still thinking about the potential fermi paradox solution that the reason we're alone in the universe is because we're one of the first pieces of life in it.
we're 13.8 billion years into a universe that is expected to continue forming stars for another 1-100 trillion years. at the LATEST, we're 1.4% of the way through all of reality. at the earliest, we're 0.014% of the way through. given the earliest known life started about 4 billion years ago, a mere half billion years after the earth formed, which was itself less than ten billion years from the beginning of reality... i find it entirely believable that we're just one of the first.
the universe is impossibly, wonderfully young.
I really do think we’re just an early spacefaring species. I have a hard time going along with the whole “assume we’re at an unexceptional moment in an unexceptional place” mentality when I’m riddled with at least 4 rare medical conditions that are poorly understood. People approaching the Fermi paradox like “This horse sure does have a lot of stripes”
For a very good book that's roughly in this vein, check out Children of Time by Adrian Tchaikovsky. I don't think I've given away more than what's on the dusk jacket, but click Read More for small spoilers, and then Read the Book for larger spiders.
Read More!
In the setting, the remnants of humanity live in the shadow of Old Humanity (us) who managed to advance technology to the point of brain uploading and seeding life on other plants before a societal collapse. And by "shadow" I mean the broken, barely-habitable remnants of post-apocalyptic Earth from which they manage to salvage enough working technology to cobble together a ship and GTFO.As someone with a minor in dead languages, I was tickled that "classicist" was an occupation, with direct and applicable utility.
And "spiders" wasn't a typo.
