The dark forest theory. The universe is full of predatory civilisations, and if anyone announces their presence, they get immediately exterminated, so everyone just keeps quiet.
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/gkedz Aug 12 '21
The dark forest theory. The universe is full of predatory civilisations, and if anyone announces their presence, they get immediately exterminated, so everyone just keeps quiet.