Foundation’s Fear

Galactic prehistory-…the destruction of all earlier records during the expansion of humanity through the Galaxy, with the attendant eras of warfare, leaves in shadow the entire problem of human origins., The enormous changes wrought on so many worlds also erased any evidence for much older, alien civilizations. These societies may have existed, though thereis no firm evidence for them. Some early historians believed that at least one type of remnant might have survived in the Galaxy: the electromagnetic records. These would have to be lodged in plasma streams or the coronal loops of stars, and thus lie beyond the detection of Expansionist technology. Even modem studies have found no such sentient structures. However, the virulent radiation levels at the Galactic core-where energy densities might promise an hospitable abode for magnetically based forms-make such investigations difficult and ambiguous. Another theory holds that cultures might have “written” themselves into pre-Empire computer codes, and thus now reside undetected in some banks of ancient data. Such speculations met with no proof and were discounted. Thus the entire problem of why the Galaxy was empty of advanced life when humanity ventured into it has no resolution…

—Encyclopedia Galactica