Scariest Thought Ever?

>>> I think the reason why we haven’t encountered aliens is that we are [will become] the wise elder race.

>> Is that comforting, or the ultimate horror?

>Yes.

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A possible far, far future conversation….

“Uh.. you’re… human.. right? I’m curious about something… you didn’t make contact until after a lot of development… but it looks like you’ve been watching us for a long time. Are we in a zoo, or .. well, what gives? So many times we could have used a bit of advice. And you said nothing.”

“Every civilization we look at that we can talk with has the same question. That advice you think we could give? Is worse than worthless. We learned the hard way. The advised… learned it much harder. Recall the great arms race of your… 2100’s was it? Where you just barely seemed to get by, but did? Bet you wanted some help there. We used to try. Turns out that’s a really bad idea.”

“Could we talk with any of those civilizations, find out what…”

“Alas, no. We’d like for it to be possible, but.. none made it. After a dozen or so saddening failures, we went quiet… and found most figured it out themselves. A few still failed, but..”

“So you helped most by not helping at all?!”

“Yes.”

“Out of curiosity, how did YOU get past your version of the great arms race?”

“That system you rejected as mad? It was mad. For you. For the Glabsmok. For the Leekber. For the Fuh. For almost everyone. For us… amazingly, and perhaps uniquely, Mutual Assured Destruction worked – and we… well we got really, really lucky.. a few times over.”

“Monsters. You’re monsters!”

“No. Were we monsters, we’d have tried to ‘help’ you.”