If I was trying to write hard scifi, I would use something I call the Whale Fall hypothesis for resolving the Fermi Paradox. The SEEDS of life are ready to sprout basically all over, but they require an unlikely gift of the universe to truly flourish, albeit temporarily.
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Maybe there is no objective reason for fossil fuel producing plants and algae to develop, maybe they often develop but most plants have the wrong kind of geological activity to have large carbonaceous deposits in the same way, in either case, no spacefaring civ develops.
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Maybe real technological civilization requires so much primer to ignite that it can only start after a planet has had life for billions of years building up fuel deposits.
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Replying to @drethelin
Yeah, it is evident that intelligence can carry your civilization pretty far given a friendly enough environment, but wonder how we move to industrialization if plentiful, accessible and readily usable fuel isn't present. Can you get to internal combustion using just whale oil?
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Replying to @thepiclord @drethelin
you can get internal combustion using trees https://www.driveonwood.com/library/fema-gasifier/ …
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Replying to @MorlockP @drethelin
And me being ignorant of the engineering here, does this require any intermediate steps or technology that cannot be achieved with steam power? Like, do you have to first have internal combustion then 'go back' to this tech? Clearcutting forests for biofuel could kinda work.
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In Anathem, which has seen civilization rise and fall a dozen times, there are passing references to "forests of fueltrees"
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