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.

One day we may settle thousands of planets and trade between them, but what would a space

freighter be like? Who would crew them and what would they carry?

A lot of times we look at the sheer immensity of interstellar empires and

Kutrushv-scale civilizations where you might have billions of times all population and

need billions of times more people in every type of job than we have nowadays.

But we don't zoom in on the real logistics very often, and last year we had a pair of episodes

on hive worlds and hungry aliens and both spent some time talking about the realities of

trying to feed huge megamatropocopuses covering whole planets or giant growing space empires.

But we skipped a lot of the logistics as it was getting a bit into the weeds and off topic

for either episode, and one big piece of that is moving everything around, so we produced

a short companion episode on Nebula for both on Space Freeders, and I said in that episode

that the topic probably needed more than a short bonus companion piece, its own episode at least,

if not series, and today we'll be taking an expanded look at the topic, particularly to

discuss what sort of cargoes they'd carry and how much cargo they might carry, as well as

how much crew they'd have and what their lives might be like.

So if that sounds interesting, or if you'd like to see more episodes on the topic, make sure

to hit the like and subscribe buttons, then rummage around your own cargo bays or fridge

for a drink and a snack to enjoy while we take a look at space freighters, their cargoes,

...