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 ad-free, plus hours of bonus content,

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

Throughout history, it has been common for distant colonies to break away from their homeland,

in a future where colonies are entitled planets and light years from home, shall history repeat itself.

The colony fleet, artist of heaven, that arrived in Beta Pictoris in 2998, after

63 light years of travel, was very loyal to their ancestors on Earth, and Beta Pictoros

was the third colony they had founded since leaving the Lagrange dockyards on a planned multi-millenia

journey. Their small fleet was a gardener fleet, as they're called,

colonial missions who might spend a century between each stop, where they would let out

part of the crew to settle a new world, stock to take on raw materials and fuel, then move out

to their next target, manufacturing new colonial equipment, and having children to raise more colonists,

expanding and upgrading their ships, and sometimes even making new ships.

At each stop, they do it again, letting off anyone who wants to settle and helping set the basic

colony up, while taking on materials and plotting their next leg.

In turn, those colonists would help

send supplies and information to that fleet, and help maintain the infrastructure of relays

and stelazers that would permit future trade and immigration to take place faster and easier.

The first two systems the fleet colonized, now known as Brush and Esol, were doing their

job admirably.

Indeed, the first Colonial Reinforcement fleet from Earth was already en route at nearly

...