So, life (on Earth) is much older than what was thought...

[Umbran]

The moon came to Earth approximately 500 millions of years ago, when a passing small planet crashed into the Earth.

Um, there's a big problem with that. I wonder that it passed inspection.

The Great Impact Theory is the leading one for the Moon's creation. But, the new Moon would have been thoroughly molten at the time of it's creation. No rock on the Moon could be older than the Moon itself - and the Apollo astronauts brought back rocks we can date back to about 3.3 billion years old. The creation of the moon must have happened at or before that time.

Can you imagine our Earth with a much different environment, but a life that could well have evolved at our own human level of complexity, and maybe even much further?? They had the time for that!!

Let us assume that life on Earth began some 3.5 bilion years ago. I'm cool with that. We have that idea from fossils. So, we have evidence of fossil life from that far back...

So, where are the fossils of these human complexity creatures? How is it we have fossils from before them, and after them, but not of them? You'd need a plausible mechanism for losing a chunk out of the middle of the fossil record.

 

[RedWick]

So, where are the fossils of these human complexity creatures? How is it we have fossils from before them, and after them, but not of them? You'd need a plausible mechanism for losing a chunk out of the middle of the fossil record.

Fastidious post-civilization planetary clean-up ala SimEarth?

...

What? It could happen!

 

[Aust Diamondew]

Let us assume that life on Earth began some 3.5 bilion years ago. I'm cool with that. We have that idea from fossils. So, we have evidence of fossil life from that far back...

So, where are the fossils of these human complexity creatures? How is it we have fossils from before them, and after them, but not of them? You'd need a plausible mechanism for losing a chunk out of the middle of the fossil record.

Most big fossils have trouble surviving a couple hundred million years. It could be reasonable to assume that any more complex organisms during that time probably have had nearly all if not all of their fossils destroyed.
Ofc it's a guess and assumption that anything more complicated that single celled life existed during that time as well.
So it's all pretty much just speculation and 'what ifs'.

 

[Umbran]

Most big fossils have trouble surviving a couple hundred million years. It could be reasonable to assume that any more complex organisms during that time probably have had nearly all if not all of their fossils destroyed.

Still doesn't work.

We have fossil that indicate single-celled organizms that have survived 3.5 billion years. Fine and dandy. You say that they surviveed because they are small.

The first multicellular organisms weren't large. There are today many multicellular types that are smaller than some single-celled organisms. But multicellular organisms show up in the fossil record only about 800 million years ago. If there were a prior climb to complexity, we should still see small multicellular fossils in older rocks. But we don't.

 

[Turanil]

So, where are the fossils of these human complexity creatures? How is it we have fossils from before them, and after them, but not of them? You'd need a plausible mechanism for losing a chunk out of the middle of the fossil record.

The documentary told that the crash of the two planets boiled down everything on Earth's surface at 4000 degree celsius, and remained so for an extremely long time (thousands of years). Only a few micro-organisms escaped disintegration because they were in some water deep inside the crust, where the cataclysm was less disastrous. So, if what the documentary tells is true, it appears that everything on Earth's surface was vaporized.

At least, all of this is great for developping some Cthulhu adventures!

 

[Angel Tarragon]

At least, all of this is great for developping some Cthulhu adventures!

Dreamlands?

 

[Shag]

Perhaps sentience then is an evolutionary reaction against mass extinctions; evolution couldn’t find a solution to keep life alive here. How can life be defended against massive asteroid collisions? So the solution was to sever us from nature and let us come up with our own answer to that problem.

 

[Umbran]

So, if what the documentary tells is true, it appears that everything on Earth's surface was vaporized.

I'll repeat - heat isn't selective. If it destroys fossils, it destroys them all. The fossils of the first single-celled organisms are still around to let us know that life began shortly after Earth's creation, before this massive impact. You'd have me believe that this impact then destroyed the fossils of all the first round of multicellular critters, but left the fossils of the single-celled critters right next to them intact for us to find? That makes no sense.

At least, all of this is great for developping some Cthulhu adventures!

Just so long as none of the players ask the questions I have, yes

 

[Desdichado]

I watched a documentary myself recently that said that the Milky Way and Andromeda are on a collision course. Our Milky Way has eaten up other smaller galaxies in the past; however, Andromeda is much bigger than the Milky Way, so our galaxy will just not the same after that happens (in about 10 billion years).

Bigger, but much less dense. Andromeda is believed to have less mass than the Milky Way, so we'll actually be the dominatrix in that relationship. Many millions of years from now. But, yeah--what is assumed will happen is that one single elliptical galaxy will be the end result of that "collision."

 

[Desdichado]

You'd need a plausible mechanism for losing a chunk out of the middle of the fossil record.

How does continental drift sound?

I know, I know... continental drift + bad luck in weathering and what's been discovered so far.

It's not really that implausible. We've been missing tens of millions of years of early Jurassic fossil beds until some really prolific ones were discovered in China in just the last 15 years or so. It's no stretch to imagine that much, much earlier fossil beds have been subducted, under the ocean, or just flat out undiscovered because they're under yards and yards of soil or something.