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"Dark forest" doesn't work from a game-theoretical standpoint. It assumes that it's cheap to destroy entire planets and solar systems. Yet no-one seems to be co
by cyberax 2mo ago
"Dark forest" doesn't work from a game-theoretical standpoint. It assumes that it's cheap to destroy entire planets and solar systems. Yet no-one seems to be colonizing other systems.
The optimal strategy in this case is to expand as quickly as possible, before others can grab or destroy resources.
- idontwantthis 2mo agoI think one idea is that there aren't very many habitable planets. The Trisolarians are coming to Earth because it's their only option, not because they want to destroy humanity.
- cyberax 2mo agoThen it's even weirder. Detecting planets around stars is trivial, yet nobody is running to get that prime real estate? Still makes no sense.
- aeve890 2mo agoIn the book, the trisolarans aren't coming to earth just because is the only habitable planet, it's because it's the closest one too. The don't have FTL and they spend the full resources of their dying civilization to build a fleet that will reach earth in ~400 years. So yeah, a lot of prime real state but no way to reach it.
- cyberax 2mo ago400 years is nothing. At this speed, all the Galaxy would have been colonized long ago. This subplot in the book is at least reasonable. Somehow aliens capable of pico-scale engineering can't make a telescope to observe the nearby solar systems, but OK, whatever. Cultural blindness and all that. It's the later plot with the "dark forest" that makes no sense. There are ships capable of moving at relativistic velocities and spacetime-altering weapons.
- Rover222 2mo ago"no-one seems to be colonizing other systems" seems like an odd thing to claim, given that we have no idea what's going on on any planet outside of our solar system
- idiotsecant 2mo agoHow do we know nobody is colonizing every system we can see? How would you detect if earth was colonized?
- krapp 2mo agoEntropy and thermodynamics exist. It would be impossible to colonize every system we see without the tremendous heat energy expenditure needed to do so being obvious, and obviously not natural. The background temperature of space is so regular and predictable that any deviation is noticeable. Barring some magical woo-woo technology that someone will probably insist must exist because we foolish humans are simply too stupid to understand anything, this isn't something you can just cheat. There ain't no stealth in space[0]. https://www.projectrho.com/public_html/rocket/spacewardetect.php#nostealth https://www.projectrho.com/public_html/rocket/spacewardetect...
- idiotsecant 2mo agoOk great, but you didn't answer the central question. How would you detect earth civilization from interstellar distances?
- cyberax 2mo agoIf you're colonizing systems so stealthily that it's not visible, then why bother doing that at all? Even a single solar system has more than enough resources.
- shagie 2mo agoDavid Webber - Safehold series. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Safehold https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Safehold The first book is Off Armageddon Reef - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Off_Armageddon_Reef https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Off_Armageddon_Reef In the 24th century, 8 million people flee to distant Safehold after barely escaping from the destruction of civilization by a genocidal alien foe, the Gbaba. Because the enemy tracked signs of advanced technology to hunt down other emergency colonies, the plan is to enforce a pre-industrial society until the danger passes. Administrator Eric Langhorne, a megalomaniac and neo-Luddite, instead has the colonists' memories erased and replaced with the belief they are the first humans, "Adams" and "Eves," the creations of God upon Safehold with "Archangel Langhorne" anointed as prophet and leader of the Church of God Awaiting. The first chapter can be read at the publisher's site: https://www.baen.com/Chapters/0765315009/0765315009.htm https://www.baen.com/Chapters/0765315009/0765315009.htm