[bluestarultor]

@ lion: Really, though, you do have to think of this. Either there is other life in our nearly-endless universe or there isn't. Either way, it's mindblowing.

I personally think that life is nothing special. I mean, it's special enough to be alive, but statistically speaking, we're on a planet orbiting a medium-sized star that's really not unique in any way and just happen to be in a band where life as we know it is supported, and that band is, quite frankly, a lot wider than people give it credit for. If it weren't for the terrible conditions, life probably could develop on Venus. Some say even a planet similar to Mars. Mars loses out a lot due to its thin atmosphere, really. Pump in enough greenhouse gas and give it a magnetic field so solar wind doesn't constantly blow it away and you're set, speaking entirely out of my ass.

On the other hand, another thing I think is necessary for life, for obvious reasons, is an ecosystem, and in an ecosystem, you will likely always have the basic three items of:
1. organisms who collect energy from outside sources (plants, algae, etc.),
2. things that eat those (cows, fungus, etc.), and
3. things that eat those (humans, wolves, etc.).

That's a basic ecology right there. It's nice to THINK that maybe there's only one and you'll have intelligent plants running around (literally or not), but when you consider that resources are limited in terms of light, heat, etc., it makes sense for some to go cannibal somehow, or at least grow bigger to hog the resources. Out of any scenario, an all-plant world is second-most likely, but once you get herbivores in there, competition over resources is pretty much going to demand some of them start eating each other.

Once you get predators in the mix, you get predatory competition and the basis of war. Simply put, if any alien race is fully peaceful, they'll have had eons to transcend that somehow. Eons in which they'll develop technology beyond our comprehension, for better or worse.