[revolvingocelot]

I find the framing "break the laws of physics" to be curious. Does that mean the Newtonian laws of physics, which are enough to launch rockets but not enough to create the GPS network? General relativity is enough to create the GPS network, but not travel faster than light or connect two points in space without the intervening distance or whatever.

It's fallacious to presume that we -- or any other species -- will automagically find ways to beat the lightspeed barrier, but it's also hubris to presume that our current understanding is the most "correct" that it can be. Could there be some new sea change in our understanding of the world, that allows for things general relativity considers impossible or incoherent?

My understanding of the "peaceful zen wizards" trope was that if you've got the technology to cross the unimaginably big [0] gulfs between stars, let alone the gulfs between inhabited stars, you concomitantly no longer want for resources or territory in any way that civilizations of our Kardashev type [1] understand them. What's the point of belligerence, culturally, [2] at that point? And if you do want territory and mining and extraction and whatever, why not use a combinatorial explosion of Von Neumann machines? The only reason to send actual people would be to say hello to the locals and look around.

[0] cf. Douglas Adams' intro to THGttG

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kardashev_scale

[2] I acknowledge that humans are genetically belligerent, but we can just choose not to be, especially in conditions of plenty. The fight is close, but culture ultimately beats genetics. I present, by way of example, the condom.