Jer Tolbert pointed out The problem with 99.9 % of so-called 'solutions' to the Fermi Paradox at Sentient Developments today.
I take no small delight in hating the Fermi Paradox because I think it's just a silly, pointless speculation, and the answer is obviously one of resolution. Think of how long it took humanity to spread to the New World (hundreds of thousands of years, depending on how you count backwards for humanity). Now, think of how long it took for Europeans to find the New World (at least 10,000 years, depending on which theory you believe). Okay? The aliens just haven't found us yet, or vice versa. The cosmos is a big place, and there's a lot of time in it.
Personally, I think that first contact is not where humanity shines, and I have to think that most other species with an innate manifest destiny gene are probably just as bad as we are, so I'm all for not proving the Fermi Paradox wrong in any capacity any time soon.
But, I'm also rather pleased with the FP solution that I've come up with (not the issue of resolution, mind you) for By Right of Conquest (and by extension, "An Almanac for the Alien Invaders," though it's not mentioned in the short story). But it's a big old spoiler, and I don't know if I'm going to be sharing it yet. It's kind of the prevalent theme of the last half of BRC. So. Another time...
Back to school work for me.
Hm. Water flowing on Mars... You know, just before it evaporates.
So. When will we find wormsign?
...a single life-bearing world might seed an entire galaxy with life...
(found via Dan Goodman)
Does that not just give you the shivers?
Now, the thing we have to realize as science fiction writers is that even if life throughout the galaxy were fundamentally interrelated because of something like this, you still can't have everyone show up being bilaterally symmetrical and walking on their hind legs. There's enough variation in the known fossil record of Earth to extrapolate plenty of good aliens without going the nobby-head Star Trek route. Which--I know--they did because they had humans playing the aliens. I'm not spanking Star Trek.