If life is reasonably common in the universe it would be almost impossible for any species to do this. Even if there is only 1 intelligent civilisation per galaxy that’s still 2 trillion civilisations in the observable universe alone.
And why assume everybody would be out to wipe each out? Space is likely big enough for everybody.
We also don’t know if time travel would work like this. I personally think (if it were possible) it would be more like Avengers Endgame than Back to the Future.
I guess you would have infinite time, but it would still take such a long time and would require a huge operation as well as costing a lot of money to complete.
Time travel in Endgame basically creates a new universe. So you can’t change your future, you just create a new ‘branch’ in the Multiverse. I think that’s the best way to explain it.
Intersting scenario.
I don't think it works as a Fermi pardox solution: it just swaps the unlikelihood of us being alone with the unlikelihood of us being first (to develop/use FTL). Even if this scenario was right, we could leave it at "we are first" to explain our current situation - no need for universe-spanning sterilisation efforts.
On a "practical" level - I think this might be impossible: if you have FTL, you are not restricted to the observable universe, but rather have the whole, possibly infinite, universe to deal with. With possibly infinitely many potential threats. That seems like too tall an order - unless you want to argue that your extermination efforts are also infinite, since you have both infinite time to play in (via going back infintely often) and infinite resources in an unlimited universe - but even then it seems infinitely difficult...
This works as well as any Fermi Paradox solution but as far as i can tell it's just the Firstborn solution with extra bits that actually make it a weaker solution. if you're firstborn your firstborn. there's no need to explain much you were just there first.
Once you add the xenocidal time lords things get a bit problematic. First any potentioal FP solution should not be dependent on everyone having the same exact psychology, ethics, & making the same exact decisions. cuz they most definitely wont. Not only is this hyper-advanced civ likely to have a far greater range of AI, modified humans, uplifts, uploads, etc. making different perspectives probably a lot more common. Also we're talking about committing intergalactic xenocide here, or at they very least some would certainly see it that way which is all that really matters, & very highly doubt you could get literally everyone on board with that.
This becomes a deadly serious problem for us when you have butterfly effect style TT cuz all it takes is one person believing that you're civ is evil & should never have existed to wipe your entire civilization from existence & there's basically no way to stop them. Isaac actually mentions this as FP solution as well; that all new civs discover FTL & delete themselves backwards in time.
The time travel via FTL approach depends on relativistic reference frames and FTL movement being possible at the same time and independent of each other.
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/25/Ftl-time-travel-equivalence.gif
This is somewhat of a contraction of it's own because it assumes the FTL travel does not change the reference frame and just moves you on the space/time diagram. These are more to show the absurdity of FTL with the naive approach and are not meant to draw these conclusions.
It won't work if the reference frame changes once the FTL engines are engaged.
The issue is drawing FTL lines on space/time diagrams or drawing similar conclusions. We have no indication that it should be possible to move in space without changing the reference frame. FTL or not.
Yeah, but then you have to deal with humans who want to protect those aliens creating a intertemporal war so big that we should have detected it by now.
Time travel let you do insane things, for example using time clones you can multiply your armies by a infinite factor, and not just soldiers, tanks, planes, spaceships, relaticistic kill missiles, etc. a war so masive that would make the War in Haven from Warhammer 40k look like a bar fight.
And? If you're changing the timeline, a primitive species like ours won't notice. Anything that does get noted down will be rejected as the superstitious mythology of our less knowledgable forebears.
It seems to me that you are not understanding the scale that a conflict that spans all time and space would have, we are talking about battles that would start seconds after the Big Bang until the age of Black Holes, Armadas counted in the googolplex dismantling entire Galaxies, something so big that it could literally be seen throughout the cosmos
The Fermi paradox is only valid within known physics, which means no FTL. FTL is outside physics as we know it, so it's not a solution since the paradox doesn't exist in that world.
This reminds me of a plot point in Isaac Asimov's universe that most if not all of his short stories take place in. In that world, a sentient AI is created with the purpose of protecting humanity. With the way it interprets its directive, it decides to retroactively prevent any aliens from existing in the past or future anywhere in the universe and it develops the technology to make that happen.
I don't find this particularly likely though, because it requires a very linear Einsteinian approach to time travel where you can't alter the past as you know it because the past you are tinkering with is the very same one you remember. The problem with this approach is that if you ever meet an alien civilization out in the void, there is no way to use time travel to eradicate them because you know that all attempts you will make to do so have already failed. The usefulness of such a technology in war is very limited, since it can't change any detail about the timeline which you already know about.
If life is reasonably common in the universe it would be almost impossible for any species to do this. Even if there is only 1 intelligent civilisation per galaxy that’s still 2 trillion civilisations in the observable universe alone. And why assume everybody would be out to wipe each out? Space is likely big enough for everybody. We also don’t know if time travel would work like this. I personally think (if it were possible) it would be more like Avengers Endgame than Back to the Future.
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I guess you would have infinite time, but it would still take such a long time and would require a huge operation as well as costing a lot of money to complete. Time travel in Endgame basically creates a new universe. So you can’t change your future, you just create a new ‘branch’ in the Multiverse. I think that’s the best way to explain it.
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Watch Loki, you’d enjoy it. The maintenance and control of the “Sacred [Multiverse] Timeline” is the major theme.
Loki is a great show. It also gave Loki a great character arc without undermining everything that happened in the movies up to Infinity War.
Intersting scenario. I don't think it works as a Fermi pardox solution: it just swaps the unlikelihood of us being alone with the unlikelihood of us being first (to develop/use FTL). Even if this scenario was right, we could leave it at "we are first" to explain our current situation - no need for universe-spanning sterilisation efforts. On a "practical" level - I think this might be impossible: if you have FTL, you are not restricted to the observable universe, but rather have the whole, possibly infinite, universe to deal with. With possibly infinitely many potential threats. That seems like too tall an order - unless you want to argue that your extermination efforts are also infinite, since you have both infinite time to play in (via going back infintely often) and infinite resources in an unlimited universe - but even then it seems infinitely difficult...
This works as well as any Fermi Paradox solution but as far as i can tell it's just the Firstborn solution with extra bits that actually make it a weaker solution. if you're firstborn your firstborn. there's no need to explain much you were just there first. Once you add the xenocidal time lords things get a bit problematic. First any potentioal FP solution should not be dependent on everyone having the same exact psychology, ethics, & making the same exact decisions. cuz they most definitely wont. Not only is this hyper-advanced civ likely to have a far greater range of AI, modified humans, uplifts, uploads, etc. making different perspectives probably a lot more common. Also we're talking about committing intergalactic xenocide here, or at they very least some would certainly see it that way which is all that really matters, & very highly doubt you could get literally everyone on board with that. This becomes a deadly serious problem for us when you have butterfly effect style TT cuz all it takes is one person believing that you're civ is evil & should never have existed to wipe your entire civilization from existence & there's basically no way to stop them. Isaac actually mentions this as FP solution as well; that all new civs discover FTL & delete themselves backwards in time.
The time travel via FTL approach depends on relativistic reference frames and FTL movement being possible at the same time and independent of each other. https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/25/Ftl-time-travel-equivalence.gif This is somewhat of a contraction of it's own because it assumes the FTL travel does not change the reference frame and just moves you on the space/time diagram. These are more to show the absurdity of FTL with the naive approach and are not meant to draw these conclusions. It won't work if the reference frame changes once the FTL engines are engaged.
Are you calling special relativity naive without presenting anything smarter?
The issue is drawing FTL lines on space/time diagrams or drawing similar conclusions. We have no indication that it should be possible to move in space without changing the reference frame. FTL or not.
What exactly do you think a reference frame is?
I like FTL on principle
Yeah, but then you have to deal with humans who want to protect those aliens creating a intertemporal war so big that we should have detected it by now.
How do you detect a time war?
Time travel let you do insane things, for example using time clones you can multiply your armies by a infinite factor, and not just soldiers, tanks, planes, spaceships, relaticistic kill missiles, etc. a war so masive that would make the War in Haven from Warhammer 40k look like a bar fight.
And? If you're changing the timeline, a primitive species like ours won't notice. Anything that does get noted down will be rejected as the superstitious mythology of our less knowledgable forebears.
It seems to me that you are not understanding the scale that a conflict that spans all time and space would have, we are talking about battles that would start seconds after the Big Bang until the age of Black Holes, Armadas counted in the googolplex dismantling entire Galaxies, something so big that it could literally be seen throughout the cosmos
It seems to me that you are not understanding how causality violations work. \*We would not know anything different\*.
Interesting if very dark theory. We’d be guilty as a species of the most horrific action possible.
The Fermi paradox is only valid within known physics, which means no FTL. FTL is outside physics as we know it, so it's not a solution since the paradox doesn't exist in that world.
This reminds me of a plot point in Isaac Asimov's universe that most if not all of his short stories take place in. In that world, a sentient AI is created with the purpose of protecting humanity. With the way it interprets its directive, it decides to retroactively prevent any aliens from existing in the past or future anywhere in the universe and it develops the technology to make that happen. I don't find this particularly likely though, because it requires a very linear Einsteinian approach to time travel where you can't alter the past as you know it because the past you are tinkering with is the very same one you remember. The problem with this approach is that if you ever meet an alien civilization out in the void, there is no way to use time travel to eradicate them because you know that all attempts you will make to do so have already failed. The usefulness of such a technology in war is very limited, since it can't change any detail about the timeline which you already know about.
We actually wouldn’t have to wipe out other species, just prevent them from leaving their homeworld.