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There are several stellar environmental results from sentient industrial over-expansionism that I can imagine ie. star lifting that results in entire systems becoming frozen husks and debris from mining operations and collisions creating fast-moving minefields so to speak, perhaps even some sort of radiation blanketing entire systems but in what ways do you think a galaxy's ecosystem could be damaged by a civilization's industrial activities, in such a way that it endangers said civilizations which are spread across the galaxy?

Wolf Beaumont
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    Could over-harvesting the super-massive black hole at the center of the galaxy cause an environmental catastrophy? Such as very heavy gravitational waves or increased luminance of the accredition disc? – Simppa Feb 06 '22 at 17:49
  • Something like the risks formed by continued use of the Pump in The Gods Themselves? – Jyrki Lahtonen Feb 06 '22 at 20:28
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    Galactic warming. The galaxologists had been warning us for years that fusion dioxide would ruin the galactic planet, err... galactic plane, but greedy space industrialists would not stop. If only we ate less meat and reduced our fusion footprints, and most of all, got rid of Space Exxon! – John O Feb 07 '22 at 20:09

4 Answers4

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Broken space.

I put forth an idea along these lines here: Are dead worlds a good galactic barrier?

The activities of your industrialists produce as an occasional side effect of their activity regions of space that are different in their properties. Maybe the laws of physics are different. Maybe the folds of space are unpredictable and stars in the area all convert to black holes, or something weirder. Perhaps this sometimes happens when FTL engines break in a certain way.

You could have these regions be no-mans land to be avoided as in the linked idea. Or you could have the areas spreading outward at the speed of light, infecting adjacent space, to ultimately change over the galaxy. That is the premise behind false vacuum decay.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/False_vacuum_decay

Existential threat If our universe is in a false vacuum state rather than a true vacuum state, then the decay from the less stable false vacuum to the more stable true vacuum (called false vacuum decay) could have dramatic consequences.[5][6] The effects could range from complete cessation of existing fundamental forces, elementary particles and structures comprising them, to subtle change in some cosmological parameters, mostly depending on potential difference between true and false vacuum. Some false vacuum decay scenarios are compatible with survival of structures like galaxies and stars[7][8] or even biological life[9] while others involve the full destruction of baryonic matter[10]

As I understand it, a region of space which "decayed" to a lower energy state would propagate out as a bubble at the speed of light. These regions with different properties could be studied and even entered but if baryonic matter is different on the inside what comes out will not be the same as what went in. Or maybe it will because it will switch back?

A couple of these accidental bubbles is no big deal. Especially if they are mostly out in the middle of nowhere. The speed of light is fast but the galaxy is big and occupies many cubic light years of space. But as there are more and more bubbles and one must take them into consideration more often, it will be clear that the activities producing the space-altering bubbles will eventually be the end of the space that the industrialists need to live in.

Willk
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  • Star Trek has the idea of engines damaging space in the episode TNG: Force of Nature and a similar environmental hazard in VOY: The Omega Directive. – Boann Feb 06 '22 at 13:15
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    well normally i don't think it would "switch back" - firstly because usually it's impossible to travel faster than light. but even with FTL, the way i see it, the ship would just become a new "decayed region of space" - meaning the decay would propagate from the ship (incidentally, it may have potentially disastrous consequences if the FTL is via some kind of hyperspace) – somebody Feb 06 '22 at 14:38
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    Very cool idea @somebody: a FTL ship emerging from one of these bubbles transformed into a weird plague dog, propagating the new space in its wake. – Willk Feb 06 '22 at 15:53
  • This ends up being not that different from the plot of Event Horizon. – Tom Feb 08 '22 at 05:23
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Warp storms

Your FTL engines are cheap, efficient and (initially) safe. FTL travel causes eddies in hyperspace that are very long-lived and can compound to create storms in hyperspace. Smaller storms result in navigational errors, severe weather can destroy ships.

When the first society developed FTL, there were no hyperspace eddies to be observed (due to no FTL engines). By the time the problem was recognised, society was dependent on multi-system supply chains using FTL.

  • Solutions currently proposed include taxing and regulating FTL engines, but there is concern that this will hamper industrial growth and allow McRivalEmpire to gain a dangerous advantage.
  • Warp storm denialism is going strong, with some scientists questioning the link between warp storms and FTL engines
  • There is a clique of "storm-surfers" who say they enjoy the thrill and distinctive thrumming sound of storms rubbing the ship's hull in FTL.
  • An extremist faction in McBorderSystem detonated an experimental engine design causing a megastorm on the system, shattering trade links and making Imperial reinforcement near-impossible for hundreds of years.

The science

Imagine a parallel universe (AKA hyperspace) with no gravity or meaningful lightspeed limit filled uniformally with ether, a heavy substance with nearly no interactions with normal matter which decays rapidly in our universe. FTL travel begins with transitioning to the hyperspace. In hyperspace, etheric engines gather ether and eject it out the back of the spaceship, propelling the spaceship forwards. These engines become more efficient as the ship speeds up relative to the ether, so FTL speeds are achievable. When the ship transitions back into normal space it has the velocity it had when entering.

The ether flung out the back of the ship forms turbulence somewhat similar to the wake of a ship. This turbulence spreads out and decays slowly. Travelling through turbulence is bad (possibly messes with navigation, damages the etheric or transition engine or just stretches/squeezes/damages the ship). For a harder science approach, turbulence rapidly becomes heat, which can form storms or is corrosive as-is.

jebob
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    I'm a bit in love with this idea. Any more ideas on the specifics of warp storm science? I know you were playing a little with WH40K mythos there, but from a semi-hard science perspective I would love to hear more as the sorts of scenarios you are describing are the direction I'm trying to achieve (space simulation I'm developing). – Wolf Beaumont Feb 07 '22 at 15:53
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    Added some warp storm science. When simulating, I would track turbulence per system or per cubic lightyear. Travelling adds turbulence. Turbulence decays slowly and spreads to neighbouring simulation cells. (What do you do if your neighbour is polluting near you?). Travelling in a turbulent region gives a chance of your ship/fleet being destroyed/damaged/delayed. Very turbulent regions have a chance of forming a long-lasting warp storm which blocks all travel and burns through turbulence at a slightly increased rate. – jebob Feb 07 '22 at 18:50
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If a civilization can start hoarding substances across an entire galaxy, the risk that it incur is similar to what happened to Europe when silver from the Americas flooded the market and crashed its value.

However the crash that might happen this time is a stellar crash: once they start moving mass around, they risk concentrating it too much, with nefarious consequences, as every black hole can tell you. Or even without reaching the black hole formation situation, imagine what happens when two galaxies collide and what sort of havoc is thrown to their stars.

And once stars start swinging around it can get pretty dangerous.

L.Dutch
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Nebula are a relatively easy place to gather material, especially heavy elements formed in the last stages of the stellar life cycle, they are also where stars are born. A civilisation busily mining nebula en masse could, especially if they are using most of the hydrogen for cheap fusion power, (at KIII they'd need to burn 2x1022 metric tonnes of matter every second in fusion reactors if they aren't using anything more exotic), deprive sections, or even the whole, of their galaxy of star forming material turning their galaxy into a zombie.

Ash
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