Reply #66: Why did white people cross the Appalachians when the entire Eastern Seaboard had a population [View All]

[Uncle Joe]

less than current day New York.

The needed resource may not even be metal, it may be something else, water, people, sodium, etc. etc. or just expanding by colonizing suitable planets as they find them, the possibilities are endless.

Perhaps they're predators and the idea of getting drunk and hunting exotic species appeals to them, if they view us as just "scrabbley little monkeys," that may not present a difficult moral obstacle to them.

Or as you mentioned pure scientific curiosity, but even that can lead to dark consequences for humanity, Lewis and Clark spent a lot of energy crossing North America just to see what it was.