Hello, SFIA audio listeners. In this month's Nebula exclusive, big alien theory,

we're asked at the reason alien civilizations might be rare is because most aliens are huge.

To hear it and every episode early and add free, plus hours of bonus content, check out

go.nebola.tv slash Isaac Arthur and use my code, Isaac Arthur.

This episode is brought to you by Skillshare.

If aliens exist, there may come a date when we live and work alongside them,

and if the internet has taught us anything, far in love with them too. Science fiction often shows us busy spaceports and metropolitan planets full of various aliens,

probably most famously the hive of scum and villainy, the Moss Isley Cantina in the original

Star Wars film, and in the most detail in the Babylon 5 series, where the titular space

station is essentially the city and space where all the diplomats of a hundred races gather.

Today we'll explore how likely that is, having many different aliens working and living

together, and how it might

actually function if it were. Also, since this episode comes out on Valentine's Day, and such

settings so often feature half-human, half-alien hybrid, I thought we'd explore the notion

of falling in love and marrying an alien too. We have to start by stipulating the existence

of alien civilizations and an abundance

of them for the scenario of multi-species civilizations to exist, and channel-regulars

know that I'm generally skeptical that alien civilizations exist anywhere in our own galaxy,

or even neighboring ones, so for today we will simply assume they are quite common.

We will also explore both scenarios for fast and light travel being possible, as it generally

is in such science fiction, with lots of aliens, and a no FTR scenario.

It should however be noted that some of the issues discussed here may be present in a potential

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