For example if the Betelgeuze system had a planet, with a theoretical large telescope on that planet and looked back at earth. It would see life and civilizations from the 15th century a.d. (~500 light years distance)
For example if the Betelgeuze system had a planet, with a theoretical large telescope on that planet and looked back at earth. It would see life and civilizations from the 15th century a.d. (~500 light years distance)
This is something I sometimes wonder myself. Like, we always assume aliens would be more advanced than us… But what if the opposite was true? Aliens exist, but humanity is actually the most technologically advanced species in the universe?
There’s a short story that kind of touches on this, and I’m pretty sure it’s pretty readily findable online. “The Road not Taken” by Harry Turtledove
Spoilers, I guess
The basic premise is that the secret to FTL travel is ridiculously simple,and most civilizations stumble onto it fairly early, and it just happened that humanity never did. Every other civilization once they discover it tends to pour all of their resources into developing that technology, but because of that they don’t really advance in other aspects, so aliens arrive on earth expecting to face a primitive civilization because they didn’t detect any signs of FTL travel, but it turns out that we far surpass them in every other aspect. They attempt to invade earth with basically flintlock muskets, and are met with tanks and fighter jets and such.