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I've always thought the only realistic way life would spread throughout the galaxy would be by engineered space-faring cells. Being synthetically created, they

• semi-extrinsic 11y ago
  In Alistair Reynolds' Revelation Space universe, there are mentions of the "Americano era", which was an earlier attempt to settle star systems in the way you describe. The Americano civilication crashed in one generation because growing up without parents, a higher percentage (I think ~2-3%) of people became murdering psychopaths. That such people would be off their rockers is a plausible hypothesis, but fortunately no-one's tested it.