0.0
October 16th, 2017, inside the Arctic Circle.
4.759
A 32-meter radio antenna rotates.
8.32
A 2-megawatt transmitter powers on.
11.46
For the next 33 minutes, an encoded radio
14.82
message propagates outward from Earth
17.219
toward a red dwarf star called Leuton's Star,
20.66
12.4 light-years away.
22.859
It carries a mathematical tutorial, a cosmic timing
27.079
reference,
27.519
33 short musical compositions commissioned from artists at
32.42
a music festival in Barcelona.
35.8
The transmission is deliberate.
38.399
It is directional.
39.6
It is high power.
40.88
It targets a star system with a known
43.46
potentially habitable planet.
45.579
The decision to transmit was made by a
48.299
private non-profit
49.479
in partnership with the Spanish Music Festival using
52.42
a research facility in Norway.
54.359
No international body was consulted.
56.64
No vote was held.
58.399
There is no international body with the authority
60.84
to hold one.
62.259
Approximately 28 prominent scientists had signed an open
65.98
letter two years earlier
67.359
stating that a worldwide scientific, political, and humanitarian
71.519
discussion
72.219
must occur before any message is sent.
75.579
The transmission occurred anyway.
79.4
Twelve years from now, the signal arrives at
82.819
Leuton's Star.
83.959
What happens after that depends on the signal.
86.62
It is a matter of time before the
86.7
signal is released.
86.7
It depends on whether anyone is listening, whether
88.62
they respond,
89.62
and whether they behave according to a doctrine
92.04
that a small number of physicists
93.739
have been quietly warning about for four decades.
97.18
The doctrine has a name.
99.159
The Dark Forest.
100.939
To understand the Dark Forest, we start with
104.28
a question first asked,
105.68
not in a novel, but over lunch at
108.0
a nuclear weapons laboratory.
110.719
Summer, 1950.
112.359
Los Alamos.
113.68
Four physicists,
115.239
Enrico Fermi,
116.48
Edward Teller, Emil Konopinski, Herbert York, discuss flying
120.84
saucers, interstellar travel,
123.04
and the age of the galaxy.
125.079
Fermi interrupts with a question that the others
127.78
remembered differently,
128.86
but that survived in history as, where is
131.819
everybody?
134.18
The calculation behind the question is simple.
137.06
The galaxy is approximately 10 billion years old.
140.36
It contains over 100 billion stars.
143.719
Many are older than the sun.
145.759
Even at modest fractions of
147.699
the speed of light, well below what theoretical
150.08
physics permits, a civilization could spread
152.919
across the entire galaxy in 5 to 50
155.599
million years, a blink on cosmological timescales.
159.819
If technological civilizations are even moderately common, the
164.479
galaxy should be colonized already.
166.74
It isn't.
167.9
The sky is silent.
170.36
This observation is now called the Fermi Paradox,
174.52
though Fermi himself never formalized it.
177.18
It acquired its current name in 1975 from
181.06
an astronomer named David Viewing.
183.18
In 1983, another astronomer, David Brin, gave the
187.379
observational fact behind the paradox a different name.
191.06
He called it the Great Silence.
194.24
Brin's paper cataloged, ranked, and debated competing explanations
198.34
for why the sky is quiet
200.199
and why the sun is silent.
200.36
Among the more chilling hypotheses he described was
203.919
a class he called deadly probes.
206.52
The idea, the silence, is not passive.
209.78
It is enforced.
211.28
Something, or someone, destroys civilizations that rise above
216.139
a certain visibility threshold.
219.86
Brin did not originate the concept.
222.439
An American science fiction writer named Fred Saberhagen
225.84
had been using it as premise in a
227.919
series of novels since 1963.
230.36
In Saberhagen's books, the enforcers were autonomous machines,
234.62
berserkers, built by a long extinct civilization to
237.96
exterminate all intelligent life.
240.02
This variant of the hypothesis would later be
242.699
called the berserker scenario.
244.68
But the formalization that would eventually enter the
247.74
scientific literature came in 2008 from a Chinese
251.419
science fiction author named Lu Chixin in the
254.58
second volume of his Remembrance of Earth's Past
257.74
trilogy.
258.959
The novel's title is The Great Silence.
260.339
The novel's title was The Dark Forest.
262.85
Lu reduced the hypothesis to two axioms and
266.0
one derived concept.
268.14
Axiom 1.S.
270.42
Survival is the primary need of every civilization.
274.6
Axiom 2.
276.3
Civilizations continuously grow and expand.
279.279
The total matter in the universe is constant.
283.72
From these, Lu derives what he calls the
287.18
chain of suspicion.
288.899
When two civilizations are in conflict, the chain
290.319
of suspicion is the chain of suspicion.
290.319
When two civilizations become aware of each other,
292.04
neither can reliably determine whether the other is
295.06
benign.
296.019
Even if civilization A is in fact benign,
299.06
it cannot determine whether B believes A is
301.98
benign.
302.6
And it cannot determine whether B believes A
305.139
believes B is benign.
306.72
The recursion does not terminate.
309.36
Across interstellar distances, this uncertainty is multiplied by
314.3
a factor Lu calls the technological explosion.
317.519
Any civilization may, at any point, be a
320.3
civilization.
320.3
Any civilization may, at any point, undergo a
321.66
rapid capability leap.
323.489
A civilization that appears harmless today may be
327.079
a lethal threat in a century.
329.199
Radial signals take years or decades to cross
332.5
between stars.
333.87
By the time a response returns, the sender
336.759
may no longer be the same civilization that
339.439
sent it.
340.319
Under these conditions, the game theoretically rational move
344.5
is not communication.
346.0
It is not defense.
347.759
It is not diplomacy.
351.0
It is pre-emptive annihilation of any civilization
354.699
that reveals its position.
357.139
Lu's formulation, in his own words,
360.42
The universe is a dark forest.
362.92
Every civilization is an armed hunter stalking through
366.62
the trees like a ghost.
368.42
If he finds other life, there's only one
370.759
thing he can do.
371.819
Open fire and eliminate them.
376.08
This is not a claim about alien malice.
378.759
It is a claim about ghost.
380.3
Namely, by fighting against another life, the hunter
383.879
will supposedly remain alive forever and ever.
391.339
What does Lu actually mean at theloo's foundation?
400.0
There is no possible answer.
400.399
He says it is certain.
400.42
Sp memoirs
400.699
The Liu family
400.759
are also known as forestes.
401.66
Before world war ultrasound, not many organizations have
402.819
identified legislations
402.819
that it is a form of callip fui
404.16
to lose an animal
407.459
Marker
407.779
virtual
407.899
X-ray
408.459
radio
410.3
Humans did not think this way.
412.62
The modern search for extraterrestrial intelligence begins with
416.62
a two-page paper published in
418.36
the journal Nature on September 19, 1959.
422.319
The authors are Giuseppe Cocconi and Philip Morrison,
425.819
both physicists at Cornell University.
428.539
The title, Searching for Interstellar Communications.
432.04
The paper proposes that if advanced civilizations exist
436.22
in our galaxy, they will use radio to
439.24
communicate.
439.959
It proposes a specific frequency, the 21 cm
443.98
line of neutral hydrogen, at 1420 MHz, because
448.36
any civilization capable of radio astronomy will be
452.18
tuned there already.
453.519
It proposes that we should listen.
456.259
The paper's closing sentence is the founding sentence
459.48
of SETI as a discipline.
461.479
The probability of success is difficult to estimate,
464.6
but if we never search, the chance
466.759
of success is zero.
468.12
7 months later, an astronomer named Frank Drake
472.12
pointed an 85-foot radio telescope at
475.319
the National Radio Astronomy Observatory in Green Bank,
478.74
West Virginia, toward two nearby
480.74
sun-like stars, Tau Ceti and Epsilon Eridani.
484.5
For approximately 150 hours across April, May, June,
489.079
and July of 1960, Drake listened
491.819
at 1420 MHz for narrowband signals that could
495.379
only be of technological origin.
498.12
The project was called OSMA.
500.019
It detected nothing.
502.04
But OSMA established the template, target stars, narrowband
506.36
receiver, hydrogen line
507.939
frequency, that would dominate SETI research for the
510.899
next 60 years.
512.279
In November of the following year, Drake convened
515.7
a small meeting at Green Bank.
517.62
Ten participants, among them Carl Sagan, Melvin Calvin,
522.139
Bernard Oliver.
524.639
On the blackboard, Drake wrote what would become
527.679
known as the first ever scientific
528.1
experiment in the galaxy.
529.679
7 variables.
531.22
Their product yields the estimated number of communicating
534.039
civilizations currently present
536.039
in the galaxy.
537.2
The first three variables—star formation rate, fraction of
541.72
stars with planets, number
543.48
of planets per system that could support life—have
546.36
been measured with increasing precision over
548.58
the subsequent 60 years.
550.299
Planets appear to be common.
552.2
Habitable-zone planets appear to exist around roughly
555.559
one in five sun-like stars.
557.899
However, the number of planets in a system
558.08
that could support life has been reduced.
558.1
The remaining four variables, including the average lifetime
561.72
of a communicating civilization,
563.82
remain essentially unconstrained.
566.32
Nothing in the available data rules out civilizational
569.58
lifespans of 100 years.
571.659
Nothing rules out 10 billion.
574.2
The Drake equation is a way of organizing
576.779
ignorance.
577.779
It does not predict.
579.799
November 16, 1974.
582.96
Five o'clock in the afternoon, local time,
585.36
Puerto Rico.
586.32
The Arecibo radio station is a place where
588.08
the Earth is being used as a source
588.08
of information.
588.08
The Beta B telescope has just completed a
589.519
three-year upgrade.
590.58
A ceremony marks the occasion.
592.82
Frank Drake, along with Carl Sagan and three
595.46
colleagues, has designed a demonstration.
598.159
For 169 seconds, the most powerful radio transmitter
602.32
on Earth broadcasts a 21-minute burst of
605.6
binary-encoded
606.559
data toward the globular cluster, M13, 25,000
610.96
light-years away.
612.639
The message contains the numbers 1 through 10
615.679
in binary.
616.6
The message contains the numbers 1 through 10
617.1
in binary.
617.1
Atomic numbers for the binary are expressed in
618.059
a single column.
618.08
the elements of life.
619.259
The double helix structure of DNA, with what
622.24
was then believed to be
623.32
the number of nucleotide base pairs in the
625.44
human genome, a stick figure of a human
627.98
with
628.34
average height and global population, a diagram of
631.659
the solar system with Earth offset upward,
634.139
an image of the Arecibo dish itself with
636.919
its diameter.
639.44
Peak effective radiated power in the direction of
642.72
transmission, 20 trillion watts, approximately
646.519
20 times the combined output of every power
649.94
plant on Earth at the time.
651.519
The transmission
652.6
was sent once, never repeated.
655.539
Donald Campbell, at the time a research associate
658.5
at the Arecibo
659.419
Observatory and later a Cornell professor of astronomy,
662.559
described the event in plain
664.259
terms.
665.0
It was strictly a symbolic event, to show
667.84
that we could do it.
669.12
At the ceremony,
670.679
some in the audience left the tent during
672.759
the broadcast and walked outside to look up
675.72
at the dish.
676.519
They were the first humans in history to
679.7
watch a deliberate interstellar transmission
681.84
leave Earth.
683.2
Within days, the first serious objection was raised.
687.679
Sir Martin Ryle, Nobel
689.22
laureate in physics, Astronomer Royal of the United
692.419
Kingdom, publicly proposed that an
695.039
international interdiction be placed on any further attempts
698.62
to message extraterrestrial
700.46
civilizations from Earth.
702.48
Ryle's argument was straightforward.
704.679
The asymmetry in capability
706.36
between any civilization capable of responding and one
710.059
capable of transmitting is, by definition,
712.779
unknown.
713.679
The consequences of a response could be catastrophic.
716.919
The decision to transmit,
718.72
once taken, cannot be recalled.
722.639
Ryle's proposal was never formalized into policy.
726.399
It was received politely and ignored.
729.759
It was the first time a prominent scientist
732.539
publicly articulated what would, three decades
735.72
later, be recognized as the dark-forced critique
739.08
of deliberate transmission.
740.98
In the intervening
742.419
years, the scientific community continued to listen.
745.639
It did not, for the most part,
747.74
continue to transmit.
749.48
August 15, 1977, 1116 in the evening Eastern
754.279
Time, Delaware, Ohio.
756.1
An astronomer named
757.62
Jerry Eman is reviewing hard copy printouts from
761.159
the Big Ear Radio Telescope, a volunteer
764.22
position.
764.759
Since the time of the big-ear radio
765.7
telescope, the telescope has been used by
765.7
the Big Ear Radio Telescope for several years.
766.2
The telescope's federal funding has been cut.
768.1
On the printout, a vertical sequence of values,
771.44
6, E, Q, U, J, 5, each letter
776.32
representing
776.86
a signal intensity 30 standard deviations above background,
780.899
a narrowband signal near
782.779
the hydrogen line frequency, confined to a single
785.779
10 kilohertz channel, duration 72 seconds,
790.039
exactly the time the big-ear's drift scan
792.34
beam would sweep across a fixed point in
794.86
the
795.74
range of the telescope.
796.419
The signal is exactly what Kakani and Morrison
799.039
predicted in 1959.
801.62
In the margin, Eman writes a single word.
804.6
Wow.t, wow.
809.02
In the 48 years since, the wow signal
812.46
has never recurred.
813.94
The big ear searched for it
815.62
more than 50 times.
817.039
The Very Large Array searched for it.
819.419
Arecibo searched for it.
821.08
Nothing.
822.279
In 2024, a team led by the AstroTablet
825.679
Institute, the NASA Space Station, and the NASA
825.679
Space
826.579
Telescope, the NASA Space Station, and its
827.32
Space Telescope, proposed a natural explanation.
831.36
A rare astrophysical maser, possibly triggered
835.179
by a magnetar, brightening a cold hydrogen cloud.
839.1
Magnetars were not known in 1977.
842.1
The
842.659
theoretical framework did not yet exist.
845.519
The hypothesis is under peer review.
848.24
It is not
848.98
confirmed.
849.86
But the question, the wow signal, asked, What
853.62
would a real detection look like,
855.379
and what would a natural detection look like?
855.659
The answer was, it was not a natural
855.659
detection.
855.659
and how would we know, remained open for
857.6
decades, and has shaped the field that followed.
860.96
Six years later, David Brin published his survey
864.519
of explanations for the Great Silence.
867.32
Brin's paper cataloged approximately 100 distinct hypotheses for
871.779
why the sky is quiet.
873.379
Some were biological.
874.899
Life may be rare.
876.379
Intelligence may be rare.
877.98
Some were technological.
879.259
Logical.
880.179
Civilizations may not last long enough to be
882.379
detected.
883.0
Some were observational.
884.74
We may be looking wrong, at the wrong
886.879
frequencies, for the wrong signals.
888.74
And some were strategic.
892.26
The strategic category included the deadly pearls hypothesis.
896.759
The berserker scenario formalized
899.259
academically, and a category Brin did not have
902.44
a name for yet, but described clearly.
904.879
The possibility that mature civilizations, understanding the
909.039
danger of the sky, would be able to
909.24
detect the sky.
909.259
The dangers of revelation simply do not broadcast.
912.34
Not because they cannot, because they have learned
914.96
not to.
915.759
This is the hypothesis, Liu Xichun would later
918.919
name.
919.879
In 1983, Brin's position was cautious.
923.46
He cataloged the strategic hypotheses without endorsing them.
927.84
His own view, which he has maintained in
930.279
the four decades since, is that the most
932.44
likely
932.82
explanation for the Great Silence is that the
935.46
early evolutionary steps are extremely rare.
938.039
Complex life, in Brin's view, is unusual.
941.84
Technological civilization, in his view, may be unique
945.32
to Earth.
946.379
But he has also been, for four decades,
949.279
the most consistent public scientific opponent of deliberate
953.019
interstellar transmission.
955.2
Brin's argument is structural.
957.62
Even if the dark forest hypothesis has only
960.659
a small probability of being correct, the consequences
963.84
of being wrong, the destruction of the human
966.659
species, are asymmetrical.
975.24
The
991.96
same argument in a Discovery Channel documentary.
996.019
If Aliens Visit Us.
997.919
The outcome would be much as when Columbus
1000.759
landed in America, which didn't turn out well
1003.519
for the Native Americans.
1006.84
Hawking expanded on this across the remaining years
1009.82
of his life.
1010.62
His position combined two seemingly contradictory commitments.
1014.639
He supported SETI.
1015.96
He warned against METI.
1017.98
Listening was information.
1019.759
Transmitting was exposure.
1021.539
In 2015, Hawking appeared at the Royal Society
1025.5
in London,
1026.259
alongside Yuri Milner, an Israeli-Russian technology investor,
1030.66
and Frank Drake himself.
1032.4
They announced Breakthrough.
1034.42
Listen.
1035.4
A $100 million initiative, the largest private investment
1039.779
in the search for extraterrestrial intelligence in history.
1043.64
The program would use the most sensitive radio
1046.539
telescopes on Earth, Green Bank, Parkes, MirKAT, eventually
1051.559
Sardinia,
1052.64
to scan one million nearby stars and the
1055.839
center of the Earth.
1058.519
The program would use the largest radio telescope
1059.799
in the world,
1059.799
The data would be released publicly.
1061.299
The analysis would be open.
1063.759
Hawking's statement at the announcement.
1065.72
In an infinite universe, there must be other
1068.359
life.
1068.839
There is no bigger question.
1070.279
It is time to commit to finding the
1072.319
answer.
1074.519
Listen.
1075.4
Do not transmit.
1077.94
That has been the operational position of the
1080.619
institutional SETI community from the 1970s forward.
1085.079
It is a position that has been used
1086.22
by the American people for decades.
1086.24
A small number of people have decided to
1088.98
violate.
1089.88
February 2015.
1092.24
San Jose, California.
1094.18
The annual meeting of the American Association for
1097.38
the Advancement of Science.
1099.079
A panel of SETI researchers meets to discuss
1102.14
whether humans should begin deliberate interstellar broadcasts targeting
1106.18
nearby stars.
1107.46
The panel includes, among others, Douglas Vakosh, Seth
1111.46
Shostak, David Brin, David Grinspoon.
1114.22
The panel ends in disagreement.
1117.799
Within days, two formal positions are published.
1121.459
The first is an open letter, title, regarding
1124.66
messaging to extraterrestrial intelligence and active searches for
1128.38
extraterrestrial intelligence.
1130.7
28 initial signatories.
1133.16
The list includes Elon Musk, George Dyson, Paul
1137.099
Davies, David Brin, Michael Michaud, a former United
1140.799
States State Department advisor on outer space issues.
1144.22
And James Benford, the plasma physicist.
1147.259
The letters central claim, compressed to a sentence.
1151.039
As a newly emerging technological species, it is
1154.18
prudent to listen before we shout.
1157.839
The second position appears in an op-ed
1160.5
published by Seth Shostak, senior astronomer at the
1163.619
SETI Institute, in the New York Times on
1166.42
March 28, 2015.
1169.44
Shostak's closing line,
1171.099
The universe beckons, and we can do better.
1202.799
Shostak's closing line,
1204.2
For the first time, the field of extraterrestrial
1209.099
research contains two formally opposed programs.
1213.649
One listens.
1215.129
One transmits.
1217.259
October 16, 2017.
1220.269
Two years and eight months after the AAAS
1223.16
split.
1224.21
The EISCAT facility at Ramfjordmuen, inside the Arctic
1228.64
Circle.
1229.299
A 32-meter antenna rotates.
1231.94
The target is GJT.
1234.2
The Earth is a super-earth, known as
1235.859
Leuton's star.
1236.96
A red dwarf 12.36 light-years from
1240.64
Earth, hosting at least two confirmed planets.
1243.759
One of them, GJ273b, is a super-earth
1248.48
approximately three times the mass of our planet,
1251.319
potentially in the habitable zone.
1253.759
Over three successive days, October 16, 17, and
1258.119
18, Vakocha's team transmits a 33-minute message
1261.88
three times per day.
1263.2
The current clock is 8.9 MHz, a
1264.039
peak power of 2 MW, and its frequency
1266.4
is 9299 to 930 MHz.
1269.46
The data is a mathematical tutorial, a cosmic
1272.779
clock reference, and 33 musical compositions commissioned by
1276.42
artists at the Sonar Festival in Barcelona.
1278.9
The project is called Sonar, calling GJ273b.
1285.42
No international body was consulted.
1288.18
No vote was held.
1289.74
The 2015 open letters call for worldwide signings
1293.18
of the project.
1293.18
scientific and political discussion was bypassed entirely.
1297.18
In November, the transmission was
1299.759
disclosed to the public, one month after it
1302.42
occurred.
1303.099
A technical analysis of the sonar
1305.88
calling transmission was published shortly after disclosure by
1309.819
James Benford, chairman of the SAIL
1312.019
subcommittee for breakthrough Starshot.
1314.519
Benford's finding was narrowly specific.
1317.259
At the distance of
1318.579
Leuthen's star, the EISCAT transmission had an effective
1322.059
isotropic radiated power approximately
1324.579
1 100th of the 1974 Arecibo message and
1328.66
1 10th of the Soviet-era Epatoria transmissions.
1333.88
Benford's conclusion, the transmission will not be detectable
1337.92
as a message by any radio telescope
1340.319
comparable to Earth's most sensitive instruments.
1343.779
In practical terms, the signal is too weak
1347.099
for
1347.359
its intended purpose.
1349.0
Even if Leuthen's star hosts a civilization with
1351.88
technology equal to ours, they will not hear
1354.48
us.
1355.519
The transmission's practical SETI value, therefore, is limited.
1359.599
Its institutional value
1361.579
is the point.
1363.319
For the first time in history, a private
1366.259
organization, without governmental
1368.18
authority, without scientific consensus, without international consultation, made
1373.98
a unilateral
1374.779
decision to broadcast Earth's position on behalf of
1378.24
the species.
1379.199
The precedent is the message.
1381.619
There is no international treaty governing METI.
1385.539
There is
1386.48
no United Nations committee with binding authority over
1390.119
deliberate interstellar transmission.
1392.38
The UN Office for Outer Space Affairs, and
1395.799
its Committee on the Peaceful Uses of Outer
1397.96
Space institutions
1399.059
that govern most space activities, have no authority
1402.96
over this one.
1404.039
The SETI permanent study group of the
1406.64
International Academy of Astronautics has drafted a post
1410.059
-detection protocol.
1411.539
It is not binding.
1413.48
Most
1414.119
major radio astronomy institutions have verbally committed to
1417.559
follow it.
1418.18
None are compelled to.
1421.839
The question Carl Sagan asked in the 1980s,
1425.7
Who speaks for Earth?
1427.18
has no institutional answer in 2026.
1430.72
In practice, whoever has access to a
1433.799
sufficiently powerful transmitter speaks for Earth.
1437.059
In 2017, that was Douglas Vokok,
1440.319
operating an antenna in Norway.
1442.42
In the 1990s and 2000s, it was Alexander
1446.579
Zaitsev, operating a 70
1448.779
meter dish at the Soviet-era Evpatoria Deep
1452.44
Space Center in Crimea.
1454.359
Zaitsev transmitted at least
1456.22
four major messages between 1999 and 2008, targeting
1461.279
nearby stars at distances between
1463.339
30 and 60 meters.
1463.779
The radio station was also used to transmit
1463.779
radio signals to the Earth.
1465.019
The radio station was also used to transmit
1465.819
radio signals to the Earth.
1465.819
The radio station was
1465.819
traffic control station in the 1970s and 2000s.
1465.819
None of the transmissions had scientific consensus.
1470.019
None had international authorization.
1472.68
They were sent because Zaitsev controlled the transmitter.
1476.539
In the 2020s, the question is, who else
1479.799
will gain access?
1481.399
The 500-meter Aperture Spherical Telescope, FAST, operational
1486.68
in Guizhou Province,
1488.359
China, is the largest single-dish radio telescope
1491.68
in the world.
1492.7
It is a
1493.46
approximately 20 times more sensitive than the Parkes
1496.48
telescope in Australia.
1497.839
Its SETI program,
1499.46
listed as one of five key science objectives,
1502.319
is led by Tongji Zhong.
1504.48
China is not a signatory to
1506.66
the 2015 open letter.
1508.9
Chinese institutions have not committed to the voluntary
1512.42
METI protocols
1513.68
that Western researchers observe.
1515.94
The FAST telescope has, to date, operated as
1519.92
a listening
1520.359
facility, but its capacity to transmit, should the
1523.98
operational doctrine change,
1525.9
is orders of magnitude greater than any Western
1528.74
facility.
1531.08
This is not a claim about Chinese intent.
1534.339
It is a claim about institutional architecture.
1537.599
A doctrine that depends on voluntary compliance by
1541.22
every capable actor is a doctrine that lasts
1544.359
only as long as voluntary compliance continues.
1548.98
The dark forest is a place where the
1550.339
Chinese people are the most important people in
1550.339
the
1550.359
world.
1550.46
The dark forest, if it is correct, is
1551.94
a doctrine that mature civilizations converge on
1555.0
through hard experience.
1557.039
Humanity has not had that experience.
1559.319
We have had only debate.
1561.779
The case file closes for this episode with
1565.279
what we know and what we do not.
1567.799
We know that for 67 years, humans have
1571.16
listened to the sky for technological signals at
1574.18
the
1574.279
hydrogen-lime frequency and across increasingly broad spectra.
1578.68
We have heard nothing we can't
1580.359
confirm as artificial.
1582.2
We know that six deliberate interstellar transmissions of
1585.96
significant power
1586.819
have been sent from Earth over the same
1589.18
period.
1589.98
Three from the former Soviet Union and Ukraine.
1593.2
Two from Puerto Rico and Norway.
1595.42
One crowdsourced broadcast from Australia.
1598.66
We know that no international body has the
1601.42
authority to regulate such transmissions,
1603.779
and no scientific consensus has been achieved on
1607.019
whether they should continue.
1608.799
We know that Lucidia is a place where
1610.339
the sun can shine, and that it can
1610.339
shine in any way it wants.
1625.819
We know that the people who oppose the
1628.759
transmissions, Martin Ryle, David Brin, Stephen Hawking, the
1632.779
28 signatories of the 2015 letter, could not
1635.779
stop them.
1636.4
The field of SETI, for its entire institutional
1639.299
history,
1640.339
has contained within itself both the listeners and
1642.839
the signalers, operating under no higher authority than
1645.599
their own judgment.
1646.7
And we know that the silence, so far,
1649.46
persists.
1650.68
Fragment Zero will track the case file.
1653.759
Whether the Dark Forest is correct, we cannot
1656.619
know with current evidence.
1658.38
Whether it is wrong, we cannot know either.
1661.48
What we can know is that the doctrine
1663.94
it describes, concealment as survival, silence as discipline,
1668.839
revelation as...
1670.339
...existential hazard, is not unfamiliar to humans.
1674.379
It is the oldest operational security principle in
1677.96
the history of human conflict.
1681.92
Submarines run silent.
1684.019
Special operations teams practice light discipline.
1687.599
Encrypted communications are the norm for any force
1690.859
that expects adversarial observation.
1693.319
Every military doctrine humanity has developed under conditions
1696.94
of uncertain threat converges on the same principle.
1700.339
Be quiet.
1701.819
Move carefully.
1703.46
Assume observation.
1706.819
If the Dark Forest is correct, then the
1709.66
galaxy is full of civilizations that have all
1712.4
learned the same lesson.
1714.099
And in 2017, in a research facility in
1717.619
Norway, on behalf of a species that had
1720.059
not yet learned it,
1721.079
a 32-meter antenna rotated.
1723.7
12 years remain before the signal arrives.
1728.519
Part Two of this file will be given
1730.319
to the SETI research team.
1730.319
examines what happened next, what the evidence looks
1733.359
like, what the silence so
1735.359
far actually consists of, and what the hypothesis
1739.2
begins to imply.
1740.68
Not about
1741.599
them, about us.
