Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10.3 4.3bsd-beta 6/6/85; site topaz.RUTGERS.EDU Path: utzoo!linus!philabs!cmcl2!seismo!columbia!topaz!SBALZAC%YKTVMX.BITNET From: SBALZAC%YKTVMX.BITNET@Berkeley Newsgroups: net.sf-lovers Subject: aliens Message-ID: <3162@topaz.RUTGERS.EDU> Date: Wed, 7-Aug-85 11:29:30 EDT Article-I.D.: topaz.3162 Posted: Wed Aug 7 11:29:30 1985 Date-Received: Sat, 10-Aug-85 21:56:43 EDT Sender: daemon@topaz.RUTGERS.EDU Organization: Rutgers Univ., New Brunswick, N.J. Lines: 27 From: Stephen Balzac>Remember the classic SF short that theorized that detecting which >stars had habitable planets was such a trick that one extremely >advanced civilization never found it and finally just died out since >there was no point wandering over those vast distances just to find >a habitable world. I believe they actually sent out a few scouts >but gave up when none of them found anything. The plot involves a >less advanced race that had stumbled on the secret trying to figure >out what happened to this dead race by reviving individuals from >their remains and quizzing them. >This seems so likely (except it probably isn't possibile to detect >which systems are worth visiting, not merely hard) that I don't find >it the least bit surprising that we haven't been visited. The story is called Resurrection by A E Van Vogt. The advanced race is humanity, which gets wiped out by a nucleonic storm since they hadn't been able to find any place to go when the storm came (don't worry, I'm not giving away anything important). The other race was the Ganae, and they did resurrect people on Earth, hence the title. The story is excellent and can be found, for those who are interested, in Damon Knight's "Toward Infinity", or Robert Silverberg's "Strangers in the Universe"