A Flash In The Cosmic Pan

Part of my upcoming book explores the long term trajectory of a future human civilisation. This inevitably runs into the issue of the Fermi paradox; if we have a future as an expanding interstellar civilisation, then presumably any intelligent species that evolved before us could also have had that future, and we should see evidence of them. The questions of our own future and the present lack of clear technosignatures from astronomy are inseparable.

Once humanity has escaped the gravity well, I expect mass value to go exponential, because having more mass under ones command allows more energy to be collected, and having more energy allows one to liberate more mass from celestial bodies and do things with it. Energy consumption would then also go exponential. An unchecked exponential civilisation would fill the galaxy pretty quickly; in a few thousand years at single digit percent growth. However, it will in fact be checked over time.

Ergovores

Consider the energy consumption of an inter…