I would like to know why people weren't able to understand what my question was about

Question

This question was closed as "not focused enough" (How can an alien civilization be so powerful that it can with almost 100% certainty destroy any other civilization without getting a scratch?). One of commenters said

Your question is unclear. Are you asking about the mechanical methods they use? Are you asking about their fundamental philosophy? Are you asking why they haven't been stopped yet? "How" is ambiguous. Others have also made the same statement about the lack of clarity in your question. You may have rolled several questions into one. Please consider resubmitting a new question with more focus and detail clarifying that question

I'm genuinely puzzled by such statement. For me the title says it all, it has only one question and the question is so clear, that failure to understand it looks to me as failure to parse plain English. So I was quite suprised to discover that there are at least 5 people for whom the question was too vague. So it's basically situation: "You question is too vague, I don't understand the point of your question", "And I don't understand why you don't understand my question, it's perfectly clear".

To be honest, the question that I asked on Worldbuilding isn't important to me (and I already got some interesting answers), so I'm okay if it stays closed. I ask here because I'm anxious about my failure to communicate my thought and even more anxious by my inability to see what I did wrong. I have no idea about how other users misread the question that they got such wild ideas about its meaning as "It's about how God Seekers murder other civilizations", "It's about fundamental philosophy of God Seekers", "It's several questions rolled under one title".

P.S. How about this formulation: "How did an alien civilization come to be so powerful that it can with almost 100% certainty destroy any other civilization without getting a scratch?" Is it clear now?

Answer 1

As one of the people who voted to close the question, I feel it necessary to provide an answer here.

You've devised a civilization in your universe that is far and away superior to every other civilization in existence. This is your foundation statement: CivA is the best there can be, short of divine intervention.

You are then asking the Worldbuilding community how CivA came to achieve the position of superiority they did. Let me provide a few comparisons from Earth using, for lack of a better example, the USA as a reference point.

• The USA has technological equivalance to China, Great Britain, Russia, etc. These civilizations have had an equal amount of time to develop with equal access to the resources to engage in that development. Conflict between these civilizations will hurt all sides.
• The USA has technological superiority over South Africa, Iran, Cuba, etc. These civilizations have had an equal amount of time to develop with unequal access to the necessary resources. Conflict between these civilizations is fairly one-sided.
• The USA has god-like superiority to the natives of North Sentinel Island, et. al.. These civilizations have had equal amount of time to develop, but no access to the necessary resources. Conflict between these civilizations is laughably one-sided.

There are only two answers to the question, "How did CivA achieve its technological superiority?" Either (A) CivA has had more time and/or better access to resources to further its development, or (B) divine intervention. (Note that this was the gist of the comment I upvoted on your question.)

With that in mind, it becomes unclear why you are asking your question. Are you asking about the specific technological advancements CivA has made that grant it its position of superiority? Do you want to know the fundamental tenets of CivA's society that enabled them to reach their superiority faster or more efficiently than other civilizations? Or is there something else you wanted to know that we haven't been able to discern from the information provided?

Note that if you're asking about the technologies that grant superiority, we likely couldn't tell you what they are.

Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.

--Arthur C. Clarke

Answer 2

You fell into the error of equating lack of focus with understandability. I'm pretty certain everyone understands what you're asking. Or at least it's clear to me what you're asking!

But that's beside the point. In this forum, your query needs to be not only understandable but also focused. Just look at the comment you conveniently quoted in your question:

Your question is unclear. Are you asking about the mechanical methods they use? Are you asking about their fundamental philosophy? Are you asking why they haven't been stopped yet? "How" is ambiguous. Others have also made the same statement about the lack of clarity in your question. You may have rolled several questions into one. Please consider resubmitting a new question with more focus and detail clarifying that question.

The commentator is asking which specific avenue, out of a nearly infinite list of potential lines of enquiry, you'd like us to focus on.

For example, mechanical: would you like us to focus on weaponry or armada size? For example, philosophy: would you like us to focus on their worldview and their understanding of personhood and their understanding of moral action?

Asking for both these lines of enquiry and more is not allowed by the SE model (one focused query gets a variety of focused responses).

You could certainly break your question down into different aspects: one question could ask about their age of civilisation and how long they've had to build up to their present capacity; another question could deal with their understanding of morality; another question could deal with their cultural fascination / fixation on destroying others in order to determine which civilisation meets their criteria.