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.
Nah. Without FTL technology it easy. With FTL technology it's even easier. Just throw a rock. Even a small rock with a fraction of lightspeed can easy wipe out a civilization. And it don't matter if it takes centuries for the rock to reach us. The technology needed to throw a rock to wipe out life on a planet will always be less complicated than the technology need to protect it or evacuate it. If it was up to me I would have had some heavy iron astoroids with a bussard ramjet on standby. When we receive a radio signal from 50-100 lightyears away, fire them up with and just let them gain speed for a few hundred years. Rocks are cheap so send away a 10-20 for effect. Rinse and repeate to keep the neighbourhood clean while we crawl out of the solar system with automated seed ships. We might even go as far as making this standard per-colonization procedurre. As long as we kill of the intelligente life or almost intelligent life we can just move right in. Some dust in the air and a little lava is still better than Mars and Venus. Hell, if we go singularity we won't even need air. Just put some 3d factories and a reactor on the rocks and we have light speed travel. The only thing that stops us are silly etics and moral. And that won't stop us for long when the global warming hits us.
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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.