Terrifying things we may discover while exploring Out There

[Calaban]

OK, this should give you chills, If you can truly wrap your head around the sheer immensity of it all.

Its a "Class 2 civilization", and it would mean our immediate doom and insignificance if we ever bumped into one. We would be as ants to these beings, as they have been around, evolving and developing their technology for some 10 billion years by now.

Earth has only been around for 4.5 billion years. But its not a "first generation planet", not by a long shot. We, our star, everything, are a relative new comer to the universe, and even galactic, scene. The earliest an Earth like planet could have developed life like us is around 4 billion years after the Big Bang... thats 10 billion years ago.

Imagine the toys they would have after that long of development. The power, the physics defying abilities. We simply cannot. No more than an ant can comprehend Wifi communications.

But by defining the energy generation and requirement averages of a Class 2 civilization, we can conceptualize what tools and devices they could possibly use, as crude and abstract as our imaginations may be at this. A Class 2 is defined as able to contain, use, and or generate the entire energy output of a Star for their own personal use. Not just by wrapping it in solar panels, but by collecting all the nuclear fusion energy burning over its 10 billion year life as well.

So, what would that mean?? I know its hard to visualize, but luckilly there are some rather amazing conceptual artists out there, and here is an example:



Yup. Thats a "starship", using an actual entire Star as its engine. The size of the structure is mind boggling to even comprehend, as would be the population within it, or the universe cracking weapons it could power in its defense. How long would it take- or is it even feasible- to travel from one side of the ship (the width of the Earths Orbit) to the other?! Are the beings inside even limited to such physical restraints by this point? (got chills yet? Feel small yet? It gets worse)



But then there are the beings that could be out there that make even these people look like ants. They are Class 3... able to harness entire galaxies for their use. (wow my eyes are starting to ache)

What would this sort of civilization look like? Well, quite possibly like the Great Bootes Void:



I know I'm about to pop some more eyeballs, but WOW! Each one of those "stars" represents Galaxy Clusters and Superclusters eek, and that Void is a real region of the universe out there that is completely empty...

Or maybe not so much as empty.. but rather "used" by a Class 3 civilization that has expanded that far to date. EVERY star in every galaxy in every supercluster in that region could be enclosed in a Dyson sphere type enclosure, its energy shrouded and harvested away for some trans galactic power grid. The energy available would be immense beyond any attempt at comprehension, as would the scale, population, and transportation capabilities of its inhabitants. Its really best to not even attempt to try to imagine them, what they could be like, on what they would think, or how they would even BE.

To such beings we, on our little rock, would appear as pond scum microorganisms, truly not even worth the time to scrape off of their boot as they walked by.

Got chills now? So brace yourselves, intrepid explorers, its a BIG and ANCIENT universe out there, and we may not like nor appreciate what we may discover.

[the emoticon smilies really need and evil grin smiley... but I guess will have to do]

 

[Mixxi Pal]

Cor blimey. That's got my brain buzzing now. Fantastic stuff. I need to read up on this Boötes void...

 

[EAGLE 5]

Interesting.. so your theory is the dark area of space is dark because the stars have been obscured by potentially machines or entire clusters of dyson spheres that are effectively blocking our views from those stars.

Never thought of that possibility certainly one that has a lot of thought and quite a fair bit of imagination to it.. my only issue with it (and I guess that's the issue with trying to explain anything that is effectively billions of years old due to distance) what does that area look like now? the real now not the visual representation that is effectively as old as the distance that it is from us.. and what does that say about what is going on? has it grown? has it shrunk? will we meet Steve?!?

 

[Cosmo]

The class 2 and 3 civilizations are mind boggling. There's no class 3 in our galaxy though, because they span clusters of galaxies as you said. The Kardashev Scale has more Types.

These advanced alien civilizations are very rare and many have gone extinct like the dinosaurs or with apocalyptic wars.

The Thargoids are intergalactic insectoids that could be class 1 or 2.

 

[Winterwalker]

In principle I like, though I suggest it might creep into science-fantasy realms;
Difficult to draw realistic mechanics for physics that we, as Class 1, can barely imagine?

Spoiler

As someone mentioned it's believed Thargoids ARE out there somewhere though, so perhaps we could encounter the Class 2 and 3 beings, third hand, via Thargoids. Though not being as advanced as your Class 2's, perhaps long lived enough to have encountered them so far away, and maybe able to hand over one or two exotic weapons obtained?

I think the main problem with highly advanced civilisations being present, is that you wouldn't last very long against them in a sidewinder! (Thargoids are bad enough?) So while it's cool for lore, maybe not so great in gameplay!

For me things like the Andromeda Strain are interesting, Xenomorphs less so, unless as a reimagining of the Thargoid ...

Spoiler

As a side, is the Boötes Void evidence of the beginning of the Degenerate Era (end of the Stelliferous?)

 

[EAGLE 5]

...
As a side, is the Boötes Void evidence of the beginning of the Degenerate Era (end of the Stelliferous?)

I thought I heard about that a possible end of the universe a collapse into something else dictate by "strange" particles that basically work like a reverse king midas where everything goes crazy the more these particles interact with regular particles... ah life was much simpler when all you had to figure out what 2+2=4

 

[tifosi]

To such beings we, on our little rock, would appear as pond scum microorganisms, truly not even worth the time to scrape off of their boot as they walked by.

But they'll still have to wait like us for Beta 2 tomorrow....

I'm struggling to fathom it - are you saying they'll have GPUs which could run a Rift DK2 at >100fps whilst inside a space station?

Great post though. Mind blowing.

 

[Mephane]

What would this sort of civilization look like? Well, quite possibly like the Great Bootes Void:

While the idea is intriguing, if that were the result of the galaxies or their stars being somehow enclosed in order to harvest their power, this area would be very bright in the infrared, much brighter than the surrounding volume.

It is actually things like that which SETI is also looking for, not just radio signals.

 

[popuptoaster]

Neil deGrasse Tyson has an interesting way of getting the point across, he says that on earth, we struggle to teach a chimp things our toddlers can do with ease and yet there is less than 1% difference in the DNA of a human and a chimp so everything that represents our science and technology is represented in that less than 1%.

If you imagine that an alien intelligence is even 1% more advanced than us they would look at us as we look at chimps, with all our knowledge and technical achievements struggling to match what even their youngest children can easily do..

Maybe they would take our best and brightest and teach them some clever tricks or maybe they wouldn't even bother to try, and what if they are 5% more advanced? Or 10%?

 

[Zieman]

While the idea is intriguing, if that were the result of the galaxies or their stars being somehow enclosed in order to harvest their power, this area would be very bright in the infrared, much brighter than the surrounding volume.

It is actually things like that which SETI is also looking for, not just radio signals.

But if the civilization is advanced enough to harvest the total energy output of star(s), why would they squander so much of it by radiating heat - shouldn't they be able to use that energy towards their own ends too?

 

[Loren Lovanchi]

To the OP, pls write some Elite fiction. I see some good material right there

 

[Ian]

...Imagine the toys they would have after that long of development. The power, the physics defying abilities. We simply cannot. No more than an ant can comprehend Wifi communications.

What a great post, certainly fires the imagination.

Arthur C. Clark's third law...
Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.

 

[deMangler]

What would this sort of civilization look like? Well, quite possibly like the Great Bootes Void:



I know I'm about to pop some more eyeballs, but WOW! Each one of those "stars" represents Galaxy Clusters and Superclusters eek, and that Void is a real region of the universe out there that is completely empty...
]

Yep. That is a picture of Barnard 68 though. I have always enjoyed having my mind boggled by trying to get my head around this universe. So much doesn't make sense, especially, astronomy, cosmology and physics.. even maths itself are really interesting at the moment. So many new discoveries and mysteries.

 

[D4ddycool]

Why haven't they found us? :S

Are you saying we are so meaningless to them (just like an ant colony is meaningless to us) they don't even bother interacting with us unless we build our colony on their driveway?

What makes such a civilisation a CLASS2 one? could there be class 3s and 4s?

 

[Susscon]

That's some deep imagination you have right there... as I read this I kinda wandered off into deep thought trying to visualise what your describing in my head, ha.. i need more coffee to think about this.

Very interesting to think about.

 

[Ekar]

Why haven't they found us? :S

Are you saying we are so meaningless to them (just like an ant colony is meaningless to us)...

'Roadside Picnic' by the Strugatsky brothers is a good read if you're into that idea. One species trash is another species treasure.

 

[Neo-ST]

Interesting thread, although nothing unheard of before (Dyson's sphere)

Why haven't they found us? :S

Are you saying we are so meaningless to them (just like an ant colony is meaningless to us) they don't even bother interacting with us unless we build our colony on their driveway?

What makes such a civilisation a CLASS2 one? could there be class 3s and 4s?

If we were to stand on their path, you'd know

The theory is, they're already around us, it's just that we can't perceive them (the theory of densities).
Some say that crop circles, which we can see, are manifestations of their acts.

 

[Ekar]

I think it would be great to be able to 'bump into' a civilisation like this in the game. They'd likely have quite a large catalog of knowledge about other lifeforms in the universe and so probably we'd appear pretty uninteresting to them. There'd be no reason to think that they'd attack you, and you wouldn't have much of a chance of holding a conversation either. They'd just be a big spectacle out there somewhere, enclosed within their own monumental awesomeness. Some tourist attraction.

 

[Dynamo]

A very thought provoking post.

However your visualisation of the Bootes void is misleading, perhaps update your post to a correct representation?

http://io9.com/5923493/behold-the-bootes-void-the-spookiest-place-in-the-cosmos

The Bootes void is a lack of galaxies in an area in the direction of the Bootes constellation. There is not a complete void of galaxies, just very few compared to the surrounding area. While the original photo and the explanation does indeed allow imagination to escape with fantastical ideas, the reality is that the Bootes void is not as dark as your photo would have reader's believe.


The picture you showed is a dark nebula (inside our galaxy - only 500 LY away) obscuring the stars and galaxies behind it - which isn't so mysterious. Because this dark nebula is so close (astronomically speaking), there are no stars in front of it (from our viewpoint), so appears as a dark patch.

As mentioned above, it is a photo of Barnard 68; dark nebula.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barnard_68

 

[Mephane]

But if the civilization is advanced enough to harvest the total energy output of star(s), why would they squander so much of it by radiating heat - shouldn't they be able to use that energy towards their own ends too?

One word: entropy.

Every process that happens increases the total entropy of the universe. Processes that at first glance seem to decrease it (e.g. all life) do so only at the expense of increasing the entropy in their surrounding environment even further.

No matter what that Type 2 or Type 3 civilization does, all the energy that they ever harvest and put to use, ends up as heat. This law of nature is so fundamental that there is no reason whatsoever why we assume it can ever be broken or circumvented (otherwise we would already have invented the perpetuum mobile).