Why haven't aliens got in contact with us yet?

[megamania]

To answer why the Aliens have not contacted us...... Do scientists communicate with their lab rats?

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

1) Wasn't actually created by the culture of the Federation, or its allies/adversaries. If I recall correctly, that Sphere had been abandoned.

2) The Dyson Sphere is a stellar-sized object, but it only emits in the infrared. Technically that could be detected, but practically speaking - it is *one* star. One. Out of billions. It'd have to be close by to expect us to note it by anything other than chance.

Star Trek Online tells us a story on how build the Dyson Sphere, and why it was abandoned. (And there is more than one.)

With respect, "shock waves" in the Trek sense are not a thing, despite what the treknobabble says. In reality, a shock wave is what you get when a wave is moving through a medium faster than the speed of sound in that medium. Note how in interstellar space, there is no medium to speak of, and you can't have a shock wave in a medium that doesn't exist. If your shock wave is in subspace, we won't see it.

But even if they were real, they'd need to be close to be notable.

I think one of the most spectacular things we might be able to glimpse if would be lucky is one of those starships exploding. All the anti-matter exploding in a warp core breach should make a nice, unexpected radiation source. But even that would be a very lucky incident to be detected by us.

Space is so incredibly big.

I think the most astounding technology in Star Trek might not be warp drives or transporter technology or replicators. Their sensors alone are sheer amazing. They can detect starships across light years of distance. They can detect humans below the surface for several meters. And of course, they do it faster than light.

Okay, I admit. Warp Drive and Transporters and Replicators might still be cooler after all. But even the "small "stuff in Star Trek is crazy advanced.

Based on the star trek timeline, there seems to be an extra supernova about every 100 years, if not more often. That is already (about) 5-10x the number of supernovas per millenium for the milky way than the current observed rate.

Isn't that the critical word here - observed rate. But we are already talking about our imperfections in our capability to observe. How many supernovae did we miss because we didn't look at the right spot in the right time?

Anyways, Star Trek has had a number of Kardashey type II civilizations, which seem likely to have noticeable impacts.

Did it?

There is just one instance of a Dyson Sphere. There are reports of one ancient civilization that was capable of moving stars - allegedly 600,000 years ago, so way before we could have detailed records of stars and star movement.
Creatures like the Organians or Q seem to be orthogonal to the Kardashey categorization, since we don't know how or how much energy they generate. We just see they can do seemingly whatever they want.

And it seems most of these super-advanced species have remained invisible to the Federation and are typically recent discoveries - so we have no reason to assume that we'd be able to detect them, either.

 

[RangerWickett]

do you give any credence to the Alien fungus theory ie that as the spores of certain fungi can survive in space that it is possible that fungi are of extraterrestrial origin.Fungi are markedly different from other life forms - Plant, Animal, Protozoan and still defy genetic classification.

No, we've got a pretty good handle on fungal evolution. True, it hasn't been studied as much as animal or plant evolution, but fungi aren't mysterious aliens. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evolution_of_fungi

 

[Umbran]

Based on the star trek timeline, there seems to be an extra supernova about every 100 years, if not more often. That is already (about) 5-10x the number of supernovas per millenium for the milky way than the current observed rate.

Eh. The observed rate for supernovae in other, similar spiral galaxies is 5 times greater than the observed rate in the Milky Way. The *observed* rate in the Milky Way cannot be trusted, as we see the galaxy edge-on, and the disc blocks our view. So, there could be several that we don't see.

Not clear from the episode itself, but there is a ST novel about the Dyson sphere which described a 100ly void around it which were the stars and such which were dismantled to create the sphere.

Um, that's improbable. There are several *thousand* stars within 100 ly of Earth, as an example. You can't put several *thousand* stars in a radius of 1 AU, and not have the thing simply collapse into a black hole.

Anyways, Star Trek has had a number of Kardashey type II civilizations, which seem likely to have noticeable impacts.

I'm not sure that's true. Other than the Q, who are omnipotent and don't really live around here, there aren't many examples of Trek-universe civilizations with the ability to manipulate stars in the modes Kardashev suggests.

 

[Janx]

I was only a kid at the time, but I remember seeing grown adults cry when they heard that the Apollo Project was cancelled. Because somebody had just reached out and killed a Dream.

The death of a dream is a tragedy. The only reason a thing is not done, is because we fool ourselves into thinking it can't be done. That it costs too much. That's what sacrifice is for. Society has always gotten more out when people put their all in.

 

[MechaPilot]

The death of a dream is a tragedy. The only reason a thing is not done, is because we fool ourselves into thinking it can't be done. That it costs too much. That's what sacrifice is for. Society has always gotten more out when people put their all in.

Or into thinking that it "shouldn't" be done. See cloning and human genetic engineering as examples.

 

[Umbran]

Or into thinking that it "shouldn't" be done. See cloning and human genetic engineering as examples.

You know, on those perhaps we *should* let them get a lot more practice on other animals before we start mucking about with humans.

 

[MechaPilot]

You know, on that one, perhaps we *should* let them get a lot more practice on other animals before we start mucking about with humans.

I don't disagree. I simply disagree with the "we shouldn't do it at all, ever" motivation that some people have.

 

[tomBitonti]

Eh. The observed rate for supernovae in other, similar spiral galaxies is 5 times greater than the observed rate in the Milky Way. The *observed* rate in the Milky Way cannot be trusted, as we see the galaxy edge-on, and the disc blocks our view. So, there could be several that we don't see.

Um, that's improbable. There are several *thousand* stars within 100 ly of Earth, as an example. You can't put several *thousand* stars in a radius of 1 AU, and not have the thing simply collapse into a black hole.

But one can make inferences based on how much of the galaxy we can see. Regardless, if supernovae happen with the frequency shown in Star Trek, that's a *lot* more often, and with strange physics evident from most of them.

The expanse is what is described in the book. I might have the size wrong, but I don't think so.

Thx!
TomB

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

But one can make inferences based on how much of the galaxy we can see. Regardless, if supernovae happen with the frequency shown in Star Trek, that's a *lot* more often, and with strange physics evident from most of them.

The expanse is what is described in the book. I might have the size wrong, but I don't think so.

Thx!
TomB

However, only artificially induced supernova would actually hint at intelligent aliens. Maybe the Star Trek Universe just happens to have some differences in physical laws or difference sin the composition of the Milky Way that makes it have more supernovae then we have in our world.

Artififically induced novae or supernova happened rarely. Basically Soran created one, and tried a second one. The Hobus nova most likely was artificial (in Star Trek Online, it was), since it behaved nothing like a "realistic" supernova. (This one would certainly seem weird to us if we could observe it - the shockwave was pparently moving faster than light.)

The only other artificial supernovae happened in the Delta Quadrant due to the Civil War in the Q-Continuum. This seemed to have been a very singular event - we would have needed to be around at the right time to notice it (or may have yet to notice it.) It's one of those "blink and you miss it" events.