> Maybe the UFOs and such are the local galactic “police” Greg Bear had a series on this. I think this concept may depend on FTL travel/communication, though,

> Maybe the UFOs and such are the local galactic “police” Greg Bear had a series on this. I think this concept may depend on FTL travel/communication, though, at least in order to work well. Or at least on communication being much faster than travel. (In other words, if the speed of light is the limit, if VN probes are restricted to much slower speeds, the "Police" may be able to contain them, but if they're too fast, the probles will spread faster than the "Police" may stop the spread). And if the Policing is not done by a single civ, but is something that was set up by a coalition of civs that may exists 100s of thousands of light years apart, I think FTL communication is basically required to be able to even create such a coalition in the first place. My personal gut feeling, is that we're simply first in this area of Space.