re: #197 Hecuba’s daughter

Plenty of examples here on earth: the Greeks and the Romans both were advanced, but imploded or were overrun by barbarians. The Mayan civilization was doomed by climate change. And the dinosaurs were wiped out by an asteroid. So there are a host of scenarios under which our civilization can be wiped off the face of the earth: internal violence, plague, an uncontrolled Chernobyl, etc.

The Greeks were overrun by Romans (barbarians? dunno), and current thinking is that the Romans became vulnerable because of waves of plagues. Their civilization wasn’t wiped off the face of the earth, although it suffered a major setback. The Mayans were probably done in by overpopulation — with no way to import or export food (no domestic animals), they had no choice but to starve in place. But their descendents are still around.