BY DR. JOEY PALU-AY DACUDAO
IF ADVANCED civilizations are inherently hostile and so tend to destroy others, it follows that the surviving ones would maintain silence, for fear of being destroyed by other hostile civilizations. This is often called the Dark Forest hypothesis from a novel by Liu Cixin. Many alien or monster invasion type of sci-fi and fantasy literature explore this theme. Human civilization, humanity, or the Earth itself getting destroyed when aliens or unnatural monsters discover its existence. Often, these entities discover Earth through our own electromagnetic emissions and attempts at communication, or through the creation or discovery of trans dimensional or magical portals. As often, it’s the opposite. When sci-fi Earthlings discover an intelligent alien species, they destroy it or isolate it.
Now comes the point of this essay. What if it’s the reverse? Advanced aliens (or unnatural monsters whatever they are) avoid the Earth for fear of being sanctioned at the least or destroyed at the most, by something they have detected on the planet?
If so, what can this thing be? Speculating on this can be fascinating as that thing can be almost anything you can imagine.
The sci-fi and fantasy fans could allow their imagination to run free. The Sun about to go supernova in spite of present theory, black holes in the solar system and the Oort Cloud, balls of neutronium, AIs and self-replicating dormant robots seeded by ancient technologically advanced neighboring civilizations awaiting to be activated by alien communication or invasion, super microbes, super toxins, and a host of other things that would destroy invading aliens. Hopefully this thing would just go for the aliens but not humans. Perhaps, Atlanteans, mutants, psychics, supermen, vampires, werewolves, what have you, or other advanced civilizations protect the Earth, but for their own weird reasons have chosen to stay mostly hidden from humans, yet allow themselves to be detected by deadly aliens and monsters of the universe. Or they stay dormant like the Lovecraftian deities, but would wake upon the invasion of aliens.
Deities of course border on the supernatural. Or are supernatural. If you believe in the supernatural, then you might speculate that supernatural beings like angels, demons, demigods are somehow around and choose to protect us, but prefer to stay hidden. Maybe the pretty teenage school girl next door is a guardian angel of the Earth in her more esoteric form.
If you are a religious Christian, the answer may well be straightforward. Suppose a hostile alien civilization were watching us. Then 2000 years ago, something that broke the laws of Physics occurred. They observed a man resurrect from the dead.
That certainly would shock and scare the bejesus out of any and all advanced alien civilizations and even supernatural monsters thinking of invading Earth. (Assuming the aliens don’t have gods, or that their gods have never been observed to resurrect from the dead or perform miracles that break the laws of Physics.)
The same applies if you’re a religious Hindu. Hindu scriptures tell of times when gods walked the Earth. Perhaps they observed Arjuna’s charioteer Krishna, and perceived him to be an incarnation of Vishnu. Perhaps they saw Shiva dancing on a demon, and trembled.
And so on./PN
