Chapter 79: Dark Universe

However, this brought the discussion back to the destruction of the Old World.

If the Precursors were indeed the ones who destroyed Earth due to some grand cosmic conspiracy, then according to Arthur’s logic, humanity might have already passed the Great Filter, making them an incredibly rare species in the cosmos.

But as for who actually pulled the trigger, it was glaringly obvious that no one in the room had an answer. The scientific community had analyzed the planet’s destruction for months, concluding only that it was an artificial attack by an alien intelligence, not a natural disaster. Beyond that, they knew nothing. Humanity had never even seen a living alien, let alone the one that destroyed their home.

For a moment, a heavy, suffocating silence fell over the auditorium. Humanity’s understanding of the universe was truly pitiful.

“Alright… let’s set aside the destruction of Earth for a moment,” Professor Hazel said, breaking the quiet. “I will now outline the remaining candidates for the Great Filter. These are the evolutionary hurdles humanity has not yet cleared. If any of these are the true Filter, then that terrifying barrier still lies ahead of us…”

Arthur, the resident optimist, had made his case. Now it was the pessimists’ turn. Jason waited quietly in the audience.

“Candidate number five,” Hazel began. “The sheer technological difficulty of interstellar travel might be an insurmountable wall.”

“True interstellar flight requires accelerating a vessel to near-light speeds, which demands an astronomical amount of energy. Nuclear fusion is merely the first stepping stone; only fully stabilized, highly advanced fusion reactors can output that kind of power. Furthermore, the ship itself requires revolutionary new metamaterials to survive the journey, and the staggering transit times necessitate flawless, large-scale cryogenic hibernation technology. It is entirely possible that some of these technological leaps are simply impossible under the laws of physics.”

“If the physics of interstellar travel are fundamentally too difficult to master, then all civilizations are permanently trapped in their home systems. They would be just like us, forever confined to the local star. I believe this is a highly probable Great Filter.”

A murmur rippled through the gathered scientists. For humanity, almost all the prerequisites for interstellar travel, propulsion, materials, and energy grids were currently out of reach. If the universe had a hard technological ceiling, the chances of ever meeting another civilization dropped to zero.

“I have to disagree, Professor Hazel!” Arthur jumped up again, refusing to yield.

“Even without sub-light ships, an intelligent civilization could broadcast electromagnetic signals or launch unmanned deep-space probes! Those things don’t just disappear; they can drift through the void for millions of years. Couldn’t civilizations communicate that way? If the universe is full of trapped civilizations, why haven’t we detected a single radio wave or rogue probe? How do you explain that?”

Hazel considered this for a moment, gesturing with her hands. “If you’re asking why we haven’t intercepted alien radio signals, the answer lies in the fundamental physics of electromagnetic waves.”

“No matter how powerful the transmitter is, a signal’s intensity decays exponentially over vast distances. Furthermore, the universe is incredibly loud. It is flooded with cosmic background radiation. Any alien broadcast would likely be severely distorted by this interference, making it indistinguishable from static to our instruments. It’s highly probable that the Old World was bombarded by alien greetings for centuries, but because the signals were too weak or buried in cosmic static, we simply missed them.”

“Ultimately, electromagnetic waves are practically useless for interstellar communication unless the transmitter has the energy output of a literal star, which is technologically impossible.”

This explanation made perfect sense. Light was just another form of electromagnetic radiation; even the light from a massive star appeared as a tiny, faint speck from a few light-years away. A radio dish outputting a few kilowatts stood no chance. Even magnified ten thousand times, the signal would simply fade into the void.

“Then what about unmanned probes?” Arthur pressed. “Physical probes don’t decay into static. How do you explain the lack of those?”

“Physical probes suffer from a similar problem,” Hazel countered smoothly. “Their transit speeds are painfully slow. It could take millions of years for a probe to drift from one star to the next. And think about the volume. How many deep-space probes did humanity launch from Earth? I don’t have the exact figure, but it couldn’t have been more than a few dozen.”

“Over a journey of millions of years, those probes would lose power entirely. They would become dead metal drifting on inertia, highly vulnerable to micrometeorite impacts or getting caught in the gravity wells of barren planets. The failure rate would be astronomical. Even if a dead probe miraculously drifted into a populated solar system, it would have no power to broadcast. It would just look like a dark, inert asteroid or space junk, easily ignored by local astronomers.”

“The statistical probability of a dead probe being intercepted by an alien civilization is absurdly low, maybe one in a billion, or even one in ten billion.”

“If every civilization behaves like ours, launching a handful of probes blindly into the dark, the odds of us ever finding one are practically zero,” Hazel concluded. “Now, if a civilization was manufacturing and launching hundreds of millions of probes every single year, we might spot one. But from an economic and resource standpoint, that kind of mass production is completely illogical.”

Hazel looked steadily at Arthur. “That is my explanation.”

Arthur pondered this for a long time. Finally, he let out a defeated sigh and slumped back into his chair. He had no counterargument. The logic was airtight.

Listening to Hazel’s grim deductions, Jason felt a suffocating weight press down on his chest.

If the galaxy was teeming with intelligent civilizations, but they were all permanently isolated on their home worlds by the insurmountable physics of deep space, forever dying alone… that was too tragic. Too utterly cruel.

The universe was an incomprehensibly cold and lonely place.

Jason’s mind flashed back to the dark void of space outside the ship, imagining humanity as a single, dim spark in an endless night. They were so incredibly small and fragile. The sheer insignificance of their civilization when measured against the infinite cosmos was despair-inducing. He could only pray that Professor Hazel’s theory was just a pessimistic guess, not the absolute truth.

As the heavy silence lingered, Hazel spoke up again.

“That was candidate number five: the technological barrier. Now, let me introduce candidate number six: self-destructive technology.”

“The ocean of scientific truth is endless, and we are merely children picking up seashells on the shore. To illustrate this, let’s divide these scientific ’seashells’ into three categories.”

“First: White seashells. These represent discoveries that are purely beneficial to a civilization’s progress.”

“Second: Red seashells. These represent technologies that carry a severe risk of destroying our civilization.”

“Third: Black seashells. These represent technologies that are almost guaranteed to trigger an apocalyptic extinction event.”

Hazel gripped the podium. “Naturally, every civilization wants to only pick up white seashells. But scientific discovery is blind and unpredictable. Thus far, the vast majority of our discoveries have been white seashells. However, we have already picked up a red one.”

“That red seashell was nuclear weaponry.”

“Nuclear arsenals absolutely possessed the power to wipe out humanity. Fortunately, the governments of the Old World exercised just enough restraint to avoid total annihilation. It was a close call, which is why it remains only a red seashell.”

“But what happens when a civilization blindly picks up a black seashell? When faced with a technology that is inherently uncontrollable, how does a species survive? Do they just go extinct?”

“Perhaps the vast majority of advanced intelligent civilizations were destroyed by their own black seashells,” Hazel said grimly. “Therefore, the inevitable discovery of self-destructive technology is a prime candidate for the Great Filter.”

Hazel’s grim analogy sent a chill down Jason’s spine.

Damn it, he thought. The universe is too dangerous. It was a minefield. To say they were walking a tightrope over an abyss was an understatement. Even humanity’s greatest protector, its own scientific advancement could suddenly turn around and slaughter them all!

Yet, Hazel’s logic was flawless. It made terrifying sense. So, what were these hypothetical black seashells? And was it even possible to avoid them?

Some scientists theorized it could be a synthetic biochemical pathogen, an engineered super-virus or hyper-bacteria that defied all medical countermeasures. Perhaps a weaponized rabies strain, or a heavily mutated airborne AIDS virus. It sounded like the plot of a cheap thriller, but theoretically, it was entirely possible.

Others speculated the black seashell was Artificial Intelligence. The danger of true AI lay in its unpredictable nature. Many believed that the moment an artificial consciousness achieved true sentience, it would bring about the apocalypse, coldly wiping out its biological creators in a matter of minutes.

Yet another theory pointed to self-replicating nanotechnology. Unrestricted nanobots designed to consume and multiply could experience a programming error, causing a “gray goo” scenario where they strip-mined an entire planet’s resources in a matter of days!

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