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Jan. 18th, 2007
The Fermi Paradox: An Approach Based on Percolation Theory
Basically, I was looking for a way to reconcile this paper with a setting with relatively fast and cheap interstellar travel. This is not that easy, because the basic assumption of the paper is that interstellar travel is difficult and slow [1].
I just noticed this odd passage:
"An additional assumption needed is that a colony cannot be established on an already colonized world. Given the enormous unlikelihood of being able to carry out an invasion over interstellar distances, this seems to be a good assumption."
This seems to ignore the possibility of peaceful immigration.
It seems to me that as counter-intuitive as it might sound, the ability to immigrate to an established world might limit the expansion into unsettled regions. It seems likely to me that developing a system from scratch will be much harder than moving into a previously developed system. Any system out from the core far enough to have fallow systems at hand also should have developed systems nearby. Given the great cost of a starship in this paper, would beings making the effort to leave their home head into the unknown [2] or towards systems where niches for them may already exist?
1: Settings like THE MOTE IN GOD'S EYE or Bujold's Vorkosiganverse would work, because the FTL links may not connect up all stars into one net work. It's possible that the galaxy in those universes is divided up into many networks that are unconnected or only weakly connected.
2: OK, beings with starships also would have telescopes of great power.
Basically, I was looking for a way to reconcile this paper with a setting with relatively fast and cheap interstellar travel. This is not that easy, because the basic assumption of the paper is that interstellar travel is difficult and slow [1].
I just noticed this odd passage:
"An additional assumption needed is that a colony cannot be established on an already colonized world. Given the enormous unlikelihood of being able to carry out an invasion over interstellar distances, this seems to be a good assumption."
This seems to ignore the possibility of peaceful immigration.
It seems to me that as counter-intuitive as it might sound, the ability to immigrate to an established world might limit the expansion into unsettled regions. It seems likely to me that developing a system from scratch will be much harder than moving into a previously developed system. Any system out from the core far enough to have fallow systems at hand also should have developed systems nearby. Given the great cost of a starship in this paper, would beings making the effort to leave their home head into the unknown [2] or towards systems where niches for them may already exist?
1: Settings like THE MOTE IN GOD'S EYE or Bujold's Vorkosiganverse would work, because the FTL links may not connect up all stars into one net work. It's possible that the galaxy in those universes is divided up into many networks that are unconnected or only weakly connected.
2: OK, beings with starships also would have telescopes of great power.
The Fermi Paradox: An Approach Based on Percolation Theory
Basically, I was looking for a way to reconcile this paper with a setting with relatively fast and cheap interstellar travel. This is not that easy, because the basic assumption of the paper is that interstellar travel is difficult and slow [1].
I just noticed this odd passage:
"An additional assumption needed is that a colony cannot be established on an already colonized world. Given the enormous unlikelihood of being able to carry out an invasion over interstellar distances, this seems to be a good assumption."
This seems to ignore the possibility of peaceful immigration.
It seems to me that as counter-intuitive as it might sound, the ability to immigrate to an established world might limit the expansion into unsettled regions. It seems likely to me that developing a system from scratch will be much harder than moving into a previously developed system. Any system out from the core far enough to have fallow systems at hand also should have developed systems nearby. Given the great cost of a starship in this paper, would beings making the effort to leave their home head into the unknown [2] or towards systems where niches for them may already exist?
1: Settings like THE MOTE IN GOD'S EYE or Bujold's Vorkosiganverse would work, because the FTL links may not connect up all stars into one net work. It's possible that the galaxy in those universes is divided up into many networks that are unconnected or only weakly connected.
2: OK, beings with starships also would have telescopes of great power.
Basically, I was looking for a way to reconcile this paper with a setting with relatively fast and cheap interstellar travel. This is not that easy, because the basic assumption of the paper is that interstellar travel is difficult and slow [1].
I just noticed this odd passage:
"An additional assumption needed is that a colony cannot be established on an already colonized world. Given the enormous unlikelihood of being able to carry out an invasion over interstellar distances, this seems to be a good assumption."
This seems to ignore the possibility of peaceful immigration.
It seems to me that as counter-intuitive as it might sound, the ability to immigrate to an established world might limit the expansion into unsettled regions. It seems likely to me that developing a system from scratch will be much harder than moving into a previously developed system. Any system out from the core far enough to have fallow systems at hand also should have developed systems nearby. Given the great cost of a starship in this paper, would beings making the effort to leave their home head into the unknown [2] or towards systems where niches for them may already exist?
1: Settings like THE MOTE IN GOD'S EYE or Bujold's Vorkosiganverse would work, because the FTL links may not connect up all stars into one net work. It's possible that the galaxy in those universes is divided up into many networks that are unconnected or only weakly connected.
2: OK, beings with starships also would have telescopes of great power.
The Fermi Paradox: An Approach Based on Percolation Theory
Basically, I was looking for a way to reconcile this paper with a setting with relatively fast and cheap interstellar travel. This is not that easy, because the basic assumption of the paper is that interstellar travel is difficult and slow [1].
I just noticed this odd passage:
"An additional assumption needed is that a colony cannot be established on an already colonized world. Given the enormous unlikelihood of being able to carry out an invasion over interstellar distances, this seems to be a good assumption."
This seems to ignore the possibility of peaceful immigration.
It seems to me that as counter-intuitive as it might sound, the ability to immigrate to an established world might limit the expansion into unsettled regions. It seems likely to me that developing a system from scratch will be much harder than moving into a previously developed system. Any system out from the core far enough to have fallow systems at hand also should have developed systems nearby. Given the great cost of a starship in this paper, would beings making the effort to leave their home head into the unknown [2] or towards systems where niches for them may already exist?
1: Settings like THE MOTE IN GOD'S EYE or Bujold's Vorkosiganverse would work, because the FTL links may not connect up all stars into one net work. It's possible that the galaxy in those universes is divided up into many networks that are unconnected or only weakly connected.
2: OK, beings with starships also would have telescopes of great power.
Basically, I was looking for a way to reconcile this paper with a setting with relatively fast and cheap interstellar travel. This is not that easy, because the basic assumption of the paper is that interstellar travel is difficult and slow [1].
I just noticed this odd passage:
"An additional assumption needed is that a colony cannot be established on an already colonized world. Given the enormous unlikelihood of being able to carry out an invasion over interstellar distances, this seems to be a good assumption."
This seems to ignore the possibility of peaceful immigration.
It seems to me that as counter-intuitive as it might sound, the ability to immigrate to an established world might limit the expansion into unsettled regions. It seems likely to me that developing a system from scratch will be much harder than moving into a previously developed system. Any system out from the core far enough to have fallow systems at hand also should have developed systems nearby. Given the great cost of a starship in this paper, would beings making the effort to leave their home head into the unknown [2] or towards systems where niches for them may already exist?
1: Settings like THE MOTE IN GOD'S EYE or Bujold's Vorkosiganverse would work, because the FTL links may not connect up all stars into one net work. It's possible that the galaxy in those universes is divided up into many networks that are unconnected or only weakly connected.
2: OK, beings with starships also would have telescopes of great power.