It occurred to me quite some time ago that stars are so far apart that the technology needed to even begin the journey is utterly dependent on the absolute cooperativeness and benevolence of every member of the human species. Unfortunately with a population of 6 billion it should be expected that there will be several million individuals who consider any big project to be a legitimate target for lethal attacks.

As I read the essays on Bigelow's website it dawned on me that if stars were close together then we would not have achieved that level of harmony before making first contact. A galaxy 60,000 light-years across with 400 billion member stars all grouped closely together would provide endless opportunity for conquest and death. There would be no competition, due to the relative unequal technical capabilities of each species. I would speculate that all but one species would eventually be wiped out.

Multiverses: what if the development of some future form of intelligent life (beyond us) depended upon the survival of as many different kinds of life as possible, and their eventual peaceful cooperation? What if the type of universe most likely to produce this scenario was like ours.... with stars so far apart we, at our present stage of evolution, could not even attempt first contact, let alone travel the distance? What if the outcome determined which multiverse manifested itself physically?

I recently read a short story called "Fossil Games". It was speculated that there are two potential doctrines about life in the universe: that life inevitably evolves towards higher intelligence, or, that evolution is an essentially random process.

An idea was forming here, I just can't articulate it yet.