In Dragon’s Egg space traveling beings smaller than ants evolve on a neutron star.
A lot of human tech is 7, 8, 9 orders of magnitude bigger than we are. We make machines that help us make bigger machines. So I don’t see any inherent issue with tiny aliens making huge tech.
The issue is the possibility of them reaching advanced status in the first place; having enough neurons and being able to manipulate fire, or some other convenient dense form of energy.
Right. But we tend to think of intergalactic civilizations in the context of space operas like Star Wars, Star Trek, Battlestar Galactica and so on where interstellar travel times are short enough that planets, star systems, and space stations are simply scaled up analogues for terrestrial geopolitical constructs. In reality, you can’t have what we would describe as a “Interstellar Empire” in any meaningful way if you are limited to slower than FTL travel. Even a civilization capable of light speed or close to light speed travel and communications would be limited to a handful of local star systems. For the simple reason that there is little way for any of these far flung planets to support or trade with each other if every interaction has a 5, 10, 20, even 100 year round trip response time.
What I could envision is some advanced civilization transforming their entire solar system into some sort of Dyson Sphere or Matrioshka Brain megastructure that houses their vast computing power where they “exist” in some sort of virtual state. Meanwhile they have automated drones patrolling the universe gathering resources and shipping them back home at their own leisurely pace.
Heck, maybe every couple of thousand years or so when their drones encounter another planet or whatever, they could crafts some remote bodies to “Avatar” around exploring shit first hand before they grind whatever they found into its component molecules for eventual processing.
OTOH, after millennia of existing in a virtual environment of their own creation, I could also easily imagine such a civilization having little interest in what is happening in the “real” universe outside any more than most people have an interest in where the bricks used to build their house come from. If their technology is suitably autonomous, such a civilization might not even be aware than an “outside” to their virtual world even exists.
Here’s another idea. Imagine a small planet with a thin atmosphere and a natural microbial biosphere. The planet is either orbited by a satellite with at least an exosphere. Maybe it’s a binary system like Pluto and Chiron. Aeroplankton, lacking any intelligence or consciousness whatsoever, may happen to be ejected from the former planet’s atmosphere. Maybe it’s a volcanic eruption or something. After leaving the exosphere the travelers enter stasis, where they can survive for a very long time free floating in space. Most die. A very small percentage, by sheer chance, fall into the satellite’s gravity and colonize its atmosphere.
Now in case you’re thinking there’s no ship involved, tiny organisms in the ocean will join together to form some pretty cool spaceship-looking things. Maybe something similar occurs in the upper atmosphere.
~Max
What could be a more suitable body than a Westfalia?
The higher gravity a planet has the smaller the creatures are likely to be. Lower to the ground too. Falling is a problem. A giraffe on a high gravity planet just will not work well. Think squat and sturdy from high gravity worlds.
Also, have to include this:
“the mighty ships tore across the empty wastes of space and finally dived screaming on to the first planet they came across - which happened to be the Earth - where due to a terrible miscalculation of scale the entire battle fleet was accidentally swallowed by a small dog.” ― Douglas Adams, The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy
A Winnebago comes to mind…
~Max
How about an Airstream?
https://www.edwardtufte.com/bboard/q-and-a-fetch-msg?msg_id=0003uU
No, that’s the equivalent of a human carrying a small housecat. Remember the square-cube relation.
If that’s the case, then the civilization we should be asking about isn’t the one living inside the Matrix. The one we should be asking about is the civilization maintaining the Matrix. Because a system that autonomous would itself be sentient, and would be forced to deal with the real, physical world.
Like a Dyson Sphere.
If you really want to bend your brain:
The Omega Point is a term Tipler uses to describe a cosmological state in the distant proper-time future of the universe.[6] He claims that this point is required to exist due to the laws of physics. According to him, it is required, for the known laws of physics to be consistent, that intelligent life take over all matter in the universe and eventually force its collapse. During that collapse, the computational capacity of the universe diverges to infinity, and environments emulated with that computational capacity last for an infinite duration as the universe attains a cosmological singularity. This singularity is Tipler’s Omega Point.[7] With computational resources diverging to infinity, Tipler states that a society in the far future would be able to resurrect the dead by emulating alternative universes.[8] Tipler identifies the Omega Point with God, since, in his view, the Omega Point has all the properties of God claimed by most traditional religions.[8][9] - SOURCE
So, in the last fractions of a second of a collapsing universe there could be created a simulation where all could live that is effectively infinite in time.
I am NOT endorsing this notion. But, if you want some crazy-edge stuff that fits the bill this seems to do it.
Thanks for the cite. Sounds more crazy-over-the-edge to me.
IMO … a potential outcome? Definite maybe. A must-happen-by-laws-of-physics outcome? I wanna meet that guy’s pusher; he’s dealin’ the good stuff.
In an expanding universe, Tipler’s Omega point scenario can’t happen. Too much data flows over the particle horizon and is lost. Unless they work out how to reverse the expansion somehow, manufacturing a Big Crunch. This does not sound like a particularly appealing prospect to me.
That’s no problem. Once the Big Crunch becomes too imminent for comfort, simply reverse the polarity. 
Possibly. It could be like “Sally” in the film Oblivion and attempt to interact with us for good or ill intent. Or it could have no more concern for Earth’s occupants than a bulldozer’s sentient operator cares for the ants at a construction site as it grinds up our solar system for raw materials…
I’m not sure what you’re replying to, there? I just said that the civilization maintaining the simulation would be relevant to us. I never said or implied that it would be benevolent. If it’s trying to consume us for raw materials, then it’s definitely something we need to deal with.
I was simply pondering what level of interaction we might actually be able to have with such a civilization. We may be no more equipped to “deal” with such an advanced civilization than ants can deal with a new condo going up over their anthill.
Almost by definition, if an interstellar craft shows up in our system we are as ants to them.
Maybe they like to observe ants. Maybe ants taste good. Maybe ants are a nuisance. Maybe ants are simply irrelevant. Whichever the case, being the ants is a sucky place to be. And one the ants can scarcely influence, much less control.
Honestly, I prefer the notion of a Big Crunch and then recycle to a new universe than the heat death of the universe where everything fades away, ends with a whimper and nothing ever happens again.
/hijack