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Will Aliens be Monsters and Should
We Be Scared?
Andrew Kennedy
Project Chronolith, Calle Goles 48, Sevilla 41002
ank@chronolith.net
Presented at the SSoCIA Conference, March 2022, University of Mississippi
This paper examines factors of growth to contradict the rationale behind the fear
that an alien civilisation will be aggressive innately or situationally on contact,
and that, as a consequence, Humans should not initiate communication or
interaction with ETIs. It considers that such fears seem to be echoes of ancient
religious dualistic notions of evil counterparties to a good Creator, also to be
found in current speculations about our universe as a simulation, and are not a
logical result of our knowledge of galactic structure, interstellar distances, ideas of
solar system and planetary uniqueness and the results of growth. This paper
considers the likelihood of the existence of predatory civilisations by examining
the application of game theory to encounters with ETIs, otherwise known as the
‘Dark Forest’ scenario, and to show that destructive strategies indicated by it are
false Nash equilibriums and unlikely to represent an actual strategy of
civilisations in the galaxy. The paper considers that the Malthusian-like limitations
of growth in material, information and energetic sectors of consumption combined
with interstellar distances cannot make predatory behaviour dominant in the
galaxy and that any civilisation achieving a Kardashev type II phase of growth,
whether it exploits the energy sources of a star or a black hole, implies stagnation
and end to its expansion through the galaxy and where predatory behaviour has no
survival advantage. The paper also considers the biochemical and biological
context for an actual arriving ETI and argues that the facts of biochemistry are as
inhibiting a prospect of unrestrained interactions, predatory or otherwise, as
anything else. If an alien society still wishes to make contact with Humans then a
meeting of cultures in a creative artistic festival environment of mutual
association will be more productive and attractive than other more formal
structures of information exchange, and I conclude that an alien survival scenario
of a steady state economy where the surplus is channelled into interstellar travel is
more probable than predatory behaviour and that no alien civilisation can advance
through the galaxy without some factors of mutual accord with other civilisations.
Scary aliens with bad intentions is a well mined theme in art, literature and
movies. When I was a student, the general belief, which helped to get SETI off the
ground, was that advanced aliens civilisations were essentially benign since they
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were expected to have triumphed over the social and economic problems that so
divide Humans right now, and were, therefore, superior personalities, benign,
avuncular even.
I felt then that the ideas of the 1960s were absurdly optimistic, and there was no a
priori reason why an advanced civilisation making contact would be superior
morally or even intellectually. Certainly one might expect that a consciousness not
pressured by outside threats, and though it be formed by millions of individuals,
or is the size of a planet or the universe, would necessarily be battling against
itself, affecting others with the fallout just like the hapless advanced Krell of
Forbidden Planet (Wilcox, MGM Studios, 1956) destroyed by their Id unleashed
by their own machines.
It is tempting to see the impulse behind the desire to view ETIs as beings who
want to destroy not only parallels the haunting of Humans by evil spirits but
carries echoes of the dualistic approach to creation, long considered heresy by the
Catholic Church, in which the observable universe is the result of a cosmic
struggle between good and evil beings, like the old Bulgarian heresy of
Bogomilism which promoted the idea that Humans and the world of matter had
been created by a fallen angel and were therefore impure and should be rejected.
The 3rd century AD Mannichean religion of Persia similarly equated the material
part of the universe with the bad, and held that humans were produced in a
continuous battle between the beings of the world of light, and where the evil
beings of the material world of darkness are always encroaching upon the world
of humans.
I believe the true source of our fear of aliens is deeper in the psyche. The source
of our fear of aliens is our fear of the jealous God. It is tempting to see the
predator scenario in the Dark Forest scenario as a manifestation of this deep
psychological fear of the Superior being somehow being obliged to be a
threatening presence to lesser beings in spite of itself, its love and its desire for
mercy. The jealous god is a being overwhelmed by the need to justify punishment.
In modern parlance, the Dark Forest scenario is God’s trash talk designed to put
the wind up us Humans.
Certainly Art likes to express danger even though it lacks the fuller picture. For
example, the Alien movie concept where we learnt a lot about the Alien creatures’
breeding cycles being their motivation for terrorising the human species has
nothing at all to say about what they ate to stay alive. Great architectures for
Space Arks carrying thousands of individuals across space never seem to take
seriously the full range of risk factors of cultural stagnation especially through
failures in decision-making, collectively named Xrisks by Rezabek and Nielsen
Xrisks (Rezabek. Nielsen 2013).
Nick Bostrom refers to a ‘flawed realisation’ or a decline in aspirations of a
civilisation (Bostrom 2013), but it is difficult to define exactly what this means vis
á vis survival. A despotic regime and harmful to many citizens may yet be capable
enough to push through the occupation of space.
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I am not going to get into stagnation in detail. If cultures stagnate then obviously
predatory behaviour is not an issue. However there is a difference between
stagnation and a steady state generating a surplus which can be siphoned off and
not fed back into growth. Tony Milligan and Martin Elvis wrote a very nice piece
on the future preservation of wilderness in the solar system, and in so doing
implied some important points about the idea of a steady state civilisation (Elvis,
Milligan 2019).
I will concentrate for the moment on the notion of the inevitability of a predatory
civilisation by briefly examining the Dark Forest scenario to show that its ideas of
predation are not supported in game theory, and then by examining the Kardashev
phases of advanced civilisations to show by a reductio ab absurdum arguments
that resource demand is not likely to be a source of predatory behaviour. I will
mention the difficulties of profiting from predatory behaviour on arrival at an
alien solar system with or without an advanced civilisation present and suggest a
method of making contact with them that does not expect the aliens visitors to be
violent, destructive or predatory.
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When the Dark forest scenario with its ideas of predator civilisations was first
broached, it seemed the obvious way of crystallising the basic issues around alien
contacts, and plenty of commentators think it represents a likely strategic reality
even today, to the extent of opposing ideas of sending messages out into space or
to the extent of demanding that we cloak the presence of Earth so we cannot be
observed by predators.
Others fear our naïveté in this area or our anthropocentrism will lead us to make
mistakes in dealing with ETIs once contact is established. John Gertz’s view of
restraint in making contact has been taken further by many who think we should
avoid contact at all costs even to the extent of hiding our presence. David Kipping
suggests we should cloak the Earth with lasers to disguise the transit photometry
evidence of Earth across the Sun and make it invisible to searching aliens ( D.
Kipping, A. Teachey 2016). Interestingly, for Earth, it’s probably already too late
to maintain an anthropocentric attitude. Kaltenegger and Faherty examined the
stars in the galaxy that lie sufficiently close to our line of sight to be able to
observe Earth transits across the Sun and concluded that approximately 1700 star
systems within 100 parsecs (326 light years) could have observed visual evidence
for Earth’s existence within the last 5000 years. (Kaltenegger, Faherty, 2021).
Stellar motions are such that this number will always be changing as some stars
move out of line of line and others move into it. The authors estimate a further
300 or so stars will enter the line of sight to Earth in the next 5000 years. 75 of the
closest of these stars have also been able to observe Human generated electronic
emissions. While only 7 of these stellar systems are known to have exoplanets, it
is generally considered that there are many more planets and therefore many more
probable observers of Earth than can currently be observed by us and that the
large gaseous planets we mostly observe are not representative of the planetary
population. Interestingly, if the predatory scenario of the DF is a correct
summation of ETI thought, then this alone would prove the current lack of a
predator civilisation within an accessible distance to Earth. If we take the
detectability of the presence of threatening Humans as beginning with the first
atomic explosion then this would imply that any predator civilisation is at least a
distance of 77/11 = 7 light years from Earth, if they can move at 10% the speed of
light, as Humans have not yet been destroyed.
The Dark Forest scenario arises from two axioms which when taken in isolation
seem reasonable and indeed obvious:
1. Survival is the dominant goal of every civilization.
2. Civilizations will continue to expand and compete against one another in a
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galaxy of finite resources.
We can expect, therefore, two populations of civilisations to arise: emerging
civilisations not yet detected by others (possibly the Human case), surviving
civilisations who are either too remote from the others (possibly the Human case)
or very good at disguising themselves and their intentions (not the Human case),
and which includes predatory civilisations. This conclusion is used to explain why
we do not see evidence of civilisations out and about in the galaxy, viz. everyone
is in hiding.
From this competitive basis a forced conclusion arises that civilisations have to
destroy each other the moment one is detected to avoid becoming prey
themselves. The strategy of forced destruction supposes a Nash equilibrium,
which is where all the players find a strategy that is stable and cannot be worsened
by any change in the strategy of the other(s), but it is not, in fact a true Nash
Equilibrium. Because of the time required for a destructive act from arriving
civilisation to reach the target civilisation, the re-emption does not prevent a
similar pre-emptive attack by the target civilisation.
We will label the predator civilisation en route as A, and the target civilisation as
B. A can be destroyed by a strike from B at any time up to A’s destructive forces
arriving on B, and vice versa. Thus, given the time delay between the two, a pre-
emptive attack by one does not prevent the same on the other. If A knows that B
cannot mount an attack then its is unnecessary and a waste of limited resources. If
A does not know that B can counterattack or can develop a counterattack in the
time A’s attack takes to get to B, it also does not know what damage its attack on
B will produce and worsen the state of B for A’s purposes (a Pyrrhic victory).
It is also likely that A may have resources to mount a pre-emptive attack or a
comprehensive defence strategy but not both together. A point to be discussed
when we look at interstellar voyages. Not only will A be limited in resources there
is the point that if A is capable of carrying both then surely the resource problem
for A has been solved and neither are necessary.
The pre-emptive strategy is, if adopted by both A and B without full knowledge of
the other’s capability, a suicidal pact, and the opposite to the Cold War deterrent
strategy of MAD (originally derisively so named as Mutually Assured Destruction
by military strategist Donald Brennan (Jervis, R. 2002) that was designed to avoid
nuclear conflict by perpetuating a stalemate. Given the structure of this false
Nash Equilibrium in the DF scenario, one should expect that, parallel to the MAD
strategies of the Cold War era, energy spent on developing a first strike capability
against an unknown enemy’s capability would be better spent on an impenetrable
defence. Defence is especially attractive to a solar-system-wide civilisation where
all sites distributed within it cannot be ambushed at the same time. Furthermore, A
is likely to lose more from any attack before arrival since, although it may have
the ‘high ground’, its ships will be more vulnerable, and are far from home.
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A
Predator
On Contact with Target
World.
Some distance d from
target world
(A1)
Do nothing before
arrival.
RO -1, +1
(A2)
Communicate with B.
RO -1, +1
(A3)
Set defences on contact
RO -1, +1
(A4)
Pre-emptive attack
fleet launch
RO -1, -1
B
Target World
A is detected
(B1)
Do nothing before
arrival.
RO +1, -1
Uncertainty
Implies B believes it is
superior.
Implies Diplomacy
possible.
Pre-emptive attacks may
be on the way.
B continues to develop.
RO=0
Uncertainty
Implies B may believe itself
superior.
Communications
untrustworthy.
Pre-emptive attacks may be
on the way.
B continues to develop.
RO=0
Restraint
A may or may not be
inferior to B.
If Pre-emptive attack
successfully defended.
Diplomacy may follow.
B continues to develop
RO=0
A wins
B undefended.
Prize of B devalued by
pre-emptive and
destructive attack.
Unnecessary energy
losses for A.
RO=-2
(B2)
Communicate with A.
RO -1, +1
Uncertainty
Implies A is superior. Pre-
emptive attacks may be on
the way.
Non-1st strike Implies
diplomacy possible
RO=0
Mutual suspicion.
Implies A may believe itself
inferior to B.
Pre-emptive attacks not
excluded.
Negotiating positions
unverifiable.
RO=0
Information exchange
No advantage for B whether
or not it is superior.
A has negotiating
advantage.
B continues to develop
RO=0
A wins
B undefended
Unnecessary energy
losses for A.
The prize of B devalued
by the damage of a pre-
emptive attack.
RO=-2
(B3)
Set defences on Contact
RO -1, +1
Restraint
B may or may not be
inferior.
If Pre-emptive attack
successfully defended.
Diplomacy may follow.
B continues to develop
RO=0
Information exchange
Implies A may believe itself
inferior to B.
Pre-emptive attacks not
excluded.
Diplomacy an option.
B continues to develop.
RO=0
Mutual restraint
MSD – mutual self-defence
No first strike wins.
Diplomacy required.
A safe.
B continues to develop.
RO=0
Stalemate
A no longer defended.
A losses more
significant as far from
home.
Unequal negotiation
RO=-2
(B4)
Pre-emptive attack
Fleet Launch
RO +1, -1
B wins
A is weak
A will be debilitated
A’s attack may be on the
way
`
RO=0
B wins
A is weak
A will be damaged
A’s attack may be on the way
RO=0
Stalemate
Attack on A defended.
B losses significant.
B no longer defended
RO=0
Both A and B fail
Suicide MAD
False Nash Equilibrium
Attack by A does not
prevent pre-emptive
attack from B
RO=-4
Table 1. Dark Forest Scenario strategic options for two civilisations: Response table
Notes to Table 1.
1. A maximum value strategy from this scenario follows:
For each response of A and B we will designate two simple parameters for the strategic outcome
for each player, risk {+1 / -1} and reward {+1 / -1}. where -1 = low value indicating minimum risk
or low reward and + 1 indicating high risk and high reward, and add the four scores into a total
score for the strategy. It is generally assumed that each civilisation has resources to mount a
comprehensive defence or attack but not both. So for cell A1B1 we will label its risk-option
strategic value for A as +1 for high risk and +1 for open options, and for B as -1 for both, leading
to RO=+1+1-1-1 = 0 to indicate an ambivalent balanced case for each. In fact for all cases but the
final column, the strategic balance is even over the 12 cases. Only in the final column A4 where A
has initiated a pre-emptive attack do we see the overall strategic value fall.
2. It should be noted that a pre-emptive attack could be launched from A’s home world prior to A
setting out. This option is less advantageous for the following reasons:
a) If A’s economy is still growing then the attack should be launched at minimum time to
destination* so that it arrives before A’s fleet.
b) The attack may well be detected prior to its arrival and give away its origins and also the
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technological state of A.
c) The attack must be launched close to A’s departure otherwise B will have time to prepare a
counter if it survives.
* Minimum time to destination. There is an ideal moment for A to launch an attack on B given A’s
level of advancement, rate of growth and distance to destination. Launch an attack too soon and A
may develop faster means of travel and overtake the attack before it arrives at B. Launch too late
and A will never catch up with the attack. In order for the attack to arrive before the fleet, A must
launch the fleet either before or after the minimum time to destination.(Kennedy, 2006)
1.2.1 In flight Risks
The responses in table 1. are not entirely symmetrical because A has a slight disadvantage
in that being in space and having a technologically static set of resources at hand. The
problem for A’s fleet is the energy and propulsion needed to launch an attack
while in mid-flight. The mass of fuel required to accelerate an attack payload
faster than the fleet’s current velocity will be part of the initial payload at launch.
Unless a civilisation has found some magical means to voyage at little cost, then
the requirement to brake velocity at destination tends to preclude carrying
additional propulsive mass for weapons of mass.
Mass-driver ideas for launching vessels from a system without requiring onboard
fuel except for deceleration at destination means that A is even at more risk during
the flight if it launches an attack fleet with its energy reserves.
Even considering using X-ray lasers as some form of sterilising ray requires vast
energy excesses generated mid flight. Even if A does manage to proceed with an
attack, this suggests that A will be debilitated by the energetic cost, and unless the
pre-emptive attack is completely successful, will be worse off than before.
Furthermore the chances are high that the destination civilisation B will have a proto
defence system already in place to protect against asteroids and comets, and most likely
dispersed around its system to cover all eventualities. It would be fairly logical to upgrade
these defence systems at the observation of an incoming ship, making the mutual self-
defence scenario (MSD) even more relevant to A strategic choices.
1.2.2 Resource destruction at destination
As far as the DF scenario goes any discovery of a civilisation demands destruction
whether or not it can defend itself or is more advanced. What advantage does this
destruction actually bring? What manner of destruction can be employed without
damaging the resources the predator civilisation needs? One presumes the
‘destruction’ is to destroy any opportunity the target civilisation has to defend
itself from the incursion. Given that, according to the DF scenario, advanced
civilisations are in hiding, the destruction of another system is likely to be
observable. A, therefore will emerge from hiding to give away its ultimate
location, the target system B, and to also flag the fact that it will be in a debilitated
state on arrival to a destroyed or debilitated system.
1.2.3 Resource depletion
In addition, any evolving target system will have already begun to consume its
resources. By the time one is recognised and a fleet constructed to travel to it, a
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significant portion of the resources of the system are likely to have been used or
converted to waste, given exponential growth.
If there is, therefore, no true Nash equilibrium in the DF scenario and that the
doctrine of mutual defence leads to Diplomacy, is the aggressive alien scenario
still a likelihood? What other factors reduce the likelihood of aliens being
relentless predators?
The DF scenario requires three conditions to be true. Firstly, it requires a high
density of civilisations in the galaxy where the travel time between civilisations is
a small fraction of any civilisation’s lifetime. Currently, from observations, we
believe this to be unlikely.
Secondly, it requires that advanced civilisations have the capability to hide or
disguise all signatures of their presence, for without this capability, even a
superior civilisation would a) not have the advantage of surprise, and b) be prey to
other predators equally advanced, or c) be blocked or defeated by defensive
alliances looking for better survival strategies. Even at our stage of development
we will shortly be capable of directly observing evidence of advanced societies in
solar systems and hiding and disguising a civilisation will take at least as much
resources as it consumes, a self-defeating requirement if resources drives the
predator scenario.
!"
Elvis and Milligan touched upon the point that unrestrained growth in the solar
system is likely to reach a point where it cannot be scaled back. The reason for
this is that eventually the multiplication of energy use spreads to act upon every
point in the system simultaneously and cannot therefore be easily scaled back
without applying a brake upon every point simultaneously. As the notorious lily-
in-the-pond riddle explains quite well. If a lily on a pond doubles itself every day
and covers the pond on the 30th day, on the 29th day, then, removing anything less
than half of the lilies will leave the pond covered at most two days later.
Most growth that we consider exponential is really only pseudo exponential
growth. It exists approximately over a time period and is the temporary result of
accumulated factors. True exponential growth, derived from the parameter e
whose derivative is itself, occurs in a growing system where the parent stock
divides in two after a time period. This occurs in mitosis, but not in sexual
reproduction. It occurs in capital accumulations, and in certain forms of gambling,
but not in productivity, which difference is a cause of much distress among
working populations, Moore’s Law notwithstanding. Certainly the inflation
scenario at our Universe’s beginnings may well have been exponential initially,
although with the discovery of dark energy, dark matter and massive structures in
galactic formation, if it had been exponential in character the period of time in
which it applied specifically must have been extremely brief. In place of
exponential growth describing the behaviour of matter and energy we have
various power laws describing the proportions of features of the natural world,
and some natural phenomenon appear to obey empirically discovered power laws,
but as a whole the Universe is better described by S-shaped or sigmoid curves
where the effects of growth after a certain time act to inhibit the growth rate. A
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generalised Logistic curve is an empirical formulae used to model systems of
growth or fit known distributions, and these equations apply only to small periods
of time compared to the lifetime of the phenomenon. They make use of
asymptotic limiting values, often referred to as carrying capacity, which are, by
their nature, estimates. Logistic growth may have portions of its time frame
expressing exponential growth but overall it is a time derivative of the bell-shaped
distribution, a probability distribution of random occurrences seemingly having
universal applicability. However, Human economic long term growth more
closely resembles exponential growth because the carrying capacity is continually
being expanded through innovation and the discovery of fresh sources of energy
or efficiencies.
Mitotic exponential growth of a system requires an inflow of energy which must
exceed the sum total of energy used by the components or it will degrade to
logistic growth or falter outright. At the point at which the exponential growth
slows is where the continued resource utilisation interferes with itself and
becomes logistic in character, which is to say, the movement of entropy lies on a
negative slope and disorder increases for a given energy unit. For capital to grow
exponentially, there needs to be an energy surplus greater or equal to the total
consumed energy. Economic expansion requires that energy exploited should
always be greater than the sum total of consumption. One can see immediately
that the balance between material, providing the requisite objective of
consumption, and energy supply will define the limits of growth for any solar
system. If there is energy but no material then growth will falter just as much as if
there is material but no energy. Continued exponential growth requires an energy
surplus. With these points in mind we will look at some brute force numbers with
regards to Kardashev scale (see Fig. ).
#$
According to the Kardashev scale of energy use (Kardashev, N.S. 1964), a type I
civilisation harvests the full amount of the sun’s energy falling on the planet.
Human civilisation currently using about 1017 watts is about 4 orders of magnitude
away from the type I definition. A K Type II uses 4 x 1026 watts, roughly the
energy of a star like our Sun; a K Type III uses 4 x 1037 watts. This is not a good
measure for a Type II. It ignores two other sources of energy in a solar system
other than the star, namely the actual material content and the potential and kinetic
energy locked up in it.
For example, fusion energy production depends upon the material of the solar
system such as hydrogen and its isotopes or elements like Boron and Lead as well
as Lithium, which is used in most systems to breed Tritium. Although these
elements, except Boron, appear abundant in the solar system, they still have to be
mined and prepared. Currently fusion systems require superconducting magnets
and superstructure. This material availability will determine the likely boundary to
growth of a civilisation more than the radiation output of its star. For example,
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elaborate plans to use the energy of a star and even its hydrogen envelope to
create propulsion units to move our Sun and its solar system around the galaxy
(e.g. a Caplan thruster) do not appear to take into account the material and
biospheric limitations to growth. Which thus undercuts the purpose for the effort.
(V. Badescu, R. B. Cathcart 2006).
Other projects have been proposed by assuming total control of the Sun’s output.
For example, moving the Sun, essentially perturbing its galactic orbit, to avoid
galactic threats like roving nebula or rogue stars, or moving the Earth to avoid the
death of its Sun have been proposed in detail. At the Conference on Interstellar
Migration, Los Alamos, May 1983, David Russell Criswell suggested removing
Solar mass in order to increase the Sun’s lifetime, and to make smaller
concentrations of solar material for use. Zuckerman (Zuckerman B. 1985)
estimated that between 1 and 10% of advanced civilisations would have had to
move their planet to avoid the death throes of their sun.
However, the Sun’s output is not available for these macro projects if its total
radiation energy is already being employed to sustain growth. Only if growth
stabilises at a lower level of energy consumption can there be any surplus for
macro projects of this nature. The lifetimes of the macro projects mentioned can
be measured in many thousands or millions of years. The reality is there is very
much less time available for a civilisation if growth cannot be stabilised.
We have a tendency to think of a civilisation solely in terms of energy resource
utilisation. For example the first figure of the table below indicates the number of
years of energy use from today to the K Type II limit. But this simply obscures
other deficits incurred by a living population which must also be included in the
estimation of a civilisation’s lifetime.
!"
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Let us consider, the total planetary mass of our solar system amounts to ~447
earth masses for the planets, while comets, satellites and minor planets represent
about a tenth of this, say ~2.6 x 1027 kg, (there is also the Oort cloud of comets
containing perhaps a few Earth masses of material. But these comets range far and
wide between 200 and 20,000 AU, and will take up resources to track down and
use), and we take an average human being as weighing 60 kg, then using a
starting population mass 7.8 x 109 x 60 = 4.68 x 1011 kg, with a compounded
average long term growth rate of 1%, just the growing mass of the human
population will exceed the mass of the planetary bodies of the solar system in
≈3,643 years from now. While in many regions humans are expanding faster, at
over 2% p.a., throughout history humans have averaged 1% growth in spite of the
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ravages of war and pestilence.
Even this mass is insufficient to build the Human population since all Earth-based
biology requires phosphorous, and the total amount of phosphorous in the Solar
system to make Humans is limited to about ≈1024 kg which would be used up by
them after 3,400 years with nothing left for other biomass.
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There is unlikely to be sufficient mass in a solar system to build any form of
energy exploitation scheme collectively given the title of Dyson bodies and also
make the individuals who will populate it. At some foreseeable point, we will
have to stop making more humans. Dyson spheres have been discussed elsewhere,
but other versions of stellar utilisation for a K Type II civilisation such as Dyson
rings which uses less mass but has much less surface area, or Dyson swarms
which has numerous closely packed bodies in multiple orbits around the star, have
a worse relation of mass to surface area which makes these options even less
capable of providing a surface area to support their growing population or its
energy use.
Image: Dyson Swarm: Verdecent, Wikicommons
Even supposing some other way could be found to create a supporting web of
microdense material the size of a sphere of diameter of the Earth’s orbit of say 300
million km, which has surface of 1.88 x 10^9 sq km or 1.88 x 10^15 sq m. and
every Human being was allowed an area of 10 sq.m, exponential growth of the
Earth’s population from now (7.8 billion) of 1% would fill this space in just under
2,000 years from now. Clearly a Dyson body housing solution is insufficient for a
population of discrete individuals under Malthusian conditions, and results in a
cage rather than in liberty. It is not clear in any event quite what Dyson bodies
achieve for a population since the benefits of the surface gravitational acceleration
of the planets would have been lost.
While matter can be recycled to some extent, entropy sees to it that it is not
endless utilisable even with power excesses. What would the power surplus
concentrated by Dyson rings of solar panels be for? Power massive lasers or mass
driver systems? What about the industrial processes also required by the
civilisation; the food and housing? The question remains, just how useful would it
12
be for a civilisation to solve its energy utilisation problem in this particular way.
At the Earth’s orbit, the stellar radiance of 1,361 Wm-2, at just less than two
horsepower, seems insufficient to do much work for a civilisation with advanced
projects even at 100% efficiency, and is a step down for a civilisation who had
been using the accumulated energy supplies in biomass, in nuclear fission and in
fusion, all of which would be coming up to their limits at more or less the same
time. A Dyson solution (harvesting all the energy of solar system’s sun) is thus no
solution at all; it is not a solution to the problems of the work required by growth.
And there is always the banal problem of where do you live while the works are
going on.
%()&$*)+
The average calorie consumption of an individual ranges from about 600 for an
infant to 4,000 for a physical labourer. If we take an average daily consumption
for an individual at 2,500 kcal, we can see that the yearly energy consumption in
watts is a thousand times greater than the current world energy use and equivalent
to 8.272 x 1015 W yr-1. Much of this is currently provided by the biosphere and
indirectly by the Sun. As a population moves out into the solar system, this energy
will need to be supplied or certainly augmented by other energy sources. While
photosynthesis requires light in the visible part of the spectrum, temperature is the
most significant factor. Photosynthesis efficiency lies between 1 and 4% of the
light received. At Mars orbit for example the solar radiance is only ≈200 W m-2
and thus the usable fraction of light is at most around 8 W m-2 of the incoming
radiation is available for photosynthesis. Temperature is more critical. The best
temperature range for almost all plants is 10–35°С, and photosynthesis stops
completely at ≈-4oC. The photosynthetic activity of the leaves outside these
boundaries sharply decreases and is irreversibly lost after prolonged exposure to
low temperatures. In general photosynthesis in the outer regions of the Solar
system will require genetic developments as well as large energy supplies.
,&-'
We can conclude that a K Type II is unlikely to comprise a growing population of
discrete individuals. An alternative scenario has been proposed (Robert Bradbury
1997) where consciousnesses are uploaded into a mega digital or virtual
computing space and life takes place entirely within an artificial computing
environment, namely Matrioshka brains, to avoid the material problem of physical
bodies. This does not, however, remove the mass-energy relation in the solar
system.
If we consider that every individual intelligence added to the computing system
also needs increments of memory and increments of energy we can see that
material needs cannot be escaped. Even supposing some rationalisations can be
made along the lines of individualities sharing some memory states, there is still
the material substrate needed for discrete storage as well as the computing energy
demand, which the absolute minimum requirement for changing one bit as
indicated by the Landauer limit is ≈3 x 10-21 J.
A human brain is strikingly efficient. Its supporting system (a body) may only
take up about 0.0664 cu m and weigh ~60kg while the brain functions on about 12
13
watts at rest (B. Sengupta, M. B. Stemmler 2014). From calorie considerations we
can say a person who averages food consumption at 2250 calories a day where a
kilocalorie is equal to 4200 joules of energy uses an average of 109.4 joules a
second, equivalent to 109.4 watts) of which a fifth may be attributable to the brain
from oxygen consumption observations, or ≈22watts
We can find some agreement with Sengupta and Stemmler’s approach from
summing electrical potentials. A typical peak current in a firing human neuron is
around a 5 pA (10-12) with a voltage of around 0.100 v, then a neuron peaks at 5 x
10-13watts, or ≈2.5 watts for the neural net of the brain (1011neurons), not including
the blood supply and the workings of other cells like glia cells (that support
neurons and which may be more numerous than neurons). By adding the energy
use of the glia cells which we can take by glucose consumption observations to be
around 3 x 10-10 W per cell and around the same number of cells as the neurons
gives a total of 27.5 W per brain.
If we take the Landauer value for the minimum heat produced by changing one bit
of information as (≈3 x 10-21j we can see that at ≈27 W power consumption the
brain could be changing up to 9 x 1021 bits of information per second, of the order
of a billion trillion bits per second. Even if the biological mechanism was 1000
times less efficient than this idealised calculation, it still means the brain could be
producing over a million trillion bit changes per second. Massively outdoing
Watson and calling in to question how much computing evolution will be required
to turn networked data centres into human-rated intelligence systems.
If we take half this level of energy as the minimum required for each identity to be
incorporated into the Matrioshka network, then a star like the Sun whose entire
output is ≈3.86 x 1026 watts could power 2.8 x 1025 electronic individualities.
Assuming consciousnesses either grow in extent or reproduce themselves in a
similar fashion to biological evolution, even in the electronic space, at 1% p.a.,
Earth’s population from now would reach that number of individuals in ~3,600
years, and this does not include the energy manipulation required to set aside the
mass and manufacture the Matrioshka brain. One might expect electronic
individuals to multiply at the same rate as the accumulation of bits of data overall.
.+ '$+
We can approach this calculation from another angle, namely the mass limits to
information.
Information has mass. Melvin Vopson has studied the growing information crisis
here on Earth and by taking the minimum energy dissipated to write a single bit
shown by the Landauer principle as, ≈3 x 10-21j, where one bit of information is
considered to have 3.19 10^-38 kg, suggests that if information continues to grow
by 20% a year, then the information produced in ≈500 years from now will
account for half the Earth’s mass. Even before this point, at ≈300 years from now
computing information growth will take all of Earth’s current power consumption.
(Vopson 2020). The business research company IDC agrees with Vopson
estimating that the world generated 64.2 zettabytes of data in 2020 alone, and that
number is growing at 20% pa. Interestingly, a Forrester Consulting study showed
70% of business are accumulating data faster than they can effectively analyse
14
and use it. While we may be able to store it now, let us be conservative and take a
long term 2% growth rate in bits stored on individual atoms, then the information
requirement would reach the number of atoms that comprise the Earth (1050) in
3,270 years.
Clearly photonic computing would have to be developed but, while the
information density may be higher, even that does not remove the material or
energetic needs of the systems to manage them.
For example, the problem of entropy. Order in an increasing information system
requires that the surroundings must increase in entropy by an amount equal, k.log
2, per bit of information, where k is Boltzmann’s constant 1.38 x 10-23 JK-1
This means that at the end of the growth period above, namely 3,270 years, a
Matrioshka brain would necessarily be radiating at ≈ 1026 J and implies that any
Dyson construction will need to have very efficient and unknown cooling methods
if it is to sustain itself round its star.
15
/'++)$%0'1'*+#--
Growth contributions to Earth becoming a Kardashev Type II civilisation
Starting quantity
in 2020
Long term
Annual Growth
rate %****
Exponent
Target Quantity
(demand rising to this
value) or Carrying
Capacity limit
Time of
exponential
growth to
reach limit
in years, T
Value reached
by Logistic
Curve***
using T years
Material
Human
Population
mass
4.68 x 1011 kg 1% tMass of solar system
2.6 x 1027 kg
3,643 1.4 x 1027 kg
Human
Phosphorous*
needs
Contained in
starting mass of
humans
6.6 x 109 kg
1% tTotal phosphorous in
the rocky material of
the solar system
3.276 x 1024 kg
3,400 1.77 x 1024 kg
Fusion fuel**
Estimated mass
conversion of 8.9
billion kg of
hydrogen per year
estimated for
current needs
2% tEstimated mass of free
hydrogen in the solar
system
2,162.6 x 1024 kg
3,261 1,188 x 1024 kg
Fusion output
1 kg of hydrogen
produces
≈ 6 x 1014 J
Theoretical maximum
energy output of free
hydrogen fusion
available
12 x 1038 J
Energy and
Information
Human
economic
energy
consumption
Current Estimates
all sources annual
Earth energy
consumption
17.7 x 1012 W
2% tTotal output of our Sun
+ fusion output
≈ 1038
2,878 2.05 x 1026 W
Human
physical
energy
consumption
Annual total
population energy
requirements @
2500 kcal/day/pp
8.272 x 1015 W
1% tTotal output of Sun +
total fusion of free
hydrogen
≈1038
5110
Human Brain
Power
requirements
7.8 billion
individuals @ 27
watts per person
2.106 x 1011 W
1% tOutput of our Sun
3.828 x 1026 W
3,528 2.05 x 1026 W
Total
Accumulated
information
Today’s annual
data production of
7.3 x 1021 bits
(Vopson)
2%
(conservative
estimate in the
long term)
tNumber of bits equal to
the Number of atoms
comprising the Earth
≈1050 bits
3,270 1050 bits
Entropy ≈1026 JK-1
Mass of
accumulated
information
Today’s total
information mass-
energy
2.388 x 10-16 kg
2%
20% (today’s
growth in
information
TMass of the Earth 5.97
x 1024 kg
4697
510
Interstellar
Voyage
Current Velocity
of travel
(optimistic level
of current
Maximum
achieved by the
Parker probe)
6.666 x 10-5 c
a. 1%
b. 2%
i) t
ii). t/2
iii) t/2
t/2
Target Velocity in
terms of light speed
c/10
c/10
5c/100
c/10
734
1,469
1,330
738
c/50
c/50
c.11/100
c/20
16
Table. 2. Growth Restrictions to Earth becoming a Kardashev Type II civilisation
Notes to Table 2.
*Abundance of phosphorus in earth’s crust is estimated between 0.1% and 0.13%, making it the 11th most
abundant element there. In humans phosphorous is 1 – 1.4% of body weight. Amount of rocky material in the
solar system amounts to the first four planets, moons, asteroids and Pluto plus the cores of the gas giants
which amounts to 504.60089 x 1024 kg, thus phosphorous abundance amounts to ≈ 0.6% of this or 3.276 x
1024 kg
** Fusion fuel. On the assumption that water will be far too valuable a resource to convert all into hydrogen,
and that it is preferable that fusion reactors will use free hydrogen in the solar system. According to the
European Commission: "A 1 GW (electric) fusion plant will need about 100 kg deuterium and 3 tons of
natural lithium to operate for a whole year, generating about 7 billion kWh. Deuterium abundance in the outer
planets ranges between 10-5 and 10-4 that of hydrogen.( European Commission, 2007)
***Qt = K/1+Be-rt ,where B = (K-Q0)/Q0. The logistic curve produces a consumption rate of roughly half that
of exponential growth to the solar system limits.
**** A long term growth rate for the Earth’s economy of 1% may be considered low and many authors quote
3% as typical. Certainly localised growth rates can differ. China has grown between 1990 and 2020 at 10%.
However recessions and depressions and stagnation all need to be included in the composite rate over the
long term. During that same period Japan’s growth had stagnated and the Japanese stock-market in 2020 is
still worth less than its value in 1990.
Fig. 2 Kardashev civilisation limiting growth factors
# $
#)
There is more energy in the solar system than the Sun’s radiation, of course. The free
hydrogen in the planets could supply ≈ 1038 J The planets embody energy in the form of
gravitational potential and kinetic energy (ignoring spin energy). To move a planet from
one orbit to another requires changes in these energies. To move a planet from an outer
orbit to the orbit of Earth requires converting the potential energy into kinetic energy
17
without allowing the planet to reach escape velocity. Since the planets’ gravitational fields
and kinetic energy influence each other there is the consequence of chaotic resonances
being introduced by disturbing one of more planets in their orbits. This may end up being
very difficult to control.
The Energies of the Planets
Planetary mass and orbital data: NASA fact sheet: online resource: nssdc.gsfc.nasa.gov/planetary/fact
sheet/.33E
Planet Mass
1024 kg
Av.
orbital
velocity
103 m/sec
Orbit
semi-
major
axis R
109 m
PE
-GMm/R
G= 6.67E-11
M = 2E+30 kg
KE
mv2/2
Σ Energy
Joules
Excluding spin
energy
Change in Σ
Energy
to move planet
to Earth orbit
in joules
Mercury .33 47.4 58 -0.76 x 1033 0.37 x 1033 -0.39 x 1033 3.87 x 1032
Venus 4.87 35 108 -6.02 x 1033 2.98 x 1033 -3.04 x 1033 3 x 1033
Earth 5.97 29.8 149 -5.34 x 1033 2.65 x 1033 -2.69 x 1033
Mars .642 24.1 228 -0.38 x 1033 0.186 x 1033 -0.194 x 1033 1.89 x 1032
Jupiter 1898 13.1 778 -325 x 1033 162 x 1033 -163 x 1033 1.48 x 1035
Saturn 568.3 9.7 1427 -53.1 x 1033 26.7 x 1033 -26.4 x 1033 2.2 x 1034
Uranus 86.81 6.8 2871 -4.03 x 1033 2.0 x 1033 -2.03 x 1033 1.35 x 1033
Neptune 102.4 5.4 4497 -3.04 x 1033 1.49 x 1033 -1.55 x 1033 7.5 x 1032
Table 3. Potential and Kinetic Energy values for Solar System Planets
The power output of the Sun is typically given as 3.828×1026 joules/sec which
suggests that a very minimum billion second timescale (≈32 years) of total
accumulated energy from the sun would be needed just to move Jupiter,
disassembled or otherwise, into the Earth’s orbit. At the 3,000 year mark from
now, with consumption running at least at 1.6 x 1026 W and adding 1024+ W of
consumption per year could the Kardashev society even wait 32 years to get
Jupiter into Earth Orbit.
23
To avoid compromising the output of their Sun, a possible solution for a Kardshev
civilisation would be to build their structure around a black hole that was radiating
energy from infalling matter. A new study has calculated black holes of between 5
and 10 solar masses in the Universe to comprise 1% of normal matter (A.Sicilia et
al., 2022) Even Black Holes of hundreds of solar masses will still be smaller than
many moons of the solar system. Super massive black holes of millions of solar
masses as reside in the centre of our galaxy, on the other hand, are very much
larger than any known star.
A black hole might have higher energy source, but this arises not in the black hole
itself but in the viscous concentration of mass circulating it which loses
gravitational binding energy in the form of radiation, mostly X-rays. Typically at
6% efficiency the process is between 10 and a 100 times more efficient than
fusion. The accretion disk, however, is usually supplied by a companion star
which would make the construction of any form of Dyson collection system
difficult. The accretion disk typically extends 100 times the radius of the Black
Hole and furthermore, matter is as likely to gain kinetic energy and escape from
the disk as to lose it and to be drawn closer in, confusing the near space
environment for a Dyson construction. Relativistic matter is also ejected from the
poles of a Black Hole which, while offering opportunities to derive energy direct
18
from induction makes the construction of a Dyson ring in a polar orbit to avoid
the extended equatorial accretion disk also problematical.
In fact, black holes have a better role as the workhorses of a civilisation around
the Solar System before the Dyson solution becomes the only possible solution.
Black holes could be used to solve three particular difficulties:
a) Disassembling planets and re-distributing their matter.
b) Shepherding planets or their matter to the desired orbits.
c) Establishing high levels of distributed sources of energy for these uses far from
a star.
Judging by the estimated distribution of black holes based on the observations of
stars likely to end their lives in a black hole ( > 2.95 solar masses), there may be
as many as ten million to a billion such black holes in the Milky Way alone not
counting the supermassive black holes that appear to sit in the centres of galaxies
and quasars and which arise out of black holes merging. Alex Sicilia, in his study,
estimates that 1% of the mass of the universe may be in the form of black holes
(40 x 1018 black holes) (Alex Sicilia et al 2022).
In addition there may be primordial black holes formed in the first second of the
Big Bang ranging from microscopic ones to a large number of solar masses.
Primordial black holes could be a type of dark matter called MACHOs, which
stands for massive compact halo objects, because astronomers think they will
accumulated in the halos, or outskirts, of galaxies. However a statistical analysis
by Miguel Zumalacárregui suggests that if they exist they cannot be more than
40% of dark matter (Miguel Zumalacarregui et al. 2017),
+0
Better work horses for large material projects in a solar system may be black
holes. Black holes of more than 3 solar masses may well be floating in free space
and it is these black holes that may be the tool a K Type II civilisation will need to
survive. A simple formula relating the radius of a black hole’s event horizon to its
mass, R=3M shows that useful black holes of only a few Solar masses are not
large. A five-sun black hole is only 30 km wide. Bringing in such a black hole to
the Roche limit of any planet (the orbital distance at which loose material of a
body starts to be attracted to the primary mass) will begin the process of breaking
the planet apart since the tidal forces generated are dependent only upon relative
densities where,
d= RM (2. ρM/ρm )1/3
where R is the radius of primary body, m the mass of the secondary body and ρM/
ρm the ratio of densities.
If we take the mass of a black hole as representing effectively a star, we can
calculate its virtual radius by treating its density as a stellar equivalent and thus
we can find the Roche limit for a planet meeting a black hole.
19
≈Roche Limit for black hole – planet conjunctions
in km
Black Hole Mass in
Solar masses
Mass
1024 kg R (km)
1 5
Virtual radius
for Stellar density of
1408 kg/m3
km
697,331 1,192,419
Sun (2E30) 696,000
Earth 5.97 6,378 557,026 953,184
Moon 0.0734 1,737 658,537 1,125,808
Jupiter 1898 71,493 896,331 1,532,705
Saturn 568.3 60,267 1,116,000 1,908,333
Uranus 86.81 25,557 898,141 1,535,799
Neptune 102.4 24,766 835,369 1,428,461
!"#
By bringing in a black hole to its solar system, a Kardashev civilisation could use
a small black hole to break up the planets and shepherd the material into orbits
nearer the star. However, the gravitational potential energy of such a body is
enormous and it is not easy to imagine any mechanism by which a civilisation
could control the movements of such a body.
While some black holes are charged, the net charge is unlikely to provide any
form of propulsion via electrostatic repulsion unless attempts were made to
generate fields with electrons and use induction to move the black hole. Spin is
more likely to provide ballistic responses from black holes approaching each other
and prevent them from merging. If this is the case then this would open up an
avenue of some form of manipulation of one black hole with another, as long as
both were spinning, a form of interstellar billiards
,45'+2
Von Neumann put the case that the best way to exploit large resources like
asteroids or planets would be to make self-replicating spacecraft whose numbers
would grow exponentially to handle the task. Such probes would be completely
autonomous, and managed by artificial intelligence. A number of writers have
pursued this idea. Robert Freitas (Freitas, Robert A., Jr. July 1980), (Matloff,
2022), (Tipler 1981). The particular problem with the self-reproducing probe
scenario is that it depends upon rocky planets with easily accessible mineral,
water and gaseous deposits and where any spot in its surface is a good as any
other for initiating mining of the body’s fabric. Biological planets like Earth or
wet ones, however, are less favourable targets for such probes since mineral
deposits are hidden by in some case deep layers of soil and vegetation or by seas.
Stuart Armstrong suggests using Von Neumann probes for disassembling Mercury
20
and building solar collectors out of its material. Feedback exponential growth can
apparently do it very quickly. He estimates ≈ 40 years in the idealised case.
While this process has been extensively studied (Freitas, Merkle. 2004), no one
knows in practice, however, quite how a single probe can a) have fabricating
facilities presumably miniaturised in place to manufacture the probe itself with all
its engineering requirements for propulsion and navigation and maintenance, and
b) contain gathering systems to feed the fabrication processes, and c) embody
methods of computer chip manufacture and assembly, with all the testing
protocols in place, and d) manufacture either fuel for independent launch of a
probe or manufacture the complex mass-driver system required to place a probe
around the planet without requiring on-board fuel systems – although some fuel
will be required for orbital manoeuvring, and e) devise a mass-driver system to
launch material into orbital space in preparation for construction of the Dyson
structure. Bottlenecks in the process are generally ignored, and the self-
reproducing probe is usually assumed to have sufficient capabilities for whatever
scenario is considered, attributes not far removed from magic.
The most significant bottleneck is of course the nature of the growth pattern
which appears somewhat misunderstood. An exponential increase in numbers of
probes arises only when every probe is making other probes, in which case there
will always be many more probes making other probes than mining for material.
If we imagine a case where one probe simply makes a copy of itself and then gets
to work mining, the numbers of probes rise only by 2kt not by nkt, where kt is the
reproduction time period. Idealised forms of reproduction give Fibonacci series
results for growth (Freitas, Merkle 2004), but exponential growth is energetically
not feasible which leads to much longer time frames for such processes. Only
where each probe makes a copy of itself as well mine the material during each
doubling period will exponential growth occur, but does not remove the
bottleneck where competition will arise between probe-makers and probe-miners.
There are ways around this bottleneck. Fewer probes in each generation set out to
make more probes. One probe could just copy itself and turn to digging. Probes
pool their manufacturing abilities and mass-driver installations. A single factory
continues to make probes while not every probe made needs to make a factory.
Each probe must gather material and bring it to a mass driver. Since the fuel
energy will always be greater than payload, the amount of material left for
manufacture decreases exponentially as more probes are made. Thus, instead of
the picture of endlessly multiplying probes bringing a resource gathering task to a
quick conclusion, we are obliged to consider a much more complex society of
probes with differentiated tasks and complex coordinations between them. This
means, however, that the autonomous role for the probes would have to be altered,
more along the lines of eusocial insects with specialisations. Thus the actual rate
of growth is much slower than expected.
Other results contradict the value of such a probe. For example, the fears that
runaway probe production will be hard to stop is well founded and was made
when the idea was first proposed, notably by Carl Sagan. (The use of these to
populate the galaxy has been refuted by the wait calculation where probes can be
overtaken by actual colonising missions.(Kennedy 2013))
21
Deconstruction of planets through either the Von Neumann method or the black
hole tidal break up method still require the extraction of metal from the planetary
debris. While a NASA workshop explored new processes to manufacture metals
and other materials from the various ores in the solar system (Freitas, Gilbreath.
1980), the energy constraints will always be present. For example, the absolute
minimum energy required to convert iron ore to metallic iron is given in table in
MJ/t (R.J. Fruehan et al. 2000)
Raw Material
Absolute Theoretical Minimum Energy as a Function
of Tap Temperature (MJ/t)
1813 K 1873 K
Ore (Fe2O3) 8,620 8,673
Scrap (Fe) 1,274 1,327
Table 5. Absolute Theoretical Minimum Energy to Produce Steel from Pure Ore (Fe 2O3)
and Pure Scrap (Fe)
Which means that, even at a 100% efficiency, the Sun’s energy output only has the
capacity to make ≈14 orders of magnitude more steel before coming up against
production limits. At a compounded growth rate of 1%, from the current Earth
consumption of 2,315 million metric tons of iron ore (2019) the Solar system
would be exhausted in 4177 years. Recycling scrap steel is an additional cost to
that of first making steel from ore, and, of course, does not contribute to growth.
It is even harder to imagine an autonomous probe being able to construct from
scratch all the facilities and to pursue all the steps required to produce Titanium
metal from ore. Traditional methods of fabricating Titanium metal require a carbo-
chlorination combination of chemical actions, reduction with Magnesium (the
Kroll process) followed by distilling, electrolysis and smelting, and it has a very
high melting point making it very expensive energetically.
Table 5. Metal Production Energy Consumption (Yoshiki-Gravelsins, et al. 1993)
22
It is not impossible that different techniques may be found in the future. Modern
sintering processes reduce waste at the metal part fabrication target but require
crushing fine powers of titanium compounds and sintering them in a hydrogen
environment, presumably with lasers of various kinds and leeching with
hydrofluoric acids, which are also used for printed circuits and the making of
fluorocarbons, adding to the complications of the Von Neumann probe
manufacture of production facilities. Many of the techniques discussed require
high temperatures, while the minimum energy requirements for actual metal
fabrication remain the same.
While some believe that self-reproducing probes entering a solar system constitute
a danger, there is a simple defence to that threat, namely another self-reproducing
probe simply reproducing itself. It need not even have any destructive capability.
Since all it needs to do is to reproduce itself, its population could expand more
quickly than the invading probe and suffocate it on site by merely removing
resources from access by the invading systems. Other means of defence could be
to insert virus code into the invading probes systems or to ‘infect’ the material it is
harvesting with unwanted elements. For example, simply doping steel with too
much carbon making it brittle. Titanium manufacture could be contaminated
simply with water soluble mineral compounds.
Thus, the Von Neumann self-reproducing probe is neither a solution for a K Type
II civilisation to escape self-defeating exponential growth nor can it be a weapon
against other systems. The reliance on continued and increasing supplies of
physical resources as a necessary cause for predatory behaviour is not warranted.
% &
Once a K Type II civilisation, whether a Matrioshka society or not, was installed
around its sun, then it is doubtful that it could ever migrate away from it since
they would lack a surplus of material and energy to venture from their source. A
Kardashev civilisation would be living at their maximum consumption limit and
forever tied to their sun where all energy would be involved in reproduction and
converting matter into consumption. A simple calculation show that the energetic
surplus required for non-relativistic voyages to nearby stars is of the order of
1020J.
Mass of spaceship
in kg
Energy required in joules to reach a
Velocity as percentage of light speed
5% 10%
1068.88 x 1019 j 4.53 x 1020 j
1088.88 x 1021 J 4.53 x 1022 j
1010 8.88 x 1023j 4.53 x 1024 j
1012 8.88 x 1025 j 4.53 x 1026 j
Table 6. Minimum kinetic energy requirements for ships moving at fractions of light speed
23
From table 1, the utilisation of free hydrogen as fuel for fusion at a modest growth
rate of 2% as found here on Earth is likely to be exhausted long before other
material resources are reaching their limit. Unless the civilisation has found a
magical answer to navigating large space ships to other star systems without
requiring reaction mass, in order to make such a prospect feasible, steady state
growth would have to be achieved while the surplus energy available in the
system could then be dedicated solely to interstellar craft. a successful civilisation
could rest in a steady state at the point at which they had a continuing surplus of
around 1020 J to spend on interstellar ships. From that point on all surplus
production would go into further interstellar voyages. These voyages would
function to remove an excess of stimulus from the advanced society and prevent
an ever-increasing growth by which catastrophe becomes more likely. This
expectation appears to exclude predatory behaviour.
If, on the other hand, their manipulations of their energy needs allows them a
surplus then the K II state need not be reached at all. To reach the K II state
actually represents a failure, and while such a civilisation may spend its time
simulating universes, assuming they could cool their systems sufficiently, but they
would not be travelling.
'
()
1. Reliance on survival through continual growth and the continuous
transformations of energy sources is destined to fail. Predator behaviour does not
solve any particular resource problem.
2. Resource gathering voyages would never occur since they are futile. The time
taken to return resources to the home world is at least twice the time taken to
reach the destination. This includes the activity of self-reproducing probes as
described above.
3. Colonising voyages do not require wholesale destruction of other civilisations.
In fact systems without a civilisation already present are the preferred target
destination. Developing civilisations will be avoided. If aliens need resources they
do not want systems already occupied by civilisations. Consider Earth, even if its
biological resources seem attractive, they are in serious decline. It is in the middle
of the sixth mass extinction. By the end of this century it no longer be the
biologically rich and fertile place it once was, if, indeed, it has any species living
on it at all.
4. Survival is a matter of acquiring local knowledge of the destinations rather than
by exporting parochial knowledge and expropriating material for a past that
cannot be preserved.
24
* +
/!-
It is not the place to go into the construction details of these vast ships proposed as
a solution to the interstellar distance problem. It is enough to see that such ships
are unlikely to be feasible much before the K Type II limit is approached.
Problems with feasibility and dynamics of mass interstellar migrations prompted
some researchers to propose the so-called “interstellar transfer” (or “solar
exchange”) solution (e.g. Shkadov, 1987). In this case the Earth (or, more
generally, the home planet) is moved to another star. We will not consider this
possibility for reasons already described, and will only consider more likely
transfer options, namely interstellar ships built to survive journeys of hundreds of
years.
On Earth, it is expected that Humans first interstellar voyage to Barnard’s Star (6
light years) will not happen much before 1000 years from now with continued
exponential growth in velocity of travel being related to the root of total power
production. (Kennedy 2006) . Since the K Type II phase occurs between three and
six thousand years from now, this moment occurs at around half the development
time from peak Stone Age to the Kardashev limit.
Again we return to the purpose of the strategy. We know that there are no
advanced societies within at least 77/11 = 7 light years from Earth, assuming that
they would set out to us at 10% the speed of light, the moment they heard our
electromagnetic signals. Would would these ships consist of? Massive long-lasting
constructions housing a procreating population for lengthy voyages at the
conceivable and non-relativistic velocities to other star system as seeds of the
ancient culture? Or smaller ships with smaller crews simply exchanging their
news.
Although spaceship designs using fission and fusion propulsion units appear
useful, these forms of propulsion appear limited to a maximum velocity of around
10% the speed of light. This imposes constraints on the construction of such ships
since the voyage time implies multi-generational societies to live within them.
Orbital placed mass-driver units might be used for launching vessels from a
system in order to reduce its propulsion mass held on board, required for
deceleration. There is as much of an energy cost to populations kept in suspended
animation, or in simulated worlds, as there is for individuals living in an actual
social context.
Plenty has been written about the social and mental degeneration and confusions
that the population of such a world ship might experience over the long period of
time. Knowing the probability of damage and failure, especially in the biospheric
systems could easily be an overbearing psychic stress on the population that
results in rebellion, suicides and self-destruction. Some writers have suggested
that such populations would experience some form of accelerated evolution and
alter their make-up significantly from that of their original home. But the likely
length of such trips falling in the 500 -1000 year range at the 5% - 10% of the
speed of light velocity and in regions of average stellar density makes this
25
unlikely. Even at 5% the speed of light and a two thousand year trip no new
species developments are likely to occur in this time unless artificially produced.
Social mechanisms might come under evolutionary pressure, and political and
religious ideas will undoubtedly shift with the generations but these can be
managed with a simulated and virtual reality environment.
In practice, the extent to which artificial intelligence is allowed to operate
autonomously in such a construction with a larger population would have to be
limited in order to provide a learning path towards work and fulfilment for the
inhabitants. Generations would learn the techniques and knowledge required to
operate and repair all the various systems even though advanced computing would
probably be able to do it. Their schooling would be technical only, since the
objective would not be to produce creative thinkers and problem solvers.
However, automated watchful systems would have to be operating in the
background to ensure that any educational failures or lack of willingness to learn
and apply knowledge would not damage their world. These in turn would need to
have a trained cadre of technicians to monitor, control and repair them, unless the
AIs were considered sufficiently advanced to make all the decisions necessary
whenever they were required. Of course the question arises of how to make those
decisions without being observed, since if the population knew there was a secret
elite overseer to their efforts, the realisation that their efforts were essentially
redundant would be damaging to the social cohesion and make the AI overseers
even more necessary. In contrast to religious belief, knowing that one’s life’s work
was essentially useless might have a serious impact on the health of the
community and lead to competitive myths about who or what was really running
things.
I have been modelling various ways in which civilisations might slowly spread
around the galaxy and which I will report upon at a later date. What appears to be
the case is that a combinatorial function is a work and survival attracts survival.
Unless the growth is rapid in the new settlements, colonisation does not get
established on virgin worlds, and especially if people can leave when they want
to. The tentative conclusion from this work adds to the conclusions above about
resource constraints failing to provide reasons for predatory behaviour, and
suggests that interstellar travellers will be looking to partner with other societies
not destroy them. However, causes of failure are still many. Let us look at some
further considerations about encounters with interstellar voyagers who do arrive.
III
#
The Earth model of exploration and colonisation is a flawed way of looking at the
problems of alien arrivals on Earth. For example, European Colonisation was only
as successful as it was by virtue, to a great extent, of an unequal exchange of
disease. Before Europeans initiated the Columbian Exchange of germs and
viruses, the peoples of the Americas suffered no smallpox, no measles, no mumps,
no chickenpox, no influenza, no typhus, no typhoid or parathyroid fever, no
diphtheria, no cholera, no bubonic plague, no scarlet fever, no whooping cough,
26
no amoebic dysentery and no malaria (B. A. Reid 2009). Many of these were
acquired from the long domesticated of animals and systematic agriculture not
known in the Americas. The Americas domesticated ducks, turkeys, alpacas,
llamas, none of which harboured disease that threatened humans. The
Americas did have tuberculosis, herpes, and syphilis, a much less transmissible
disease but initially seriously debilitating. (The evidence points to Syphilis not
existing in Europe until after the returning Columbus voyage and whose
symptoms were first noted in an epidemic among French soldiers in Italy in 1495.
(M Tampa el al. 2014). Had the exchange been reversed, the history of our world
would be very different. The likelihood of the situation being reversed is probably
low, given that most of the European diseases arose out of the domestication of
animals. The society that had advanced through agriculture was more likely to be
disease ridden than hunter gatherers. While we might expect advanced Alien
societies to harbour greater numbers of serious diseases, it is expected that
conditions on interstellar ships would be sterilised or at least free of
communicative diseases to the extent that the environment on Earth would be
more of a threat to them than their complement of microbes would be to Humans.
The Planetary Protection Principle tends to concern itself with disease, but the
broader issue of a likely exchange of dangers should apply to all forms of
extraterrestrial life, be it analogues of insect populations or mammal and reptilian,
and of whatever biochemical underpinnings they may have. Mammals and
Reptiles are very different from one another yet reptiles are hosts of a number of
serious diseases like Botulism and salmonella and parasites like trichinosis which
are dangerous to mammals. Recent research has identified a respiratory infection
in the dinosaurs which appears to be very similar to aspergillosis, a common
illness which can lead to bone infections that affects birds and reptiles today (D.
C. Woodruff el al. 2022).
3.1 Biochemistry
As far as the biological environment goes, Aliens put themselves at risk by
entering a strange biosphere where threats, from microbes to ultraviolet light, are
only part of the risks or of the incompatibilities present, whether or not Humans
also had weapons at their disposal. Planetary chemistries contain specific
contributions to life processes even though the same elements will be found
wherever life originates. Specific biochemistries evolved on other worlds might
be very sensitive to the chemical processes in ours.
For example, an alien biology built upon silicon rather than carbon encountering
Earth’s biosphere would be at risk from the oxygen present in the atmosphere
since combining with oxygen produces a solid silicon dioxide which tends to
crystallize into stable lattices. Carbon, on the other hand, oxidises to a gas, and
forms carbohydrates which, when oxidised, recycles water and carbon dioxide and
so acts as a sustainable energy source. Attempts to make many silicon analogues
with carbon chemistry have failed, because silicon does not have the same valence
thermodynamics which allow for chains of reactions with subtle PH differences. It
is also the case that Silicon does not produce many molecules with chirality and
so does not provide for subtle selection processes between left and right molecules
(such as nucleic acids which are all left handed) and consequent enzymatic
preferences as does carbon, so a silicon-based life will exist in points of
27
equilibrium less distinguishable and more easily dispersed than carbon based life.
If there is silicon life out there, it will not want to risk entering Earth’s biosphere.
It is conjectured that Aliens may comprise Earth-like biochemistry but with the
opposite chirality, if chirality is a random selection process in the origins of life.
But these aliens would, as a consequence, find nothing on Earth to feed them as
the amino acids would all be the opposite form. Again, the biological components
of our life would have to be decomposed by the Aliens and then reassembled into
the appropriate form for use, but at what risk to the Alien life form? With the help
of quantum computing to compute the complex proteins needed for life, the input
need only be the fundamentals to the chemistry which are readily available
around the solar system and need not be acquired by deconstructing already
existing biology.
Other more exotic chemistries have been proposed for alien life such as a
methane-based chemistry, possible in colder environments where methane is a
liquid. but again all these would find the oxidative environment of Earth too
damaging. Oxygenesis evolved early in life’s history on Earth and is likely to have
evolved through a series of steps rather than requiring a single huge innovative
step. It seems to have appeared first in cyanobacteria. Though highly successful as
an energy-gathering pathway, it produced the first global catastrophe for other
forms of life on Earth, which were still strictly anaerobic and subject to oxygen
toxicity. This Great Oxidation Event occurred about 2.4 billion years ago when
Earth’s atmosphere (and sea water) reached significant levels of oxygen. (L. N.
Irwin, D. Schulze-Makuch 2020). If such an event never occurred on the Alien
home world then the Aliens would be severely at risk from exposure to Earth
Environment. The shift on Earth from a reducing atmosphere to an oxidising one
may in fact supply a greater protection factor from the dangers of alien life forms
and their chemistry than anything else, and undercutting the idea that any world
with life could be simply occupied by an invading society.
Even if one imagines Alien life processes more similar to the biochemical
processes on Earth, where the aliens possessed a DNA backbone made from
different sugars attached to the phosphates, this would introduce damaging
instability since the RNA that results from this DNA would create a different
repertoire of cell proteins and thus their immune system would be primed to
attack Earth-based microbes and proteins that are friendly to us. Infections would
be untreatable.
With regards to foodstuffs, how likely is it that any of the food chains of Earth
would have evolved to supply all the needs of a top of the food chain alien
species? For example, Humans need a multiplicity of foodstuffs to provide all the
nutrients and energy they need to keep their complex systems going. There is no
single food known to have evolved to supply all the minerals, vitamins and amino
acids required by the human organism to live and thrive. A human needs 20 amino
acids of which at least 9 must be found in food intake and which cannot be
generated internally. Humans, although omnivores, eat only 200 plant species out
of the possible 300,000 that we could eat with proper preparation, from the
estimated 400,00 plant species on Earth (John Warren 2015). However there is
more to it. Digestion specifics, tolerance, flavour, side effects, all are factors even
28
for intraspecies. Moreover, how likely is it that any alien in any of those movies
could get all its nutritional needs provided for by whatever animal species, alien to
it, it stumbled across. Different phyla here on Earth have little generalised
compatibility in food utilisation. Herbivores and Carnivores do not crossover in
diet. Each group has developed specific digestions for their diet and mostly in
conjunction with several groups of bacteria. For example Pandas actually have a
digestive tract that is designed to digest meat, but they have lost a specific gene
that allowed them to taste meat. They digest bamboo instead because they have a
large colony of Clostridium bacteria in their gut which have enzymes to break
cellulose into simpler sugars. Other Herbivores can tolerate denatured animal
protein to some extent and fish proteins is often added to the meal of cows, but if
fed meat cows get sick.
It is certainly true that humans have evolved dietary flexibility but some elements
of their intake cannot be replaced by others. They cannot live on fruit and raw
vegetables alone; they need fats, minerals and vitamins where at least one cannot
be sourced except from an animal. Just how likely is it that a Human would end
up being a food source to an alien. How specialised will alien digestion be?
Furthermore, it is now known that foods also provide genetic switches to alter the
proteins in a cell. What possible harm might be incurred by Aliens ingesting food
that may appear to be digestible but yet have adverse metagenetic effects.
If any alien species did arrive then a complete disassembling of earth’s biological
products and a re-forming into a product suitable for an alien biology would have
to take place. They would chose this method rather than elect for genetic
manipulation simply because it is quicker. Although genetic manipulation is a
possibility, the aliens would require all our knowledge of all biological gene sets
in order to design new genomes using our DNA for their use. How likely is this?
There is the prospect of ‘terra-forming’ the planets of the solar system to make
them suitable for alien life, but is this process likely to be as effective as quantum
computing designing and building all the biological molecules required for the
alien life directly from the elements? In other words there is no need for frantic
murder and mayhem, for the abduction of individuals and experimentation upon
them but a steady supply of organic material components for the aliens to convert.
This organic material could in fact be our biological and mineral waste.
On the basis of biochemical differences alone, one would expect aliens to be
cautious about entering into the same physical space as Humans and to be
competing with Humans for the biology of Earth. It seems unlikely that the
premise in Niven and Pournelle’s Footfall (Niven, Pournelle 1985)where alien
elephants try to turn the US Midwest into wet breeding grounds for their species
would be a possibility. Rather than monsters, aliens will likely be fragile creatures
and wearing masks rather than weapons.
But, if aliens do arrive, we should not expect them to remain in ‘quarantine’,
forever locked into their spaceships and operating with complete robotic
interactions. There would be a pressing need for them to relate to us in a more
creative and inspiring way. And in fact, we may be able to point to certainly two
antecedents for a different form of welcome than stiff exchanges of formalities in
Earth’s history.
29
%+,
(+
,
A thousand years ago Cahokia was a Mississippian settlement– on a site near the
modern US city of St Louis, Missouri. It was the largest pre-Columbian city north
of Mexico and consisted of large open areas for gatherings and ceremonial events,
extended housing, and large earthen mounds including a 10-story platform
mound that was the tallest manmade structure in the United States
until 1867 when the steeple of the Church of the Covenant in Boston
was completed (73m). In 1050 AD, Cahokia's population may have reached
30,000 people at its peak, and larger than most European cities(Timothy Pauketat
2010) It was the most densely populated area in North America before
the Europeans got there. Annalee Newitz writes in their recent book (Newitz
2022) that Cahokia appeared to be purely a cultural centre. There was no
marketplace, no parades of shops. Instead the city was a place where the
inhabitants played sport, drank drinks containing high quantities of caffeine and
feasted for days on end. In one rubbish pit, archaeologists found the carcasses of
2000 deer from a single feast. It was a cosmopolitan meeting place with art and
sport and spirituality all merging into a celebratory concourse, a place of festival
and fun.
Recent research has unearthed in one of the mounds what seems to be four or five
mass graves, in which a total of 270 skeletons were found of men and women,
buried during the peak years of the settlement, all of whom appeared to be part of
the Cahokia community based on an analysis of the composition of tooth enamel (
L. M. Nash, E. A.Hargrave 2015). Archeologists suggest that these burials
indicate sacrificial rites but there seem no general evidence that this was practiced
in the region, and the discovery may well indicate deaths from disease or
poisoning as well as interpersonal violence. The conclusion that the burials
indicate sacrificial rites, however is tenuous. For example 7 Km East of Cahokia a
settlement of 100 ritual huts was burned without a single human death associated
with it (also occurring around the time that Cahokia became partially abandoned).
So while it is possible there may have been an event which incorporated ritualised
death into social organisation, there is no evidence that sacrifice was one of the
purposes to the settlement and one of the methods by which social cohesion and
control was exercised (Emerson, el al. 2016). Cahokia remains, therefore an
example of purposeful social interaction over time free of the typical authoritarian
violence and rigid hierarchies that have so characterised political entities through
the stone age to modern life. The following example of a modern day
cosmopolitan meeting place is a further illustration of a possible creative Human
conviviality of which the history of Cahokia may be just one early example of
putting into practice.
,21)
The festival of Burning Man out in the desert of Nevada (in the temporary Black
Rock City) is a festival broadly along Cahokia lines. Suffice to say that this is an
30
unaffiliated nine-day festival of artistic abandon to which spiritual and community
inventiveness is brought into a social context liberated from norms, from religion,
from political ideology, from nations, from GDP, from consumerism, from elitism.
It is simply a constructed ecosystem for around 70,000 human souls, where
Humanity expresses its convivial wide-ranging nature, and has a whole lot of fun
in the process. (Burning man is not at all a nihilistic exercise, and the irony of the
actual moment which inspired it has been entirely finessed.) Burning the effigy at
the end of the festival is not a full stop to the festival but a reprise of rebirth like
the Phoenix arising again out of the ashes of its immolation. The rules that do
govern it are geared to engender responsibility and a form of collective
watchfulness to ensure that everyone has the best time they can without harming
the collective experience. The founder of BM, the late Larry Harvey, wrote down
10 guiding principles to guide the formation and conduct of BM groups around
the world. They stress self-expression, self-reliance, but at the same time a
responsible community, inclusive and without commerce (nothing is sold but
coffee and ice), a commitment to immediacy (and leaving no trace on the land)
and a culture of gift-giving. BM is wholly committed to the moment where
autonomy and art come together in civic conviviality.
Burning Man is not simple a festival; it is a movement in the sense that it has
spawned other sub BM festivals around the world. I have no doubt that when
aliens come, somewhere like Black Rock City is the place they will want to get to.
Forget about astrobiologists, forget about Generals and defence experts. They are
precisely the wrong people to put out the welcome mat. Somewhere like this is
where we will find the best means to understand and relate to an alien civilisation,
to communicate with them and to learn from them. This, I believe, would be the
environment that aliens would be willing to enter. An encounter with an alien
species is experiential and not to be found in a lecture theatre, or in front of a
quizzing military, sequestered in an army bunker. We will certainly be interested
in their technology but they are likely to be interested in something quite other.
In spite of the influences of the celebrity elites there is no doubt that Burning Man
will move out into the universe alongside the orthodox Humans, But while
Burning man does not reveal everything about Humans, it explains what humans,
and perhaps all civilisations really like to do with their surplus. I think there is
every reason to expect aliens to think along similar lines, and to expect that their
voyages into space will be voyages propelled by a psychic surplus and not by a
narrow-minded necessity.
,5
The most significant feature of these kinds of festival as we move into the future
will be the matter of Simulations, an inevitable consequence of the marriage of
media and economics. And whose most significant component is narrative. To
construct simulations we need to create narratives. And it will be in these kinds of
creative chaotic convivial meetings that narratives will become the currency of
exchange.
This is important because we never inhabit narratives fully of our own making.
We live within a social construct whose features are out of our control. We only
control to some degree our responses, and these lie on a continuum on which
31
every individual’s responses can be found and predicted except for the fully
creative act that arises with a high level of unpredictability.
Given the trend in metaverse simulations in Human society today, I think we can
safely assume that all advanced societies will be immersed in a simulated
environment to some degree or other. However, artificial intelligence will
certainly advance to the point where almost every response will be predictable.
What then will the simulations simulate? Right now we see the practical
development of the metaverse as being economic in character. By allowing
individuals to immerse themselves in simulated worlds every private and
particular need can be catered for precisely. But there are more headwaters to the
trend than gaming and shopping. The metaverse will be a world where the
standard brakes upon social interaction, namely the restraints of social norms, of
ethics and morals could generally be removed, played with or inverted, allowing
individuals of whatever belief-set to gather together with like minds and to
immerse themselves in virtual activities, and exploring the psychic space that
Human consciousness inhabits, adding or removing components to their
individual universe as the control level increases.
It appears to be expected that in the long run, the virtual worlds will be places
where the inner life of every possible human being can be given a virtual
existence without physically harming other consciousnesses. Although it is hard to
see how psychic trauma to minds can be avoided even if physical harm is not
present.
With all possibilities of life and imagination examined, the likelihood is that aliens
travelling through space will have probably explored their psyches to the fullest
extent. They will be bored and tired of themselves. There will be no more
surprises to feed their inner lives and no more variations to their realities to be
found. They will be thirsting for new consciousnesses with which to forge fresh
mental life and to find a surge of creativity. They will be looking for narratives.
This is not just a consequence of advanced computing ranging through all possible
variations of awareness, the quantum universe exploits consciousness to help
determine the exchange of wave into particle with consequences in the fabric of
reality we then experience. It is possible that a civilisation may not be able to
construct a reality it desires at the atomic level without the help of a conscious-
quantum nexus distinct to itself. Certainly new minds can add to the social fabric
they are immersed in just as in any meeting of cultures, but the quantum evolution
of the universe is also a matter of minds and choices. The route out of stagnation
for any civilisation will be creative involution with consciousnesses not with
destruction.
'
Given that advanced societies must solve the problems of sustainable surpluses of
material and energy to allow for their cultures to persist, then Humans need not
expect encounters with alien societies to be characterised by violent and
destructive behaviour. The likelihood is that a sustainable future along with
quantum computing solutions to re-supply allows for many interstellar journeys to
32
be made without any competitive destruction to be enshrined in the meeting. The
Dark Forest description of galactic civilisations and their risk assessments
provides for false game theory ‘solutions’ to encounters with others. The realities
of cultural and imaginative stagnation occurring on long interstellar voyages seem
to demand a versatile and imaginative welcome on the Human side of the
encounters, while I believe the risks in such encounters are low, a typical solar
system-wide defensive umbrella against asteroid and cometary encounters could
be broadened and deepened to underline protection against any mistaken
intentions of arrivals. This then would be the final exclusion of a predatory mind-
set from Human strategic thinking. The way out of stagnation for any civilisation
is not to drive the resource needs further but to connect with another civilisation
and to dream and create with them as a way forward. Instead of the fears of the
Dark Forest scenario we should be thinking of the open fertile plains of creativity
and conviviality.
“The Dao is an open plain that anyone can walk in.” Lao Tze
33
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