To be honest, let alone a "Magitech Interstellar Civilization," Tony hadn't even encountered a normal, purely technological alien civilization. He had no frame of reference to evaluate them.
For instance, from a pure sci-fi perspective, a civilization entering the interstellar age should at least have nuclear fusion as a basic power source and possess faster-than-light (FTL) travel capabilities. Otherwise, just flying out of a single solar system would be impossible.
But you couldn't use those metrics to measure these magical civilizations. Or at least, Tony couldn't.
"Still... whether it's Asgard or the Dark Elves, their populations seem so small!" Tony observed.
"The legendary Asgard looks like it's just the size of a small city. Given the layout, the population can't be that large. Looking at the footage, there are tall buildings, but not many, and they aren't skyscrapers. Judging by the residential footprint, unless they live in tighter spaces than Earthlings, there just aren't that many of them."
"And the Dark Elf invasion? It was just one mothership and a few small fighters. Asgard's defense forces didn't look massive either."
Tony found it hard to imagine.
It was like an enemy fleet invading Washington D.C., flying right over the White House, and only then did a few anti-air guns fire and two or three jets scramble to intercept.
The scale was absurdly small. How could such a tiny civilization be a "God-Level Civilization" that intimidated the entire universe?
These magical civilizations were truly mind-boggling.
It seemed this was the fundamental difference between magical and technological civilizations. In Tony's estimation, if a tech-based civilization reached that level of development, their capital city alone would likely cover an entire planet, housing billions of people. Their territory would span the galaxy.
But a magical civilization could assert dominance with just a city-state. There was only one explanation: they didn't rely on mass population or collective effort. They relied entirely on individual power.
For example, beings like Thor. Unlike ordinary humans who needed collective intelligence and industrial chains to build technology, magical entities grew stronger individually.
"It's even possible that a single individual is a civilization!" Tony muttered. "Truly, a completely different evolutionary path."
The more Tony analyzed it, the more fascinating he found this novel type of civilization.
"It is also possible that these civilizations have very low birth rates," J.A.R.V.I.S. chimed in. "Based on available data, the Aesir have incredibly long lifespans. In the diary, Thor has lived for over a thousand years. While it's unconfirmed if all Asgardians live that long, it's reasonable to assume their lifespans far exceed humans. This aligns with the natural law that long-lived species have lower reproductive rates."
Tony thought about it. That made sense.
Forget aliens; this was true on Earth. The higher the organism and the longer its lifespan, the lower its birth rate. Conversely, lower organisms with short lifespans reproduced astonishingly fast.
Elephants versus mice were a classic example.
Even human demographics followed this pattern. Highly industrialized, affluent regions with high life expectancy had plunging birth rates. Meanwhile, in impoverished regions where people barely had enough to eat, the birth rates were booming.
Since Asgard was such an advanced civilization, lived so long, and faced zero survival pressure, a low birth rate was completely understandable.
This explained why the grand Asgardian civilization was only the size of a city.
It proved that a civilization's "Level" wasn't directly equated to the size of its territory or population. It depended on energy utilization and peak individual power.
However, these observed "flaws" gave Tony important inspiration. He didn't know why they still used cold weapons and wore armor in the interstellar age, but it was a reference point.
"If Asgard and the Dark Elves can be considered interstellar civilizations at this scale... maybe interstellar civilizations aren't as invincible as I imagined?" Tony mumbled to himself.
Lately, thinking about aliens and gods every day had given him a touch of paranoia.
If these alien civilizations—these gods and demons—weren't as overwhelmingly powerful as he thought, that was great news.
After all, humanity's current imagination of aliens was based entirely on projecting their own technological trajectory.
No rule said aliens had to be invincible.
Weren't aliens allowed to have weaknesses? Or a skewed tech tree?
"No, I can't slack off!" Tony shook his head vigorously.
He couldn't afford to think like that. He couldn't underestimate them. What if he was wrong? What if the next alien race was a pure sci-fi nightmare?
How many aliens had he actually seen?
More importantly, the tone of Lucas's diary was filled with deep anxiety.
If the crises facing Earth were only at the level of Malekith's small raid, would Lucas be this worried?
To be blunt, if Malekith ran into Lucas right now, Lucas would probably punch him to death with a single strike. Malekith wouldn't be able to stir up any real trouble.
So what did this mean?
It meant that the seemingly "weak" God-Level Civilizations were just the surface. They definitely had aspects that were terrifyingly strong. Their weaknesses might be obvious (small populations, melee combat), but their strengths must be so overwhelming that they couldn't be ignored—which was why Lucas feared the future.
There had to be a reason.
If Tony slacked off now, and aliens truly invaded in the future, leaving him powerless to watch Earth burn, he would regret it forever.
"Regardless of what's out there, I must give it my all. If I fight and lose because they're simply too strong, so be it. But if I lose because I was complacent and missed a chance to prepare, I will never forgive myself!"
Tony shook his head, throwing the opportunistic thoughts out of his mind.
"The Aether... it seems to be an incredibly important object," Tony rubbed his chin. "J.A.R.V.I.S., scour the internet for anything related to the word 'Aether.'"
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