>I’m also not sure why we’d care so much about leaving a planet - we’re desperately looking for any sign of life which would be a momentous discovery in and of itself.
Just finding alien plant life somewhere would be a momentous discovery, but that's still nothing like finding an alien civilization that we can communicate with, trade with, etc. One doesn't diminish the other.
Alien orcas (probably) can't leave their planet, or really establish much of a technological civilization. So they'd be interesting to observe, just like alien plants or alien mice, but that just isn't the same kind of thing as interacting with an alien civilization.
>No reason to believe that an alien Orca with thumbs couldn’t eventually accomplish the things we did without ever leaving the water.
How so? How exactly are the alien orcas going to get out of the water to outcompete intelligent creatures on the land? Building any kind of technology in an aquatic environment would be incredibly difficult, if it's possible at all; if there's intelligent creatures on dry land, they'll have an automatic advantage. Sure, the alien orcas with hands and thumbs would have a much better chance than Earthly orcas that don't, but still, how do you, for instance, build a gun when you're an aquatic species? On dry land, it's really not that hard. Even smelting metals seems rather impossible underwater.
> not because there’s some underlying scientific reasoning going on.
Scientific reasoning wasn't the intention, but the idea that aquatic aliens have as much ability to build rockets and spaceships as land-based aliens is pure fantasy. The laws of physics don't change on other planets.
Just finding alien plant life somewhere would be a momentous discovery, but that's still nothing like finding an alien civilization that we can communicate with, trade with, etc. One doesn't diminish the other.
Alien orcas (probably) can't leave their planet, or really establish much of a technological civilization. So they'd be interesting to observe, just like alien plants or alien mice, but that just isn't the same kind of thing as interacting with an alien civilization.
>No reason to believe that an alien Orca with thumbs couldn’t eventually accomplish the things we did without ever leaving the water.
How so? How exactly are the alien orcas going to get out of the water to outcompete intelligent creatures on the land? Building any kind of technology in an aquatic environment would be incredibly difficult, if it's possible at all; if there's intelligent creatures on dry land, they'll have an automatic advantage. Sure, the alien orcas with hands and thumbs would have a much better chance than Earthly orcas that don't, but still, how do you, for instance, build a gun when you're an aquatic species? On dry land, it's really not that hard. Even smelting metals seems rather impossible underwater.
> not because there’s some underlying scientific reasoning going on.
Scientific reasoning wasn't the intention, but the idea that aquatic aliens have as much ability to build rockets and spaceships as land-based aliens is pure fantasy. The laws of physics don't change on other planets.