Truly the brightest timeline
Can we put some snakegirls too? =)
lol this guy thinks a sentient race of cat-oids would let humans stay around short of enslavement
They'd first have to defeat the species of cat-oids that currently own us though.
Tangential, this is also the best explanation why in Mass Effect the Asari, Batarians and Quarians look so human-like and many other species are sharing similarities with humans: A few cycles ago, a species adept at bio-engineering took special interest in those primates from E-arth and just asked themselves: "What would happen, if we mix their DNA with every other species in the galaxy?"
We're not alone in the universe but space is so vast that it's a difference without a distinction. 💀
I’ve come to the conclusion…. That if there are species out there able to travel interstellar distances in a reasonable time, then they have the ability to know humans are fucking nuts- because they can detect the radioactive isotopes in the atmosphere.
Which means the only ones coming are even more nuts than we are.
This, leads me to assume that either, they’re genocidal maniacs out to destroy everything that’s not them, (a la the bad guys in Ian Douglas’ Semper Mars series,)
Or, they’re Space Mormons.
Given how curious we are, I think being scared of aliens is odd. I would assume that a civilization capable of interstellar travel is fairly chill.
And a sufficiently advanced alien civilization could sterilise earth from the comfort of their home star system, so if advanced aliens wanted us dead, it would not be hard, we wouldn’t even see it coming.
A civilization capable of interstellar travel would be a lot more advanced then we are. If we but this in perspective, we as humans don't really care about other species that much. Imagine a species that is more advanced tham we are compared to chimps. Some people respect chimps, but we keep them in zoos and destroy their living spaces. An interstellar civilization could see us even lower than that, just some primates living on a rock. They might not even think us intelligent, we only just have 'understood' quantum theory.
I think that is an overly bleak view. An interstellar civilization is likely on a similar evolutionary ladder spot as us and I would imagine that they would recognize this. I don't think that there is much difference between us and them in that scenario, except how far we have developed our idea space. Supposedly with the help of such a civilization we would be able to accomplish the same feats as them in a fairly short time. No monkey is going to engineer rockets, no matter how long you try to teach them.
we only just have 'understood' quantum theory
Hey now, speak for yourself
There's a Sci Fi trilogy about that. All aliens are omnicidal.
The main rule is "don't ever get spotted by another civilization". If another nearby civilization wants to conquer you, you could stop them by threatening to broadcast both our and their locations more broadly, a kind of mutually assured distruction.
They may have stupid politics like us and need us as a common enemy to unite their factions/be racist at. So even if theyre not naturally genocidal, they might choose to "for the greater good". Plus our sweet sweet natural resources/scrap.
Have you heard of the Fermi paradox?
The best estimates of how many intelligent civilizations there should be suggest that the galaxy should be teeming with them. If any of them evolved mere millions of years before we did, given our pace of technological improvement they should have figured out interstellar travel by now, and they should be broadcasting communication across the galaxy like we're doing. Yet we've detected nothing. Why?
A possible explanation is that an advanced civilization is exterminating all other civilizations, perhaps to avoid competition. It seems like a sensible approach to lie low until we can figure this out, just in case.
That is a solution, there are multiple other solutions all equally or more likely that don’t involve murderous aliens.
One just as out there would be a sort of galactic zoo - there is simply an agreement not to interact with intelligent life before they reach a certain step, say establish global unity or develop a certain tech.
It could be that we are in fact a statistical outlier or are simply wrong in our probability calculations.
It could be that intelligence develops but spacefaring is rare. It could be that intelligent life simply has a tendency to collapse before it gets there. It is certainly still possible for us and it is not like we are making super meaningful progress towards space colonisation.
It could be that there are not great viable interstellar travel options, almost every option we have thought of that makes sense time wise has big ifs attached to it assuming we have a good idea of physics. Of those probably relativistic travel is the most likely and even then it would take quite a decent chunk of time to span the galaxy, going to war on those timescales is basically non-sensical.
I expect that any civilisation capable of cooperating at scale to achieve meaningful interstellar travel would also be developed enough in ethics to most likely not pose a danger to us.
A civilisation capable of waging war like that is probably around a K2 civ and the idea that a single planet somehow threatens them is also silly. Even a fully K1 civ to them would be close to a stadium packed full on earth in terms of relative size.
Basically the plot of the latest in a nutshell video:
How to Win an Interstellar War - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tybKnGZRwcU
We are the only ones LEFT in the universe.
Or we ARE the precursor civilization before they got destroyed
This ends badly for the Precursors, we become corrupted after creating our 2 potential replacements for holding the Mantle. Our own children, the Forerunners, nearly wipe us out and we have to flee the galaxy. We come back with a vengeance and manifest as the Flood and get our revenge in the end.
We would've gotten away with it too, if it wasn't for those pesky Halo rings
To eat
We are the only universe.
Two possibilities exist: either we are alone in the Universe or we are not. Both are equally terrifying.
Honestly I'd take the "we are alone" route, Chrysalids and Floaters from XCOM can go fuck themselves.
Look, you brought this on yourself
(very NSFW)
If we're alone then its ours to take.
If we arent then we must embrace our oldest tendency and become alone. They will either become one with mankind much like the Neanderthals or they must simply perish.
you mean both are absolutely awesome
I'm alone in the universe.
Memes like this certainly make me feel like I'm the only intelligent life existing.
We weren't alone in the universe:
We're not alone in the universe anymore:
According to the drake equation we’re looking at at least a few million planets with at least ordinary carbon-and-water-based life in this galaxy alone- and in such an unimaginably huge place as even the galaxy (never mind UNIVERSE) there’s bound to be at least 2 of everything, including sentient species.
Yet we see nothing. Even if FTL is impossible, we should be seeing signs of more advanced civilizations (starts shifting due to Dyson swarms etc). Something in our understanding is very wrong, and most of the options are horrifying, in their own ways.
There are a few unexplained phenomena in the universe that physicists do little more than shrug their shoulders at. Any of them could be evidence of other life, and there are proposed theories suggesting as much. We can't prove anything definitively because we're too limited in how far we can go towards explaining the unexplained, but I'd say there's an asterisk on "nothing".
Nah. The distances are too vast. Even if you could touch 1/4 of light speed then that means to get anywhere you take light years and x4 and you start to see the issue.
Then there's the time dilation thing. Suppose you do see some evidence...so u fly towards it. Only in the time it takes u to get there the civ is gone.
Why is not being alone in the universe a bad thing though?
I actually get a great deal of comfort from the thought that us and our silly little squabbles are so inconsequential to the universe at large. That some alien species we can't even begin to imagine is just doing the same shit we are 800 billion light years away. Makes me feel like maybe getting up for work in the morning ain't so bad when you consider the scale
Why is not being alone in the universe a bad thing though?
There are possible concerns relating to the Fermi paradox. Perhaps there aren't many space faring civilizations because the most advance civilization exterminates others that they see as a potential threat.
But yeah, I also find it comforting to know our existence really isn't that big a deal lol. It just makes me feel like we should do what we can to get the most joy out of our lives while we're here
Maybe they’re also bickering and arguing about who killed who in the Guejenjdjja-Otoenenjda conflict, taking place in the desert of purple sand, with very geographically-literate Ghdisixoosbdbjzoakan college students obnoxiously cosplaying it in the quads
Atheism ☹️
