Extraterrestrial Population Control

If I were a space faring species who was non-conquest driven and didn't want conquest driven species from poisoning the galaxy like cancers... I would actively search for new species hell-bent on conquering the galaxy and stop them at their beginnings. I'd use effective long-term treatments to eliminate the disease. Probably the easiest: send asteroids big enough and numerous enough to prevent fast-paced development but not destroy them. Do this periodically. For most sentient species asteroids that weren't planet busting wouldn't eliminate them. Asteroid impacts would simply extend their gestation period, making it far more likely for a conquest driven species to self-terminate before becoming space faring.

The target species would likely fall into one of 3 categories

• a) self-termination: die off due to stupidity or internal conflict
  
• b) conquest-relaxation: successfully deal with the long-term environmental effects of asteroid impacts and subsequent delayed technological development
  
• c) live long and prosper: prevent multiple, sustained asteroid impacts through cohesive action
  

The first possibility helps eliminate threatening species. The second is unfortunate for the target species, but increases the chances that, if they survive nuclear winter, they won't destroy the rest of the galaxy as conquistadors (due to the higher probability of self-termination occurring). The last possibility would mean that the species had successfully run the gauntlet and that the species is capable of acting in a cohesive manner against an external threat.

The idea here is that there must be some way to 'test' a species for suitability. It is intuitively the case that a species which is very conquest driven is very likely to be factional and unable to cohesively act when threatened (especially for extended periods of time). Another possibility is for a conquest driven species to to be totalitarian, which may mean that they can act cohesively over long periods of time, but are unlikely to have the technological resources necessary to prevent asteroid impacts.


A couple of years ago I was listening to the Astrobiology Magazine podcast on a regular basis. On one episode, Frank Drake, the originator of the Drake Equation was interviewed. The thought experiments that the Drake equation explores allow us to take an interest in our self preservation that is very non-homo-sapien-centric. In all likelihood there are many, many thousands of other sentient species in just our arm of the galaxy. It is in our best interests in taking this into consideration when solving human problems. The prospect of being seen as a threat as we slowly reach into interstellar space has potentially dire consequences.

So as we all have been told, asteroids have hit the Earth in the past with devestating consequences. We can estimate (in a similar way to the Drake equation method) the likelihood of a random asteroid hitting the earth. Now what is really interesting is that we can also estimate the increase or decrease in this likelihood based on current Earth politics and the status of human space technology and weapons using an estimate of the number of peacekeepers present within the galaxies sentient races.

A trilogy by the Welsh science fiction author Alastair Reynolds explores some of these ideas on a grandiose scale.