[wmeddie]

I don't think I've ever seen a sci-fi rendition of this concept. It means that an advanced enough alien species could come to a planet, from orbit disable all nuclear weapons and power plants, then start their invasion. Not as cinematic as a Death Star planet explosion, but sounds like a good tactical move for a galactic empire.

[midasuni]

If you can travel between solar systems and have enough resources that you want to conquer (not just render inhabitable) a gravity well then you likely don’t need to worry about nukes - point defences will be able to detect and neutralise them before they got anywhere near your ship

[chii]

If you have the ability to travel between stars, it doesn't seem like there's still need to conquer a planet for resources - except for resources that aren't natural.

For example, you can easily just get water from comets/asteroids, mineral resources from uninhabited planets (easier than to fight the inhabitants), and gas/fuel from the gas giants.

However, one resource you cannot get is slaves. Therefore, i predict that any advanced civilization that can travel between stars would actually invade to capture the life forms as slaves, rather than to extract resources.

[flgstnd]

I think if you have the ability the travel between stars you probably also have machines to do work way more effectively than using human slaves. Maybe they could use humans for a zoo or something.

[exe34]

Well as two armed slaves, we'd be useless at handling their devices that require all 8 tentacles... We might not even be useful as snacks, having picked the wrong handed proteins. They might annihilate us out of frustration and build a hyperspace bypass instead.

[adamcharnock]

This reminds me of the short story 'Ansible 15715'. I won't spoil it, but they had a use for us and it wasn't as slaves.

[nurettin]

I'd imagine that kind of advancement would bring forth genetic engineering, clones and droids to perform physical tasks.

[perlgeek]

Maybe a complete biosphere is still a valuable target for resource exploitation?

[hugryhoop]

Maybe they want to steal our memes.

[hugryhoop]

Point defenses would work only if you keep a 5 km distance from any object.

But maybe you want to land a ship. Then you would need a nuke scanner since it could be disguised as anything.

[Mikhail_Edoshin]

Bob Shaw, “Ground Zero Man”, I think. Not exactly with aliens, but the main idea is same. Upd: also known as “The Peace Machine.”

[thorum]

Something similar happens at one point in The Expanse (one of the best scifi series of the decade for sure).

[EasyMark]

I assume any civilization with the tech to get to earth would also have the ability to shoot down any nukes heading their way or simply throw it in reverse long enough to dodge them, no huge TeV particle beam necessary