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The implication is that is the star system had potentially been artificially modified or even designed. Any entity capable of performing such a feat that must logically possess advanced technology. That's all.



If they had any real intelligence, they would keep quiet about it!


Makes me think about the blunder from the first season of Star Trek: Picard. A mysterious, unknown star system, hidden deep in Romulan space[0], with 8 stars and a habitable-ish planet suspended in the middle. Clearly engineered. But I can't imagine how it could stay hidden; I'd expect it to stick out like a sore thumb from across the galaxy on any star survey, even with present-day telescopes...

--

[0] - An antagonist space empire in the franchise.


(Haven't seen it)

Engineered when? Just because they can send information and travel faster than light doesn't mean that the light from there has reached federation space. A survey would have to have been done nearby to see it


Fair point. Unfortunately, the lore says 200-300k years ago, which is enough time for information about it to cross the galaxy 2-3 times.

https://memory-alpha.fandom.com/wiki/Eightfold_Stars

Now, while it's quite away from the Federation, the system sits in or close to Romulan space, so it makes zero sense for it to be a mystery that only the secret police inside the secret police of the Romulan Star Empire knows about it. I mean, it's like suppressing the existence of Mount Everest from citizens of Nepal. I can't imagine how strong the intelligence/counterintelligence apparatus would have to be to actually pull it off, given most people in that country can probably see it with their bare eyes on most days.

(And of course this only matters for real-life telescopes; Star Trek sensors work FTL (except when it would have inconvenient consequences)).


See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dark_forest_hypothesis and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Killing_Star

If they are brave they might build something like that in order to attract attention, it is starting to look feasible to not just inspect solar systems in detail but to send and receive messages using methods like

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_gravitational_lens


There is no stealth in space. The Dark Forest makes little sense.


Seems like they're missing something, eh?




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