All the planetsis there science behind planetary minds?

Bees, ants and brain-to-brain interfaces show real collective decisions. The science and exoplanet discoveries behind the Cosmos Era ending “All the planets”.

Could a group of planets think together? The closest real examples are very small. Collective decision-making in bee and ant colonies is real, and brain-to-brain interfaces have already let three people cooperate on a simple task. A planetary mind spanning the universe is fiction. The game's ending “All the planets” scales these two small real examples up to the size of a galaxy, and adds a sober reminder: at the speed of light, a thought spanning a galaxy takes 100,000 years to cross it.

This page first explains how to unlock the ending, then covers what the “Cosmic mind” node means and its physical limits. After that it lists where the planets in the album come from, namely related discoveries in planetary science, and finally two related novels.

How to unlock it

Hint: Your album keeps getting thicker. What if those planets could think together...
Condition: Have at least 30 planets in the album, unlock “Cosmic mind”, then witness the end of the universe.
Reward: Opens two fate nodes in the Information constellation: “Recursion” and “Seeing the Observer”.

The ending belongs to the Mind category. The “Cosmic mind” node links the minds of many planets together. At the speed of light, a thought spanning a galaxy takes 100,000 years to travel, so it would be the slowest and largest thought in the universe. The in-game description says the album holds many planets, and all of them have been seen by the same pair of eyes.

Real science: groups can make decisions

Bee and ant colonies have no "commander", yet they make collective decisions. This is a real phenomenon in biology. Brain-to-brain interfaces are a technical step: they have already let three people cooperate on a simple task. But both examples are still very far from "a planet that is conscious", so the latter is only fiction.

Where the planets in the album come from

The planets in the album correspond to several major discoveries in planetary science.

The first exoplanet: A giant planet was found around 51 Pegasi, circling its star in just 4 days. The Solar System was no longer the only one. The discoverers won the 2019 Nobel Prize (Mayor and Queloz, Nature, 1995).
Kepler: The Kepler telescope stared at one patch of sky and looked for new worlds by the faint dimming when planets pass in front of their stars. It later found thousands (Borucki et al., Science, 2010).
Seven temperate planets: Seven Earth-sized planets crowd around a small red dwarf, and several of them may have liquid water (Gillon et al., Nature, 2017).
The Gaia star map: The Gaia satellite measured the positions and motions of over a billion stars and drew the most detailed 3D map of the Milky Way (Gaia Collaboration, Astronomy & Astrophysics, 2018).
The birth of the Moon: Computer simulations showed that a Mars-sized body struck Earth at an angle and the debris coalesced into the Moon (Canup and Asphaug, Nature, 2001).
Jupiter's grand tack: Jupiter once migrated inward and was then "pulled back" by Saturn, eating up the raw material for Mars on the way. That is why Mars is so small (Walsh et al., Nature, 2011).
The Nice model: A violent rearrangement of the giant planets' orbits flung many small bodies into the inner Solar System and caused the Late Heavy Bombardment (Gomes, Levison, Tsiganis and Morbidelli, Nature, 2005).

These are real studies related to the theme of "planets". They are not evidence that planets can think. Also, the study of the fate of the universe trillions of years from now and beyond (Adams and Laughlin, Reviews of Modern Physics, 1997) connects to this ending because unlocking it requires witnessing the end of the universe.

Game lore, not real

"A planetary mind spanning the universe" is fiction. The Cosmic mind node in the game is only an idea for stringing together the planets in your album.

Childhood's End (Arthur C. Clarke, 1953): The zoo hypothesis (Ball, 1973) holds that alien civilizations may be deliberately avoiding us, one of the proposed answers to the Fermi paradox. In the novel, alien "Overlords" suddenly arrive and bring humanity peace and prosperity, while actually waiting for the next generation of humans to become something far beyond individuals.
Star Maker (Olaf Stapledon, 1937): The physicist Freeman Dyson said explicitly that the 1960 idea of the "Dyson sphere" came from this book. In the novel, one man's mind leaves his body, travels through countless galaxies and civilizations, and finally meets the "Star Maker" who created the universe, along with each of the universes it has made.

Want to read the originals? Search these titles

Mayor and Queloz (1995): "A Jupiter-mass companion to a solar-type star"
Borucki et al. (2010): "Kepler planet-detection mission: introduction and first results"
Gillon et al. (2017): "Seven temperate terrestrial planets around the nearby ultracool dwarf star TRAPPIST-1"
Gaia Collaboration (2018): "Gaia Data Release 2. Summary of the contents and survey properties"

Real basis

Collective decision-making really exists in bee and ant colonies; brain-to-brain interfaces can already let three people cooperate on a simple task.
Cosmic mind: Link the minds of many planets together. At light speed, a thought spanning a galaxy takes 100,000 years to cross it, so it would be the slowest and also the largest thought in the universe.
Childhood’s End (Arthur C. Clarke, 1953), the science: the zoo hypothesis (Ball 1973) holds that alien civilizations might be deliberately avoiding us, one explanation of the Fermi paradox.
Star Maker (Olaf Stapledon, 1937), the science: the physicist Dyson said explicitly that his 1960 idea of the “Dyson sphere” came from this book.

Related research

These studies relate to this topic but are not direct proof of this page.

Gaia star map: The Gaia satellite measured the positions and motions of over a billion stars, producing the most detailed 3D map of the Milky Way.
Source: Gaia Collaboration, Astronomy & Astrophysics 2018, "Gaia Data Release 2. Summary of the contents and survey properties"
The first exoplanet: A giant planet was found around 51 Pegasi, circling its star in 4 days. The solar system was no longer unique. Nobel Prize 2019.
Source: Mayor & Queloz, Nature 1995, "A Jupiter-mass companion to a solar-type star"
Birth of the Moon: Computer simulations show a Mars-sized body hit Earth at a slant, and the debris came together to form the Moon.
Source: Canup & Asphaug, Nature 2001, "Origin of the Moon in a giant impact near the end of the Earth's formation"
The Nice model: A violent reshuffling of the giant planets' orbits flung many small bodies into the inner solar system, causing the Late Heavy Bombardment.
Source: Gomes, Levison, Tsiganis & Morbidelli, Nature 2005, "Origin of the cataclysmic Late Heavy Bombardment period of the terrestrial planets"
Jupiter's Grand Tack: Jupiter once migrated inward and was “pulled back” by Saturn, eating Mars's raw material on the way, which is why Mars is so small.
Source: Walsh et al., Nature 2011, "A low mass for Mars from Jupiter's early gas-driven migration"
Seven temperate planets: Seven Earth-sized planets crowd around a small red dwarf, and several may have liquid water.
Source: Gillon et al., Nature 2017, "Seven temperate terrestrial planets around the nearby ultracool dwarf star TRAPPIST-1"
Kepler: The Kepler telescope stared at one patch of sky and looked for new worlds by the faint dimming when planets transit, eventually finding thousands.
Source: Borucki et al., Science 2010, "Kepler planet-detection mission: introduction and first results"
The last chapter of the universe: Worked out the fate of the universe over trillions of years and beyond: stars go out, protons perhaps decay, and black holes finally evaporate.
Source: Adams & Laughlin, Reviews of Modern Physics 1997, "A dying universe: the long-term fate and evolution of astrophysical objects"

Game lore (fictional)

A planetary consciousness spanning the universe is fiction.
At the speed of light, a single thought spanning a galaxy takes 100,000 years to travel.
Node “Cosmic mind”: Your album holds many planets. All of them have been seen by the same pair of eyes.
Summary of the novel Childhood’s End: A group of alien “Overlords” suddenly arrive and bring humanity peace and prosperity. They are in fact waiting for the next generation of humans to become something far beyond individuals.
Summary of the novel Star Maker: One man’s mind leaves his body and passes through countless galaxies and civilizations, finally meeting the “Star Maker” who created the universe, and the universes it made one after another.

See it in the game