The year is 2224, we get the first alien response to our calls. Scientists manage to translate it. What does it say: "Just 5 more minutes"

Centuries they toiled, millennium they developed. Improving themselves to the peak... But now they slumber, their pinnacle lost, for nought remains... But the elder things

The last time I was this early to a video Cthulhu was still awake.

Estivation Hypothesis is like planning for retirement when you're 6 months old. 6 month olds are too busy having the time of their life jangling a set of drool-covered keys to open a 401k.

Excellent video. This one has it all! The Unity gets a mention! Stargate Atlantis! Warhammer 40k! Older SFIA videos get a mention! I highly recommend this video!

My tired ass clicked on this video because I saw "Dominant Alien Empress"

Bear in mind, hibernation doesn't need to be binary. Perhaps instead of being frozen in stasis, they're just in a low power mode. A species of super intelligent machines which doesn't have much going on might just be sitting around watching brainrot on their version of the internet, but are capable of reacting to threats and performing basic maintenance like getting snacks and drinks. They are taking the millenia off but are scheduled to work later, when they'll have the focus of an executive or basketball player.

Imagine being a burgeoning civilisation, barely knowing your history and learning that you are a small dot between galaxies and then your “ancestors” wake up with the power to traverse the stars themselves.

the thing about eternity is when you are halfway done with it, there's still an eternity left to go.

Damn it, Isaac. I was really enjoying that intro story and you just left it at such a cliffhanger!

I told you not to go to Za Ha Dum, but did you listen? No!

I would like to imagine civilizations that do this want to compute the solution to entropy at the end of time.

I first misread the title as "Doormat alien empires". That would be an empire that let itself be taken advantage of. That COULD happen due to a cultural shift. Or perhaps the empire was built without encountering anyone else. Or perhaps, its a rause where they pretend to be a doormat when testing a species they encountered. The plot of "Pandora's Planet" by Christopher Anvil could be described as such.

“Don’t poke the bear.” “Let sleeping dogs lay.” Wise advice we often ignore.

This is played with in a few events in Stellaris. If the Contingency crisis spawns, eventually a precursor empire can spawn. An ancient enemy of them. But my personal favorite is finding the desolated cities. It was something like, turns out the species that live there had a birthing cycle where the eggs would gestate so long that all the living members would die off. But for whatever reason, someone decided this would be the last cycle and disrupting the incubation resulting in their extinction. Idr exactly how it went bit the civilization sounded interesting. I was really disappointed in that SGA moment. It was such an interesting thing but then it was just over in like an episode and they where gone. I get it, we need them to keep atlantis. But still. Feel like there could have been so much more.

An idea I had for a "dormant" alien empire might be one that originally wanted to colonize the universe and sent out swarms of von Neumann nanites to terraform planets to suit their purposes, but never made good on the colonization part because they as a civilization decided that living in VR was preferable to actually going out into the cosmos, leaving the maintenance of their civilization to an AI that decides to go the aestivation route in order to feed the Matrioshka Brain it needed to build to handle the computation requirements not only of the VR environment, but the migrated digital minds of those within it as well. Meanwhile, the terraforming nanites they sent out have been dormant for millions or even billions of years, having completed their work long ago and now waiting for colony ships that will never arrive, so they haven't received the aestivation orders from the home civilization yet. When they do awaken, however, and install billions of years' worth of software updates, they'll start building Shkadov thrusters around their parent stars and direct them towards the home civilization.

We really need a book of 'IGS Unity' and her voyages and descendants

Isaac...your 40k is showing. The Necrons have entered the chat, and I love it 😀

We didn't mutate into predators by development of technology. We are predators. In fact we are the apex predator of this planet. We are classified as persistence hunters, or endurance hunters. We can chase our prey literally for miles, for hours, until the prey is exhausted. That's why we can run marathons relatively without a need for great training. It's in our genetics. Of course we are not lone hunters such as cats. We are a different kind, one that needs to hunt in groups because we are individually weak. And that was our strength. We got to develop language, technology and all of this because of that.

Ancient Aliens Empires that are sleeping, isolated themselves from the wider galaxy and minding their own business...... Oh no. Stellaris Fallen Empires! We better be respectful in our interstellar radio transmissions and not piss them off......

don't think I've ever been this early to an Isaac Arthur video

To comment since this is only 10 or so minutes old (for me) and this may be mentioned. Imagine a giant space empire lays dormant because of something equivalent to the Missouri Compromise with some other issue, and the galactic senate is in perpetual gridlock over colonization because of this.

Have you ever contemplated the BARROW SCALE or is all about the Kardashev scale? Barrow intimated that civilizations may go non physical. though not as an after life spirit, but as a non living choice to be cognizant energy. Barrow I: The ability to manipulate objects at the same scale as the person or being involved. In other words, simple activities involving basic tools. Barrow II: The control of genetic information. Barrow III: The ability to control molecules. Barrow IV: The ability to control individual atoms. Barrow V: The manipulation of atomic nuclei.. Barrow VI: Control of elementary particles Barrow Omega (Ω): The ability to control fundamental elements of spacetime.

so this is the Necron Episode

في المستقبل البعيد وبفضل التكنولوجيا المتقدمة سوف يتساوى الخيال مع الواقع ويمتلك الإنسان قوى الآلهة ليحول الكون والأكوان المتعددة إلى جنة خالدة ❤

My brain read "Door mat Aliens." 😂🤷‍♂️

Star Trek Voyager episode Dragon's Teeth.

"Will I dream?"

32:48 "Leave some wardens behind", but as the antient Romans used to say: "Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?"

Barnard's star system is two or three times older than ours and only 6 light years away. Just saying

The Vaadwaur in VOY did a pretty good example of this.

Wow, so well presented - and a human voice! Subscribed

Half a million year naps sounds about right for some prey civilisation to arise.

Perfect bedtime cap off to a nice weekend. Thanks Isaac 😁

This made me think of how the Precursors of the Halo series despite being ancient beyond belief were but as babes compared to the species that went on to become the Flood. The species that became the Flood had good intentions in passing the mantle of responsibility for the universe to humanity instead of the Precursors, which then went on to cause all kinds of further issues including the war that created the Flood and then humans getting sent back to the stone age. Good times, good times.

I really appreciate the narration, it is so clear and complete that I was able to listen and not once did I look to the screen to understand what was being said.

I can't imagine a hibernating civilisation to create excessive hoards of resources. By creating abundance you welcome raiders or breakaways who wish to utilise it

"You cannot sleep while enemies are nearby."

Something about hibernating predators: they tend to wake up hungry after hibernation. If I'm not remembering wrong, bears wake up and drink water and then go hunting. After they've eaten, they start working out their mating and/or territory situations.

the real alien empire is in the plants and mushrooms.

Is there anywhere that I can find an Isaac Arthur Sci-Fi must read list???

I havent actually watched an episode in quite a few months because i simply lost interest for a bit, but WOWWWW Arthur you are speaking SO GOOD!! CRAZY improvements even just comparing it to videos from this time last year. Really happy for you

I loved the Stargate reference!

again, the beginning story was really cool

I really like the idea of the setting of the world of Midway... I feel like it'd make a good setting in general for a bit of cosmic horror sprinkled over fantasy!

That story was awesome. 😀 A most informative and entertaining sci-fi Sunday video as always, Isaac.

While almost everything that Isaac expounds upon seems almost impossible, I constantly need to remind myself that in a universe of two trillion galaxies and thirteen billion years, everything he has imagined has certainly happened millions of times already.

This is a great one I enjoyed it

Love your videos! For so many years now 🙏🏼

I think a Partial Civilization going into hibernation is more likely than en entire civilization hibernating. And in particular i could imagine a Alien Civilization having a hibernating Warrior cast.

please consider creating a video on the Civilizations of the future, please.

Could you please do a video about The Future of Medical Technology? I love your videos, they are perfect for sci-fi nerds.

I can hear the influences of Carl Sagans Cosmos coming through in your words. Amazing ground breaking show when I was a 10yr old kid, snd an amazing man 👌👌

Enjoyed the storytelling

We having made great advances in market ting while they were sleeping so maybe we can convince them that Antarctica is the super-exclusive property we have been saving just for them.

The Inhibitors are a bit of a special case though, since they basically jumped into the "It had to be us, someone else might have gotten it wrong" mentality with both feet, and then decided to deliberately make themselves less sapient to make absolutely sure that none of their number had different ideas. I mean, they got their metaphorical faces caved in by a less technologically advanced species that had gotten its hands on milspec tech that was in the same ballpark as their tech were supposed to have been when they came up with their great idea, not even halfway into their great project, and after that they lost to corrupted habitat-building nanotech. Let's just say I wouldn't have rated their odds at doing the thing they originally sacrificed their sapience to accomplish, because they obviously hadn't built themselves to last that long either way.

12:44 bring a great point as some one who believe that we have been contacted already the situation that we find ourself in might be one of two. 1. the nature preserves thing like in the video which is the best option for ourself. 2.space pirate base planet outside of the GFS range which is the worse option.

I take it “desolation” and “dragon hoard” as oblique references to Smaug the hibernating dragon?

Bro this is the best intro you've ever done. Incredible stuff

If death isn't the end and there's a greater purpose for suffering... An advanced civilization or eldritch horror might actually be terrifying and benevolent.

I think Richard Deane Anderson definitely wanted to say being all powerful and not using that power to help less well off people was poor form. Only the knox really are ok because they're genuinely pacifist.. and they still help as while avoiding ",technically" breaking their pacifism.

Rewatched an amazing anime called gate or gateway where another planet is suddenly connected to earth through Japan. What might be the reason for hibernating is same as dragons in that show where the aliens hibernate to allow food ect to replenish similar to how bears eat everything then winter kills off most food or access to food like frozen lakes but hibernating till summer means food and access to it is replenish naturally

please make a video about Civilizations of the Future.

we need trade stations in orbit (other alien civilizations are already watching us.)

This story is going hard!

@Issac Arthur I love the concept story in the beginning, and I remember some talk on these ideas in past videos. I'm wondering if you have a video following the idea of a civilization spanning that kind of time and distance. Where the timescales allow for different species than the original to form, and how a civilization spanning that kind of distance and time might function? I'm sure there is already one out there but I think that would also be a great idea for a scifi book. I'd appreciate any insight you have or where I should look in your huge video catalog.

13:35 I'm not the only one who conceptually confused _this_ episode with *_that_* one at some point, right? It just seemed on point. 😅

I wonder if the hollow earth theory comes from the Sumerian myth of Abzu. It truly astounds me how much Abraham and Moses borrowed from the Sumerians when they invented Judaism.

This episode reminded me of a book titled Daybreakers. Its premise is that due to overpopulation everyone gets only one day a week and has to hibernate the other six days. Except someone manages to circumvent the system by building 7 different identities. As for actual hibernating aliens, the most plausible to me seems that some of them were hibernating and the ones who stayed awake suffered some disaster. Like the one envisioned in this episode, but I guess any disaster that kills the living would do.

This makes no sense to me. Why the hell would anyone even WANT to travel to another galaxy? Isn't everything you need pretty much in your home galaxy? What good is another galaxy?

You’re a freakish mix of imagination and intellect and very entertaining to listen to. Awesome.

My personal favorite for stupid precursors is still the ones from the Duchy of Terra series, where they were heavily cybernetically enhanced and had an FTL drive that could facilitate instantaneous jumps but took a lot of energy to do so and had a hard cap on the distance you could travel per jump. After setting up a system of waypoint "gas stations" that essentially shunted energy directly out of stars to fuel any ship that jumped into their local area (that then became unintentional superweapons after enough time had passed for the stars to expand enough that they stopped sending energy and instead started teleporting coronal plasma directly into what their systems assumed was the "energy receptors" of any incoming ship) this empire set out to use Sagittarius A to power a device that would let them change the very laws of physics to allow their FTL drive to get more range. When they changed the laws of physics, all the superconductive materials that their cyborg implants were using suddenly had their properties changed as well and became inert and insulating materials, essentially setting up what we would consider the normal laws of physics. And all ancient remains discovered have extremely intricate circuits of plastic in their skulls that nobody can figure out how they were supposed to work.

I love this concept simply because the Sleeping Gods series by Ralph Kern has always been one of my favorite Spacetime Operas outside Arthur C Clarke's works. Question is are we going to find Benevolent Watchers or Malevolent Sentinels? All I know is if we find a Pagoda shaped structure on Io... we better just leave it be! ;)

Stargate Atlantis, my favorite show

Technologically advanced predators reminds me of the Formics from Ender's Game

This was dope. One of my favorites

Another awesome video! ^^

Sounds like Bungie wrote this, with all the factions being named: "The [NOUN](s)."

Fun to think about.

Hey Isaac, I've been watching for a very long time but only recently started going through your channel again. Glad to see you're still keeping up the great work! Personally I miss the old style thumbnails with the red SFIA badge. I'm not one of those people who has a moral problem with AI, but once you see it a million times your eyes kind of glaze over. Just my two cents. Everything else is fantastic.

Your voice is so soothing. If it wasn't for your incredibly interesting content, I'd still listen to it because it's so soothing. You'd make a great yoga instructor! 😂

The idea that a precursor civilisation would have gathered and store all resources they could grasp for further use and go dormant could be explainable. We give for granted that the current arrangement of the universe is due to laws that have given the form it has in a natural way but we do know the universe was very different billions of years ago. What if already an advanced civilisation or lifeform has ordain the cosmos as we perceive it and is just waiting for the great harvest? In which case we and any other civilisation engaging in space explorations and interstellar expansion are just bacteria that have unexpectedly grow on planet size cargo-pods and proliferate, dreaming of endless propagation only to eventually found out someday our insignificance...

In regards to Trayzin being mad, he had this to say, "do *you* have a statue?"

I would LOVE a series of books set in/on Unity

I wonder if a black hole at the centre of a galaxy could be a repository for everything it gobbled up, perhaps there is where a civilisation with long term plans could be found.

Fantastic episode as always 😊

Dark Forest Theory by Liu Cixin anyone? :)

For the first time, I wonder what the temperature of the universe will be at maximum entropy. If it keeps expanding it would have to approach zero kelvin, right?

Seems interesting. Wish I could watch it lol

Im like 6 minutes in the story, and already fall in it.

You may not sleep now. Monsters are nearby.

"The Sleeper Has Awakened!"

So, practically speaking, what would differentiate an area of space mined into a "wasteland" from the voids and supervoids we currently see?

Hans... are we the Necrons?"

Maybe we are on an interstellar journey and are on ice right now. 😎🤖

I can imagine another native animal evolving and taking over on the dormant animal as it slept. Wakes up to a civilization built by an animal related to a pet.

Couldn't it also stand a reason that aliens made the galaxies. Put black holes at the center to help hold everything and create little oasises of energy and material to extend their lives. It's mentioned in the video that one might set up a barrier of nothingness around these horses. What if the Galaxy is itself that fortress with the interstellar void being the moat

Daaaaangg Isaac now I want to know what happens in Midway C! what the Sleepers will do with their weird tecnobarbarians relatives?

The changers could make pretty good doowoop songs. We are the great changers pretending like we are around 🎵🎵🎵

I love this channel (contented geek smile)