...or The Great Silence

First we need to gain our bearings and get some perspective.

Our galaxy, a spiral formation of hundreds of billions of stars which we’ve named the Milky Way because of how it stretches across the night sky, is estimated to be somewhere between 13 and 14 billion years old.

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Our home stellar system revolves around a G2 star we call Sol that is approximately 4.6 billion years old. Sol system occupies the Orion arm of the Milky Way’s spiral, about 27,000 light years from the supermassive black hole thought to dwell in the galactic hub. If the hub is downtown, we’re in the suburbs.

Estimates of the diameter of the Milky Way vary but no one’s going to get too upset if I go with 100,000 light years. As for the number of stars in our galaxy, estimates vary from 100 billion to 400 billion; let’s be conservative and settle on 100 billion. They all rotate around the galactic hub, making a circuit ever 240 million years, while the galaxy itself is racing through intergalactic space at something like 1.3 million miles an hour.

Of those 100 billion stars, 75% are red dwarves. Sol, however, is a rarer type, one of the so-called yellow dwarves, or G-class stars, that make up 4 to 5% of the 100 billion. Astronomers estimate that the Milky Way contains over 40 billion Earth-size planets occupying the Goldilocks [/SIZE][SIZE=4]zones around red and yellow dwarf stars.

For those not familiar with the terms, Earth-size mean 0.5 to 2.0 times the Earth’s diameter. The Goldilocks zone – also known as the Habitable Zone – is the area around any given star where water can maintain a liquid state. There’s also something called the GHZ – the Galactic Habitable Zone, which is estimated to span roughly 22,000 to 30,000 light years from the hub. Earth resides in the Milky Way’s GHZ.

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So, to sum up: current conservative estimates are for 40 billion habitable Earth-size planets in the Milky way, most of them circling red dwarves but 2 billion or so circling yellow dwarves.

Think about that: 40 billion potential Earths circling red dwarves, 2 billion circling Sol-type stars. And that’s based on just a hundred billion stars in the Milky Way – it’s probably twice that number, maybe three times. And most of those stars are much older than Sol – up to 4 billion years older – giving life on them hundreds of millions, maybe even a billion more years to develop. (Consider that the earliest Australopithicus appeared just 4 million years ago.)

Which leads to Fermi’s question: Where is everyone?

Enrico Fermi, the genius Italian physicist, was one of the so-called fathers of the atom bomb. The paradox of his question, posed in 1950, remains unanswered. With billions of habitable planets in our galaxy (I’m not going to touch the unthinkable number of planets in all the billions of galaxies throughout the universe), so many of them older than ours, why haven’t we found a trace of sapient life anywhere else? (Notice I’m using “sapient” instead of “intelligent” because intelligence is vulnerable to interpretation and the inevitable wisecracks.)

Human civilization started in Mesopotamia about 8 thousand years ago. Alien civilizations around older stars could easily be millions of years old. Even at non-relativistic speeds, that’s plenty of time to colonize the habitable planets in their stellar neighborhood and far beyond.

We’ve been listening for interstellar soundbites via the various SETI (Search for Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence) groups since the early 1980s, but not hearing a thing. It’s called the Great Silence, and it leads to an inevitable question: Are we alone in our sapience?

In what might be called the Great Noise, humanity has been beaming electromagnetic waves since the invention of radio. Those waves escape into space and travel at the speed of light in all directions. Estimates say that once they reach the 60-light-year mark (which they have) they won’t be distinguishable from background noise. But we’re talking a sphere 120 light years in diameter. And since the 80s we’ve been deliberately beaming messages out there. Any being passing through that space would hear something.

And yet…nothing. Like one of my fave Beatles songs: No Reply.

A slew of explanations has been offered. The most simplistic: We are the only sapient lifeform in the universe because a Supreme Being (spin the wheel and take your pick) created the universe just for us. This is the obvious favorite of many religions.

So many other theories: We are under quarantine until we mature, we are an experiment and under observation, we simply aren’t that interesting, no one has come close enough to be aware of us, we were discovered millennia ago and are viewed as a sort of preserve to be observed and toyed with. (That's the Fortean outlook: “The Earth is a farm. We are someone else’s property.”

What do I think? Haven’t a clue. I’m perfectly happy with saying I don’t know who or what’s out there and what they’re up to if they are. If pressed, I’ll use Occam’s Razor and say they simply haven’t got around to us yet.

And maybe that’s a good thing – not noticing us. Because as Stephen Hawking has said, contact with extraterrestrials carries a significant probability of a bad outcome. To quote the man, the encounter "might be a bit like the original inhabitants of America meeting Columbus. I don't think they were better off for it."

So, have I laid all this before you just to say I don’t know? Truth is, I did it for me. To have my next novel’s central conceit – its maguffin, if you will – make sense to me and, by extension, to the reader, I need to reference the Fermi Paradox. This post is a way of assembling facts and theories and organizing my thoughts –[SIZE=4] and giving your brains something to consider while I'm at it.

How do I reference the Paradox? A central character believes that sapience is so rare in the universe that it draws attention.

Isn’t that a creepy thought? Remember the second part of the Chinese curse? May you come to the attention of one in authority. That has always given me a chill. What if we are under the scrutiny of (to quote Wells) “intellects vast, cool and unsympathetic”? I am not a Fortean, but it’s a nifty premise to play with in a novel – not center stage, but lurking in the background.

Keep watching the skies – and this space. I’ll come back to all that later.


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Hi all,

I just want to update you on an exciting new project that I am working on.

I am currently in talks with Paul and his agent to produce an audio drama based on The Keep. This will be a completely faithful adaptation starring actors from film and TV.

I am currently waiting on Paul's lawyer to read over the license agreement and then we are good to go. We hope to start crowd funding via kickstarter in October.

Any questions please fire away,

Dan

I've seen a lot of criticism of this novel which states that Rasalom is wiping out humanity, which would leave him nothing to feast on after a few days. I can't remember where I saw this, but I always had the impression that he would cause an initial cataclysm, followed by an occupation of humanity where he could live off the suffering of others. I never got the impression that he would just wipe out humanity in a matter of weeks, but I've seen this called a "plot hole" in a couple of differen places. I'm curious to hear what others (including the doc) have to say about this. Thoughts?

...is here (for Kindle only, at the moment)

Details on the Home Page

The signed/limited collector's edition is shipping.

Details on the Home Page

Hello guys,

I was looking for dark (apocalyptic) horror book and stumbled across "Nightworld", which I really want to read. However I soon found out that this book was only part of a much larger series, which of course makes me interested to read everythng related to it.

So, I did some research but since so many Repairman Jack novels have been released so far, I'm not sure if I should read the whole Repairman Jack part (I'm a slow reader).

So, my question to you is if you could maybe tell me what I can expect from the RJ series?
Or, is there be a "shortcut" where I only read the key books from the RJ series?
Also, which version of Nightworld is better, the original one or the revised one?

Just so you know, I'm more a fan of dark creative fiction such as dark fantasy, science fiction or cosmic horror (Lovecraft) and not particularly into thrillers.
I wouldn't mind reading a few of them, but I find the idea of reading through 28 books just to read Nightworld a bit intimidating lol.

I'm sorry if my question has already been answered anywhere else, but I could neither could I find a satisfying answer to my question on the internet nor did I on this particular website.

Thank you for your help!

It's been forever. So what's new?

I spent this weekend cataloguing my FPW collection. We are going to be making the move from corrupt and overtaxed Illinois to New Hampshire. I came across some things I haven't seen in a long time. I now have a record of all that is mine in FPW-land. I have cataloged 286 items (yes, it's a sickness). It took me 9 boxes to get it all packed. Precious cargo, and heavy too!! A total of 334 pounds of FPW items. I still have a long list of wants, still looking for Advanced Reader Copies and the holy grail of the Stodder and Houghton limited edition. The search goes on. Anybody care to share some of the more obscure items from your collections? My favorite might be a copy of Comic Fandom with an illustrated short story by FPW, 'The Anarchist', that does not even appear in the bibliography. He told me he had forgotten he wrote it and was kind enough to sign it for me on my one and only brush with greatness.

Wait, whoa, what? 15 years? 15 years! I've been gone for 15 YEARS. Holy mole-ee, Polly Sooy's boot.
Sheesh.
By the way, Sticky is my dog's name because he has an affinity for people's legs.
Where is he?
ppphphphfffttt.....fffvvphphtbbtt.....how do you whistle on this thing?