St Andrews Research Repository

St Andrews University Home
View Item 
  •   St Andrews Research Repository
  • University of St Andrews Research
  • University of St Andrews Research
  • University of St Andrews Research
  • View Item
  •   St Andrews Research Repository
  • University of St Andrews Research
  • University of St Andrews Research
  • University of St Andrews Research
  • View Item
  •   St Andrews Research Repository
  • University of St Andrews Research
  • University of St Andrews Research
  • University of St Andrews Research
  • View Item
  • Login
JavaScript is disabled for your browser. Some features of this site may not work without it.

The Galactic Club or Galactic Cliques? Exploring the limits of interstellar hegemony and the Zoo hypothesis

Thumbnail
View/Open
Forgan_2016_Galactic_Cliques_IJA_AAM.pdf (349.5Kb)
Date
10/2017
Author
Forgan, Duncan H.
Keywords
Fermi's Paradox
SETI
Simulation
Zoo Hypothesis
QB Astronomy
QC Physics
Ecology, Evolution, Behavior and Systematics
Earth and Planetary Sciences (miscellaneous)
Space and Planetary Science
Physics and Astronomy (miscellaneous)
NDAS
Metadata
Show full item record
Altmetrics Handle Statistics
Altmetrics DOI Statistics
Abstract
The Zoo solution to Fermi's Paradox proposes that extraterrestrial intelligences (ETIs) have agreed to not contact the Earth. The strength of this solution depends on the ability for ETIs to come to agreement, and establish/police treaties as part of a so-called ‘Galactic Club’. These activities are principally limited by the causal connectivity of a civilization to its neighbours at its inception, i.e. whether it comes to prominence being aware of other ETIs and any treaties or agreements in place. If even one civilization is not causally connected to the other members of a treaty, then they are free to operate beyond it and contact the Earth if wished, which makes the Zoo solution ‘soft’. We should therefore consider how likely this scenario is, as this will give us a sense of the Zoo solution's softness, or general validity. We implement a simple toy model of ETIs arising in a Galactic Habitable Zone, and calculate the properties of the groups of culturally connected civilizations established therein. We show that for most choices of civilization parameters, the number of culturally connected groups is >1, meaning that the Galaxy is composed of multiple Galactic Cliques rather than a single Galactic Club. We find in our models for a single Galactic Club to establish interstellar hegemony, the number of civilizations must be relatively large, the mean civilization lifetime must be several millions of years, and the inter-arrival time between civilizations must be a few million years or less.
Citation
Forgan , D H 2017 , ' The Galactic Club or Galactic Cliques? Exploring the limits of interstellar hegemony and the Zoo hypothesis ' , International Journal of Astrobiology , vol. 16 , no. 4 , pp. 349-354 . https://doi.org/10.1017/S1473550416000392
Publication
International Journal of Astrobiology
Status
Peer reviewed
DOI
https://doi.org/10.1017/S1473550416000392
ISSN
1473-5504
Type
Journal article
Rights
© 2016, Cambridge University Press. This work has been made available online in accordance with the publisher’s policies. This is the author created, accepted version manuscript following peer review and may differ slightly from the final published version. The final published version of this work is available at www.cambridge.org / https://doi.org/10.1017/S1473550416000392
Description
The author gratefully acknowledges support from the ECOGAL project, grant agreement 291227, funded by the European Research Council under ERC-2011-ADG and the STFC grant ST/J001422/1.
Collections
  • University of St Andrews Research
URI
http://hdl.handle.net/10023/10869

Items in the St Andrews Research Repository are protected by copyright, with all rights reserved, unless otherwise indicated.

Advanced Search

Browse

All of RepositoryCommunities & CollectionsBy Issue DateNamesTitlesSubjectsClassificationTypeFunderThis CollectionBy Issue DateNamesTitlesSubjectsClassificationTypeFunder

My Account

Login

Open Access

To find out how you can benefit from open access to research, see our library web pages and Open Access blog. For open access help contact: openaccess@st-andrews.ac.uk.

Accessibility

Read our Accessibility statement.

How to submit research papers

The full text of research papers can be submitted to the repository via Pure, the University's research information system. For help see our guide: How to deposit in Pure.

Electronic thesis deposit

Help with deposit.

Repository help

For repository help contact: Digital-Repository@st-andrews.ac.uk.

Give Feedback

Cookie policy

This site may use cookies. Please see Terms and Conditions.

Usage statistics

COUNTER-compliant statistics on downloads from the repository are available from the IRUS-UK Service. Contact us for information.

© University of St Andrews Library

University of St Andrews is a charity registered in Scotland, No SC013532.

  • Facebook
  • Twitter