Investigation

What do they want, and why do we keep guessing?

Invasion stories nearly always give aliens a human motive: resources, conquest, hunger, salvation. The Servator has not offered one, and ninety-three years of guessing may say more about us than about it.

Astrobiology · Ecology · Literary criticism

The evidence

Suggested reading path

01Established KnowledgeWhat Would They Even Want?Invasion stories almost always begin by assuming the visitors want what humans have historically fought over. That assumption is a statement about us.02Established KnowledgeEarth Is a Gravity Well, Not a WarehouseWater, metals, carbon, and volatiles are abundant across asteroids, comets, moons, and outer systems; and far cheaper to reach than the bottom of a planetary gravity well.03Plausible ExtrapolationWould We Even Be Edible?Compatibility is not the default. It is an extraordinary coincidence that terrestrial life mostly shares.04Plausible ExtrapolationIndifference Is the DangerHostility requires that you matter. The worse outcomes historically involve entities that never formed an opinion about you at all.05Servator-EnabledWhy a Probe Instead of a Signal?If synchronization is the binding constraint, then the correct instrument is not a transmitter. It is something patient, local, and physically present.

Questions to think about

Keep arguing

— Which human motive do you find yourself assigning to the Servator, and why that one?
— Did it understand the assignment?
— What would a genuinely non-human motive even look like from inside a human head?

Continue

Other investigations

Biology · History · Ethics · Literature

Who has the right to rewrite a human being?

Physics · Measurement · Philosophy of science

How can the Servator hang there without pushing anything?

Biology · Cognition · Philosophy

What if an octopus is intelligent in a way we cannot measure?

Astronomy · Statistics · Astrobiology

If intelligent life is rare, how could anyone ever find us?