The Great Filter

lmao idk what picture to put here

Introduction:

The great filter is a natural law governing the development of sapient life that serves as the direct answer to the ancient Fermi Paradox. The great filter states that all sapient life is destined to go extinct before interstellar travel is developed, preventing the species from establishing a foothold in the galaxy and permanently avoiding extinction. While this law has been observed in effect in thousands of seperate occasions, one way to bypass the great filter has also been observed: any amount of outside influence on a sapient species can throw off the balance of the great filter and allow them to achieve interstellar travel.

Discovery:

The Fermi Paradox was first created in the very early Ancient Precursor Era to try to rationalize why the Empire had met no alien species apart from the Trebians, a species that they knew to be artificially created by one of the Old Gods. While the paradox was mostly abandoned after the Empire made contact with The Reckoning and the United Trel Combine, it become relevent again once the nations of the Founder Galaxy began to explore other galaxies. Every explorer discovered the same thing: all sapient species discovered in other galaxies had yet to leave their home system, and the ruins of dead civilizations were not uncommon to discover. This once again made the Fermi Paradox relevent, as scientists struggled to understand what made the Founder Galaxy unique.
While the early Empire uplifted several sapient species, the passing of the first Cultural Contamination Act led to an age where primitive planets were to be completely left alone. To the scientific community's surprise, every primitive planet in the Founder Galaxy that reached sufficient advancement drove themselves to extinction. This led to the Cultural Contamination Act being repealed, but provided some answers: the Founder Galaxy itself was not unique for having spacefaring life, but something the already spacefaring civilizations were doing allowed primitive societies to survive. This led to a period of experimentation on primitive worlds, in a desperate attempt to understant this "great filter."
During the early High Precursor Era, the scientific commmunity had agreed that any amount of outside influence was able to help a planet bypass the great filter. This was concluded after observations of planets influenced by the Empire, Super-Aberrant Megafauna, and other cilizations had nearly all survived. The last piece of evidence to support this theory emerged during the Second Cataclysm, when the genocide commited by the Great Old Ones led to millions of planets developing space travel in order to escape their demise.

Current Effects:

While the numer of primitive planets in the galaxy is steadily approaching zero, the remaining planets are heaviy protected by the modern Cultural Contamination Act. While this act prevents any alien influcence on the planet, one exception is made: the Empire can subtly intervene to prevent deadly incidents such as nuclear war. This allows primitive planets to develope indepentently, while still avoiding the great filter.

Type

Natural