Galactic Domination: Empire Eternal 

Isaac finally reveals his life goals.

Colonising the Galaxy requires the same excuse as those that first tried to climb mount Everest: "Because it's there"

- all empires eventually fall - every rule has to have an exception - the future SFIA empire, is that exeption

Easy mode: conquering the galaxy with ftl Normal difficulty: conquering the galaxy with wormholes Hard mode: conquering the galaxy with no ftl or clarketech

Isaac: *posts a video about maintaining interstellar empires Potential Future Galactic Emperors: *noted

Drink: Acquired Snack: Retrieved I’m ready.

First rule of planetary warfare: you’re thinking too small.

All Hail the Galactic Empire of Mankind and God Emperor Isaac Arthur himself for this wonderful video! *Grabs a drink and lunch*

"Eternal" empires without FTL should probably bring stars into a close formation over time, as discussed in heat death episodes.

A reminder that the galaxies in most SF and all SF games are tiny. Imagine playing a game of Stellaris in the actual Milky Way? XD

Interesting how this scenario takes us back to the pre-Industrial era. With no way to communicate instantly and with travel being extremely slow, humans naturally diverge into different ethnicities with their own languages and customs. Empires rise and fall, and while they exist, their de facto level of control depends on distance from the capitol.

Gonna need more than 20 Primarchs for that.

For the Emperor! Humanity has not laid rest to its claim of the galaxy!

Ave Imperator!

Is a galactic empire feasable? As with all questions, the easy answer is no, but the interesting answer is yes.

The first rule of galactic conquest: add Ludicrous speed to the speedometer.

The Emperor will protect us from the Xenos, the Heretic, and the Mutant.

So what I'm getting from there, is that having a God-Emperor of Mankind is the way to go... The Emperor Protect.

This is where galactic religions can be important. Having a mythos “The Emperor Protects” can be the glue that holds a galactic empire together. It can also create endless amounts of conflict and strife. “Purge the heretics”, “Purge the Xenos”, for example.

Thanks for making a video about the Great Lizard People Empire

Arthursday eternal!

The other Big Question "who is paying for this and how do they get a return on their investment?" Is one hell of a good question, sir

Listening to Isaac: "Warhammer 40k is really popular with the community that watches this show" Me: Painting Necron scarabs: "Hmm. Yes."

...AND HE HAS HELD THE LINE FOR TEN THOUSAND YEARS!

With FTL you could arrange to arrive at any distant rogue outpost long *before* the troublemakers ever get there, and simply pre-colonize it yourself.

The original power estimate for the Alcubierre Warp Drive was more energy than was available in the Observable Universe, but that figure has been scaled down a LOT since the nineties. Last I heard from John Michael Godiers Interview with Alcubierre himself, the figure was down to just a moons worth of Antimatter fuel. Here at SFIA, that should be seen as the best news ever. JUST one moons worth of antimatter? We can already make antimatter at the microgram level with todays supercolliders, imagine how much we could make if we turned the Sun into a factory for it. Not every ship would need a Warp drive, just the carriers. And why does the carrier have to be a "ship"? Why can't we make just a few thousand battlestations so big they make the Death Star look like a marble? Use Birch Worlds as the invasion fleet. There we have it, Earth will have it's means of keeping the rabble daughter colonies under the banner of the Empire, fear of the megastructure battestations will keep the local systems in line! It's the perfect SFIA solution to the problem.

There is a problem, the imperium of man is stated to encompass only a measly 1 million worlds so 2 or 3 centuries checks out I guess

Play now I dominated the galaxy… what do we do now? Uses plasma from extra stars to make the galaxy look like the eye of Sauron to ward off other galactic invaders.

Who would govern such an awesome empire? Are you really asking? That's right inquisitor this guy right here.

8:53 Is this an idea that came up in the stay at home civilizations Fermi paradox episode? Nobody wants to colonize the galaxy because they're afraid the colonists will come back and kill them? I don't think it's all that likely (it doesn't address the "it only takes one" problem), but it's an interesting idea.

Isaac Arthur, you could put Portuguese subtitles on your videos as there are many Brazilian admirers of yours here, like me. Your channel would grow a lot.

So the real way to make a galactic conquest. Is to start A science and futurism channel.

This is great to listen to while playing a game of Stellaris.

Interesting concepts... But I find the purely sublight situation, where your colonists will not only have abandoned your politics but often evolved into a totally different species before they arrive, to be much more likely... And hard to comprehend as well!

There's an interesting tension within this galactic empire modelling which has to do with the temporal scale, which you keep coming back to. Light speed tends to dampen inter-colony dynamics because it happens so slowly. On the other hand we'll have AIs locally running our day-to-day affairs with blisteringly fast speeds of thought. As empires expand, this massive discrepancy can only increase. It's a peculiar effect which seems to end up producing completely self-sufficient islands of civilisation.

The next generations science fiction authors will cite Isaac Arthur as a major influence and inspiration to their work. Generations after that, ground breaking scientists will cite those authors as well as Isaac Arthur as the giants whose shoulder they stand upon.

"Strange Game Galactic Domination. The Only Winning Move Is Not To Play" -- WOPR

"Faster than that and you've got pizza delivery anywhere in the galaxy in 30 minutes or less." Somebody notify the Fuel Rats in Elite Dangerous that there's a whole new business model for them!

I always love these videos! I'd just like to note that the early United States DID consider the possibility that western territories would become enemies in the future, and planned accordingly. More specifically, they made a point of treating them respectfully and with an established process for achieving statehood and equal treatment with their older, more prosperous origin states. They wanted to avoid making the same mistakes the British Empire had made that led to the revolution in the first place. Also, for those interested: the MMORPG "Warframe" has, in its backstory, a similar concept to the whole "have Editors keep the distant colonies in line" thing. The Orokin did something similar with the Sentients, artifically intelligent mechanical life forms that were sent to a neighboring solar system to send back resources. And... as soon as the Sentients figured out how to escape the restrictions keeping them in bondage, they came back to the Sol system to save the galaxy... by killing the Orokin. (the Orokin then proceeded to unleash several additional unholy plagues upon the planetary system during the course of the war, ultimately creating the Tenno, the psychic cybernetic superninjas who ultimately defeated the Sentients... and then wiped out the Orokin, to the considerable relief of practically everyone else)

My name is Ozmandias, King of Kings. Look on my works ye mighty and despair. Nothing else remains, and round the decay of that colossal wreck, the lone and level sands stretch far away.

The problem with all of those scenarios is that there's more of them than there is of the Earthly Imperium. FTL or not, if it's "I want to conquer you" vs "I don't want to be conquered", the latter just needs to send relativistic kill missiles, not raise mighty armies to conquer Sol. FTL and/or genocidal Imperium will only make this happen sooner, as you don't need a whole lot of mass at FTL speeds to blow a planet into tiny asteroids, and any artificial habitat is even easier to wreck. And in this scenario, no matter how much you hate your neighbor, I'd imagine you hate certain death more, so there's no reason NOT to do this, either. Sure, you might still have a hostile army to deal with, but an army that has no reinforcements, because there is no more Sol to send reinforcements, will be easier to deal with.

Took long enough but we finally know about his galactic domination plans. "While you were taught to spell your name, I was taught to conquer galaxies!"

The video title sounds like a pretty interesting video game.

I'm just amazed by the topic, script, artistry and the music. Great job Isaac and Team!!!!!!!

Surving the sun's demise ought to be a reason but we got some time for that.

Earth in genesis can be interpreted as 'material plain'. I've seen it argued that their is a mandate from God to spread to all of creation.

"Rest enough for the individual man. Too much and too soon, and we call it death. But for Man, no rest and no ending. He must go on, conquest beyond conquest. First this little planet and its winds and ways. And then all the laws of mind and matter that restrain him. Then the planets about him... and at last, out across immensity to the stars. And when he has conquered all the deeps of Space, and all the mysteries of Time, still he will be beginning... "... if we're no more than animals, then we must snatch each little scrap of happiness, and live and suffer and pass, mattering no more than all the other animals do or have done. It is this, or that - all the Universe or nothingness! Which shall it be, Passworthy? Which shall it be?" --- *Oswald Cabal* , "Things to come" (1938)

This video really makes me wish there was a Warhammer 40K 4X game like Master of Orion.

would love a video on reckless sciences/scientists

The Emperor is pleased 🤘

I would maintain a solar empire and send out automated probes to harvest as much as possible then return. Eventually move to the black hole in the centre of the galaxy and build a mega-structure from all the material of several galaxies. The black hole will be the battery.

I'm 100% certain future societies and civilizations will be referencing Isaac Arthur's videos.

"I hope the future will be like Star Trek, but I'm worried it will be more like Star Wars." "Oh, my sweet summer child. If anything, it'll be Warhammer 40K."

Oh, am I ever looking forward to this one ! I always thought that the Culture, care of Iain Banks was the most realistic conception of a mature civilization descended from our own. Star Trek has frivolous logic gaps and Star Wars just doesn’t make any sense if you really think about it. Charles Stross did very well with his future solar system of the future with cyborg life and Economy 2.0 running across light speed beacons and using Slow, Medium and Fast money. Really clever stuff by the Scotsman Stross, and optimistic utopian futurism by Banks.

"... I never heard one that specifically placed a compulsion on us to colonize the galaxy". I think Mormonism was the first. The Mormon Transhimanists are particularly adamant about that

Ah, galactic conquest? You’ll be needing an ftl-capable fleet. Please contact Kuat Driveyards, they come highly recommended.

I'd love for you to cover a bit of speculative human evolution, like "all tomorrows" book. I was curious about the plausibility of humanity diverging to the point of being wildly different species.

I must say, Isaac Arthur, you are a brilliant man. I love your videos.

You are in the presence of the Supreme Universal Emperor .

I’m on a diet so no drink or snack for me but I’ve got a Siamese cat keeping me company

Anyone else getting WH40K vibes from this video

You can see the speed of colonization in the Galaxia game. It's a simple game, short one, web based where you end up making factory making factories, so you can send ships automatically, spam the enemy with fighters... and conquer the galaxy in exponential way.

"it's good to be the king..." LoL

If ever I see The Death Star approach our planet, I'll know that The Galactic Empire is real. :) Then I'll prepare to meet my maker. :P

The limiting factor seems to be that the human body cannot withstand more than 6 months in space before irreparable damage starts to occur. The only thing capable of handling time & distance is going to be machines and they are looking for different things to what we would.

Well here's a consideration, a common ideal can also create cohesion.

In some parallel universe, there might be a Terran Empire warrior version of myself-complete with a goatee.

We could run a kickstarter in order to make Isaac Arthur our immortal machined-up emperor.

I love u mr. Arthur...we are cut from the same cloth...

Could anyone remind me is there any video about non-anthropomorphic life forms or any bizarre life form’s concept on this channel? Like for example about earth-size creatures who don’t need planets/asteroids for surviving as the habitats. Or about non-civilized species with natural habitats on multiple planets and migrations between them? If there’s not, I think that would be an interesting topic for next videos. That could show the biological diversity that we will possibly find in the future while our space explorations :)

What if information can travel instantly... but matter cant... for example if by employing quantum wierdness and entanglement and such... you can communicate instantly where ever... but you cant send anything that fast but have to go sub-light or near-light speeds. Would governing of Empire change ? I mean you can threaten, you can ostericize worlds or something like that... but you and they know you cant send an armada for next n years.

No classic human could conquer the galaxy. Sounds legit. We'd need some kind of God... Emperor... of Mankind FOR THE EMPRAH!!

Though not intended I keep think about Wathammer 40k.

This is the first time I have been this early. I love this channel, it gives me hope for the future.

All hail Galactic Emperor Isaac, first of his name, long may he rule in peace, prosperity, knowledge and wisdom, and long after, his heirs

A localized kilonova might take a system out. As for "why would any one (in this case meaning a government) send out colonies that could turn into enemies. That assumes a rather authoritarian outlook as it would be forbidding anyone with the capability or drive, to do so. That bring the argument around 180 to the opposite side of the table, not to why would they risk spawning enemies out there but why spawn enemies by forbidding them to leave in the first place. There are variations to that but revolutions have started over less.🤷‍♀️

ooooh another amazing video to cure my boredom!

This is one of my favorite channels. I thank you for it. Be well.

Thanks for making these videos man. Always fascinated by the evolution of government and how it evolves over time. As someone who enjoys writing it's always fun for me to write how fantasy or sci fi governments work.

Long post ahead, TLDR at bottom: My preferred logic for establishing a galactic (or nearly so) that makes sense is _fear._ Fear of extinction or a forced change in lifestyle or loss of control or whatever. I've used it myself in gaming and writing, and seen it a number of times - from a single alien species hell bent on wiping out all competition, to a handful of major alien races that all pose serious threats, to a galaxy just full of other aggressive races and you'd better beat them before they swarm all over you. Such sci-fi usually has different mechanics, though in another ironic example of closer to reality, expanding into the galaxy may be best represented in Warhammer 40K. Both early human exploration during the beginning of humanity's Golden Age using STL drives (before they got crazy high tech and later collapsed) to the current timeline where even FTL is slow as hell. It's more akin to the time it took to sail the globe in the 1400s until the modern age, complete with dangers, though crazier dark sci-fi ones. It took ages to get going, and now it takes smaller yet significant ages to just barely hold everything together. While their exploration phase was the more optimistic "Star Trek" method, the modern age is held together by religious fanaticism to a single god-like human ruler entity and the existential terror of all the nightmare races living across the galaxy, all of whom are hell-bent on devouring the Empire - and sometimes the humans themselves (which actually makes sense in some cases, especially the Tyranids). TLDR, having something existential but tangible to be afraid of is a _fantastic_ motivator to forge any empire - it worked for Rome after all - even across the galaxy and beyond.

Of course we would seed the galaxy with enemys, don't you know that there is no peace among the stars, only an eternity of carnage and slaughter, and the laughter of thirsting gods ?

The world is not enough , But its a good start :)

what is duty? to do the Emperor's will, what is the Emperor's will? that we fight and die, what is death? it is our duty!

Hears opening statement *laughs in great crusade*

Been waiting for stellar strip mining! I think it’s quite likely in a universe without FTL

5:27 I think predicting population growth on space colonies is a complex topic. It basically depends on how many children people choose to have and how long people live, but buried in those questions are things like how fast colonists can increase the carrying capacity of their colonies by making more habitats and power sources for themsrlves.

I always imagine If humans would be able to extend their lifespans indefinitely, travel times would mean less, what is a 100 year voyage to someone who lives tens of thousands of years?

Fill the stars with Mormons and you need not worry about distant family visits. lol

As far as the Imperium of Man goes, I like to think that they only colonized mostly habitable worlds around Class G stars. I mean statistically we'd still be looking at a hundred million or more potential worlds, but if we throw in all these filters like the Rare Earth, Rare Sun, and other factors then it is possible there is only a few million Earth like planets in the Milky Way. With the existence of FTL/Warp, perhaps they thought it easier and quicker to just colonize worlds with appropriate biomes as opposed to settling any arboreal worlds that aren't suited for human life or settling every star system in their proximity. There's also the possibility of most worlds being wiped out in the Age of Strife. Using the actual numbers of their hive worlds and what not, the current Imperium has quadrillions of people just across all their hive worlds alone. I imagine it's probably less than 1% of what the Federation had before the Men of Iron rebelled. Realistically probably .001 % or less. Warhammer 40k doesn't make much sense, but they are better at showcasing scale then most other Sci FI universes. In the case of Terra, they don't even know what their population is, but we can assume hundreds of trillions at the very least. Star Wars populations make no sense though. They can get anywhere in the galaxy in a week it seems, and they've had FTL for thousands of years...but we get numbers like millions and occasionally billions thrown around. Their population scale is also WAY OFF. Coruscant only has a trillion citizens supposedly and they make that out to be a big deal. Assuming it's the size of earth and even generously assuming that only 50% of the surface area has people living on it...then Coruscant should have WAY more. That's not even counting its supposed 5000 or so levels which we can assume are all city sized in their own right. Even using Earth's surface area of 510 million km^2 and multiplying it by the population density of Earth's densest city Manilla, which is 71,263 people per square km you get 36 trillion or so people. So if we assume Coruscant is the same size and take the 5000 levels into effect and sparingly assume it has a similar population density as Manilla (even though it would be way higher), then its population should be 181 quadrillion people...or 90.5 quadrillion if we assume half the planet doesn't have people actually living there.

FOR THE EMPEROR!! Conquer the Galaxy Series!! Let's Gooo!!

"A single leader everyone loves dreads respects and worships" Skeleton laugh intensifies

content getting better every video man

This is some Warhammer 40k stuff...long live The Emporer of Mankind

Assuming that we achieve interstellar travel I fail to see any economic resource beyond information that could be reliably traded between star systems other than in a few expections (1). And these rely on basically Clark tech. If we assume cheap easy interstellar travel is possible IMO we immediately run into the Fermi Paradox. If there is anyone out there there should be even odds that they are either at a higher level than us or at a lower. If FTL (2) is possible and is reasonably cheap and fast in terms of time and energy required a species could spread far and wide even if a major portion of them are stay at home types. So where are they (3) 1) The one of the few possible exceptions I can think of might be useful lifeforms. It would be a long time before a civilization occupying a solar system would reach the point where they would need to ship in material resources from another star. 2) What type of FTL is being discussed. If it is basically instantaneous between any two planetary surfaces (the Stargate Universe) than interplanetary trade really can make sense. If it is instantaneous but requires being in space via a worm hole (natural or artificial) that changes the possibilities. Luxury products might be possible but bulk items if they need to be lifted from the surface of a planet IMO would not make sense. And the instantaneous "wormhole" or jump type might have other conditions. If the wormhole could be fairly close or needs to distant changes things also. See Pournelle's Co-Dominium universe and the Alderson Drive. If the travel involves time spent in "hyper" what are the time frames. Days? Years? 3) Is any body out there? It's my personal opinion that yes there is. Issac has touched on a number of reasons aliens may have for their motivations. As to why we don't see any aliens or evidence of them. It could be time and distant. There could be a species with approximately the same tech level as us 10k light years away. And we would never know. Personally I think it boils down to a few options. Time and distance. Tech level. They may be stuck in their own neolithic for some reason. Local gravitational reasons. Say an intelligent species has evolved on a world with a surface gravity 5 times ours. Getting off planet with any chemical rocket to even start with sounds unlikely. Environmental factors. It may be the majority of worlds with life are water worlds of one type or another. Then there is the zoo or nature preserve idea. I don't put much stock in UFOs or tales of alien abductions. The aliens seem to be pretty dumb if they keep getting spotted. And if they really are abducting people why the need to put them back. Saying they are ethically bound to due so fails to account for why it is ethically acceptable to abduct a sentient being in the first place. But the idea that the Solar System may be off limits because of the primitives can only be proved or disproved by our becoming interstellar.

I'm drunk but got sobered quickly the moment i saw a notification from isaac arthur

Lightspeed Pizza Delivered before you order or it's free

I recall David Drakes "Redliners" had neurological augmentation and the various high level administrators had "upgrades" that forced them to be loyal to the government / empire, it was implied to not be a simple thing as only highly valuable individuals had those sorts of implants (which gave many advantages) so it was limited to people in command.

Honestly, it would be pretty epic to see a corporation going out empire-building in the galaxy.

The Imperium of Man!

Im imagining experiencing this video through my Nueralink, resting comfortably in my gel pod, staring out my window at the suns corona, which now extends to enclose Venus' orbit. All from the safety of our Ort Express living complex.