Master Race from Space

Given that there are billions and billions of galaxies out there and given that each galaxy contains billions of stars it becomes incomprehensible that we are alone.

It is entirely possible that we are accompanied by our travels through space at vast speeds by planets full of microbes or bugs. On the other end of the scale there could be life out there with technologies far exceeding our own.

But.

(There’s always a ‘but’.)

Shall we just consider that for a few moments.

We are reliable informed by ‘people that know’ that our universe is around thirteen (13.798 ± 0.037) billion years old.

It took, we are told by those same people, many billions of years for the galaxies that form our universe to coalesce out of the whirling mass of expanding soup thrown outwards by ‘The Big Bang’. Or whatever.

There then followed several billions of years for the solar systems to form within those galaxies. One of those systems was ours.

It was only about four billion years ago (4.54 ± 0.05 billion years) that the Earth was formed as a glowing ball of molten rock made up of materials manufactured within stars ‘out there’.

There followed an unimaginably long time in which there were only simple cells that ultimately developed into plants. Plants fired up the photosynthesis that gives us oxygen; oxygen enabled higher life forms until, eventually, came beasts. Not like us, for certain, but animals nonetheless. Their bones have been discovered and analysed.

This is only about six hundred million years ago—not ‘billions’ but ‘millions’!

We have struggled out of the mud and gradually developed until, in the blink of a galactic eye, we are here. ‘Ping’! Look, Mum! Humans!

We have achieved our technology in the last two or three thousand years. It is only in the last two hundred years that our technology has taken on a life of its own and progressed in leaps and bounds.

The ‘American Civil War’ (how the Americans love wars. If there is nobody else there to fight they will do battle with themselves!) was the very first industrialised war—courtesy, in part, to the Springfield Armoury.

Now we have all sorts of strange things floating around in space above our heads.

The greatest of these is, arguably, the ‘Hubble Space Telescope’ that enables us to see, without atmospheric distortion, into the great depths where, some day, we should hope to go.

So that is our history.

Let us, just for a few moments, think about the history of some other, anonymous, planet.

It is unlikely that they would have developed very much differently to us in the first instance.

The time taken to evolve into higher life forms must be regarded as quite similar.

Logically, then, there would be similar extinction periods caused by whatever it was that wiped out the dinosaurs here on Earth. Perhaps they, too, suffered a massive meteor/asteroid strike or a devastating volcanic explosion. Maybe they had an all-encroaching ice age that reduced the food levels sufficiently to create an untenable environment for certain beasts.

Eventually a life form would come about by whatever means is appropriate to them that would have the ability to reason, to think, to analyse and synthesise.

Tools would be developed. This happens quite slowly until such time as there is some kind of industrial revolution that creates an environment where ideas can be sent out quickly and efficiently. Printing spreads thoughts and ideas as it also creates an opportunity for universal education.

From this develops the idea of mass production—not just vehicles but pens, typewriters. Electricity is discovered and used in all manner of ways so that people now have light; working at night is now a far clearer possibility.

Their technology accelerates at a rapid pace. Perhaps they have fewer wars but that idea suggests that technology develops more slowly. We need these people to develop their technological growth extremely fast and so there must be wars, devastating wars that propels them ever forwards into greater and greater discoveries until their social life catches up and they discover that they can grow faster by cooperation, by combining the thoughts of the best brains.

These people are now more advanced than we are but are they sufficiently advanced to come and visit us?

Has there been enough elapsed time between their origins and their current technology to hurl themselves through space (and time, perhaps) to come and see what we, out on the fringes of the Milky Way Galaxy, are doing?

The cost would be enormous. Why would anyone choose our planet in the first place and then expend planet sized wads of cash to come and see us and then not say, ‘Hello’?

There are, without doubt, people out there who are looking up into their night sky and wondering if they are alone in this great expanse.

Is their technology far enough advanced to come here and visit us?

I think not. There has not been enough time for them to develop sufficiently beyond our own efforts to come here and compare notes.

‘Ancient Aliens’? A lovely thought and an interesting take on the evidence but not, I think, hitting the mark.

Still, cutting a flat rock out from a blind hole is intriguing; one wonders how they did that.

There are lots of mysteries out there but the only star people who can solve them are us.

We cannot expect, or hope, for some master race to come blasting from outer space to solve our problems.

Our problems are ours to solve and we really ought to be doing that right away or there will be nobody for the master race from space to visit.