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

we're asking 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 sponsored by Audubble.

In the future, humanity may meet alien life or even create whole new species,

but could we ever work together to forge a greater union?

Well, we are back again for another sci-fi Sunday here on SFIA, and we return to one

of our favorite topics, alien civilizations and how they might behave, if any exist

out there in our galaxy.

A frequent part of our approach is to look at examples of alien behavior from science

fiction and ask how plausible they are. One of the frequent scenarios

in science fiction is for there to be multiple alien civilizations we are interacting with,

and sometimes under the same nation or confederation. We see examples with the Republic and Empire

of Star Wars, the Confederation of Independent Systems, or Separatists, also from Star Wars,

the Federation of Star Trek, and maybe arguably also the species assimilating Borg of Star Trek,

as well as the planetary union from the Trek parody, the Orville.

We also have the League of Non-Aligned Wars and Interstellar Alliance of Babylon 5, the Citadel Council of Mass Effect,

the Systems Commonwealth of Andromeda, the de facto empire of the peacekeepers from Falscape,

the Alliance of Four Great Races from Stargate, and many, many more. And each represents a

different style and are examples of how such species might run an empire

of many.

...