The Why Land Hypothesis

 The Why Land Hypothesis     

 

I propose another solution to the Fermi Paradox. If technological life can spread from star to star, then why has it not conquered every star system, including our own? Where are they?

          Consider the logistics of interstellar travel. Leaving aside FTL and hybernation, it requires generation ships. These would be a simple evolution from space colonies. Just give a closed-ecology habitat a large store of hydrogen to fuse, a fusion reactor, and some jets. Push it towards the target star and take your time.

          But when the ship arrives, why should the crew make planetfall? By then they will have adapted to their habitat, culturally and genetically.* To them, a star is an unpredictable radioactive menace, a star system is a minefield of dust and rocks, and most planets are uninhabitable. Even the best are good only by their distant ancestor's standards, which will not have been theirs for a long time. Terraforming is hard, unpredictable, and takes time. It's quicker, cheaper, and easier just to build another habitat.

          There's also the danger that those planets are inhabited, by another technological species, or worse, by microbes.**

          The most intelligent thing the generation ship can do upon reaching its destination is to grab some comets and asteroids, from them refuel and restock, maybe rebuild or even duplicate the habitat, then flee back to the peace, quiet, and safety of interstellar space. So they might be all over the galaxy, but they'd only visit star systems, and never stay.

          And if there are enough rogue planets out there, and they can find them, then they needn't ever risk visiting any star systems at all.  So if generation ships are the way, then they're deep in the big dark, and we'll never see them.

          As for hybernation, I'll believe it after they revive a corpsicle or a Pharaoh. Water bears don't count, they don't build rockets.

And as for FTL... the Fermi paradox refutes it. Besides, FTL plus special relativity implies time travel, which is a huge can of worms.

 

 

          * Citation: Ballad of Beta-12

** Citations: Aurora, War of the Worlds