Fermi Paradox - Where are they?

[technome]

How can you discover a Dyson sphere without actually going there? By definition a Dyson sphere captures all light put out by the star it encloses. Therefore it can only be illuminated by light from distant stars - against the star field a Dyson sphere is going to be incredibly dark.

For that matter, how are we going to discover a Ringworld? Surely the puppeteers that built it will coat it in some kind of stealth technology. Matt black paint for example.

As well as the 400 billion "known" stars, we've already had it confirmed that there are "dark" systems out there that will need to be discovered even before they're explored. A Dyson sphere is just one possible dark system.

The Puppeteers didn't build the Ringworld. There's a theory it was built by the Pak but no one really knows, with the possible exception of Larry Niven.

 

[MarcusAurelius]

Actually, the Thargoids will be in the game in the first release as Michael talked about here:

http://youtu.be/O6z5OK8J5pg?t=7m35s

Other races being discovered has also been mentioned by David himself in the video below. 7:24 to be exact, but I linked a bit earlier in the video to get the context.

http://youtu.be/EM0Gcl7iUM8?t=6m33s

What would be wholly fascinating to me is some AI homeworld discovered many thousands of light years away. That and encountering a Thargoid mothership or space station would blow me away!

There is amazing potential for the devs to inject some plotlines centered on some Thargoid incursion into human settled space and for all 3 factions to band together and drive the undesirables out That or some new alien or AI threat. The possibilities are truly endless.

 

[RobFisher]

My personal real world answer is that they are here already, but we can't detect them because, after all, any technology superior enough is indistinguishable from magic.

So I imagine we will never meet them (owing to their non-intervention policy) until we die, at which point they upload our brains to a simulation of whatever paradise we desire (owing to their distaste for information loss).

So in ED, maybe they are not so non-interventionist, and are subtly manipulating things behind the scenes. You'll play your part when offered missions by shadowy, mysterious types. You may also be inexplicably spared death from time to time.

 

[Colonel Kenney]

We are not alone. We are just naughty and most of the rest of the galaxy don't want anything to do with us period! Quarantined planet!

But they ARE out there in spades!

 

[Galantir]

Just wondering how the Fermi Paradox fits into the Elite Universe.

In a nutshell the Fermi Paradox is the question 'Where are they?', they being alien life forms.

More info here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fermi_paradox

But given the age of the Universe and the massive amount of star systems within it why isn't it teaming with alien life. Even without FTL the first rocket powered species could have set out and populated the Universe many times over by now.

So does the Elite Universe have an answer to the Fermi Paradox?

Not sure if this paradox actually still can be considerred a paradox.
Even if the universe is teaming with life(which it probably is), space is enourmously huge and mostly emtpy that running into another species could still be an extremely rare occurance.
A more advanced species would most certainly not use our transmission techniques but have a much more sophisticated way of transmitting messages. This in turns means that we are simply unable to detect those messages.
Next there's the problem of vast distances. We might still believe we can find our way around light speed but what if this is just simply not possible?
The paradox was a vlid one at the time but since we have a lot more knowledge about our universe at this point in time i personally do not see a paradox any longer.

 

[CaptainSodom]

As an explorer I don't want Frontier Developments to reveal what's out there until its been found. I hope they keep it in-house and never let on to the playerbase what they've got out there waiting for us. That adds so much more mystique to the gameworld you're part off.

Knowing that there IS stuff out there is enough. So hints, suggestions, rumours via ingame newsfeeds yes, but big neon arrows on the galactic map saying the people of zog are here, no thanks

Very much this.

I hope that when intelligent aliens are introduced (I'm 99% sure it is will be some time in the next 3-5 years), it will come as a total surprise to every player, including DDF members. It would be such huge news that anyone even getting a whiff of it would likely leak it somehow. Any foresight would dilute the experience for the discoverer, and the entire player base.

Getting hints through found artifacts with cryptic (or encrypted!) maps, tips on bearings, etc. would be fun, though.

I'm in First Great Expedition, and just the very remote chance that we might be the ones making first contact has me tickled pink. Pink, I say.

I completely agree.
The not knowing will be much more exiting than the knowing.

In most scifi aliens are just humans with comprehensible human-like motivations in alien or humanoid bodies.

I hope aliens in Elite will be more enigmatic and mysterious.
I do not want to meet Jar Jar Binks in Elite space.

I would love to see alien stuff that is never explained, or obviously highly intelligent aliens that can not be communicated with.
Perhaps we could witness huge alien ships entering an enormous Dyson Sphere, but they totally ignore us and we cannot follow. We might be able to land on its surface, but nothing else.

Or perhaps certain planets are for always closed off by an invisible force field and we can only guess at the wonders that may be on it. From space we can observe alien activity on the surface and we see gigantic alien cities, but are not allowed onto the surface. Perhaps there are huge alien installations in orbit, but we are unable to approach them. Perhaps they can rearrange stars to suit their purposes.

And we will never know how they look like and we will never be able to understand their technology. And we will forever ask ourselves why we are allowed into their star systems in the first place but are not allowed to do anything else. We might not even be able to power up our weapons for example.

Sometimes an alien vessel might accompany us from a distance while we travel through their system, but they never react to our attempts at communication.


All this would be infinitely preferable to having to listen to some talkative alien who acts just like another human..

I love this idea.

Instead of taking the tried and tired gaming trope of aliens as cannon fodder or yet-another-trading partner, E: D could take a more cerebral or cinematic approach. Think Aliens which would wreak havoc throughout the entire human domain. Or Prometheus with aliens who don't really care what we do and will largely ignore our petty squabbles and puny intellect.

 

[Cosmo Bozo]

I think this pretty much covers it.

After millennia of battle the surviving G'Gugvuntt and Vl'hurg realised what had actually happened, and joined forces to attack the Milky Way in retaliation. They crossed vast reaches of space in a journey lasting thousands of years before reaching their target where they attacked the first planet they encountered, Earth. Due to a terrible miscalculation of scale the entire battle fleet was swallowed by a small dog. The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy states that this sort of thing happens all the time.

 

[Zvanya]

As far as I can see it, not looking too deeply, Fermi's Paradox has an ENORMOUS flaw, by supposing that the chemical compositions of previous star systems are the same as those seen in our Solar system.

--- It is impossible to create any metal higher than Iron by normal stellar processes... a supernova is required (actually lots and lots of supernovae)

--- Iron is only element 26 out of >100

--- Even if life were around elsewhere billions of years ago, it is unlikely that they would have had the materials to build spacecraft

Supernova start happening almost as soon as stars start to form. The most massive stars only last a few million years before becoming supernova and enriching the universe with heavy elements. So iron and other heavy elements have been around almost since the beginning.

 

[metatheurgist]

Not sure if this paradox actually still can be considerred a paradox.

Next there's the problem of vast distances. We might still believe we can find our way around light speed but what if this is just simply not possible?

You're missing the main point of the paradox. Even at sublight speeds after billions of years you can cover the entire galaxy.

 

[dobbo]

Good point so could dyson spheres account for all the missing matter physicist have labelled dark matter! Wow it could be really really crowded out there. And lets face it if you haven't built your own Dyson sphere or two you're not going to be invited to any of the parties. And a vacuum cleaner just doesn't count.

The numbers don't add up. The surface are of a Dyson sphere at 1AU would be 2.81E17 km^2. That's about 550 million times the surface area of the Earth. If humans are anything to go by (not a good assumption I grant you given the sample size of 1, but it's all I have to go on) the more educated you are the less your population expands. No civilization advanced enough to build Dyson spheres would need to build that many.

The Puppeteers didn't build the Ringworld. There's a theory it was built by the Pak but no one really knows, with the possible exception of Larry Niven.

Damn, you're right. It was suppose to be the Pak that built it.

 

[Vasious]

In the back story, didn't human colonists wipe out the only other intelligent life beside humans and Thargoids?
A key even in the formation of the Empire?

 

[MarcusAurelius]

In the back story, didn't human colonists wipe out the only other intelligent life beside humans and Thargoids?
A key even in the formation of the Empire?

Yes, Apparently there was an indigenous race to Achenar that was wiped out by the Imperials according to the lore and fiction diary #1. It would be interesting if they were reintroduced as having survived in the depths of space and rebuilt a fledgling empire. Definitely many plotlines could be derived from such a scenario.

The numbers don't add up. The surface are of a Dyson sphere at 1AU would be 2.81E17 km^2. That's about 550 million times the surface area of the Earth. If humans are anything to go by (not a good assumption I grant you given the sample size of 1, but it's all I have to go on) the more educated you are the less your population expands. No civilization advanced enough to build Dyson spheres would need to build that many.

Actually I would imagine a very advanced race might have several legitimate reasons to building a Dyson sphere.

First of all you are assuming they are humanoid, they might be insectoid or AI. In which case they will proliferate in their habitats rather quickly. A dyson sphere may be the ideal scenario for such races to live harmoniously under.

Second of all, there could be an ancient race like the Talosians in the first pilot episode of Star Trek Original series. They used to capture specimens from all over the galaxy and keep them in Cages of sorts. Of course all of their surroundings were simulated to keep the alien content and blissfully unaware of its captivity. Now imagine a very sophisticated race of watchers who don't just want to capture or view one specimen, but a whole planet worth of civilizations and keeping them isolated from the many other hundreds or millions of worlds they are trying to recreate. Like a zoo of sorts but on a grand scale. It would certainly fill the criteria.

Another scenario for building Dyson spheres would be for ancient and highly evolved races to keep undetected by other up and coming races. Some Dyson spheres might be completely impenetrable even if discovered. Who or what kind of alien lurks inside would be anyones guess. I imagine some ancient ones type aliens like the Vorlons or Shadows from the Babylon 5 series.

I would also assume discovering a ringworld or Dyson sphere around the core of our galaxy would be more plentiful, being they are older than the stars on the perimeter of our galaxy. And could house many great and long lost civilisations that have since disappeared.

 

[Galantir]

You're missing the main point of the paradox. Even at sublight speeds after billions of years you can cover the entire galaxy.

Euhm the main point of the paradox is: If there supposedly is so much life in the universe why haven't we detected anything.

The problem here is that this all comes forward out of a best guess scenario. Without that there's no paradox at all. It requires that everything that can happen will happen. Now that is only true in case of an infinite universe. We do not live in an infinite universe. So the rule everything that can happen will happen doesn't apply here.

This paradox can only exist in the most positive situation.
Even if that was the case we could actualy be visited on a cosmic regular basis. But this still could mean before humans existed and after we're long gone.

Does that paradox take into account that we even might be the first intelligent species to arive in the universe?No.

The paradox just does not exist anymore. We know too much.

 

[Brian]

Lets face it, the Dinosaurs were around for millions of years and didn't invent Facebook, or any way of deflecting meteors! We've only been here for thousands of years and we've already invented Facebook, and are looking into the boring meteor thing. I think that the Fermi Paradox is correct in that many thousands of civilisations could have risen and died while the Dinosaurs were just lazing around doing nothing productive. (Lizards huh!)

I really wish and hope that there is intelligent alien life, but I don't think that we'll ever meet any due to all those stupid laws about going faster than light. (Although I think some naughty particles are risking loosing their driving license's at the moment...)

I don't think Dyson Sphere's are possible due mainly to the amount of matter needed to make one, and the heat build up problems, but I think "Orbitals" and other types of Ringworlds are, but will also require a massive amount of matter in their construction - and tremendous tensile strength once they are spun up to provide what passes for gravity on these things.

The same goes for "Shell Worlds" (basically a sort of onion type world - instead of layers, think levels - from core to surface a series of levels like a multi-story car park of a planet which would probably cost over £5 per hour just to park there!) with different atmospheres in different levels with some kind of open type nuclear reactor thingy rolling around the top of each level to provide warmth, and light.

Hope I'm wrong about the aliens...
Brian

 

[Seonid]

You're missing the main point of the paradox. Even at sublight speeds after billions of years you can cover the entire galaxy.

The universe itself is only about 13 billion years old, not a lot of time for anything out there to get to us.

 

[Brian]

Oh, and another thing...

I believe that most people would explore inwards to the Galaxy Centre, we are far from the GC on a fairly boring arm. Even less chance of any alien encounters in any reasonable amount of time...

Brian

 

[Juniper]

Lets face it, the Dinosaurs were around for millions of years and didn't invent Facebook, or any way of deflecting meteors! We've only been here for thousands of years and we've already invented Facebook, and are looking into the boring meteor thing.

Good priorities there.

I really wish and hope that there is intelligent alien life, but I don't think that we'll ever meet any due to all those stupid laws about going faster than light.

Through "normal" space that's true, but there is good evidence to suggest that's not the only way to travel.

(Although I think some naughty particles are risking loosing their driving license's at the moment...)

Actually, I think some over-excited CERN researchers are more at risk of losing their research grants.

I don't think Dyson Sphere's are possible due mainly to the amount of matter needed to make one, and the heat build up problems, but I think "Orbitals" and other types of Ringworlds are, but will also require a massive amount of matter in their construction - and tremendous tensile strength once they are spun up to provide what passes for gravity on these things.

The same goes for "Shell Worlds" (basically a sort of onion type world - instead of layers, think levels - from core to surface a series of levels like a multi-story car park of a planet which would probably cost over £5 per hour just to park there!) with different atmospheres in different levels with some kind of open type nuclear reactor thingy rolling around the top of each level to provide warmth, and light.

20th century thinking my friend.

Bottom line - we are still very much at the infancy of knowing scientifically what constitutes "matter" anyway. E=mc2 is only the start in my view. If we have limitless energy in the Eliteverse (as DB has already stated), then we intrinsically also have limitless matter as well.

So who knows what is possible.

What is mind? Doesn't matter. What is matter? Never mind.

 

[OriginalBadBoy]

Now that is only true in case of an infinite universe. We do not live in an infinite universe. So the rule everything that can happen will happen doesn't apply here.

Technically the universe is finite, however for intents and purposes the universe might as well be infinite.

And that's before we start talking about multiverses ...

 

[Ian Phillips]

Read this:
EXISTENCE BY David Brin

 

[Juniper]

We do not live in an infinite universe.

Why do you think that?

The "observable universe" is probably finite, in that we can only view 13.8 billions years back. But the universe itself may be much (much) bigger than that.

Two things in life are infinite; the universe and human stupidity. And I'm not sure about the universe.