A more likely Doomsday scenario

I’d like to relate an incident with entirely no relationship to today’s (May 21, 2011) Judgment Day fiasco. In the very least, the story I unfold should strike you as a more probable Doomsday scenario. Granted, that’s not saying a whole lot. Still, hear me out. It might be fun. So a few days ago I awoke with a start just past 5am. Though I can’t recall having had a nightmare or dreamed at all, I was stricken with an pounding sense of the impending demise of the human species, and perhaps all life on Earth. For a few brief moments, a single thought dominated my mindspace; it was both a feeling and a conclusion which I felt and held as confidently as belief: we need to get off the Earth and fast. No, not because of environmental destruction, as is usually argued, but because of aliens. Yes, aliens. (Oh come on, the fact that aliens probably exist makes this scenario infinitely more likely than angry rapture Jesus).

In all seriousness, science offers us many compelling reasons to conclude that life is not unique to Earth. Even using conservative estimates of the relevant variables, the Drake equation predicts hundreds of thousands, or even millions of advanced civilizations in our galaxy alone. So where are they? For nearly thirty years, the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI) has failed to detect an unmistakable signal of intelligent life coming from outer space. All is quiet. Too quiet. And this was the nature of this terrible feeling. Of all the life in the galaxy, most may very well be benevolent. However, all it takes is one highly advanced, predatory species to silence them all.

We make noise. Lots of it. When we began broadcasting radio waves into space, it was like igniting a massive, interstellar beacon illuminating our position. For billions of years, life on Earth has survived in the darkness, but now we’ve given ourselves away. Due to interstellar distances, we can be reasonably confident no one will arrive today, nor tomorrow--but someday, they’re coming. Will they be the benevolent ones, or will they be the predators? Gravely, I fear they will be the latter. Put simply, getting here first is their livelihood. Of benevolent life, a form that is sufficiently advanced to reach us before the predators must certainly be rare, for their technology must be at least as great as that of the predators. Even so, their benevolent intervention can hardly be counted on; our saints undoubtedly have their own problems and would be putting themselves at risk on the behalf of aliens they’ve never met. On the other hand, the predators need our planet to live. That, we can count on.

When they come the cataclysm will proceed swiftly and mercilessly. While warfare has always been a talent of our species, our planetary technology will surely be no match for their galaxy-spanning power. Therefore, we’ve got to go and we’ve got to go fast. It’s insufficient for us to escape to merely the next inhabitable planet (Gliese or whatever) some 20 light-years from here. If they have any kind of star maps or astronomical capability aboard their ships equivalent to what we have now--and presumably they have both--they’ll know exactly where we went. At least in the near vicinity, there simply aren’t many places for us to go. Many worlds, but few with truly Earth-like planets on which we could plant permanent, self-supporting colonies. Oasis hopping is not an option.

The way I see it, we must begin immediately to research and construct spaceborn habitats on which we can live “on the run” indefinitely. The goal should be to settle planets widely and far, and as many as possible. How far? The distance we must travel is equal to or greater than that radius of a spherical sector of cosmos, within which there is a sufficiently large number of inhabitable planets to stifle any reliable guess to which we’ve fled. Currently, we can only approximate this value with the same accuracy (at best) as we can the Drake equation. The more inhabitable planets there are, the more predators there are likely to be. The only thing we can be sure of is that it is much, much further than we could reach with current Earth technology.

Alas, running is only a solution in the short-term. Assuming we make it to the long-term, our species will have to make a choice. One possibility is that we abandon broadcasted communication technologies and live *quietly* on our own, as xenophobes. This may, though not necessarily, involve a considerable throwback in our way of life. This course would require that we somehow ensure later generations never redeveloped such technologies. It may be possible to achieve this with cultural norms or taboos for a while; e.g., we establish a religion that expressly forbids it (this has been done). However, these would inevitably grow weaker as time advances and our history fades to myth, and the bases of religious beliefs are increasingly dismissed as arbitrary and quaint. No matter how long we manage to do this, the predators will still be out there waiting for us to clumsily raise a lantern. Inevitably, we’ll repeat our mistake and find ourselves once again in this desperate position. Maybe we can get away once, and perhaps even twice. But we can't run and hide forever.

The second possibility--which is really the only solution--is that we become like the predators. Like the Jews returned to Israel after the holocaust, we can vow “never again.” Like the Americans we can conclude “the best defense is a good offense”. That is, we can devote our efforts maximally toward interstellar warfare. By restricting radio broadcasting, we might be ourselves sufficient time to develop the technologies we will need to defeat the predators. To do so, however, would be expensive and require resources. Lots of them. And further, we need experience killing very, very smart and powerful creatures. Lots of it. The search for extraterrestrial intelligence must come to an end, and the hunt must begin.

These are our options. Either way, the clock is ticking.