Sky Curtain: The Darwin Incident at the outset, the Declaration of the People's League

In the image, a beam of light precisely strikes a distant point of light.

There was no explosion or fire; as is well known, sound cannot travel through a vacuum.

The lights and electricity on the screen simply went out quietly.

It vanished, as if it had never existed.

Destruction is never caused by doing anything wrong, nor by actively provoking or deliberately threatening the other party in the slightest.

The primary concern of all civilizations is always their own survival and reproduction, and your very existence is an inherent potential threat to all other civilizations.

To reiterate, it has nothing to do with good or evil, gratitude or resentment; it's simply because you are alive, your existence makes the other person restless and unable to eat or sleep.

Your future holds limitless possibilities, but to others it represents endless unknowns and fear.

[Your potential for civilizational development is, in the eyes of other hunters, nothing more than a cold grave to bury themselves.]

The entire universe is like a boundless, dark forest.

Every surviving civilization is a stealthy hunter, armed with a rifle and always on guard.

Conceal your true self, hold your breath, hide your sharpness, and always maintain extreme vigilance and preparedness.

In every corner of this dark forest, beneath every shadow, lurks a hunter just like yourself, wielding a weapon and waiting for his chance to strike.

Regardless of whether the extraterrestrial life you discover is strong or weak, benevolent or malevolent, whether it is recuperating or developing its strength, whether it is hostile or threatening, as a hunter, there is only one thing you can do from beginning to end.

[Fire decisively]

[Eliminate it completely]

In the dark depths of space, a hunter hidden in the shadows slowly raises his arm, his gun steadily locking onto a faint glimmer of light in the distant darkness. His movements are composed, his eyes are cold, and there is no hesitation whatsoever.

With a gentle pull of the trigger, a cold beam of light pierced the deathly silence, traversing billions of light-years in an instant.

The glimmer of light vanished in an instant, and darkness returned as before.

It's a metaphor, but it clearly expresses everything.

In this dark forest devoid of warmth and kindness, others are hell, and others are a constant, deadly threat.

Any life form or civilization that dares to expose its existence will be instantly locked on and swiftly eliminated. This is an immutable law of the universe, which no one can shake or be exempt from.

This is the most realistic and brutal picture of the underlying reality of civilization in this universe.

The Dark Forest

It is precisely because this law is eternally in effect that the entire universe remains perpetually silent and lifeless.

[Seemingly spacious and peaceful, but actually turbulent undercurrents]

Every civilization is trapped day and night in an endless fear of discovering others and being discovered, unable to find peace in its struggle for survival, and its existence is never a tranquil day.

"This hypothesis... is very interesting, but isn't something wrong with it? Isn't it too gloomy? How could the universe be like this?"

In an instant, the reactions from various worlds were quite interesting.

Because considering the circumstances of their own world, this conjecture is simply not valid.

Why would someone make this assumption?

Was the description of the sky screen incomplete?

The next second, the sky began to fill in the content.

But some people ask: Does this rule really hold true? Are there any prerequisites?

The answer is: Yes.

And there's more than one.

For the Dark Forest Theory to hold true, the following prerequisites must be met simultaneously; none can be omitted.

The text on the celestial screen began to unfold line by line, each marked with a serial number in large gilded characters and accompanied by a detailed explanation below.

First and foremost, and most importantly, is the physical foundation upon which all the aforementioned premises can truly be realized.

Speed ​​of light limit

In other words, the maximum speed cannot exceed the speed of light.

Why is the speed of light limit so important?

There are three reasons.

First, it inevitably causes delays in information transmission.

The friendly signals you send may take years, decades, or even centuries to reach the recipient; and their response will take just as long to arrive.

During such a long wait, the chain of suspicion cannot be broken in time, and you cannot confirm whether the other party has posed a threat to you during the waiting period.

Second, it makes real-time monitoring impossible.

Due to the speed of light limitation, you can only ever see the other person's "past," not their "present."

You don't know if the other party has experienced a technological breakthrough or suddenly become more powerful than you during this information delay. This information lag amplifies suspicion and fear.

Third, it makes escape impossible—or rather, it greatly reduces the possibility of escape.

Even if a civilization's location is revealed, it cannot escape instantly because faster-than-light travel does not exist. The hunter can safely pull the trigger—after all, the prey cannot get away.

[Second point: There are enough civilizations in the universe]

This is not nonsense.

If the density of civilizations is too low, with only a handful in the Milky Way, and they live and die without ever interacting with each other, then the Dark Forest theory becomes meaningless.

Since you'll never encounter anyone else, you won't need to worry about being hunted.

However, in the original setting, the density of civilizations in the universe is extremely high, and "the universe may already be full."

This is precisely why hunters and prey can meet.

The speed of light limit makes encounters difficult, but high density makes them inevitable—these two factors together create the tension within the dark forest.

[Third principle: The primary goal of every civilization is survival.]

Sounds obvious? Actually, it isn't.

"Survival is the first necessity"—this means that civilization may abandon anything else for survival, including morality, kindness, empathy, and even the pursuit of "becoming a more advanced civilization."

If a civilization is willing to die in order to "remain good," the Dark Forest theory has no effect on it.

However, the prevailing opinion in this universe is that such a civilization does not exist.

Because no civilization is willing to gamble the survival of its entire population on the other party's goodwill.

[Furthermore, note that this is also a deliberately set logical starting point.]

He deliberately framed it as an "axiomine" rather than a "verifiable fact."

Because if even this doesn't hold true, then the entire sociology of the universe is meaningless.

[Article 4: The total amount of matter in the universe remains constant, and resources are finite.]

This is the fundamental reason why civilizations inevitably compete.

If resources were unlimited, there would be no need for civilizations to fight to the death; "each to their own" would be perfectly feasible.

Unfortunately, the universe isn't an infinite cake.

More precisely: on a visible cosmic scale, resources are finite.

[Note: What is limited is resources, not living space]

If you expand, I will be forced to contract.

Limited resources leading to expansion inevitably result in conflict, and conflict breeds suspicion.

This is the complete logical chain.

[Fifth: The chain of suspicion cannot be broken]

This is the most crucial and unavoidable premise of the Dark Forest theory.

The essence of the chain of suspicion: You cannot prove you are acting in good faith, and he cannot prove he is acting in good faith either.

Even if you can prove it, he cannot confirm that your proof is true.

Even if you confirm that he has confirmed it, he still can't be sure if you've kept a backup plan...

This chain has no logical end.

On Earth, because of shared species backgrounds, similar cultures, and close proximity, suspicion can be dispelled through communication after extending one or two layers.

However, in the universe, the vast distances in space and time and the differences between species cause the chain of suspicion to extend infinitely.

Therefore, communication won't work, and silence won't work either.

The only remaining option is to shoot.

[Article Six: Technological Explosion Really Exists]

This is key to including "weaker civilizations" within the scope of the threat.

If the development of civilization is linear and predictable, then the strong can confidently "dominate" the weak—after all, you'll never catch up with me.

However, the problem is that technological development is non-linear.

It took humanity tens of thousands of years to go from primitive society to feudal society, only a few hundred years to go from feudal society to modern society, and just over a hundred years to go from the steam engine to the smartphone.

This acceleration means that the "bugs" you look down on today may develop weapons more powerful than yours tomorrow.

Therefore, even an infantile civilization must be nipped in the bud.

[Article 7: The cost of destroying a discovered civilization is low enough and safe enough.]

This is a prerequisite for practical operation.

If attacking a distant civilization requires enormous resources or risks backlash, then "firing" in the Dark Forest is not "the only option."

[Key point: The speed of light limit plays a crucial role here]

Because of the light speed barrier, civilizations that are attacked don't have time to retaliate, and those that are destroyed cannot escape.

Without the speed of light limitation, the Dark Forest would be completely overturned.

[Article 8: Civilization cannot be effectively hidden – “Exposure means discovery”]