twoshots wrote:
I am well aware of the diversity of earth life, but it would take a mighty strange world for electromagnetic manipulation to be the way to go.
If you look at earth life, humans did not become what they were by chance. Many aspects of our evolution from mammality to sociality to tree climbing to upright walking have led up to us as a techno species in a way we should probably not expect any other animal too. Being technological is a distinctly human product; we should as much expect completely alien lifeforms to be technologically advanced as much as we should expect animals to fly which have no wings.
Yes but the universe is a big place. Even if one in a million planetary systems holds life, and one in a million of those holds technologically advanced life, then there are about a billion solar systems home to technologically advanced life.
In an environment where many things are ferromagnetic it makes sense that life could evolve to manipulate it. And how many of the planets in those billion solar systems would be rich in magnetite, lodestone and the like?
I think we will find the "mighty strange" to be common place. Just look at our solar system. Which planet is normal?