Multi-Species Empires

Interstellar civilizations home to hundreds of peacefully cooperating alien species are a common theme in science fiction, but are such civilizations likely or would we instead see conquest and xenocide?

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Credits:
Alien Civilizations: Multi-Species Empires
Science & Futurism with Isaac Arthur
Episode 337a, April 10 2022
Written, Produced & Narrated by Isaac Arthur

Editors:
David McFarlane

Cover Art:

Music by:
Martin Rezny, "Lifelight"
Denny Schneidemesser, "Bridge Ambience"
Stellardrone, "A Moment of Stillness"
Aerium, "Fifth Star of Aldebaran"
Miguel Johnson, "Strange New World"

[ramuk]

More on the hive mind thing: ants may be very cooperative within nests, but they wage brutal wars between colonies, with one particular species having mastered suicide bombing long before humans ever tried that.

[privatepessleneck]

"On the blood of our fathers, on the blood of our sons, we swore to uphold the Covenant!"
"Even to our dying breath!"

[benjaminconnor]

I've always wanted to see a xenomorph in a Starfleet uniform. A monster Uplifted into sapience, would make for a very unique crewmember to serve with.

[georgebulbakwa]

The visual overlays reminds me of the Asarii in Mass Effect. There's background conversation of different species explaining how they saw the Asarii. Everyone saw them differently but all saw them close to their own species.

[BoisegangGaming]

Speaking of multi-species empires, NEVER toggle on Xeno-Compatibility in Stellaris, unless you've got like only 2-3 other empires.

Otherwise, prepare for lag.

I believe I've seen half-half-half-half species.

[squirlmy]

Solaris by Stanisław Lem is an interesting example of just how difficult it might be to co-exist with a truly "alien" intelligence. It makes the rest of these "human in costume" aliens tropes a joke. Imagine co-existing with a planet that reads minds and incorporates dead loved ones from your memories.

[yeager]

21:45 This also applies well to the Saiyans from the Dragonball series, where their concept of science is counting the days until a full moon so they blow things up more betterer, but a spacefaring despot realized that having a entire race of space orcs under their command was pretty useful

[ponyote]

Every time I see the animation of the cyborg panthers, my brain plays a filk. "Go, Go Panther Rangers" complete with wailing 90s guitar.

[samsamsamsamsamanilla]

I like the example put forth in Children of Ruin book by Adrian Tchaikovsky where there are uplifted spiders, ants and octopi working along side with humans

[stcredzero]

Here's a what-if scenario: What if the notion of "civilization" in our galaxy is as small and quaint as a wolf's notion of "pack" on our human dominated Earth? What if an ascended species appears to us and invites us to join "galactic civilization" but really, this maps analogously to how our pet dogs regard their human owners as leaders of their "pack?" In the same way, we would regard a wild pack of wolves in our neighborhood to be something of a nuisance, an exponentially expanding "civilization" of trillions of humans might well be a nuisance to ascended hyper intelligences who regard the building of Dyson Swarms like we might regard wild critters building hives or dens?

I could easily see how hyper-intelligences might regard a "civilization" as a kind of moral horror/conundrum. It would have all of the ravenous exponentially expanding qualities of a hegemonizing swarm, while at the same time creating a moral conundrum by being composed of individual sentiences. One can't morally exterminate such a thing, even though it has all the disadvantageous qualities of a hegemonizing swarm.

[ancapftw]

10k year old man: *shakes GrASER rifle* "hey you kids, get out of my Star system"
1k year old people: "I'm not a kid!"

[ponyote]

DS9 is definitely the pinnacle of that era of Trek, at least to me.

[claxviith]

The combine from half life still gives me the chills. Talk about a horrifying dystopian multi-species empire

[SolarFlareAmerica]

"visitors to your territory are either a threat or food"
Not really true, there are numerous species with symbiotic relationships that they're both happy with.

[jasonhare]

I just have to say this is now my primary form of entertainment on YouTube . I love this channel . It's what I wanted the discovery channel or the history channel to be . Thank you for your hard work .

[spacepiratecaptainrush]

I've done some thinking about this and came up with the idea of a subversion of a lot of the Sci-fi multi species empires of space opera. the logic is this, while it seems like two species that are similar should form common ground, more often then not they end up in antagonistic situations because their very similarity also puts them in direct competition for planets and resources. Where as a Species with dramatically different biology will have different needs and wants. Humans want that nice blue marble of oceans, oxygen and temperate climate, where someone else might want to live in the depths of a gas giant, lots of systems probably have both so no reason not to share. that proximity would likely result in trade, agreements etc. there may not be a hard line between territories as Sci-fi likes to picture it and in those overlap zones, new alliances could form.

[djdrack]

The Hirogen in ST: Voyager are an interesting middle of the road situation. They had a large interstellar empire, so presumably there were multiple species in it, but it was ruled by the Hirogen who primarily used other species as prey in a 'hunt'.

[BigZebraCom]

I was going to create a multi-species empire of my own--but then things got really busy at work.

[charlesrockafellor]

*Yay for me: 9/10 on the geek-o-meter!*

[Athian_Athian]

I want to be able to communicate with aliens that are about 95% of our intelligence but I would likely be disturbed by it. It's going to be an interesting future