[Arkcon]

Renegade 13 said:
Not selfish, not evil. No life existed, so who cares?

I suppose you have to think in Star Trek (tm) terms -- there are thousands of civilizations, each in close proximity (relative to warp travel), each one arising, flourishing, interacting, falling, and rising again from the dust clouds of a past civilization.

The Dyson sphere halts all that -- it is the ultimate plowing of virgin forest to build an apartment complex. Maybe they plowed under a Demon class world that could have held some of that intelligence replicating silver goo. Or completely ate up a Silicate world -- Horta and all. And for what -- they don't even live there anymore. Just like Space Empires -- if you can build it, you pretty much don't need it anyway.

Our current sparse solar system, and the short lifespan of the effects we can have will leave us with a more casual point of view. It came up in these forums once a while back -- a civilization that was the extreme preservationists -- no forming planets from asteroids and stuff like that.