“I’ve read Jason’s conjectures also,” said Tessa. “But I’m interested in learning what the aliens think.”
Schoenfeld nodded. “Of course,” he said agreeably. “First, most of our galaxy is inhospitable to life. The center of our galaxy is packed with an unimaginably dense array of stars. Fifty million times the density of our own stellar neighborhood.”
“Right,” I said, having touched on this before. “If the center of our galaxy is Manhattan, we’re on a small farm in Montana.”
“Exactly. The night sky anywhere near the galactic center would be a continual neon blaze, a wall of stars wherever you looked. But they would throw off so much combined radiation that it’s hard to imagine life being able to gain a foothold.”
The colonel paused. “But that’s just the beginning,” he continued. “The supermassive black hole in the center of the Milky Way is almost fifteen million miles in diameter and can blast out directed jets of matter that can traverse the entire galaxy.
“And then there are the supernovas. An exploding star can wipe out all life within twenty-five light years. For planets near the galactic center, the odds that a neighboring star at this range will go supernova is fifty million times greater than it is for us here.
“The spiral arms are nearly as dense with stars as the galactic center,” he continued. “They’re also home to countless stars that are just forming, which tend to blast out lethal radiation.”
Schoenfeld paused to let this sink in. “On the other side of the ledger, life needs plenty of heavy elements to emerge, which all come from dying stars. So if a planet is too far away from the action, it can’t gather the necessary ingredients.
“Fortunately for us, we’re on the very edge of a spiral arm, about twenty-five thousand light years from both the center of the galaxy and its outer rim.”
I nodded in delight. I had known that a planet needed to be well-positioned in its solar system for life to emerge—not too far away from its sun, and not too close. But I had never considered how this also applied to the entire galaxy.
“So you’re saying there’s a galactic Goldilocks Zone,” I said, using a common astronomical term—taken from the children’s fairy tale—which meant a zone where conditions were just right for life.
“Yes,” replied the colonel. “A Goldilocks Zone believed to extend from about thirteen thousand to thirty-three thousand light years away from galactic center. A region the Earth happens to be squarely within.”
“Maybe so,” said Tessa, unimpressed, “but so are billions of other planets.”
“That’s true,” said Schoenfeld. “I wasn’t saying this was the only reason there are so few sentient species. I’m just trying to be thorough. And I thought you’d find it interesting.”
“I, for one, find it very interesting,” I said enthusiastically.
“There you go,” said the colonel, flashing the hint of a smile at Tessa. “But you’re right, Major. This rules out a lot of stars and planets, but there are still plenty more. If we zero in on just the habitable zone, the Galactics believe that tens of thousands of intelligent species have arisen since the birth of our galaxy.”
My eyes widened. That was a huge number. A lot more than I would have guessed. “So what happened?” I asked finally. “Did all but twenty-two of them self-destruct?”
“Pretty much, yes,” replied the colonel. “For the obvious reasons you’ve detailed yourself.”
I nodded. It wasn’t a stretch to reason that any species capable of battling its way to the top of its planetary food chain would carry aggressive, primitive instincts along for the ride. In addition, it was probably a thousand times easier to develop weapons of mass destruction than to overcome the daunting challenge of interstellar travel, which would enable a species to spread its seed among the stars.
So if a species’ brutal upbringing and capacity for mass destruction outstripped its maturity—which was likely to be the case in almost every instance—the result was inevitable. It was a wonder humanity was still around, as we were inventing more and more ways to self-destruct by the year.
“How do the aliens know for sure this happened?” I asked.
“Member species of the Galactic Federation have come across dozens of planets that were wiped clean by weapons of mass destruction. More than enough to support the hypotheses that this is what happened to the vast majority.”
“What an epic waste,” I said sadly, a profoundly inadequate statement to eulogize the extinction of many thousands of intelligent races, each with populations likely in the billions.
“Yeah,” agreed Tessa. “The universe seems to have an evil sense of humor. Requiring ruthlessness for these species to attain dominance—and then trapping them in their solar systems until they destroy themselves.”
“Well, not always,” I said. “At least twenty-two planetary civilizations did manage to escape to the stars. And a few others may have managed it and gone on to become transcendent entities, perhaps learning how to exist as pure energy. Or vanishing in some other way from our plane of existence. Perhaps leaving to inhabit universes of their own creation. Or higher dimensions.”
The colonel nodded. “Our ET friends agree this is a good possibility,” he said. “Although they don’t have any direct evidence.”
I tilted my head in thought. “So how did these lucky twenty-two intelligences avoid self-destruction?” I asked.
“Easily,” replied the colonel with a twinkle in his eye. “Because they’re all what we might consider pathetic.” A broad grin came over his face. “Or maybe the term incredibly lame is a better way to put it.”
15