Sapiocene

Period in a planet’s history when the impacts of intelligent beings living on it become significant.

Most commonly discussed with regards to homeworlds, where the near-universal tendency is a species’ technological rise causing widespread devastation of its biosphere and in some cases irreversible collapse of high-energy civilization.

Only a handful of exceptions are known, such as the extremely cooperative Baharn, the Quassep (whose psychology favors careful, measured growth in response to their homeworld’s harsh environment), and the Chaydrans, who endured a period of eco-totalitarianism enforced with atomic weapons.

For most other species, the incentives for growth in resource extraction and energy production are simply too strong for ecological concerns to overwhelm them until disaster forces change. (And even then, some persist in folly to the end.) Xenologists consider this a large part of the conflict every species faces between its inherited instincts and advanced technology.

/*Period in a planet's history when the impacts of intelligent beings living on it become significant.

Sapiocene periods are most commonly discussed in association with homeworlds, since colony planets often have to be terraformed and thus have no past history of complex life before the arrival of intelligence. For most species, the rise to technological civilization results in widespread devastation of the biosphere as resources are extracted and industry built to fuel expansion.*/