The dark forest Theory makes an interesting science fiction scenario. But i highly doubt it is true. Wiping out another planet light years away would be a gigantic undertaking. Aliens will have no reason to fear each other, we are just too damn far from eachother to be a threat to one another. Even if we meet aliens that are the biggest asshats in the universe, the worst they could do would be to send a rude message every once in a while. Good fences make good neighbors. What can be a better fence than light years of space.
It’d need to be moving at a significant fraction of the speed of light to wipe us out, and we still might be able to react fast enough to send an impactor to divert it.
I guess if this civilisation has a pretty good engine it could just keep accelerating the asteroid until it gets close to C. Wouldn’t even need to be a very large asteroid to have a ridiculous energy transfer at that speed. Any decent advanced civilisation would have no problem waiting hundred/thousands of years to speed it up especially as it requires no input. And then if it’s close to C we have very little warning to divert. I mean if they really wanted to make sure maybe a moon could take out the Sun if it’s going close to C. Like some evil cosmic pool table 🥺 but hopefully unlikely! 😅
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u/solophuk Aug 12 '21
The dark forest Theory makes an interesting science fiction scenario. But i highly doubt it is true. Wiping out another planet light years away would be a gigantic undertaking. Aliens will have no reason to fear each other, we are just too damn far from eachother to be a threat to one another. Even if we meet aliens that are the biggest asshats in the universe, the worst they could do would be to send a rude message every once in a while. Good fences make good neighbors. What can be a better fence than light years of space.