King of All I Survey
Chapter 72: Prospecting for New Worlds

Chapter 72: Prospecting for New Worlds

"The obvious leverage point," Joe continued, "is that the refueling station at Jupiter has a certain ongoing value to the Galactic Union whether we are members or not. It would be difficult for them to access it if we withdrew from GU membership and had a third-party protectorate agreement. They would probably offer to purchase the protectorate contract from that party, then declare formal war on Earth, which would invalidate licensing contracts in both directions. After declaring war, they would place a couple ships out past Mars, effectively annexing the outer solar system, then offer us immediate peace terms without anyone firing a shot. We’d have to accept or face annihilation. The peace terms would reinstate licensing under draconian terms for existing products and likely even all Earth IP."

"Unless we had other allies ready to step in on our behalf... and make the war more difficult. Or we could threaten to destroy the station..." I mused.

"No, destroying the station would be a move they could not allow to pass without destroying us utterly. It’s a precedent that might embolden others." Joe cautioned. "Perhaps if we had an outside protector and we offered continued use of the refueling station and other concessions that offered sufficient value to the GU," Joe offered.

"Joe, I do not intend to renew the GU protection contract when it expires if they raise the cost even one penny... or GU credit. Even if they don’t raise the cost, I want non-exclusive trading terms. We have to leverage multiple powers against each other until Earth is strong enough to stand alone." I decreed.

"Joe," Dad jumped into the conversation, "What happens if Earth contacts other worlds new to the galactic scene and contracts them as exclusive trading partners with a mutual defense treaty?"

"Oooh!," I exclaimed, "Great idea, Dad. We can leverage the trading value of multiple worlds! And keep them from falling victim to the trading schemes of the GU."

"Interesting," Joe said, "It seems that might be the loophole you were looking for. As long as Earth is a protectorate of the GU, they are obligated to defend any planets or systems claimed by Earth. While it might be impossible to find an ally to stand up to the GU on our behalf for the value of one world’s IP, the combined riches of multiple worlds might make it a more attractive proposition. Furthermore, the other independent worlds are not contracted to trade only with the GU, we could perhaps establish value as trading partners to multiple major galactic powers, making any attack against us a potential multi-party conflict... It is likely the GU would intervene as soon as they saw what you were doing."

"Maybe we could do it on the down low, until we had a sufficient critical mass or worlds under our sphere of influence, then spring it on them all at once," Dad suggested.

"On the down low, Dad? You know people don’t say that anymore, right?"

"Hey, I’m an old man of 28, as you pointed out not so long ago," Dad quipped.

I grinned. I didn’t know how I was going to break it to Mom and Dad yet, but finally I had a good reason to get in a spaceship and fly around the galaxy looking for inhabited planets!

"Joe, what happens if a planet doesn’t have intelligent life. I mean maybe there’s plants and lower animals, but nothing that could be called intelligent," I asked, "I mean that must be fairly common."

As usual, Joe was ready to provide us the relevant information dump, "It is quite common. In that case, the planet is held in trust for any species deemed on the threshold of developing intelligence. On Earth, that might have included chimpanzees, dolphins, killer whales, gorillas, and several others. If there are no candidate species, then the new world belongs to the world that discovers it, if they choose to exercise a claim. It can be sold outright if the discovering world does not wish to manage it on an ongoing basis. Such worlds may have very high potential value."

"How do you find new worlds with life?"

"It’s a bit like fishing, actually," Joe answered, "You drop a probe at a spot in the galaxy and look around. The probe will scan for radio waves or other communications as well as the spectral fingerprints of any planets that can be detected. If it finds chemical signatures that are normally associated with life, those planets get flagged for exploration. Bear in mind that the probe is scanning for many light years in all directions so those signatures may be quite old. Life could be gone already, but we are looking at light that may have been travelling for millennia, so it represents the distant past. Conversely, a planet that has no discernable radio activity at this distance may have developed a thriving civilization since the light we’re seeing left that planet hundreds of thousands of years ago, or more."

"So, you have to decide whether to send another probe to each location with a positive indication and also to try to get closer to those with million-year-old readings?"

"Exactly. Probe readings are closely held secrets. Different prospectors may be covering the same space multiple times, but they don’t know it because nobody shares that data."

"I see," I said, "I don’t suppose there’s any way to hack their databases?"

"No, they all use systems at least as sophisticated as I am, Qudit-based interdimensional quantum computing technology. Essentially unhackable. Imagine a lattice-based encryption scheme that runs through multiple dimensions in which each lattice-point can have an effectively infinite number of states."

"So, probes are limited by the interdimensional travel limitations. They can only jump so far and need to re-accelerate to relativistic speeds between hops. They need to be big enough to carry engines and fuel," I mused.

"Not exactly." Joe corrected me, "I mean that’s one way to do it, but it’s time consuming and expensive. Most explorers use... disposable probes. They fire them out of a carrier ship as close to light speed as they can. Then they jump to one predetermined location and send back information. After that, they just lie dormant, listening for any new communications signals."

"So, in that case, the carrier ship would choose one of the signals to set a new course. Then fire out new probes each time it comes out of a jump in that direction?"

"Sometimes, but again that’s inefficient. Still, some prospectors use that and count on what humans would call their gut instinct to choose a signal to follow. More often, though, the carrier ship has a pre-planned exploration path designed to cover as much territory as possible, cross-referencing the data of each star from multiple distances. By finding the beginning or end of a life indicating signature in time, they can assess the likelihood that anything of value is still there. The chemical signatures present in the atmospheric spectrum readings can give an idea of how long life has been brewing there. Anything younger than one or two billion Earth years is most likely just a primordial soup of semi-living slimes, not really useful. Occasionally life will progress faster, but very rarely. Over the course of the several billion years that it takes for advanced life to develop, it’s extremely common for some chance cosmic event to derail the whole process. A nearby supernova scours the planet with radiation, another large body collides with the planet or destabilizes its orbit, the oceans turns toxic or the planetary temperature changes to something that destroys any further advancement. The list of things that can go wrong is really pretty long. When advanced life does develop, it’s more of a rare accident than you might imagine. Still, there are a hundred billion or so planets in our galaxy, so that makes for many, many chances for things to go right."

"Wait a minute, though," I said as I tried to wrap my head around a new idea, "Given that there are multiple, infinitely multiple, dimensions or parallel universes, you could search through those alternate realities for one where a certain star hasn’t yet gone supernova wiping out a burgeoning civilization... In other words, for every world where life was wiped out or stalled by your ’random cosmic event’ you could find a universe where that event didn’t occur and life still thrives on that world. That would expand the number of civilizations and worlds with non-intelligent advanced life by many multiples of the current number, wouldn’t it?"

"It would, but again you’re searching through an infinite number of parallel universes so it doesn’t really make your search easier, it just extends it through other dimensions."

"But you could narrow it down," I persisted, "just look at some catastrophic event that was extremely unlikely to have occurred, then in most alternate universes, it wouldn’t have happened. So, the likelihood of that evolving world still being there would be much, much higher." I froze, a sudden thought struck me. The implications of what I just said... "Oh my God, Joe. I think we can find guaranteed alternate life bearing worlds on almost every attempt..."