For me it is Cellular Automata, and more precisely the Game of Life.

Imagine a giant Excel spreadsheet where the cells are randomly chosen to be either “alive” or “dead”. Each cell then follows a handful of simple rules.

For example, if a cell is “alive” but has less than 2 “alive” neighbors it “dies” by under-population. If the cell is “alive” and has more than three “alive” neighbors it “dies” from over-population, etc.

Then you sit back and just watch things play out. It turns out that these basic rules at the individual level lead to incredibly complex behaviors at the community level when you zoom out.

It kinda, sorta, maybe resembles… life.

There is colonization, reproduction, evolution, and sometimes even space flight!

  • maegul (he/they)
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    1 year ago

    Yea … like Star Trek, with warp speed and everything, is basically all limited to our single Galaxy … and that’s not unrealistic given their technology.

    Like in that space-faring future, the galaxy is basically the new continent and the inter-galactic divide the new great ocean that no one has ever crossed.