Quote:
Originally Posted by Astromancer
For this, you are a billionaire with a mission. Preserve as much of humanity's heritage as possible. You believe that a truly massive war is brewing and that mankind is unaware of just how destructive the next really big war can/will be.
You basically plan to create a colony/ark to preserve vast amounts of cultural, historical, technological, and scientific, information. You also mean the population of the colony to preserve a wide range of human genetic variability.
So...where are you putting your colony/colonies and why? Extra credit, will you disguise the colony or just hide it?
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To start with I need a good PR gimmick. Large amounts of highly intelligent people. Also people willing to work with their backs as well as their hands. A good series of Patrons. Perhaps even a tight knit ethnoreligious group that provides the bedrock of nationality off the bat. In other words I am Herzl in Space.
I would want someplace where there were few competitors for but is not exactly a Deathworld. I would like it to be Earthlike enough that someone can develop it without intensive technology but not so much that someone else will covet it. My colony will fight for it's existence if it has to, but I really do not wish to bequeath to my children a nasty feud or some shame for some morally questionable thing done in the process of said nasty feuds. Dealing with nature is usually easier then with fellow sapients.
I would also want a climate between temperate and subarctic. It would be littoral and provide a lot of marine life for survival. Plenty of timber and good soil too. But it would be cold enough to freeze off germs, the other main danger besides competing sapients. Once those two dangers are accounted for, nature is a problem in engineering.
Trade is unfortunately a problem. If it can plug into the trade routs someone will want my colony before it is big enough to defend itself. On the other hand it has to be near enough to get immigrants. As I am a billionaire (presumably I am Baron Rothschild as well as Theodore Herzl), and can make alliance with others, I can afford to provide a lot of offworld technology. This is tricky as if my children are to be viable they cannot have my wealth as a permanent umbilical cord.