I really enjoyed the Dark Forest. The ending felt like the first time I saw The Usual Suspects. Another alternative hypothesis could be that the universe / eve

I really enjoyed the Dark Forest. The ending felt like the first time I saw The Usual Suspects. Another alternative hypothesis could be that the universe / even the galaxy is just too big to settle. Any civilization going out would take centuries to cross to other spaces, and completely lose touch with those members which stayed behind. It's hard to have a galactic "empire" when it takes centuries to send resources/soldiers to other worlds. The nearest planet to us, New Horizons, would take nearly 7 hours just to send a message at the speed of light! The logical thing to do would be to send out machines to mine for resources and send them back and the machines may not be that interested in other lifeforms, other than possibly avoiding them.