I forgot about Gorillas but they also eat fruit which may contribute why they are smarter than your average herbivore.
A Brief Timeline of Ancient Interstellar Civilizations
- Thread starter Arpy
- Start date
The goalposts in this discussion are moving at Warp 9!
a warp 9 ballet
As a fan of both history, prehistory, and fictional history, I'm growing increasingly curious why did these ancient civilizations collapsed. Like what happened the Progenitors, the Iconians, the Arretans, and why haven't they left behind direct descendants (not counting seeded species)?
War, civil war, disease, corruption…the Platonians from TOS were I think 38 individuals on the planet by the time they were done (if they were) their selective breeding or whatever it was.
Comedian Jimmy Carr thinks the Roman Empire didn’t disappear, rather all its wealth is in the basement of the Vatican. Maybe the wealth of legendary ancient civilizations isn’t as great as their legacies, and all that’s left is spread out among ten thousand museums across the Galaxy.
Maybe so are their people. Living “middle class” lives throughout the galaxy.
Maybe they’re hidden, like the Aldeans or the Organians. Old money knows not to paint a target on its back….from experience.
Maybe they’re off to conquer other galaxies…the great Kelvin Empire of the Andromeda Galaxy, or wherever the Caretaker is from, or fluidic space. Though conquest seems such a primitive corporeal(?) concept…like us with pre-warp civilizations, maybe they don’t bother with engaging with us.
Maybe they’re like the Edo god, toes dipped in multiple dimensions.
Or the Prophets mostly in others.
The Q have been everywhere and done everything but no one knew about them until EaF. Maybe some of the older civilizations are everywhere but beyond perception. Would you want to constantly be stopped for your autograph?
the dinosaurs never fully vanished - you can buy them as nuggets everywhere
... the question is do they remember their ancestors ruled the world
the iconias might nowadays be rather dumb sufficience farmers using whatever passes as 'horse an yoge' on their planets and having no idea what kind of weaponry has been dug into their ground millemia ago.
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Wait why would a collapsing empire in the milky way would invade a neighboring galaxy? They wouldn't have the infrastructure or funds to support such an invasion.
Umm so far from my understand of the Star Trek universe, Klingons and Romulans are always trying to expand their borders via conflicts. Heck even the Federation is doing a "soft" conquest by gaining allies and admitting them into the federation, thus expanding their borders.
No because nuggets can’t remember. Once they’re drowned in dipping sauce.
Maybe yes (“For the World Is Hollow and I Have Touched the Sky”), maybe no (“Errand of Mercy”).
Maybe they pulled an Independence Day and took their entire civilization with them. Because they can.
All of those are corporeal beings, perhaps less evolved than others that have been around longer and have naturally or artificially evolved beyond mortal pursuits.
Also, the Klingons and Romulans are baddies doing their baddie things. Vive la différence. Others out there equally or more advanced have chosen not to. The Vissians from ENT’s “Cogenitor” were more advanced than the Vulcans and were benign enough. Same with the Children of Tama (Tamarians) from TNG’s “Darmok” who were as advanced as the Federation. Even other baddies like Zalkonians (also Federation level tech) from TNG’s “Tranfigurations” didn’t seem as interested in imperial expansion as much as internal concerns.
Come to think of it, the same with the Romulans for half a century until “The Neutral Zone,” and the Klingons seemed to let go of “the Old Ways” until tricked by the Dominion in “The Way of the Warrior.”
The Caldonians, the First Federation, others…who knows, maybe the Sheliak. It’s a big diverse galaxy even if some aliens get more press than others. The Orville did a great episode about something similar with…I won’t spoil who, but there are aliens who evolved so far as to let go of concepts like government and even a sense of self while being extremely powerful.
The Federation does not conquer. Expansion is not the same. And it chooses not to let in many who don’t measure up to its rather high standards. Worlds it could easily gobble up and take advantage of.
That said, maybe all of this, this Star Trek, is but modern day Captain Proton, and in the real world if and when we expand into the stars it will be on corporate and NGO ships with little weaponry of any kind. Maybe there are no moral militaries (and their industrial complexes), and war (and building weapons of) will be illegal (save for anti-asteroid tech and the like) as resources are universally agreed upon to be devoted to more lucrative exploration and expansion. Hell, maybe it’ll all be run by AI, and the future will bear little resemblance to anything in Trek at all. …save for a very advanced and prosperous people trying to live their best lives in an extraordinary age.
Well in Real-Life, evolution doesn't have a goal. We are not going to evolve into energy beings, what is the evolutionary advantage of it? Life is inherently in a state of constant struggle.
Maybe this is because when growing up, I mostly watched the ALIEN and the PREDATOR series as my source for space-science fiction. I think if we do go into space, I do not think aliens would be peaceful and have Good Guy Philosophy. I think aliens will be just as dangerous as us or even more so.
STAR TREK isn't my view of the future, if we do develop FTL travel and solve the time dilation problem I think our future would be more like ALIENS than STAR TREK.
Back to STAR TREK, I mean even if the ancient alien civilizations were to be like the Aliens from Independence Day, that means their civilization was on the fritz if they went from galaxy spanning empire to space nomads.
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I dunno maybe they just got bored. We’re all from Africa yet here we are, flags on the Moon, Elon readying for Mars.
I can see Alien more than Predator. Mostly for the corporate stuff. It’s just unlikely that aliens will be anywhere near the same level as us, let alone engaging in primitive hunting behaviors.
If I really had to imagine I think of aliens closer to 2001: A Space Odyssey. I mean there’s like, what, a two percent difference in the DNA between us and chimps. Somewhere in there is a fraction of the part that leads to intelligence. Imagine some aliens have not that fraction but a full 4% devoted to intelligence. Just 4% might as well be the difference between us and gods for how differently the civilizations would play out.
Let alone ones that are 5000% smarter—whether naturally or artificially. I mean, it’s a big universe. They might as well be energy beings, or something we simply have no concept of or language for. Maybe they’re watching you read this very post. In a million parallel universes all at once. Like we watch microorganisms under a microscope. They might have started off like us but done so two billion years earlier. It’s an ancient galaxy, and there’s little reason to think we’re the first to come up in it.
I can see Alien more than Predator. Mostly for the corporate stuff. It’s just unlikely that aliens will be anywhere near the same level as us, let alone engaging in primitive hunting behaviors.
If I really had to imagine I think of aliens closer to 2001: A Space Odyssey. I mean there’s like, what, a two percent difference in the DNA between us and chimps. Somewhere in there is a fraction of the part that leads to intelligence. Imagine some aliens have not that fraction but a full 4% devoted to intelligence. Just 4% might as well be the difference between us and gods for how differently the civilizations would play out.
Let alone ones that are 5000% smarter—whether naturally or artificially. I mean, it’s a big universe. They might as well be energy beings, or something we simply have no concept of or language for. Maybe they’re watching you read this very post. In a million parallel universes all at once. Like we watch microorganisms under a microscope. They might have started off like us but done so two billion years earlier. It’s an ancient galaxy, and there’s little reason to think we’re the first to come up in it.
Intelligence is a funny thing though. We don’t know how it works or where it comes from. It’s not just a matter of time. Horseshoe crabs have been basically the same for 445 million years, I saw recently, and they’re not changing anytime soon. Meanwhile I can see us going cybernetic in a century if AI can help us supercharge our rate of progress in medicine and technology. Hell Elon is already doing some of this with Neuralink. Imagine where we might be in the 24th century. …maybe we’ll know why we went down that path and the horseshoe crabs are still the same.
I mentioned PREDATOR since it was the other science fiction series I watched a lot as a kid.
Energy beings don't make sense to me existing in real-life unless they are in an energy enriched environment.
Why do you think hunting is primitive? doesn't all life hunt for its food at some compacity? Carnivores hunt for animals, Herbivores hunt for plant matter, omnivores hunt for both, chemvores would hunt for chemicals, Energy Beings hunt for plasma or energy, and Machines would hunt for resources.
There maybe we highly developed species in the cosmos but to say they are above collecting resources doesn't make sense to me. We live in a finite universe, you cannot create matter nor destroy it.
You look into the cosmos and see gods. I see predators further up the food chain.
Sorry if that got too GRIMDARK
Edit: Well the horseshoe crab has a simplistic body design that requires no further change (as of yet). Humans are different, we aren't a bottom of the food chain animal like a horseshoe crab, we are earth's top predator.
If Horseshoe crabs had no competitors or predators, they probably would have evolved into more diverse forms.
Yes the universe a big place, but it will have a huge diversity of lifeforms. But I think most alien lifeforms would be analogous to plants and animals. What if sapience is a fad niche or What if we are the first sapient lifeform to sail the stars and all others are still non-sapient plants and animals.
To put it in a STAR TREK lens, What if we are the Progenitors?
Back to Star Trek, the Federation is doing the same thing as conquering just without War and immediate displacement of culture. They are just better at acquiring new systems than the Klingons and Romulans. Yes the Federation standards, all the more to make the Federation's manifested destiny appealing.
I would like to know why the Romulans became a civilization of paranoia? Where they once more trusting? Did they suffer a near extinction event? Was Romulus invaded in its past?
Energy beings don't make sense to me existing in real-life unless they are in an energy enriched environment.
Why do you think hunting is primitive? doesn't all life hunt for its food at some compacity? Carnivores hunt for animals, Herbivores hunt for plant matter, omnivores hunt for both, chemvores would hunt for chemicals, Energy Beings hunt for plasma or energy, and Machines would hunt for resources.
There maybe we highly developed species in the cosmos but to say they are above collecting resources doesn't make sense to me. We live in a finite universe, you cannot create matter nor destroy it.
You look into the cosmos and see gods. I see predators further up the food chain.
Sorry if that got too GRIMDARK
Edit: Well the horseshoe crab has a simplistic body design that requires no further change (as of yet). Humans are different, we aren't a bottom of the food chain animal like a horseshoe crab, we are earth's top predator.
If Horseshoe crabs had no competitors or predators, they probably would have evolved into more diverse forms.
Yes the universe a big place, but it will have a huge diversity of lifeforms. But I think most alien lifeforms would be analogous to plants and animals. What if sapience is a fad niche or What if we are the first sapient lifeform to sail the stars and all others are still non-sapient plants and animals.
To put it in a STAR TREK lens, What if we are the Progenitors?
Back to Star Trek, the Federation is doing the same thing as conquering just without War and immediate displacement of culture. They are just better at acquiring new systems than the Klingons and Romulans. Yes the Federation standards, all the more to make the Federation's manifested destiny appealing.
I would like to know why the Romulans became a civilization of paranoia? Where they once more trusting? Did they suffer a near extinction event? Was Romulus invaded in its past?
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