How do you explain it?

[rdouglass]

Ever see 2001:A Space Oddesey? Remember the monoliths that released new knowledge every time human evolution hit certain milestones. Maybe something along those lines?

[Glyn]

Yes, most 4X games start with the common theme of a number of races starting galactic conquest from an equal footing. I was asking about back-story theories that would account for the basic 4X theme that the game is designed around. What a member of one of the races in the game might theories to rationalize their reality?

Examples:
“Aliens did it!” - An advance race is secretly keeping all prewarp point aware races within their warp point networks at a status quo level of development.
or
“The gods did it!” - Beings with the power to alter reality, arranged a series of improbable events to take place for their personal amusement or for some type power struggle that is beyond comprehension.

Or
Atrocities’s (summarized by me.)
“The Cleansing” - 99% of all inhabited systems are cleansed in a great war leaving only a few backwater colony systems inhabited. Existing space capable technology is rendered unusable by a weapon used to end the Great War. The warp point network is an artifact created before the conclusion of the Great War.

[Ragnarok-X]

I doubt it is possibly at all. Another species could have a totally different opinion on life. Maybe totally different ethics, maybe research in another way, devoted to religion or something totally unknown to us. I doubt another species will be anything like us. Most Sci-Fi`s, like Star Trek and Babylon 5 are utterly wrong. The chance that multiple species encounter each other, they are all the same size and have the same technology (i.e. metal alloys), and even follow a certain logic or ethic is not plausibel. Another species could, and most probably will follow a different path than the humans did.
Think, it took mankind thousands and thousands of years to evolve into what we are now. There are many path`s to follow.

[Ragnarok-X]

Oh yeah, and keep in mind, another species may not even see the need for "development" or "technology" at all. A society, if formed, may be based around things we cant even imagine, not necesarrily something like religon, like or advancements.

[narf poit chez BOOM]

Technology is the end result of any intelligent race being put in a difficult situation and surviving.

[atari_eric]

Ragnarok-X said:
Oh yeah, and keep in mind, another species may not even see the need for "development" or "technology" at all. A society, if formed, may be based around things we cant even imagine, not necesarrily something like religon, like or advancements.

Asian culture was once unconcerned with "advancement". They thought that the natural order was static - that it was <b>wrong</b> to change.

Gives me the willies...