Universe 98: A Final Filter Study

Abstract

The longitudinal study was conducted to observe what has been regarded as the Final Filter of Civilization among 3-dimensional lifeforms. While preceding observations provided valuable insights for the mechanism, this study considered variables hypothesized to be more relevant.

After searching extensively, a suitable candidate was found on a solid-state planet orbiting a yellow dwarf star; and for the sake of standardization the observed time was measured in “years”, referring to the observed planet’s orbit.

The subject race – henceforth referred as “sapients” – had evolved the inherent attribute of social affinity alongside the previously considered ones of sexual desire, aggression, self-preservation, and intelligence, associated with survival for their carbon compositions. The sapients were discovered as four-limbed, semi-bipedal climbers with the capacity for tool use and a lifestyle consisting of gathering, scavenging, and, on a rarer scale, hunting.

The study from then onwards observed the sapients without interacting. With changing climate and receding photosynthesizing organisms, they gradually left their propensity for climbing and spent more time on the ground; eventually losing much of their hair and instead developing better ability to run. This ability, coupled with their intelligence and social affinity, helped them spread across the planet and spend the next few million years diversifying into different species. The different species would, in several different instances, reunite and have interactions ranging from violent disputes to interbreeding. Development continued. In this period, they discovered cultivation and controlled combustion of nutritional sources for efficient nutrition, leading in turn to better developed brains and intelligence; due to which specific organs evolved for the purposes of communication. Eventually, the competing species were brought to extinction until only one remained.

The next key step in their development was civilization. The sapients’ social affinities are most obvious from this point on, as they started forming settlements bound by traditions, which spread out and diversified across the planet. The next few thousand years saw rapid growth in civilization and population, and social systems soon shifted from tradition to enforced authority to individually considered representation from the population.

Predictably, none of these systems were removed from flaws. Disputes and stratification were still quite common. However, that would not last for long as they understood the significance of the damage of such major disputes at their current scale of population. Thus, for the sake of common interest, peace and development were now favored over aggression, leading to the various settlements effectively combining into a planet-wide state.

In the span of only some dozen years, their tools had developed to reverse the natural process of aging. Shortly after, all known diseases were cured, and still after that, their compositions were enhanced to the extent that biological death had been reduced to a choice.

After taking control of their planet, they sought to spread out to others. Colonizing their star system took fifty years, and soon inventing warp drive took them to other star systems. This interstellar civilization lasted several million years, and their species again diversified to suit their multitudes of colonies across their galaxy.

The Final Filter appeared toward the end of that age. Civilization peaked and could not find any other stage of growth. Curiously enough, after millions of years of systematized intergalactic travel, sapient colonies stayed centered around specific star systems for no apparent reason, even with diminishing space. In fact, their settlements seemed to shrink in space, some even going back to a single, overwhelmingly densely populated planet. The traditions that had been lost since technological acceleration returned, and with them wars. Different sapient species created reasons to fight against each other. Their wars that lasted several ten thousand years, at the end of which, yet again, only one species was left alive. The wars were now waged among members of the same species. The population, which had up to now risen into the quintillions, dwindled to trillions. Deccelerating birth rate worsened the crisis. At the end, the only remaining sapient settlement was one on a planet similar to the one they had been found on.

The settlement itself consisted of around 6 billion individuals in a space fit for 1 million. It would last for some 50 years, after which its inhabitants chose to commit mass suicide by distributing a newly invented toxin amongst themselves. After 70 million years of existence, the sapient species saw its end with only the final member remaining in the settlement, who after 2 years of solitary wandering finally ingested the toxic compound as well.

The study finished with the conclusion that for the organisms in the four-dimensional universe, social affinity was not, in fact, an affecting factor in passing the Final Filter, namely, Loss of Purpose.

A suggestion for future studies is to contact the subject species in their physical plane as a possible factor to observe thereafter their interaction to the Filter.