Aurora

by Kim Stanley Robinson

You couldn’t stop me with twenty years of fusion bombs going off twice a second!”

So, you know, Fermi’s paradox has its answer, which is this: by the time life gets smart enough to leave its planet, it’s too smart to want to go. Because it knows it won’t work. So it stays home. It enjoys its home.

Your earthly landfall, and no ship exists To take you from yourself. Ah! Don’t you see Just as you’ve ruined your life in this One plot of ground you’ve ruined its worth Everywhere now – over the whole Earth?”