Okay, I reread the original post, and you're right.

I had gotten my wires crossed and thought the OP was asking about a specific situation, but it was actually a question about the general pattern.

A specific situation will often pass before any theoretical tools can be found that could possibly answer the question.

For a general pattern, though, you're entirely right - if the tools arose hundreds of millions of years from now, that range of questions becomes answerable, and the information is then knowable.