Name: 銀河系裡竟然藏著數千個外星文明？！ (There Are Thousands of Alien Empires in The Milky Way)
Uploaded: 2026-01-18T17:08:28.000Z
Duration: 13 min 59 s

What if there are thousands of alien empires in the Milky Way.

如果銀河系裡有成千上萬的外星帝國。

Each spanning a few to maybe tens of star systems?

每個外星帝國又涵蓋幾個到幾十個星系？

情態副詞

Chatting, trading, sometimes shooting or ignoring each other politely.

他們互相哈拉、貿易，有時也會互相開火，或是禮貌地無視對方。

如果是這樣，為什麼沒有人來拜訪我們？

While the Milky Way is ancient and gigantic, Even traveling at 10% the speed of light, Any civilization could take over the whole galaxy within a million years.

銀河系雖然古老又巨大，即使以光速的百分之十前進，任何一個文明都可以在一百萬年內佔領整個銀河系。

So it seems we're alone in the Milky Way.

所以看來我們在銀河系裡是孤單的。

But this idea is built on a lot of assumptions.

但這個想法建立在很多假設上。

Usually when scientists speculate where all the alien civilizations are.

通常科學家在推測外星文明都去哪裡的時候。

They assume technology will progress to a point where colonizing all of space becomes kind of easy.

他們會假設科技會進步到一個程度，讓殖民整個宇宙變得比較容易。

But what if we're thinking about this the wrong way?

但如果我們思考的方式錯了呢？

But no matter how technologically advanced you are, Space is never easy.

但不管技術多先進，太空永遠都不輕鬆。

What if aliens slowly crawl through space.

外星人是不是慢慢地在太空中爬行？

Expanding like humans did over the ocean?

就像人類當年擴張到海洋一樣？

Let's look at the only data point we ourselves the available real estate in the galaxy.

讓我們看看我們自己擁有的唯一數據點，也就是銀河系裡的可用空間。

Oceania is a region with tens of thousands of islands.

大洋洲是一個擁有數萬個島嶼的區域。

Scattered across millions of square kilometers.

Some 5,000 years ago, the first people set out to colonize Oceania.

大約五千年前，第一批人開始殖民大洋洲。

Achieved mind blowing feats without any modern technology.

在沒有任何現代技術的情況下，達成了令人驚嘆的壯舉。

They set out into the vast nothingness, Hoping to find a new island to claim or like die far from home.

他們出發進入浩瀚的虛無，希望能找到一個新的島嶼來佔領，否則就客死他鄉。

But most of the Pacific islands are merely a few wet rocks or corals.

但太平洋上的島嶼大多隻是一些濕漉漉的岩石或珊瑚。

And if you're lucky, birds are making a pit stop.

如果你夠幸運，還會有鳥兒在這裡停留。

Others, with more vegetation, are often hostile.

其他植被較多的島嶼，通常都很嚴酷。

Lacking the resources to really sustain a lot of people.

缺乏足夠的資源來養活很多人。

即使到了今天，這些島嶼仍然無人居住。

The Polynesians colonized them, Spreading their culture and society.

波利尼西亞人殖民了這些地方，傳播他們的文化和社會。

To dozens of remote islands of all sizes.

散佈到數十個大小不一的偏遠島嶼。

Some united in kingdoms spanning many islands.

有些聯合成了橫跨許多島嶼的王國。

Others were independent, Many home to competing and belligerent tribes.

有些則是獨立的，許多地方住著互相競爭、好戰的部落。

And although thousands of kilometers apart, Even the most remote islands were connected with at least some trade and exchange.

即使相隔數千公里，最偏遠的島嶼之間也至少有貿易和交流。

The extremely isolated Pitcairn Islands were settled for hundreds of years.

極度孤立的皮特凱恩群島就這樣住了好幾百年。

And relied on trade with each other and bigger islands hundreds of kilometers away.

並且依賴彼此以及數百公里外的大島進行貿易。

Maybe because the islanders did the human thing.

也許是因為島民做了人類常做的事。

And ravaged the natural resources until they became unsustainable.

耗盡了自然資源直到無法負荷。

Maybe the decline on distant, bigger islands severed important connections.

也許是遠方較大島嶼的衰落，斷絕了重要的聯繫。

We only know their culture declined and they left or died out.

我們只知道他們的文化衰落，然後他們離開或滅絕了。

What if space is an ocean to us, A hostile place that's hard to conquer?

如果太空對我們來說就像海洋，一個難以征服的敵對之地呢？

Would alien civilizations spread like the Polynesians the universe is kind of a horrible place.

外星文明會像波利尼西亞人一樣散播開來嗎？宇宙真是個可怕的地方。

The Milky way has around 200 billion star systems.

And it seems that almost all of them have planets.

而且似乎幾乎所有星系都有行星。

there may be some 300 million to tens of billions of rocky Earth like planets in the habitable zone around a star where water can be liquid.

在恆星周圍的宜居帶，可能會有大約三億到數百億顆類似地球的岩石行星，那裡的水可以是液態的。

Amazing, except that most of them are terrible hells of lava.

真是太驚人了，只是大多數地方都是可怕的熔岩地獄。

冰封的死亡世界，光禿禿的岩石。

Sterile from radiation blanked by toxic atmospheres.

充滿毒氣的致命輻射，毫無生機。

It's easy to forget, but Venus and Mars are Earth like too.

很容易忘記，但金星和火星也和地球很像。

Mars is the next human frontier and fairly exciting.

火星是人類下一個前沿，而且相當令人興奮。

Radiation and low gravity will make you sick.

Mars is the worst, except Venus is even worse.

Crushing you to death, burning and dissolving you in acid.

壓扁你、燒死你，再用酸溶解你。

If humanity was really motivated and had the resources and energy, both could be terraformed within maybe a thousand years.

如果人類真的有心，又有資源和能量，也許一千年內兩個都能地球化。

But the thing is, we already have a planet that's pretty great.

但重點是，我們已經有一個很棒的星球了。

So currently humanity's motivation is not very strong.

所以目前人類的動力不是那麼強。

Now let's think about this in terms of galactic expansion.

現在我們來從銀河擴張的角度想想。

If the Milky Way is like a vast ocean full of islands, most are planets like Mars and Venus.

如果銀河系就像一個充滿島嶼的廣闊海洋，大部分都是像火星和金星這樣的行星。

Barren rocks or corals where nothing grows and the elements kill you.

光禿禿的岩石或珊瑚，什麼都長不出來，而且裡面的元素會讓你喪命。

Imagine boarding a generation ship to travel for 100 years or more, only to arrive at a new star.

想像一下搭乘一艘世代飛船，旅行一百年或更久，結果卻來到一個新的星系。

And then you get a Mars, or worse, a Venus.

結果你得到的是一個火星，甚至更糟，一個金星。

Terraforming them is such an intense investment in terms of resources to make it worth spending the time to travel to the stars for bad planets.

要把這些星球改造成宜居星球，需要投入大量的資源，光是為了這些爛星球就值得花時間去星際旅行嗎？

Maybe the simple reason we don't see galaxy spanning civilizations is that the economics just don't add up for almost all of the star systems out there.

也許我們看不到橫跨銀河的文明，單純是因為外面的星系經濟效益根本不划算。

But wait, you might say it's actually easy.

不過等等，你可能會說其實這很簡單。

A high tech race with unlimited resources could automate this process.

一個技術先進、資源無限的種族可以自動化這個過程。

Sending thinking machines that report back every few thousand years with new planets ready for fresh settlers or automated ships with embryos.

派送思考機器人，每隔幾千年回報一次，有新的星球準備好迎接新移民，或是運送載有胚胎的自動化飛船。

But if it were that easy, someone would have done it by now.

但如果這麼簡單，早就有人這麼做了。

So either we are really alone or it's not easy.

所以，要嘛是我們真的孤單，要嘛就是沒那麼簡單。

Thinking about alien civilizations, you need to make loads of assumptions.

談到外星文明，你需要做很多假設。

And for this video we're assuming that space is hard even for high tech civilizations that have broken free from the limitations we have today.

而我們在這個影片中假設，即使是擺脫了我們現今限制的技術先進文明，太空旅行依然艱難。

So what if alien civilizations actually ignore the bad islands and just pick the very best?

那如果外星文明真的忽略那些不好的島嶼，只挑最好的呢？

Stringing together island empires like the Polynesians.

就像波利尼西亞人一樣，串聯起島嶼帝國。

Every star moves in its own orbit through the galaxy, and most stellar neighborhoods are only temporary.

每個恆星都在星系中繞著自己的軌道運行，而且大多數的恆星鄰近區域都只是暫時的。

At any given time, in some regions, there will be more good islands than in Others, while simply because of bad luck.

在任何給定的時間，有些區域會有比其他區域更多的好的島嶼，這僅僅是運氣不好。

Earth might currently be in one of these backwaters, surrounded by really bad islands for dozens of light years in all directions.

地球現在可能就處於這些偏遠地區之一，四周數十光年內都是非常糟糕的島嶼。

We may be Pitcairn island, so isolated that nobody knows we're here or cares to establish a colony so remote.

我們可能就像皮特凱恩島一樣，孤立到沒人知道我們在這裡，也不關心建立一個這麼偏遠的殖民地。

But elsewhere in the Milky Way, good islands may be more common.

但在銀河系的其他地方，好的島嶼可能更常見。

There it would be relatively easy for a high tech civilization to jump from one good star system to the next, creating connected empires, strings of worlds with all the adventure and challenges of expansion, even to really good planets.

在那裡，一個技術先進的文明要從一個好的星系跳到另一個星系，建立連接的帝國，一連串的世界，充滿擴張的冒險和挑戰，甚至到真正好的行星，會相對容易。

Do they need to animate dead worlds with oceans?

他們需要讓死寂的世界充滿海洋嗎？

How do they cope with alien microorganisms or strange ecosystems?

他們如何應對外星微生物或奇特的生態系統？

Do they need to burn it all down and create a mirror of their home world?

他們需要將一切燒毀，創造一個家園世界的鏡像嗎？

How many centuries do they need to make a planet truly their home?

他們需要多少個世紀才能讓一個星球真正成為他們的家園？

Empires expanding in regions full of good islands would probably meet each other.

在充滿好島嶼的區域擴張的帝國很可能會互相遇見。

也許他們會貿易，也許他們會戰鬥。

Maybe they have coffee and chat about the meaning of it all.

也許他們會喝咖啡，聊聊這一切的意義。

And just like some of the Polynesian islands, it's likely that many of these planets would be abandoned or for the empires to break apart for a number of reasons.

就像一些波利尼西亞的島嶼一樣，許多這些行星很可能會因為各種原因被遺棄，或者帝國會分崩離析。

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銀河系裡竟然藏著數千個外星文明？！ (There Are Thousands of Alien Empires in The Milky Way)

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