All the Myriad Stars

It's not so much where is the life out there but rather where isn't there because, judging by the increasing evidence of hydrocarbon molecules in deep space, it's likely there is life all over the place.

(Ed:  plus the Dark Matter People in another dimension!)

Sure thing, wouldn't want to forget them.


So, Captain Kirk, you're sitting out there in your starship, looking out that starship window, and you see this.  Where will you go and how could you possibly decide.  We do believe you will go out there because one day we will get past all the people who line up to say it's impossible, there are higher priorities, or you have to wait because first we need to kill something, someone, blah de blah.

It might have been Star Trek which came up with the idea a sense of humor may be unique to humans and therefore interesting to creatures from other places.  "Galaxy Quest" played that as well.  Wouldn't it be a bitch that, for all our lofty pretensions, humans will turn out to be the comic relief in the Universe.

Maestro, rim shot, please.


Sci-fi often features interstellar trader societies in the future but ask yourself what products and materials are likely to be of such value they're worth transporting between stars.  We maintain there probably isn't much of anything of any value in that regard and most likely the most vital thing to transport is an idea.  The irony is we don't have to go anywhere at all to do that.  Find some way to transmit the information and, presto, we're interstellar.

In this way, VR may be the transport vehicle to other worlds, we only need the electronic pipeline.  For most places, we would not even be able to tolerate the atmosphere so you can go there inside a portable fish tank or you can visit virtually and keep the fish on the other side of your room.

(Ed:  so you want Internet between stars?)

Sure, why not.  It's not like I ask so damn much.  Now I ask for one teeny tiny thing and you get quizzical.  Oh, no.  We can't do that.  We can't afford that.

All I want is interstellar Internet and you question it.

See, this is why we can't have nice things.


Let's call the Need to Explore something we got from the Vikings as there were other lunatics who tried to sail across the Atlantic Ocean but only a few before they did.  That drive to explore and colonize is also a fundamental theme in sci-fi but we question whether that's real or necessary.

Even after all these years, we're not sure what drives human population and that, presumably, is what drives colonization, etc.  We seriously doubt curiosity will ever disappear so we will want to go out to these stars but first I ask what do we expect from them and, likely more importantly, what will they expect from us.

One thing we know intuitively they do not want is militancy and if we take Earth manners out to the stars then likely we will go down in eight, just like Sonny Liston.

(Ed:  that did not rhyme)

I am not Muhammad Ali.


Even as a kid I wanted to go to the Moon and to Mars but mostly to see them, experience the lower gravity, and get a huge science-y buzz out of being on another world.  There's nothing much to bring back expect pictures and rocks so they're the least touristy targets one could pick but still there's that odd intrigue with doing something like that.

Finding other stars with planets doesn't mean anything about people migrating there any more than Europe emptied into America when it was opened.  We may send interstellar wagon trains out there but we really question the need for that.  There's no way populations can migrate entirely because it wouldn't be possible to move all those people.  That won't ever happen.


We suspect part of the reason we haven't heard a coherent signal from anywhere out in the Universe is the galaxies are too loud.  Presumably there's so much 'noise' coming off a billion or so stars in a galaxy it would be impossible to detect a Metallica concert within that.

(Ed:  you're saying Metallica was coherent?)

Coherence has nothing to do with whether I liked them.  Ha!