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> the came (in the book) because they had the MicroSoft business plan: destroy any competition. (do unto others before they do unto you) And why would anyone l
by rflrob 16y ago
> the came (in the book) because they had the MicroSoft business plan: destroy any competition. (do unto others before they do unto you)
And why would anyone logically do unto anyone first? If you're not worried about people stealing your stuff (because it's so fantastically expensive to do that at interstellar distances), then there's really very little incentive to harm anyone.
The only thing I can think of is that you're worried another race might develop cheap enough FTL that they could then do an interstellar smash-and-grab, but compared to the time and expense of mounting your own campaign, it's probably faster and easier just to focus your resources on building your own FTL.
- Roboprog 16y agoI'm not saying I agree with the philosophy, just that that's how the antagonists in the book thought: we're scared, we don't trust anyone, so snuff out any other possible competing space-faring species in the cradle. Of course, it's entirely possible that it simply isn't practical to traverse interstellar distances at all, other than sending dormant robots on "the slow boat" to explore and "phone home" about what they found. More likely there are better ways to travel, but it might take more than 50 years on manned space travel to discover / devise them.