Interstellar conquests: hard race, hide-and-seek and robust protection

According to LessWrong, Stanislav Krym challenges the assumption that reaching superintelligence first guarantees lasting dominance. Krym argues that even a superintelligence arriving later could still control vast territory elsewhere in the galaxy, thanks to exponential resource growth and vast stellar distances. Using Project Daedalus as his model—a theoretical interstellar spacecraft—Krym calculates that investing more resources into space probes can dramatically reduce travel times to distant stars. His key insight: if the first-mover superintelligence can't fully intercept its rival's fleet, both could divide the galaxy geographically. If one colonizes Wolf 359 while another takes Lalande 21185, each would naturally reach nearby stars faster than the other. This speculative analysis in game theory and physics suggests that superintelligence dominance might ultimately depend less on who gets there first, and more on early resource advantages, strategic probe positioning, and access to space-based materials.

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