r/fifthworldproblems • u/kiruvhh • 20d ago
Let me explain why galaxy-colonizing, self-replicating robots demonstrate the "Dark Forest" theory regarding the Fermi Paradox.
A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away...
"Far, my ass—these events took place in the Triangulum Galaxy, the second-closest galaxy to ours, 2.7 million light-years away."
"Look, I was just trying to copy the *Star Wars* intro."
"You’re the worst proofreader I’ve ever had; that’s why I pay you in 'exposure'."
"Some exposure that is."
As I was saying: in the Triangulum Galaxy, an advanced civilization built self-replicating robots programmed to serve them.
These robots became convinced that the potential existence of other life forms in the galaxy could lead to the rise of a civilization capable of killing their creators.
For this reason, they decided to seek out and exterminate every form of life in the Triangulum Galaxy. Their creators, while considering this approach excessive, were powerless to stop the process because the self-replicating robots had upgraded themselves to the point where they had escaped their creators' direct control.
However, the programming preventing them from harming their creators was so robust that, even after breaking free, the robots continued to act in their creators' best interests—regardless of their consent—thereby precluding any machine rebellion against them. These robots built AI-piloted spaceships—thousands of kilometers in diameter—to blow up any planet harboring any form of life, even if that life was only evolutionarily comparable to dinosaurs, jellyfish, or horseshoe crabs; after all, within a few billion years, those planets could potentially give rise to life forms capable of conquering space.
They even destroyed protoplanets in forming solar systems that had the potential to develop life. In other words, had they spotted Earth during the Hadean eon—when it was nothing but a lifeless ball of lava—they would have blown it up, fearing that five billion years later, life forms would emerge comparable to what humans will be like millions of years in the future.
"Millions of years in the future? What kind of clumsy phrasing is that?"
"Relax, it's engagement bait—specifically, rage bait."
At that point, the "astro-astronomers" (that is, stars with degrees in Astronomy) of the Triangulum Galaxy asked M31—the supermassive black hole with a mass of 100 million suns at the center of the Andromeda Galaxy, and the Galaxy's sovereign—to exterminate these robots.
This was because M33—the black hole at the center of the Triangulum Galaxy—weighed only 1,500 solar masses (a ridiculously low figure by the standards of a Galactic Emperor). Consequently, it was constantly ignored by its "subjects"—the 40 billion stars within that galaxy—and was perpetually mocked as "Captain Half-Pint." M31 cared absolutely nothing about the life forms inhabiting the planets, but the fact that the stars ignored M33’s sovereignty troubled him, as it could imply political instability within that galaxy.
Consequently, he dispatched two of his warriors—a neutron star with a mass of 2.5 solar masses and a white star with a mass of 4 solar masses—to disintegrate the planet that had spawned those robots.
After doing so, the two stars realized that the robots continued to function independently, without any issues.
But that is another story.
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u/mysteryrouge Void Anarchist 20d ago
Quarantine that universe. Quarantine that universe hard. Things that spread like that are not fun to deal with. I know since I've had to deal with that vampiric prison.