> First, The Dark Forest theory depends on the capability and willingness to develop world destroying devices. Any civilization capable of traveling to another

> First, The Dark Forest theory depends on the capability and willingness to develop world destroying devices. Any civilization capable of traveling to another solar system has this capability: just take one of their ships designed to accelerate to significant fractions of the speed of light and decelerate at the other end of the journey, set a course, and simply don't decelerate. > Second, it depends on the likelihood that the species you detect has not yet spread to other systems. If it has, congratulations, you have started a shooting war with an enemy whose threat level you have no gauge of. Some with an inclination of game theory might want to figure this out through better, though. There's a good chance the above described weapon would be nearly undetectable and untraceable. For at least the latter half of its journey, it's just a chunk of mass traveling through space, emitting no signals. It would also be only a small factor difference in capability (0-1 more accelerations and decelerations than an actual interstellar transit) to send it from a different part of the galaxy.