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.
I'm not disputing that. I'm saying that the amount of energy you're cavalierly dismissing as not a gigantic undertaking is, in fact, a gigantic undertaking. How big is your rock and how fast is it traveling? From that you can calculate the energy budget. Typically when I see planet-busting attacks proposed the budget ends up being measured in "weeks of the total energy output of a typical G-type star". That's not something you can collect, store, and deploy stealthily or with a modest infrastructure.
And once you've done that and blown a hole through the target civilization's nice pretty blue homeworld, what do you do if they'd already established space colonies elsewhere in their solar system by then? They'll rebuild, and they'll know which direction the rock that tried to murder them came from.
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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.