Current Events > Scifi writers focus so much on galactic empires and federations

(+) Yeah! (+)

it will probably take forever to just colonize our solar system. Probably quadrillions of people fit into just this solar system.

there are those chinese sci-fi stories posted online that have a single city that span across entire galaxies. crazy stuff

forgot the name of the genre but the protags usually live trillions of trillions of years and can bust trillions of trillions of universes or whatever.

I think this is why I like the Alien (original ones anyway) so much.

Like space feels like this huge and incomprehensible thing. We get a small interaction with it and suffer the consequences.

Most sci-fi stories just sorta act like space is a bigger version of Earth with different looking humanoids that come from planets that function more like countries. Basically basing the entirety of space on Earth politics, colonization and history.

The planet Earth is on the outer rim of the Milky Way galaxy. The closest star, Alpha Centauri, is 3.5 light years away. We are isolated

If you go closer to the center of the Milky Way, the star systems are very close to each other, so having an empire that spans star systems is very believable

One of the reasons I like Mass Effect is the way it blends a "young" space-faring civilization (Earth) into a larger, pre-established galactic society. You sort of have these "hubs" of development and urbanization, but there's still plenty of un-tamed locations where humanity is still trying to stake its claim.

@xue1 the thing about that is when everything is close together, life destroying phenomena, like supernova, and emissions from pulsars would prevent intelligent life from developing.

The Expanse is an interesting subversion of this

Why is your main in purg yet again TC

xue1 posted...

The closest star, Alpha Centauri, is 3.5 light years away. We are isolated

More specifically, Proxima Centauri (Alpha Centauri C), at a bit over 4 light years away.

It is getting closer, but it will still be a stupidly long way away at its closest point.

[LFAQs-redacted-quote]


It would probably have to be a form of government totally alien to us in the 21st Century. Probably AIs will do all the administration and governing, for immortal AIs such big distances might not matter much.