Quote:
Originally Posted by GeoffC
That's why SETI has not found them ... they're all running away ....
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The question is known as the Fermi Paradox. If there is intelligent life out there, where are they? They should have left traces we can see.
One novel solution I encountered suggested that intelligence was a temporary state. It evolved to handle environments that changed too rapidly for reflex responses to be adequate for survival, and may go away when that's no longer the case. Consider a species for whom quantum physics has become something handled by reflex. You might have a space faring civilization that is not intelligent as we use the term.
In SF, David Brin's Uplift series had a novel take: we didn't see them because Earth was in a section of the galaxy deliberately left to lie fallow by an intergalactic civilization, to encourage the development of species that might become sentient. In Brin's universe, the very first intelligent species to evolve in the local cluster were the Progenitors, billions of years ago. They developed FTL travel, went looking for other intelligent species, and found none because they were the first. They
did find some species which could
become sentient, with a little help which the Progenitors provided. The Progenitors disappeared, but their legacy lives on.
They started the tradition of Uplift, which at the time of the stories are the closest thing to a religion the galactic civilization has. When humanity encounters them, there is an intergalactic civilization spanning five galaxies, and
every one of the thousands of sentient species has been Uplifted by a Patron, owing the Patron 10,000 years of indentured servitude in payment. Status in the galaxies is measured in part by how many client races your species has uplifted. Many species believe the Progenitors will someday return, and seek to mold the galaxies in the form they believe the Progenitors desired to see.
Along comes humanity, surprising everyone, and we've independently raised chimps and dolphins to sentience, with instant status. We don't seem to have had a Patron, which is anathema to half the galactic clans, who believe achieving sentience unassisted is a holy act only the sainted Progenitors could achieve. But if we had a Patron, they dropped the job in the middle and left. This is anathema to the other half of galactic civilization, for whom Uplift is a sacred responsibility you do
not abandon.
So half of the galactic clans want us extinct on general principle, and the other half think we need 10,000 years of seasoning as someone's client species - preferably theirs. Meanwhile, a Dolphin crewed exploration ship may have found what happened to the Progenitors. Fun.
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Dennis