The Fermi Paradox: The Cronus Scenarios

We often worry that the reason we hear nothing in our search for extraterrestrial intelligence is that travel to other stars is just too hard, but what if a civilization decides it’s just too dangerous to allow?

Credits:
The Fermi Paradox: The Cronus Scenarios
Episode 441; April 7, 2024
Produced, Written & Narrated by: Isaac Arthur
Editors: Briana Brownell

Graphics:
Jeremy Jozwik
Legiontech Studios
Mark O'Bannon
YD Visual
Udo Schroeter

Music Courtesy of
Stellardrone, "Red Giant", "Ultra Deep Field"
Sergey Cheremisinov, "Labyrinth", "Forgotten Stars"

[LookToWindward]

The first Fermi paradox solution I’ve heard in a long time that I didn’t already know about.

[realsatoshihashimoto]

The best solution to the Fermi Paradox that I've heard is 'The rare fire hypothesis.' Turns out it's very rare for a planet to have an atmosphere suitable for sustaining fire. Without fire we would never have been able to develop our modern technology, much less achieve spaceflight. Thus the universe may be teeming with intelligent life which is unable to develop the kinds of industrial technology required to become a technological species able to escape their world's gravity. Wouldn't matter how intelligent they were in other ways, they could be the greatest thinkers and philosophers in the universe, but without fire, they would be forever trapped on their own world.

[xz]

You forgot the biggest one "they came from the sea" this is exactly how after a long time, it's disgruntled children comes home to exact vengeance.

[krose]

I love every Fermi Paradox video you release. Thank you

[redneckregime]

7:03am and the video uploaded 34sec ago, cant wait to watch when i finish work.

[jacejan]

I appreciate you getting that Cronus was a harvest deity not a time deity. Two different characters with similar names.

[sid]

I read A World Out of Time by Larry Niven again the other day. It delves into the rebel colony scenario a bit in a couple of different ways. Good stuff!

[smoore]

It's always interesting when SFIA, which is notoriously techno optimistic, talks about our colonies' rebelling. It's food for thought for sure. I really enjoy these episides! While colonizing Titan and indeed the wholr outward Bound series and the UNITY series are my all time favorite, i really enjoy these fermi paradox questions and i just relistened to "Extraglactic Sanctuary" last night and i think its just that i really enjoy Isaac's story series most of all! Top notch episode as always from everyone at SFIA! The art in this one was awesome too!

[BobfromSydney]

I think a good "burn the boats" example historically would be ancient China where the Hongxi Emperor banned maritime activities and trade. The Japanese also banned contact with the outside for a significant period as well.

[cannonfodder]

A pretty consistent and logical solution to the Fermi Paradox. But not inevitable as you note.

An excellent Sci-Fi Sunday episode, Isaac.

[erikoftheinternet]

The cubic math you mention is pretty compelling actually. 10x the colonization radius gives 1000x as many colonies who each have the same ability to send a few dozen stealth RKMs at Earth. At a point it becomes less "why would they" and more "what are the odds and how many colonies do we have"

Is it possible to hide Earth's location form colonies and make sharing Earth's coordinates an RKM-able offense?

[t.kersten]

if a civilisation tries to ban spaceflight even from (more or less) neighboring civilisations, this one must have developed a very decent form of space travel itself to prevent other civilisations from leaving their home worlds / solar systems. i would see this more in a case of someone not wanting to share the cake - no matter how big and vast it is - but can´t really afford to extinct other civilisations (for moral reasons or just because the common population wouldn´t like thsi).

[Joat]

B tier! Very rare! Logically consistent and convergent across iterations, but not inevitable for all life forms (A tier) under all scenarios and multiples of organism life spans of time (S tier)

[greggweber]

15:35 Isn't the Solar System in the middle of a comparatively empty bubble?

[theysisossenthime]

The key flaw here is that everyone in the empire has to agree. If even niche factions disagree with this strategy and are willing to to keep moving away from the core empire, it would at some point become crazy to send that many fleets out that far. It would take a special level of zeal to commit those resources to hunt down those niche factions for that long. I compare this to immigration/emigration in the current state of the world. During times of conflict, there are always those that manage to escape out militarized areas. In times of relative peace, even when walls, patrols, mines, and other methods are put in place, there are still niche groups that make it through. Back to the Cronus Scenario - if even one group makes it through and moves out of practical reach of their prior society, it can diverge from that society and grow in time to match the original. A fun example that I've enjoyed that followed this was the story of Battletech.

[seifyk]

Your R's are so good now. Proud of the hard work you've done on that.

[Kargoneth]

Well. Grim indeed. This seems like an inevitable problem. Loss of control of colonies. Signal lag. Paranoia. Trying to ensure that all population centers have mutual respect for, and cooperation with each other is not possible on earth in the current day. It seems unlikely that it will change when trying to colonize beyond earth.

[SockPuppet]

The Cronus Scenario sounds like a variation of the classic Thucydides Trap, especially when expanded to hypothetical alien civilizations which did not originate on Earth.
Swatting colonies before they get too big for their breeches sounds like an insane mode of operation, but even if it were never implemented, its mere theoretical existence might act as a disincentive for the mass colonization process spanning millennia as usually described here.

[sertorius]

Regarding classical mythology, the prophecy was that a son by the first wife of Zeus would be the one to overthrow him, so he ate her. She then gave birth to Athena inside him and gave him massive migraines by making a suit of armor for her daughter before Hephaestus cracked his skull open and released Athena.

[barryhanson]

Thank you I really enjoy listening to your talks during work.