The transition from Stone Age to Iron Age is fairly straightforward. It’s been independently achieved all across the world in very different conditions, there’s no reason to think it wouldn’t be the same for xenos.
The transition from Industrial Age to our modern age is the same. It hasn’t happened as often, but given the wide variety of governments and economies that got there from very different starting conditions, it’s not much of an obstacle. And I assume that it would be the same for aliens.
The transition from Iron Age to Industrial Age is the pisser. Despite the technological and population prerequisites being there for centuries, it only happened in a very specific political condition. That is, an unprecedented economic surplus for the conqueror that required them to hastily and more importantly passively grow the middle class in order to capture and shoo away other conquerors. The unprecedented economic surplus was only possible because of a huge difference in technological levels difficult to achieve without industrialization and of course diseases.
I can say one thing for sure: the transition was NOT caused by a technological, biological, or cosmological trigger. It was purely political, and what’s more, the political situation required a very specific geographical history in order to achieve.
Looking at human history:
The transition from Stone Age to Iron Age is fairly straightforward. It’s been independently achieved all across the world in very different conditions, there’s no reason to think it wouldn’t be the same for xenos.
The transition from Industrial Age to our modern age is the same. It hasn’t happened as often, but given the wide variety of governments and economies that got there from very different starting conditions, it’s not much of an obstacle. And I assume that it would be the same for aliens.
The transition from Iron Age to Industrial Age is the pisser. Despite the technological and population prerequisites being there for centuries, it only happened in a very specific political condition. That is, an unprecedented economic surplus for the conqueror that required them to hastily and more importantly passively grow the middle class in order to capture and shoo away other conquerors. The unprecedented economic surplus was only possible because of a huge difference in technological levels difficult to achieve without industrialization and of course diseases.
I can say one thing for sure: the transition was NOT caused by a technological, biological, or cosmological trigger. It was purely political, and what’s more, the political situation required a very specific geographical history in order to achieve.