"The Killing Star" - R-bombs and interstellar genocide

[Vehrec]

One of the problems with this story would be that the aliens seem to have targeted every instillation in the solar system. All the orbitals, all the colonized, planets, the whole shebang.

How did they get their targeting information and then keep the projectiles in question from drifting off course over the years they would have to spend in transit with minimal delta-v? And still hit all the targets when they arrive, because it's not like there would be more space stations or something.

It's just such a silly level of overkill and paranoia. In this universe, there apparently exist only one species per hundred light years or so that remain huddled up against their stars in fear and K-bomb any evolving sapient life with extreme prejudice. Because after all, you dare not do anything for fear of being seen.

The old comparison here is that there is a crowd of people lost in central park with flashlights and pistols, but everyone seems to have decided that finding a place to hide and shooting anything that moves is the best course of action. Which as far as metaphors go is pretty sad and pathetic.

[Cykeisme]

The science behind the RKVs and their deployment seems off, yeah.
What you ask makes sense.. how do you detect and pinpoint all your targets, and then accurately guide your RKVs at each one? In addition, how do you stop them from disintegrating due to collisions with interstellar dust and debris?

It's just such a silly level of overkill and paranoia. In this universe, there apparently exist only one species per hundred light years or so that remain huddled up against their stars in fear and K-bomb any evolving sapient life with extreme prejudice. Because after all, you dare not do anything for fear of being seen.

The old comparison here is that there is a crowd of people lost in central park with flashlights and pistols, but everyone seems to have decided that finding a place to hide and shooting anything that moves is the best course of action. Which as far as metaphors go is pretty sad and pathetic.

Yeah, it's overkill and paranoia. It's also sad and pathetic.

Let's just say that it really does turn out to be the best way to survive (the alternative being to risk extinction at the hands of other paranoid aliens). If that's the case, does it matter how sad and pathetic it is?

[Cykeisme]

Ah, I just read Atomic Rocket's write-up on "The Killing Star" at http://www.projectrho.com/public_html/rocket/aliens.php

They also use the "Central Park at night" analogy, but it sounds far more sinister than the way Vehrec said it

[Simon_Jester]

I am of course not talking about interstellar empires in the sense of being a unified political entity any more than I am talking about them being a literal empire with a literal emperor. I mean, come on.

You're missing the point quite spectacularly. Being an "empire" or not has nothing to do with the feasibility of interstellar travel.

Formless, could you explain why there is conflict between what SMJB originally said and what you said? I'm missing something.

Rationally, I'd actually have to support the psychotically aggressive side rather than the emotional preference to hope for peaceful contact with extraterrestials.

The way I see it, we can argue back and forth about the probability of aliens attempting to destroy us or not, but at the end of the day it's purely academic: When the cost of making a mistake (by not destroying a neighbour that turns out to be belligerent) is utter annihilation and extinction of our species, then any mistake is too expensive.

Essentially, the cost is too high to deal with probabilities...

The only really valid argument I've seen against this is what Simon Jester suggested.. hiding, spreading out our population centers and facilities as much as possible (throughout our solar system, or even beyond) and scoping out our surroundings as best as we can.

To extend the Central Park analogy:

You hear a noise about twenty meters to your west. You panic and blaze away in a westerly direction with your revolver.

You had better HOPE you killed whoever you were shooting at, or at least wounded them too badly for them to think about coming for revenge.

And little did you know that standing twenty meters to your north were eight men from a street gang, who may be thugs but have a loose sense of their gang as 'family' that keeps them from trying to kill each other... and they know where you are, what you did, and have TEC-9s to match your revolver.

Oops.

In The Killing Star, humanity neither took measures to make our civilization more resilient, nor (as Pellegrino suggests) did they RKV the crap out of any possible life out there. Either measure would have allowed our civilization to survive (in some capacity, at least).
In reality, we can't afford to make the same mistake.

The really fundamental mistake being made there was failure to (for example) create a deterrent and communicate its existence. And at the same time, failure to put in the effort to secure ourselves properly. This includes a number of defenses against relativistic attack, both active and passive- Pellegrino appears not to know or understand what a competent computer simulation is capable of given resources on the scale of a solar system.

Of course, the killer squids from the story are making an equally serious mistake- the one I mentioned above.

The science behind the RKVs and their deployment seems off, yeah.
What you ask makes sense.. how do you detect and pinpoint all your targets, and then accurately guide your RKVs at each one? In addition, how do you stop them from disintegrating due to collisions with interstellar dust and debris?

And that's another thing- the equivalent of firing at someone because of reflexive panic and missing. Especially if you've never done something like this before- and for everyone there'd be the first time.

Now your enemies include the street gang and the guy you shot at.

Double oops.

[Cykeisme]

I'm probably taking away the wrong lesson from this, but humanity totally should join an interstellar street gang with automatic weapons

[Formless]

Formless, could you explain why there is conflict between what SMJB originally said and what you said? I'm missing something.

basically, the civilization has to be small enough where the new guys just breaking out of their star system are an existential threat. Basically, an empire with a few dozen stars might think like that, but one with a few million stars?

few dozen stars [...] few million stars

... stars ...

Noun

stars

1. Plural form of star

This line of thought only makes sense if interstellar travel comes into play. Also, despite the red herring, it totally does suggest a coherent political body occupying multiple solar systems.

[Formless]

I'm probably taking away the wrong lesson from this, but humanity totally should join an interstellar street gang with automatic weapons

Sort of, but there is something missing from the analogy. Somewhere in the park there is a cop car with its lights on. Everyone who isn't blind, dumb, or distracted can find that cop car. The officer is of course more heavily armed than anyone else, wears body armor, and has a radio that can call in more cops.

This represents those civilizations which are capable of solar scale infrastructure, which can theoretically be found with the same technologies used to hunt for planets.

Also, someone swapped your revolver loads with ratshot when you weren't looking.

[Admiral Valdemar]

Course, maybe everyone is hiding because they know something we don't. Bent cops patrol the block, so to speak.

We need a good lawyer. And that's probably as stretched as that metaphor goes.

[Simon_Jester]

I'm probably taking away the wrong lesson from this, but humanity totally should join an interstellar street gang with automatic weapons

Actually this is kind of the right lesson to take. Participating in a cooperative alliance of like-minded cultures is a GREAT way to reduce the threat of random homicidally insecure loners. Plus, the risk of someone else having already thought of this should definitely deter you from letting your insecure loner-tude move you to commit murder.

The way to make this happen is to expand your culture peaceably until it is large enough that no probable attack could wipe it out, and so that it has the resources to do things like build a huge pile of deterrent relativistic missiles to wipe out any random assholes in the neighborhood who start launching first. Even if they didn't launch at you it is likely they'll get around to attacking you sooner or later...

Now, there's no guarantee that this would be some kind of enlightened federated body a la Star Trek. Perhaps...

"[Human beings] are not independent individuals; they are parts of a single organism. Each cell in your body contains your whole pattern. From three samples of the organism you call the human race I can predict the future potentialities and limits of that race."

"We have no limits! There's no telling what our future will be."

"It may be that you have no limits," the voice agreed. "That is to be determined. But, if true, it is not a point in your favor. For we have limits."

"Huh?"

"You have misunderstood the purpose of this examination. You speak of ‘justice.' I know what you think you mean. But no two races have ever agreed on the meaning of that term, no matter how they say it. It is not a concept I deal with here. This is not a court of justice."

"Then what is it?"

"You would call it a ‘Security Council.' Or you might call it a committee of vigilantes. It does not matter what you call it; my sole purpose is to examine your race and see if you threaten our survival. If you do, I will now dispose of you. The only certain way to avert a grave danger is to remove it while it is small. Things that I have learned about you suggest a possibility that you may someday threaten the security of Three Galaxies. I will now determine the facts."

[Clarification: this comes after another species has been caught trying to destroy humanity, has been so examined, has threatened the 'Security Council' with annihilation at the hands of their own "True People," and has been sentenced to planetary destruction]

And yet, this is preferable to a galaxy where all species huddle and hide and try to exterminate each other whenever they get the chance. It is certainly preferable for us to either expand until we can perform this role of security for ourselves, or find enough friends to perform it collectively.

Worth a try.

---

This line of thought only makes sense if interstellar travel comes into play. Also, despite the red herring, it totally does suggest a coherent political body occupying multiple solar systems.

Coherent polities aren't required. Suppose humanity expanded to colonize several hundred thousand star systems scattered widely- then a less populous alien culture launched a relativistic missile and blew up one of those many worlds.

Is it not likely that some other human culture(s) nearby would take it upon themselves to avenge the dead and eliminate the threat, even if they did not share any political allegiance?


As to interstellar travel being required, yes- and in turn, the very existence of relativistic missiles that can be used as antiplanet weapons implies that. If you can build a relativistic missile capable of wrecking a planet, you can start thinking very seriously about interstellar colonies.

You are totally correct, though, that having such technology also implies the ability to make yourself immune to similar attack by building huge numbers of space colonies and Dyson-swarm power supplies. I agree with that 100%.

[Me2005]

One counterpoint: A rocket capable of making it to another system in a reasonable amount of time looks the same as an R-Bomb that you intend to stop before it hits.

So the analogy might be more like everyone dug-in in a desert minefield with rocket launchers and jetpacks. The only way to get to someone else involves doing something that looks exactly like shooting at them.

[cosmicalstorm]

With the raw materials from a few cubic kilometers of nickel iron-asteroid a reasonably automated construction system using technology that is almost certainly allowed by our laws of physics ought to be able to create billions of surveillance vessels that could map every star in our galaxy with high resolution using a combination of all known sensor-technology (the entire EM spectrum, the Neutrino sky)
With a similar system it should be possible to build swarms of at least billions of defensive satellites loaded with every concievable available weapon-platform. Many would be solar collectors when the alarms were not ringing and when needed they could reconfigure themselves to shine collected starlight at an agreed target in the surrounding universe. The effort to construct the launch platforms seem like they would be detected once the technology to make high resolution maps of alien planets (this seems like it could happen the next two or three decades) was designed. Once we notice somebody is aiming something like a solar system sized revolver against us, we could react. Somehow I doubt the entire scenario. If an alien intelligence wanted to destroy Earth I think it could devise a much smarter way to do that. It might be hard to imagine that in advance. If alien intelligence has been able to grow into a transhuman intelligence it could seed us with a couple of grains of nano-dust grains loaded with hostile femtotechnology. Perhaps some subtle infiltration of our communications networks. The notion of RKV's seems to me like knights dreaming about future knights with mini-gun mounts on their horses.

[Simon_Jester]

Cosmo, I wouldn't place my bets on nanotechnology as an interstellar weapon- but I do agree, defenses are possible.

One counterpoint: A rocket capable of making it to another system in a reasonable amount of time looks the same as an R-Bomb that you intend to stop before it hits.

So the analogy might be more like everyone dug-in in a desert minefield with rocket launchers and jetpacks. The only way to get to someone else involves doing something that looks exactly like shooting at them.

It might be prudent to not launch a starship toward someone at 90% or more of the speed of light, even assuming it's possible to do so. At .7 to .8c, the recipient will at least have a few years to get ready, and you'll be able to phone significantly ahead of your arrival.

Also, an incoming relativistic missile will not decelerate as it approaches the target star system, which gives further advance notice- enough for a competent defense force at that technological level to react.

Another thought- this is an argument for using laser launch systems to accelerate and decelerate starships. In that case, a decelerating ship is at the mercy of the people on the receiving end, providing a sense of security for the locals. And if the incoming vessel turns out to be a relativistic fire ship, well hey, you've already got a huge laser pointed at it.

[someone_else]

Also, an incoming relativistic missile will not decelerate as it approaches the target star system, which gives further advance notice- enough for a competent defense force at that technological level to react.

Yeah, this deceleration will take a lot of time, if you don't use magic engines.
No need to travel slower, you will start the deceleration decades before your arrival anyway.
Makes more sense to send a non-decelerating messenger craft in advance (not aimed to anything, just doing a pass relatively close to the system).

Another thought- this is an argument for using laser launch systems to accelerate and decelerate starships. In that case, a decelerating ship is at the mercy of the people on the receiving end, providing a sense of security for the locals. And if the incoming vessel turns out to be a relativistic fire ship, well hey, you've already got a huge laser pointed at it.

The most practical system to launch interstellar craft is double semi-relativistic (or not, if you don't mind using more mass) kinetic streams. You can keep accelerating as long as someone at the base keeps boosting the kinetics, which means the lasers they will likely use won't have to be so mindboggingly huge to give you 1.5 fucking gees of thrust for a few years ala IKV Venture Star from Avatar. When you need to decelerate one stream's kinetics can be used to crash on the other and generate plasma harnessed by a magnetic nozzle to decelerate the craft.

It is also easy to see for any civilization on the receiving end, as they will start seeing a long line of tiny robotic crafts coming at them (not aimed at anything and not big enough to damage anything anyway), one stream is faster than the other, well before the bigger craft gets in range enough to tell what it is.

Then again, a very paranoid or xenophobic race might take that as aggression and retaliate. But hey, if the diplomacy does not work you can send RKVs in the next century.

[Simon_Jester]

Also, an incoming relativistic missile will not decelerate as it approaches the target star system, which gives further advance notice- enough for a competent defense force at that technological level to react.

Yeah, this deceleration will take a lot of time, if you don't use magic engines.
No need to travel slower, you will start the deceleration decades before your arrival anyway.
Makes more sense to send a non-decelerating messenger craft in advance (not aimed to anything, just doing a pass relatively close to the system).

Makes more sense to send a laser signal or radio beam ahead. It's less aggressive and frightening.

Then again, a very paranoid or xenophobic race might take that as aggression and retaliate. But hey, if the diplomacy does not work you can send RKVs in the next century.

It's a good argument for communicating with someone before attacking them.

Also for having, if possible, a backup drive so that your interstellar drive is aimed to put your ship somewhere in their Oort cloud, out of the direct line between your star and theirs, and then they have to move insystem using another, less frightening, propulsion system.

[Starglider]

If alien intelligence has been able to grow into a transhuman intelligence it could seed us with a couple of grains of nano-dust grains loaded with hostile femtotechnology.

Despite what the ravings of the Orion's Arm crowd may have lead you to believe, femtotechnology is currently just neat-sounding speculation from sci-fi authors (and a few crazed futurists in the Hugo de Garis mould). Nanotechnology is certainly very useful for engineering von neumann probes / weapons, but radiation tolerance would be a severe problem for microscopic probes trying to survive interstellar journies. Of course, you could spam them in huge numbers and expect a fraction to survive, but that's probably less efficient than just sending larger probes with actual shielding (they can always disperse on arrival).

[cosmicalstorm]

I'll freely admit I have no idea if it's possible to design femtotechnology. I suspect that there is some optimal way to destroy Earth without wasting a lot of energy in doing it (de-orbiting Jupiter into the Sun, launching hoards of RKV).

I'm not sure what would be the most optimal way to destroy a solar system where mankind or some descendant intelligence has taken control of it to a large degree.

[Simon_Jester]

It might actually not be possible- in the general case, winning a war on the defensive has nearly ALWAYS been less energy-intensive than winning it on the offensive. The engines of offensive war have to be moved at great cost from one place to another, and more resources have to be stockpiled and organized to make a synchronized attack work than to prepare a defense.

Why would that rule stop applying when you've got to ship your attack hardware across interstellar distances?

[someone_else]

Makes more sense to send a laser signal or radio beam ahead. It's less aggressive and frightening.

Depending on the distances involved, it may not be possible due to the inverse square law (or the optics for laser). The beam's power source (and optics in case of laser) is limited after all.

Then again, a very paranoid or xenophobic race might take that as aggression and retaliate. But hey, if the diplomacy does not work you can send RKVs in the next century.

It's a good argument for communicating with someone before attacking them.

What I meant is that if the race is paranoid or xenophobic, may still take even a communication as an "attack" or a risk for their own safety, or may believe that Only Them are The God(s)'s Chosen Ones And Everyone Else Is Inferior, take that comm as disrespectful interaction and start a crusade.

It's not 99% the case, but it's not unlikely either.

[Simon_Jester]

Makes more sense to send a laser signal or radio beam ahead. It's less aggressive and frightening.

Depending on the distances involved, it may not be possible due to the inverse square law (or the optics for laser). The beam's power source (and optics in case of laser) is limited after all.

It takes a surprisingly small amount of power to send a laser signal dozens of lightyears across interstellar space, and appear to outshine the star it's coming from in that frequency. After all, stars shed their light uniformly across a sphere of huge radius while lasers concentrate it on one spot, and stars radiate at all frequencies while lasers concentrate all their energy on only one.

I'd argue that interstellar laser communication could easily have a range of hundreds of light-years from a stationary platform. And it is very unlikely that we'd be making interstellar journeys longer than that in one hop, in a universe where FTL travel does not exist.

At some point, the added cost of decelerating the ship to stop at a waypoint for maintenance is necessary in light of the risks of having the ship traveling through interstellar medium at high relativistic speeds for centuries.

Then again, a very paranoid or xenophobic race might take that as aggression and retaliate. But hey, if the diplomacy does not work you can send RKVs in the next century.

It's a good argument for communicating with someone before attacking them.

What I meant is that if the race is paranoid or xenophobic, may still take even a communication as an "attack" or a risk for their own safety, or may believe that Only Them are The God(s)'s Chosen Ones And Everyone Else Is Inferior, take that comm as disrespectful interaction and start a crusade.

It's not 99% the case, but it's not unlikely either.

Put this way: anyone paranoid enough to attack you because you tried to talk to them is ALSO paranoid enough to attack you because you approached them in a way indistinguishable from an attack. You have nothing to lose by communicating.

[SMJB]

I am of course not talking about interstellar empires in the sense of being a unified political entity any more than I am talking about them being a literal empire with a literal emperor. I mean, come on.

You're missing the point quite spectacularly. Being an "empire" or not has nothing to do with the feasibility of interstellar travel.

No, I merely limited my answer to the part of the post that had anything to do with what I was talking about.

Would building a dyson swarm hinder an attempt to destroy the system with relativistic missiles? Possibly. Has fuck-all to do with my statement that a million-star empire has too much strategic depth to be wiped out hostile aliens, however.

[Formless]

Which has fuck all to do with this thread because a "million star empire" has all the realism of a cloud of pixy dust.

If you cannot comprehend how my point relates to yours, you must really be a retard.

[CaptainChewbacca]

This reminds me of a short story that turned up online about 5 years ago:

MESSAGE BEGINS

We made a mistake. That is the simple, undeniable truth of the matter, however painful it might be. The flaw was not in our Observatories, for those machines were as perfect as we could make, and they showed us only the unfiltered light of truth. The flaw was not in the Predictor, for it is a device of pure, infallible logic, turning raw data into meaningful information without the taint of emotion or bias. No, the flaw was within us, the Orchestrators of this disaster, the sentients who thought themselves beyond such failings. We are responsible.

It began a short while ago, as these things are measured, less than 6^6 Deeli ago, though I suspect our systems of measure will mean very little by the time anyone receives this transmission. We detected faint radio signals from a blossoming intelligence 2^14 Deelis outward from the Galactic Core, as photons travel. At first crude and unstructured, these leaking broadcasts quickly grew in complexity and strength, as did the messages they carried. Through our Observatories we watched a world of strife and violence, populated by a barbaric race of short-lived, fast breeding vermin. They were brutal and uncultured things which stabbed and shot and burned each other with no regard for life or purpose. Even their concepts of Art spoke of conflict and pain. They divided themselves according to some bizarre cultural patterns and set their every industry to cause of death.

They terrified us, but we were older and wiser and so very far away, so we did not fret. Then we watched them split the atom and breach the heavens within the breadth of one of their single, short generations, and we began to worry. When they began actively transmitting messages and greetings into space, we felt fear and horror. Their transmissions promised peace and camaraderie to any who were listening, but we had watched them for too long to buy into such transparent deceptions. They knew we were out here, and they were coming for us.

The Orchestrators consulted the Predictor, and the output was dire. They would multiply and grow and flood out of their home system like some uncountable tide of Devourer worms, consuming all that lay in their path. It might take 6^8 Deelis, but they would destroy us if left unchecked. With aching carapaces we decided to act, and sealed our fate.

The Gift of Mercy was 8^4 strides long with a mouth 2/4 that in diameter, filled with many 4^4 weights of machinery, fuel, and ballast. It would push itself up to 2/8th of light speed with its onboard fuel, and then begin to consume interstellar Primary Element 2/2 to feed its unlimited acceleration. It would be traveling at nearly light speed when it hit. They would never see it coming. Its launch was a day of mourning, celebration, and reflection. The horror of the act we had committed weighted heavily upon us all; the necessity of our crime did little to comfort us.

The Gift had barely cleared the outer cometary halo when the mistake was realized, but it was too late. The Gift could not be caught, could not be recalled or diverted from its path. The architects and work crews, horrified at the awful power of the thing upon which they labored, had quietly self-terminated in droves, walking unshielded into radiation zones, neglecting proper null pressure safety or simple ceasing their nutrient consumption until their metabolic functions stopped. The appalling cost in lives had forced the Orchestrators to streamline the Gift’s design and construction. There had been no time for the design or implementation of anything beyond the simple, massive engines and the stabilizing systems. We could only watch in shame and horror as the light of genocide faded into infrared against the distant void.

They grew, and they changed, in a handful of lifetimes they abolished war, abandoned their violent tendencies and turned themselves to the grand purposes of life and Art. We watched them remake first themselves, and then their world. Their frail, soft bodies gave way to gleaming metals and plastics, they unified their people through an omnipresent communications grid and produced Art of such power and emotion, the likes of which the Galaxy has never seen before. Or again, because of us.

They converted their home world into a paradise (by their standards) and many 10^6s of them poured out into the surrounding system with a rapidity and vigor that we could only envy. With bodies built to survive every environment from the day lit surface of their innermost world, to the atmosphere of their largest gas giant and the cold void in-between, they set out to sculpt their system into something beautiful. At first we thought them simple miners, stripping the rocky planets and moons for vital resources, but then we began to see the purpose to their constructions, the artworks carved into every surface, and traced across the system in glittering lights and dancing fusion trails. And still, our terrible Gift approached.

They had less than 2^2 Deeli to see it, following so closely on the tail of its own light. In that time, oh so brief even by their fleeting lives, more than 10^10 sentients prepared for death. Lovers exchanged last words, separated by worlds and the tyranny of light speed. Their planetside engineers worked frantically to build sufficient transmission infrastructure to upload the countless masses with the necessary neural modifications, while those above dumped lifetimes of music and literature from their databanks to make room for passengers. Those lacking the required hardware or the time to acquire it consigned themselves to death, lashed out in fear and pain, or simply went about their lives as best they could under the circumstances.

The Gift arrived suddenly, the light of its impact visible in our skies, shining bright and cruel even to the unaugmented ocular receptor. We watched and we wept for our victims, dead so many Deelis before the light of their doom had even reached us. Many 6^4s of those who had been directly or even tangentially involved in the creation of the Gift sealed their spiracles with paste as a final penance for the small roles they had played in this atrocity. The light dimmed, the dust cleared, and our Observatories refocused upon the place where their shining blue world had once hung in the void, and found only dust and the pale gleam of an orphaned moon, wrapped in a thin, burning wisp of atmosphere that had once belonged to its parent.

Radiation and relativistic shrapnel had wiped out much of the inner system, and continent sized chunks of molten rock carried screaming ghosts outward at interstellar escape velocities, damned to wander the great void for an eternity. The damage was apocalyptic, but not complete, from the shadows of the outer worlds, tiny points of light emerged, thousands of fusion trails of single ships and world ships and everything in between, many 10^6s of survivors in flesh and steel and memory banks, ready to rebuild. For a few moments we felt relief, even joy, and we were filled with the hope that their culture and Art would survive the terrible blow we had dealt them. Then came the message, tightly focused at our star, transmitted simultaneously by hundreds of their ships.

“We know you are out there, and we are coming for you.”

Unforseen consequences can arise when you start genociding with RKV's.

[Simon_Jester]

Frankly, Chewie's scenario seems like a more plausible outcome of anyone trying relativistic missile attacks across distances of more than a few dozen light years. The delay loop between the decision to attack and your attack arriving allows you to be proven wrong with horrible ease. Moreover, your intended victim could get a LOT stronger and more dangerous in the time it takes for your attack to arrive, tipping the scale from "we destroyed a threat before it could grow to destroy us" over to "we unnecessarily provoked and enraged someone, who now WILL destroy us."

Not good.

Also...

Which has fuck all to do with this thread because a "million star empire" has all the realism of a cloud of pixy dust.

Which is more important to his argument, out of the words in that phrase: "empire," or "million star?"

It seems to me like you're so busy objecting to "empire" that you're ignoring the "million star" part- which is the really critical angle; a million stars populated by loosely affiliated peoples that have at least some sentiments in the direction of collective defense would still be practically immune to this kind of attack, even assuming it works as well as advertised.

The strategy outlined by The Killing Star simply doesn't work if the murderous species on its single planet is unable to detect and destroy every single emerging threat. If you're not the first culture in your region of space to have this capability of long range genocide, you're screwed. And you are even MORE screwed if your opponents are large and dispersed enough that they can attack you without fear of being totally annihilated by your counterattack. Say, if their relativistic missile deterrent force is conveniently stashed ten light years away from any of their inhabited systems, and has been for millenia, so that even retaliating against the launch site is pointless.

Being a would-be genocidaire is dangerous in this scenario. It's hard to imagine any case with worse consequences for underestimating an opponent. Or where you end up more thoroughly screwed over by thinking you're a big fish in a small pond when the reverse is true.

[Formless]

Which is more important to his argument, out of the words in that phrase: "empire," or "million star?"

I assume you are talking to me? "Million star". That's what gives it the "strategic depth" he keeps talking about. I thought I already explained this, but this should be simple enough anyone can understand what I object to. I don't see how interstellar colonization can be taken so lightly in discussion for the purposes of realism, given the magnitude of the feat. Cavemen can't shoot for the moon.

Which is actually a pretty good argument against The Killing Star, anyway. What threat exactly do we pose to other civilizations besides that we might commit xenocide because someone else might beat us to the punch? There is no other motive present, certainly none of the traditional ones-- no resource crunch which would provoke an invasion like the ones from the past, and no exotic materials we can't find at home to be an oil or gold analogue. There is literally trillions of tons of untapped wealth up there orbiting our own Sun. Even if we could colonize other systems, Alpha Centari looks pretty desolate as far as life goes, as do most stars. When you put it this way, its pretty obvious that its a circular argument.

[Boeing 757]

Perhaps the solution to the Fermi Paradox is that we are truly alone--at least insofar as the topic of intelligent life being hidden away somewhere within our own galaxy is concerned. Maybe it could be that a huge majority of stellar systems harbor earth-like worlds with living organisms dwelling on them, although they have not yet evolved into thinking creatures of the same order of intelligence as human beings.

Perhaps an other explanation could be that mankind is the youngest intelligent species within the Milky Way, and thus other much older intelligent civilizations have developed communicative techniques which do consist of radiowave devices like the ones that we have relied upon since the invention of the radio. In case of such an event, it should be exceedingly harder if not impossible to detect extraterrestrial radio signals since no one makes use of them any longer.

Perhaps also we haven't yet detected signs of extraterrestrial intelligent life because they are so far away from the Milky Way, located in some other distant galaxy from which their communication signals are still on the way to us.

Or maybe, it could be that we are the creation of aliens living in some video-game reality just like in the Matrix.