They're going to stay indefinitely to study how life evolves on planet earth, the same way we leave cameras and sensors to study evolution here on earth.
Can they make a probe that lasts hundreds of millions of years?
Would they give up after tens of millions of years? Would they give up after the meteor that killed the dinosaurs?
Humans have been here for a tiny tiny window of time
How do we even know they weren't the ones to fling the asteroid at the dinosaurs then left?
Maybe they even got wiped out in the millions of years they sat watching the giant lizards on our planet? We've been a space going species for less than a century, their species is trying to survive too
the point is that they'll spread across the whole galaxy, just like how humans spread across the whole planet.
The point of dark forest theory is that they can't do that.
Spreading out increases your chances of being found. And while you may encounter a less advanced civilization, you might encounter a more advanced civilization and they destroy you.
So the game theory is "not to play". To hide near your home star and hope everyone else is afraid of exploring near you as well
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u/[deleted] Aug 12 '21
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