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http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-20942440

Astronomers say that one in six stars hosts an Earth-sized planet in a close orbit - suggesting a total of 17 billion such planets in our galaxy.

So, A nice little bit of news that (in my mind) ties in with 40k's vision of the Imperium running at least a million worlds across the galaxy, the others being unreachable, uninhabitable, in the Eye, or covered in Xenos. Nice to know that back in the 80's, the GW crew looked at the Drake equation and guessed on the right side of the odds (based on the evidence so far).

Not really sure what discussion can be had on this, but seeing as it's real world news that fits in the 40k paradigm, take a peek Dakka!

Regards,

Cap'n R.

Well considering there is 200 biillion stars in the milky way alone its hardly suprising, this is all guess work but ultimately there will be plenty of planets out there.

Also the IoM did have the technology to terraform. They fixed Mars up only to kill it with pollution again.

That's just in our galaxy too. Think of all the other Galaxies out in the universe.

I'm hoping that within my lifetime we get some kind of extra terrestrial contact. There has to be a more scientifically/technologically advanced race out there somewhere.

 Medium of Death wrote:
That's just in our galaxy too. Think of all the other Galaxies out in the universe.

I'm hoping that within my lifetime we get some kind of extra terrestrial contact. There has to be a more scientifically/technologically advanced race out there somewhere.

Why on earth (pun intended) do you think contact would be a good thing?

What part of War of the Worlds did you miss?

Well if their technology is so far above our own I'd imagine any conflict would be over fairly quickly.

Also if it's a War of the Worlds scenario, there are 17 Billion Earth like planets it would probably be easier for a Space Fairing race to go to an empty one. Rather than one that's over crowded, polluted and filled with pesky HU-MONS.

I for one welcome our new Galactic Overlords.

 Medium of Death wrote:
Well if their technology is so far above our own I'd imagine any conflict would be over fairly quickly.

Also if it's a War of the Worlds scenario, there are 17 Billion Earth like planets it would probably be easier for a Space Fairing race to go to an empty one. Rather than one that's over crowded, polluted and filled with pesky HU-MONS.

I for one welcome our new Galactic Overlords.

What if they are so different they don't even realize we are here? What if they are functionally immortal, having no concept of death, and slaughter billions without realizing what death even is?

Historically aboriginal cultures coming up against modern societies have had their cultures obliterated, and thats with a few hundred (or even one hundred) years effective difference. Do you really want that?

Hate to break it to you, but the number includes a very large number of planets that are far too close to their star to support any sort of known life form for any amount of time (think Mercury). So yes, there are billions of earth sized planets (is that really news to anyone? Half of the planets in our solar system are "earth sized") out there, but we still don't know how many of them would actually be life sustaining.

Ah, reading "sized" as "like" leads to me being a sad panda. Still, if even a small percent of these worlds sustain life then there are still pretty good odds for intelligent life in this Galaxy.

 Frazzled wrote:

What if they are so different they don't even realize we are here? What if they are functionally immortal, having no concept of death, and slaughter billions without realizing what death even is?

Historically aboriginal cultures coming up against modern societies have had their cultures obliterated, and thats with a few hundred (or even one hundred) years effective difference. Do you really want that?

Mr. Hawking agrees with you there. I think putting Earth examples onto potential Alien societies maybe sounds like a good idea but is also kind of misleading. Our Society in general has gotten much more accepting over the last few hundred years, but still has a long way to go. What's to say that a culture hundreds of thousands of years our elders may not have reached a Utopian state?

Even if they weren't peaceful i'd rather know that they were out there, than never know at all.

 Medium of Death wrote:
Ah, reading "sized" as "like" leads to me being a sad panda. Still, if even a small percent of these worlds sustain life then there are still pretty good odds for intelligent life in this Galaxy.

 Frazzled wrote:

What if they are so different they don't even realize we are here? What if they are functionally immortal, having no concept of death, and slaughter billions without realizing what death even is?

Historically aboriginal cultures coming up against modern societies have had their cultures obliterated, and thats with a few hundred (or even one hundred) years effective difference. Do you really want that?

Mr. Hawking agrees with you there. I think putting Earth examples onto potential Alien societies maybe sounds like a good idea but is also kind of misleading. Our Society in general has gotten much more accepting over the last few hundred years, but still has a long way to go. What's to say that a culture hundreds of thousands of years our elders may not have reached a Utopian state?

Even if they weren't peaceful i'd rather know that they were out there, than never know at all.

You think society has gotten more accepting? Thats interesting.
More importantly I'd rather not know. Knowing means they are here, and we are dead.

On the other hand I have no problem with being the Galactic Star Empire and pillaging their planets.

I think the problem with us being visited or invaded by aliens boils down to energy levels. The sheer amount of energy required to get a ship to another inhabited star system prohibits there being a need to go there... If an alien has the technological capacity to go faster than light, what possible need have they to come to earth?

There's a great series of books by Stephen Baxter about the Fermi Paradox, well worth a read.

And Medium, for a society to develop interstellar travel implies a certain level of aggressiveness... If human's weren't fast breeding, competitive, large-brained omnivores, I doubt we'd have ever developed language, never mind quantum mechanics :-) From 1935 to 1945 we went from fabric-covered biplanes to ICBM's, jets and man-made objects in space. Competition is everything, and I think it'll be a long time before we have an adequate scientific theory as to how technological species develop that isn't shaped by our own hopes and biases, but competition seems to be key. Which is such a shame, NASA needs way more money, but it's sidelined since the cold war's over.

 Captain Roderick wrote:
I think the problem with us being visited or invaded by aliens boils down to energy levels. The sheer amount of energy required to get a ship to another inhabited star system prohibits there being a need to go there... If an alien has the technological capacity to go faster than light, what possible need have they to come to earth?

Well if you put it that way, what possible need would they have to go anywhere else either? There are probably alien civilizations that would be just as interested in contacting intelligent life as we would be.

 Hordini wrote:

 Captain Roderick wrote:
I think the problem with us being visited or invaded by aliens boils down to energy levels. The sheer amount of energy required to get a ship to another inhabited star system prohibits there being a need to go there... If an alien has the technological capacity to go faster than light, what possible need have they to come to earth?

Well if you put it that way, what possible need would they have to go anywhere else either? There are probably alien civilizations that would be just as interested in contacting intelligent life as we would be.

True, but I reckon the SETI systems - using communication instead of travel - are so much more cost-efficient, it's much more likely. The only problem being, we only beamed radio waves haphazardly out into the cosmos for about 75-100 years, and already have cut back on a lot of wasted energy. That's a mighty small window of opportunity for two-way communication in our lifetimes.

Time and Space for me seem pretty solid reasons why we've not had contact with alien races, and I think they'll stand up for a long time to come. I'd love it if we were given any kind of perspective within our lifetimes - I just think it's mighty unlikely.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
suffice it to say, let's do as the Emperor wishes, and go forth and multiply, then maybe in a few thousand years we'll have first contact

Does anyone else think that proof of life on another planet, and I don't mean saucermen, would pretty much kill most established religions on Earth?

Not even necessarily intelligent life, just say a plant-like organism discovered somewhere far away. Could any of the major religions really stand up to something that shocking of a revelation?

Maybe, maybe not. Remember we havn't found anything so far.

 DutchKillsRambo wrote:
Does anyone else think that proof of life on another planet, and I don't mean saucermen, would pretty much kill most established religions on Earth?

Not even necessarily intelligent life, just say a plant-like organism discovered somewhere far away. Could any of the major religions really stand up to something that shocking of a revelation?

Sure. For Christianity atleast, simply say God created life on other planets as well, and it isn't recorded religiously because the Bible, while a holy book, was still written by merely men who wouldn't know about things on other planets.



Anyway, I think a nice solid World War III would be all that's needed to develop interstellar ships, or atleast space ships built for combat operations. Wars tend to come with rapid scientific advancements.

Except a war on a single planet would not realistically result in the development of Interstellar space ships.

For a war to result in Space Ship developments we would need to have a war in space itself. Possably with a rebellious Colony on Mars or the Moon.

because otherwise all a war would result in would possably be the development of orbital weapon platforms.

The development would be an indirect result, of course.

Please explain. How would a war confined to Earth itself lead to the development of any sort of FTL drive? Other than some bizarre convoluted discovery involving a new type of bomb.

 Grey Templar wrote:
Please explain. How would a war confined to Earth itself lead to the development of any sort of FTL drive? Other than some bizarre convoluted discovery involving a new type of bomb.

Well first, my statement was mostly in jest, and it likely would not lead to any kind of interstellar travel. However it could certainly lead to spacecraft built for combat operations. Nation X makes a space craft for bombing things from orbit, Nation Y needs a way to take it out and so Nation Y equips a spacecraft for craft-craft combat.

Edit: Although, now that I think about it, one of the main problems with interstellar travel is energy requirements. IIRC, nuclear weapons research led to using nuclear power as an energy resource. The next step up (possibly nuclear fusion as opposed to fission - it produces much more energy) might do the trick for interstellar travel.

Yeah, although Fission isn't so far behind Fusion that it wouldn't be a viable way of powering a space ship.

The real issue for interstellar travel isn't energy, its the time. It is actually impossable for a solid object to travel faster than the speed of light, learned that in Physics.

And even with ships traveling at the speed of light we are still looking at massive lengths of time to travel between the stars. 4 years to get to Alpha Centuri, the closest star.


NASA is supposedly working on something similar to how they get around in Star Trek. By compressing space in front of the ship you can achieve, for all practical purposes, a faster than light speed on the ship without actually violating the laws of physics. The energy required to do it is also not impractical for a Fission generator, and certaintly not a Fusion one. However the problem is getting the whole thing to work. How do you compress space? Thats the problem they are working on.

 Captain Roderick wrote:
I think the problem with us being visited or invaded by aliens boils down to energy levels. The sheer amount of energy required to get a ship to another inhabited star system prohibits there being a need to go there... If an alien has the technological capacity to go faster than light, what possible need have they to come to earth?

There's a great series of books by Stephen Baxter about the Fermi Paradox, well worth a read.

And Medium, for a society to develop interstellar travel implies a certain level of aggressiveness... If human's weren't fast breeding, competitive, large-brained omnivores, I doubt we'd have ever developed language, never mind quantum mechanics :-) From 1935 to 1945 we went from fabric-covered biplanes to ICBM's, jets and man-made objects in space. Competition is everything, and I think it'll be a long time before we have an adequate scientific theory as to how technological species develop that isn't shaped by our own hopes and biases, but competition seems to be key. Which is such a shame, NASA needs way more money, but it's sidelined since the cold war's over.

I've always been a fan of the super predator solution to the Fermi Paradox. A hyper aggressive race developed fast enough and mean enough to wipe out their competition and now wait for civilizations that could be a threat to emerge then curb checks them.

The advent of commercial spaceflight, and the continuing evolution of extremist guerrilla tactics, makes me think that the push for armed spacecraft will come from the first time a terrorist takes to the stars and blows up a space station or satellite.

At that point, the cork will be popped on the bottle of champagne that is space warfare. Space faring nations will set up automated weapons platforms or drone fleets to protect their interest, and we will begin creating craft tough enough to survive hits from our weaponry. Next, the focus will shift to speed and range- for if your fleets are based beyond the reach of your opponents, you need not armor your bases.

Then lines will be drawn in the sky, people will begin looking beyond the lines and the FTL race will begin in earnest.

 Frazzled wrote:
What if they are so different they don't even realize we are here? What if they are functionally immortal, having no concept of death, and slaughter billions without realizing what death even is?

You're right. There's lots of what-ifs. Best just to live in fear and hope nothing ever changes ever again.

 Frazzled wrote:
What if they are so different they don't even realize we are here? What if they are functionally immortal, having no concept of death

HOW WOULD WE KILL THEM?

Make them watch Jeresy Shore reruns!

Oh hell that's just plain unethical Grey Templar

I highly doubt the Geneva Convention applies to xenos scum

 sebster wrote:

 Frazzled wrote:
What if they are so different they don't even realize we are here? What if they are functionally immortal, having no concept of death, and slaughter billions without realizing what death even is?

You're right. There's lots of what-ifs. Best just to live in fear and hope nothing ever changes ever again.

Thats sweet but is as stupid as it is irrelevant. No one is living in fear of aliens (except some military planners I am sure).

Having said that, we are the most predatory species outside of viruses in geologic history. Its the aliens who should be afraid of us.

 Frazzled wrote:

 sebster wrote:

 Frazzled wrote:
What if they are so different they don't even realize we are here? What if they are functionally immortal, having no concept of death, and slaughter billions without realizing what death even is?

You're right. There's lots of what-ifs. Best just to live in fear and hope nothing ever changes ever again.

Thats sweet but is as stupid as it is irrelevant. No one is living in fear of aliens (except some military planners I am sure).

Having said that, we are the most predatory species outside of viruses in geologic history. Its the aliens who should be afraid of us.

I would however stress that we aren't the most Warlike. Ants get that title.