How would advanced aliens protect themselves from idiots with FTL?
Faster than light travel is Dangerous with a capital D.
The main reason for this is because by the time you see something, you've already smashed into it and vaporised yourself, the target and any unfortunates in the general vicinity, as well as releasing all those crazy science particles inside the fuel tanks which could react in new and devastating ways depending on what you hit.
Smart aliens let computers work out the timing and control the engines to make sure this doesn't happen, but the Dum-d'uums have just bought their first FTL engine from some passing space merchants, and unfortunately they aren't patient enough to configure the computer before trying out their new toy.
The nearest inhabited planet to the Dum-d'uums' is called Switzerland (it's just a coincidence) and they are a ridiculously peaceful and scientifically advanced race who heard about the deal and just know that the Dum-d'uums are going to mess up their space lawn.
How would the Swiss protect themselves from a FTL impact without breaking their moral code and resorting to the obvious (to us evil non-Swiss, anyway) answers of 'sabotage their space program' or 'force field protection grid so the crash isn't near our stuff'?
This post was sourced from https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/q/14709. It is licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0.
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