3 ms·
> Maybe war between two spacefaring civilizations is too "easy". eg something like: throwing asteroids at ~the speed of light is necessarily a cheap thing to do
by tjalfi 5y ago
> Maybe war between two spacefaring civilizations is too "easy". eg something like: throwing asteroids at ~the speed of light is necessarily a cheap thing to do once you're at that level, and everyone just dies.
The Killing Star[0] and Flying to Valhalla by Charles Pellegrino are based around the idea that it's natural for a species to annihilate all other sentient species. The characters define three rules that an alien species may be operating by.
Rule 1. Aliens will believe their survival is more important than our survival.
Rule 2. Wimps don't become top dogs.
Rule 3. Aliens will assume that the first two rules apply to us as well.
[0] https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Literature/TheKillingStar https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Literature/TheKilling...
- Supermancho 5y agoGiven the relative emptiness of observed space, im not convinced that a civilization A would try to annihilate all life but would maybe war with others in their light cone who threaten civA goals/expansion. If you can traverse interstellar space you can probably make home most anywhere further reducing the amount of potential conflict.
- kadoban 5y agoHow likely does it seem that if you can traverse interstellar space, your civilization splinters over time and your potential for internal conflict just grows without bound?
- pharke 5y agoIf you can traverse interstellar space you are pretty much required to "live off the land" as you go and especially so once you reach your destination. This means you possess the ability to produce all of the energy, food, material, etc. required for a civilization to exist from what is present in either interstellar space or a solar system. If we put our sci-fi hats on we can imagine a perfect system of recycling and matter conversion that can keep a massive generational ship functioning with the only input being hydrogen scooped from the space it crosses. If you possess that level of sophistication then you really could live anywhere. That gives you plenty of living space with little motivation to pre-emptively attack others.