[fredtheobviouspseudonym]

Originally Posted by starslayer

One of the major things you need to address if your not going for a scenario like my own (IE- their reasons for needing a planet are entirely self-imposed) is why they are bothering with a populated system. . . why bother making landfall ever again? Genetic engineering can get rid of those pesky legs and replace them with another set of useful arms, beef up bone structures, and restore the damages from the rigors of space travel (which they'd need to do to have generational ships anyway); and asteroids would be a better source of raw materials than a planet.

I'd think the reason is more mental/emotional/instinctual than physical. The human mind is the outcome of some half-million years of evolution -- and creates the desire to live dirtside, to breathe free air, and to feel gravity. We can change the bone/muscle structure -- changing the structure not only of the brain but the mind will be, I would argue, far more difficult.

In short, would you want to live forever in a glorified can in space looking at a perpetual night -- or on a sunny hillside looking down at flowing water?

The latter might be worth killing for.

A planet(s) that has life would actually be a detriment to colonization, because now there are factors that you aren't prepared for (IE that that life is likely incompatible with your own, and even if compatible you are not going to have resistance for the local diseases, which resources and time are going to have to be spent immunizing the colonists against). It's far easier to colonize the vastness of space and extract your required materials from abundant asteroids then deal with silly (and expensive to escape) gravity wells.

No reason you can't have both. No shortage of precedents in human history for people destroying other cultures for what would seem a minor advantage. Ask the Arawak Indians.

. . . If you can build generational ships and are late TL9 you can do just fine (and arguably do better) with nothing more than raw materials, which will be easier to access from completely unpopulated asteroids. If they don't have the technology for extraction from asteroids, then they don't have the technology for extraction on planets- if they don't have the space (IE all the extraction tech is in the storage bays) then they could easier build a dome on an asteroid to run the technology then try to safely get it planet-side and set up there. If they don't have the tech to build some domes to start extraction- how were they going to do it on what were presumably hostile planets without atmosphere and life? Or even better how ARE they going to do it for planets that likely have INCOMPATIBLE atmosphere and life.

Just the opposite.

The high tech invaders know that somehow the indigenous peoples have an incomprehensible ability to move across space without high tech. Given that many beings are territorial leaders of the intruders would wonder, really wonder, if these locals will be forever happy letting colonizers use all the resources of the outer solar system. Maybe the locals will see the asteroids as their own birthright. When will the locals say "Enough!" and act to throw the intruders out -- or exterminate them?

Sure, at tech 2 they can't do it now -- but what about a thousand years from now?

One of the best ways to jolt a low-tech society into frantic efforts to advance is the presence of a higher tech exploiter. (See Japan, c. 1868.) If the original inhabitants of the system outnumber you do you as the high-tech intruder want to wait a few centuries then fight outnumbered against folk with only a slightly lower tech level? There are precedents for "pre-emptive wars."

These might well be reasons for deciding on violence.

Basically for advanced societies- once you can get off planet long term, there's not too many reasons (at least non self-imposed reasons) to NEED to go back, and you'd have to be downright evil to put those self-imposed reasons above the value of an indigenous also space faring society.

No shortage of historical examples of choosing evil as a policy in Earth's history.

When I mention experimental technology breaking down- I literally mean experimental technology that is not needed in space (IE maintaining actual farms in a traditional sense rather than say, solar grown seaweed farms that then get broken down in to requisite materials and 3d printed into a variety of dishes); it is pretty conceivable that right now in TL8 we could (if cost were no issue) put a permanent self-sufficient colony on the moon or mars (it would be risky because we have not experimented with it, but a generational ship HAS experimented with it, and perfected it, by nature of being a generational ship).

Even the largest fleet of generational ships might have a hard time maintaining itself indefinitely. Let's take a TL-8 example. Let's assume that a USN carrier task force is somehow magically transported to an alternate, unpopulated Earth. Even given an unlimited supply of raw materials, and the very high quality of USN engineers and sailor brainpower, could it sustain itself? Remember that this would entail producing microchips, high tech metallurgy (turbine blades and composite materials) etc. Could it reproduce itself without the backing of a high-population, high-tech nation? My guess is that no matter the size of a generation fleet eventually they'll have to land and recreate a civilization -- or die from eventually running out of spare parts.

Again without selfish, and downright evil, reasons motivating them, it would seem strange to me that the majority of those on the generational ships even WANT to make planetfall for any reason more then raw exploration (which would encourage interaction rather than conquest); while I am sure that most people on the ships would want more space, and their may be real reasons why they want to get closer to another sun (more solar power so that they can take reactors offline- that can be achieved by space stations and asteroid/moon colonies.

So I think you need to spend some time really pondering the 'why bother with the inhabited worlds, and why not just view the habited world as a 'pit stop', or why not just colonize the planetoids that the mage society won't touch (due to toxic or no atmosphere)

See above.

Remember that the GM doesn't have to have the most rational choices made by the space fleet commanders, nor the best -- only possible ones. Human folly is always credible. See Tuchman's "The Guns of August" for an example, or her later "The March of Folly."

Never underestimate the power of human beings to make the wrong choices.