Stellar Suspicion: A Journey Through the Dark Forest

On 1 October 2023

When Italian-American physicist Enrico Fermi was eating lunch on a simple 1950s afternoon, He asked the simple question: “Where is everybody?”. The statement now is the very famous Fermi Paradox: considering the huge age of the universe, there logically must have been innumerable chances for intelligent life to develop. And yet, we seem to be alone in this universe - Why is that?

Two possibilities exist: either we are alone in the Universe or we are not. Both are equally terrifying.
-Arthur C Clarke

Credit: Universe today

Ever since 1950, tons of hypotheses have sprung up to explain it, but The Dark Forest solution is a particularly chilling one

We all have imagined alien life on far off worlds, wondering if they feel the same as us. But what if the universe in reality is the exact opposite of what we think ?What if it is a vast, dangerous 'dark forest' - a universe where civilisations hide, in fear and silence, from one another? The Dark Forest hypothesis is name after the book of the same name written by Liu cixin, The second book in the Remembrance of Earth's past series - A series about an alien invasion of Earth brought upon by humans themselves.

Malevolent or Benevolent

In this book, there are two key assumptions taken:

1. That survival is the primary need of civilisations, and
2. civilisations continuously grow and expand, but the total matter in the universe remains constant. I.e - Since resources are finite, civilisations are bound to fight each other to continue their growth.

So, keeping this in mind, even if a given alien civilisation was “peaceful”, It had no guarantee that the other was the same. To guarantee their own safety as well as access to resources, they might attack others before being attacked in any way - They would be malevolent with any other civilisation they see.

Another way alien civilisations could try to guarantee their own safety is by completely hiding themselves away - by retreating into their own corner of this dark forest. by doing this, they secure resources to themselves with minimal risk of losing them.

Chains of suspicion and technological explosion

If there was a way to freely communicate, all out conflict would likely be averted. However, given the immense distances of space, even light speed would be insufficient to disperse the doubts between both civilisations.

When thinking of the timescales involved, its also important to factor in the technological development of any given civilisation.

Even here on Earth, spears and rocks would be destroyed by the shields and swords of roman legions, which would easily be obliterated by the cannons of napoleon's army, which would stand no chance against the chemical weapons and aircraft of the two world wars, all of which could be easily incinerated instantly by modern hydrogen bombs. Given the rapid development of weapons in such a short timescale here on Earth, imagine how much a given civilisation could advance in thousand of years? By this logic, any idea of sending a fleet of space ship to destroy an enemy is futile - It could take hundreds to thousands of years to arrive, where the attacking technology would not have changed a single bit, while the defence would have had ample time to grow exponentially better.

In such a case, the logical conclusion would be to remain quiet and not reveal oneself. And its important to think about this hard, since its not a problem we encounter here on Earth - the speed of communication and the fact that we are the same species prevents such problems.

In the end, this theory implies that there are only two kinds of civilisations: Ones that wait in an eerie silence, and ones moving discretely and destroying everything they see. And where do we fall? Somewhere in the middle. Considering the voyager’s golden records, the marks on the pioneer spacecraft, The Arecibo message aimed at M13, and all the other METI (Message extraterrestrial intelligence) attempts, we should we glad that we have not received an answer yet.

The universe is a dark forest. Every civilisation is an armed hunter stalking through the trees like a ghost, gently pushing aside branches that block the path and trying to tread without sound. Even breathing is done with care. The hunter has to be careful, because everywhere in the forest are stealthy hunters like him. If he finds other life — another hunter, an angel or a demon, a delicate infant or a tottering old man, a fairy or a demigod — there's only one thing he can do: open fire and eliminate them. In this forest, hell is other people. An eternal threat that any life that exposes its own existence will be swiftly wiped out. This is the picture of cosmic civilization. It's the explanation for the Fermi Paradox.”
- An excerpt from Liu's novel.

And if this is indeed how the universe is, should we really by broadcasting our presence out? who can make the decision that we should be attempting to communicate with other beings? Who can decide on behalf of the planet as a whole?