
Short Answer War. Long Answer there are many other things that can destroy an advanced society, sometimes it can be a travesty such as super volcano or a nuclear war. I mean its really up to your imagination.
I suppose you may have to better describe "advanced". Advanced to us may not be advanced to other species. We are imperceptibly advanced compared to insects. If that is the kind of advanced you're speaking of, then you're opening up a big can of worms. You could come up with anything that we don't fully understand. Micro black holes, mega viruses, something even more advanced than the advanced race. Remember, mass extinction doesn't have to be climactic. The asteroid collision may have started the domino effect that killed the dinos, but what actually killed them was hunger and disease. Be creative and original. Maybe the superior race isn't warring with the advanced race, maybe they simply don't see them as advanced and are crushing them unconsciously "beneath their feet". Maybe that which has allowed the advanced race to be advanced has turned on them, maybe in their advancement they lost their ability to evolve and were unprepared for an event humans could easily survive. This is the way the world ends, This is the way the world ends, This is the way the world ends, Not with a bang but a whimper. -- T.S. Eliot
The problem I have with this idea: even humans know enough to not use biological warfare because there is no way they can control the spread. However, the idea of a virus as a doomsday device that one side uses if it loses, so no one inherits the world is more plausible.
A civil war can be a good reason for their extinction. All rational creatures are political animals, and, thus all of them can be tempted by greed for dominance.
The "advanced race" regularly absorb genetic upgrade packs that improve the entire race in step. The latest update contained a deliberate error (sabotage*) that unleashed uncontrolled mutations throughout the entire population. Since each individual's mutation is unique and constantly changing, no cure is possible, but they die at varying rates. There was a backup "base" DNA template, but this was destroyed too. Dooming the entire race. * by a madman, a criminal, an alien, you choose.
I wonder if this idea has been done before (I'm thinking probably, lol): What about an alien planet that has so much ice on the north and south poles that most of the race drowns when the planet heats up (maybe from a green house problem). All land masses become submerged. Let's say that some of them got off world in space ships but they weren't able to find a suitable planet in time--the ships sustained colonies for thousands of years but their populations grew and the day came when the ships could no longer support them.
Has anyone mentioned a GRB? Gamma Ray Bursts are the tight band of radiation blasted from a supernova. They have as much energy in the first couple of seconds as the sun will have in it's entire 10 billion year lifetime. It would be like threading a needle, with a laser, from across a football field, but if one were to hit earth from inside the Milky Way it would blast every living thing on the planet into white hot pile of ash. EDIT: Dammit, I've got to start reading all the things everyone says.
I'm sorry but this sounds ridiculous, a non artificial virus cannot wipe out a whole race simply because it is not in the interest of the virus. It either spreads to fast and burns out (It's quite easy to contain such viruses). Or it goes the slow away, which in turn means that it can never spread fast enough to wipe out a whole species (which I presume has a at least billion of individuals), and then you have the advanced species who was enough time to research the disease. But even an artificial one can be contained unless it's spread over the Planet at the same time, but then how would those scientists have time enough to develop this elaborate plan of planet semen and then bring it into fruit. To make your story plausible this species has to be outside of the Solar system which means the species is able to manipulate asteroid trajectories. I would guess that's slightly above our current state. That means that the every ending except the second one is believable. The second one is not believable since it would mean that there is a race in the Milky Way advanced enough to invade distant planets that are at the same time suitable for humans. Which brings the question, why wouldn't they invade Earth?
As far as viruses go, even ebola, widely considered the most virulent and deadly disease known, has a 10% recovery chance.
I don't really see why not. It would be a poor move on the virus's part, evolution-wise, but evolution is about random changes, some of which enhance survival, some of which don't. This would be a random change that would run counter to survival, as the virus kills the entire population and then dies, itself. Am I missing something?
