What fucks me up is that the astrophage epidemic across the universe could actually kick start life on other planets, millions of worlds where the light from their star was just too sterilizing and harsh and as those worlds begin to cool the first oceans begin to take shape, cradling life.
Billions of years later, the planets linking the Petrova lines to their sun are a civilization that has ALWAYS had astrophage as an energy source. They shoot off into the cosmos almost as an afterthought, energy abundant, ever curious explorers, hoping to find life on other worlds and oh Life, is She is everywhere, seeded by their relativistic speed ancestor.
They might never find the husks of our civilization, or of Erid’s. But they’d perhaps one day find Venus around our sun, or Adrian around Tau Ceti, or Threeworld around Eridani. And with this discovery, the greatest threat to their civilization.
Worse yet, maybe humanity does something really really dumb, and launches a good faith assault on astrophage across the universe using Taumoeba, dooming all those future civilizations to never even have been given a chance, not realizing the damages they have done.
