Hello OA!

[Drashner1]

Any depopulated colony should be treated with caution, since some of these depopulations may have happened as the result of very well-hidden and subtle attacks using advanced weapons, including (but not limited to) memetic weapons.

The power of memetics is a thing that I don't quite understand in OA.  If I don't come in the direct DNI contact with any digital remains - how big the risk is?

Memetics in OA is basically propaganda, advertising, and brainwashing refined to a science, fed steroids, and cranked to 11 all at the same time.

In terms of how dangerous it could be - If you consider the results of Al Queda, ISIS, various cults that got their members to mass suicide, mass consumption culture, various darker episodes in various religions, and various hard core nationalist movements in any way harmful - think about the results if their ability to convert and motivate followers was increased to be 10, 100, or 1000x more effective.

DNI isn't necessary for infection/subversion via memetics - it's just one of many possible channels.

Todd

[Jargal]

Memetics in OA is basically propaganda, advertising, and brainwashing refined to a science, fed steroids, and cranked to 11 all at the same time.
...
DNI isn't necessary for infection/subversion via memetics - it's just one of many possible channels.

I'm not entirely unfamiliar with concepts and even methods of psychological warfare, but my question was from archeological PoV: how dangerous is to study dead things in OA and how many precaution do you need.

[stevebowers]

If there are any recordings or written works from the time, there may be some danger. I'd treat any automation with caution as well; a robotic device might include software that is a threat to other automated systems, even if it does not contain anything we recognise as malware.

[Drashner1]

Memetics in OA is basically propaganda, advertising, and brainwashing refined to a science, fed steroids, and cranked to 11 all at the same time.
...
DNI isn't necessary for infection/subversion via memetics - it's just one of many possible channels.

I'm not entirely unfamiliar with concepts and even methods of psychological warfare, but my question was from archeological PoV: how dangerous is to study dead things in OA and how many precaution do you need.

It would depend on the thing and the source of thing. Probably also how you define the term 'dead'.

Some possible examples:

a) Archeologists are examining a dead civ (Terragen or xenosophont) that employs something similar to ancient Egyption burial rites, including the use of herbs and spices or other plants in the coffin/tomb/whatever. Some of the whatever still has a (pleasant) scent and (much like all else in the area) is covered in dust. The dust also contains spores or encysted viruses for a virulent genetically engineered disease created by either the dead civ or something else (rogue or ahuman transapient) that came along and planeted it later.

b) Archeologists are examining a dead civ (probably Terragen). In the course of their studies they come across a religious or philosophical text that they end up translating. The contents of the book are published and disseminated back to the archeologist's home civilization. It turns out the ideas contained in the book are compelling to a large chunk of the population and the religion/philosophy is essentially reborn and spreads widely in the new civ. It is not until several generations later that it turns out that the belief system has a tendency to split into warring schisms that eventually escalates to a civil war that kills off nearly a third of the population.

c) Archeologists are examining a dead civ (Terragen or xenosophont). In the course of this they come across the genome for a biological construct the civ apparently created as a pet or children's toy. When engenerated, the result is a hugely cute little animal that is extremely endearing to a lot of humans. The animal is reproduced in large numbers and in time a lot of them are to be found on the planet. And then the population of the critters hits some peak point - and they turn poisonous and start breeding tremendously faster than before (think large litters that grow quickly) and start displacing everything else in the local ecosystem and attacking the population.

d) Various forms of software could be found when studying dead civs that seem to be terribly useful or even to be sentient or sophont in their own right - perhaps appearing to be recorded AIs or uploads that are now being rescued. But some time later it turns out that they are some form of software weapon, attacking computer networks. Or they are memetic weapons - spreading social disruption in any of various ways - all while still seeming to be people (at least for a time).

Protection against these things would vary in difficulty depending on the source (Transapient created versions of this could be devilishly hard to protect against unless one has a friendly transap of equal or greater S-level available.) and how sneaky the source was.

Just some thoughts,

Todd

[AstroChara]

Speaking about the danger of a 'dead' xenosophont civilization, there are a few examples of it in the Encyclopedia Galactica:

Enforcer Objects
"For many thousands of years unexplained shipping losses in interstellar space have occurred on a regular basis, most of them caused by chance collisions with unusually large pieces of interstellar dust. Rumours of attacks by 'ghost ships' and 'foo' were common explanations for these losses, together with some blurred, low resolution images of mysterious objects glimpsed in deep space.

But thanks to advanced shielding technology, in 3455 the Matreiya, a Sophic League vessel survived such an attack, near Gamma Hydrae (where a number of other craft had previously disappeared). The Matreiya reported this event as a deliberate attack by an unknown assailant, an unidentified craft or object located in deep space, almost stationary with respect to the nearest stars, which fired a stream of massive particles towards them. The Matreiya was receding from this object at a very high velocity, but managed to get some clear images of it. The resulting images showed a ragged, half decayed-looking spheroid with numerous flabby protrusions, which was clearly artificial."

The Meerlinda Disaster
"In 3804 Meerlinda was attacked by "gremlins" which systematically eliminated all technology and killed the local ruling transapients... the effect was the exact opposite of the classic "Neutron bomb" in that bionts were left standing while all fell apart around them (of course this killed a lot of biologicals too, in ships and vehicles and hospitals). The planet plunged into the steam age for a while, until an ISO finally arrived from the Negentropy Alliance."

HIE121CZE
"About 31 million years ago species HIE121CZE was apparently a peaceful, slowly-advancing starfaring race setting up colonies on carbon planets. Then there are reports of a sudden change in their society, after the colonization of an unidentified planet which had been occupied by an extinct race. Species HIE121CZE rapidly became highly organized and expansionistic, and apparently attempted to merge organic and technological elements in their bodies. The purpose is unclear; the received accounts mainly emphasize the threat level and the need for extreme measures to exterminate the threat. This resulted in a massive war and the widespread use of advanced weapons of mass destruction."

[Jargal]

The upshot of all this is that you have pointed out an area of OA that is not as fully developed as it should be. You (and others if they are interested) can think of this as a giant blank canvas waiting to be painted on, if you feel like it.

I've re-read articles related to archeology and they definitely can benefit from some revision even without additional content writing. Which sub-forum is better for the new thread on this topic - "EG articles" or "Suggestion Box - OA website"?

[Worldtree]

E.G. Articles is fine if you're wanting to re-write articles

[Drashner1]

Speaking about xenoarcheology. Universe is old, xenosophonts are rare, this I understand. But youngest xenos remains in OA, as I've found, are tens of millions years old. Is there some principial rule that no extinct xeno civilization can be found, ceased to exist only hundreds of thousands/1-2 millions of years ago? If we talk about Low-tech (maybe up to Middle-tech) society, after just a million of years even on our single planet finds happen only by chance. Not very archeologically friendly situation :-)

Meant to respond to this sooner -

No, there isn't really any forma policy that xenosophont remains be tens of millions of years old or older. It's just kind of shaken out that way. I suspect it is somewhat a byproduct of our own interpretation of the universe being very big and very old.

That said, there are a few extinct species that vanished/died out less than 10 million years ago:

Unnamed species: HIE072CZE - Species which withdrew from the Orion Arm 5.4 million years ago.

Thyresta - Destroyed themselves in a nuclear war 3.6 million years ago.

Iahi Daon - Went extinct around 7 million years ago.

One thing that might help from an archeological standpoint is that the remains of most of these civilizations are likely found as artifacts in space - an environment which is probably very good at preserving many things for a very long time. No weather, no animals or plants, no climate or geological shifts to destroy things.

Todd

[Jargal]

That said, there are a few extinct species that vanished/died out less than 10 million years ago:

One thing that might help from an archeological standpoint is that the remains of most of these civilizations are likely found as artifacts in space - an environment which is probably very good at preserving many things for a very long time. No weather, no animals or plants, no climate or geological shifts to destroy things.

Todd

Thanks for the links, haven't read at least one of them.

If the civilization has reached space - then great, but for every spacefaring civilization how many have remained on their own planet? And if they chose some other path of development, we may not recognize their artifacts as artificial at all!

[Drashner1]

If the civilization has reached space - then great, but for every spacefaring civilization how many have remained on their own planet? And if they chose some other path of development, we may not recognize their artifacts as artificial at all!

A fair number, actually:

T'oul'h

Thyresta

Paulans

Whisper

Kemmerer

Silent Ones

Pipers

Most of these in OA were discovered by exploratory craft. The same method might turn up other non-spacefaring species that have gone extinct.

As far as choosing a path of development we wouldn't recognize - If that's the case then wouldn't archaeologists also not recognize their artifacts and thereby render the issue moot?

Todd