Colony World Frontiers

[Sindri]

So you've got a planet sweeter than Terra ever was settled by a TL 10 society. The colony largely consists of one city that mostly focuses on maintaining customary standards of living and building infrastructure, but a noteable percentage of the population goes off to settle a frontier around the city because the thing people in the future love most is pioneering. Over time I suspect that while the colony develops so long as it keeps expanding the outer fringe of the frontier stays mostly the same.

So what does the life of these people look like?
1 What level of technology do they have direct access to?
2 How much time do they spend maintaining it?
3 What do they spend the rest of their time doing?
4 What sort of materials or goods would they produce for trading with the main colony?

[fredtheobviouspseudonym]

Either it's a very new world or the culture goes ape on ZPG.

If you have a world that is very good to the people on it and lots of resources you'll wind up with lots of kids. A few generations and the population pressure will make being a frontiersperson pretty much a historical occupation.

Thomas Jefferson thought that it would take 1000 years for EuroAmericans to fill in the interior of the United States. It was pretty much done, the frontier declared closed, 54 years after he died in 1826. Even if you start with one city and an entire world that might add some 250 years (and I'm being generous) to the time needed to settle the whole planet so that there were no frontier areas left. Exception -- regions just too inhospitable for high-density human life (think the Gobi Desert and Antarctica -- and there are people living in the Gobi!)

Questions (and my views thereon)

1.) "What level of technology do they have access to?"

What level do they want? You may have some people today living like a Mountain Man & his kin on a ridgetop in Montana, nothing in their homes except reproductions from 1820 and before. But when their kid falls out of a tree they're going to want an up-to-date emergency room, complete with MRI.

So I'd guess that if your sophonts in the future are anything like humans even the most primitive abode will have SOTA (state of the art, i.e., TL 10) communications in case of emergency; also for communication with friends and family, immediate access to data, games, & education for their young-uns. They might not use it often but they'll have it.

Also -- emergency medicine at SOTA, with the ability to call in help ASAP. Someone may be willing to die to live up to their views on limiting technology, but they probably won't sacrifice loved ones to that obsession.

In these areas there's going to be major pressure to supply enough tech to the frontiersfolks, no matter what. In a capitalist society the $ rewards will be enough to ensure adequate levels of production; in a socialist one there will be massive political demand for it. Same outcome. And if the frontiersfolk can't get these basic elements, they probably won't be living on the frontier.

Remember also that at TL-10 (at least 3rd Edition TL 10) most "stuff" is going to be made by automated factories, which have the capacity to reproduce themselves very quickly. So the production plant will grow to meet the need PDQ.

2.) " . . . time spent maintaining it?" AGain, at TL-10, robot repairer/maintenance crews will cover most of this. You'll have a hard core of TL-10 tech experts who are called in to do the fixing the robots can't -- but that'll be a small percentage of the human population. By TL-10 the number of maintenance issues that a SAI or AI can't handle are going to be pretty few & far between, at least in run-of-the-mill production.

3.) " . . . rest of their time doing?" What do they do on Dallas? If you don't have to scrape around every day to survive you can create art, live like a Mountain Man if you want (and call for help on your iPad when something goes wrong), explore science, watch stars, whatever!

4.) " . . . trading with the main colony . . . " Depends on what the colony wants & needs. If you're living like a Mountain Man but still need to buy an iPad, pay for health insurance, and cover the datagrid costs, you'll have to find something in them thar hills that people in the city will want. Maybe they want free-range squirrel stew meat? Or pelts? Or paintings of the beauties of nature? Or a guide for their weekend getaway? I'd guess that at TL-10 most prospecting/natural resource discovery will be automated, have robot explorers (maybe microbot) searching for stuff.

[Johnny1A.2]

Originally Posted by fredtheobviouspseudonym

Either it's a very new world or the culture goes ape on ZPG.

Thomas Jefferson thought that it would take 1000 years for EuroAmericans to fill in the interior of the United States. It was pretty much done, the frontier declared closed, 54 years after he died in 1826.

It was never 'done'. This is an important and oft-overlooked point.

North America's frontier was not closed because it was fully 'settled', in the sense that Jefferson meant. It's never come remotely close to that. Intead it was closed in the sense that the continent had been explored (by Americans) and mapped and conquered politically, and technology was rendering the Jeffersonian 'pioneering' model irrelevant.

Even today, North America is rather sparsely populated, overall, compared to much of the Old World. The population of the USA is concentrated east of the 100th meridian and on the West Coast, for the most part, if you look at satellite mosaics of city light, there are vast empty sweeps from roughly the middle of Kansas over into the Rocky Mountains. You don't start hitting dense population again until you're past the Sierra Nevada. (Salt Lake City is an exception.)

This is relevant to the OP world because much depends on the definition of 'pioneering'. With a solid TL10 industrial infrastructure behind them and a world friendlier than Terra, the frontier is likely to be 'closed' in the North American sense very quickly. Presumably they have very detailed space-borne observations of the whole planet, so mapping is not an issue. People/machines will still need to take close-up looks at many things to get the details, but we're not talking about vast unknown prairies and mountains.

At high tech levels, explored territory accessible to industrialized regions tends to be not so much 'colonized' as 'settled'. It's more like real estate development rather than pioneering.

(Now, if some special circumstances have limited the available knowedge, and for some reason space flight is not an option to the civilization in question, that would change things somewhat.)

[fredtheobviouspseudonym]

Originally Posted by Johnny1A.2

It was never 'done'. This is an important and oft-overlooked point.

Polite disagreement; apples & oranges.

I was using the US Census Bureau's definition of 1890. (IIRC this was "more than 2 and less than 5 persons per square mile.)

Basically, while the Western US had and has very low population density, by 1890 all property was owned by "somebody" -- either private citizens or the states or the Federal Gov't -- and the property had been surveyed so that every square inch was assigned to some owner.

You can't just go out and raise a cabin on land you like -- there is now some sort of title transfer. You can still homestead (IIRC) but the rules for ownership have changed. (Among other things, I think there are limits on how much of the mineral rights you can claim.)

[David Johnston2]

Originally Posted by Sindri

So you've got a planet sweeter than Terra ever was settled by a TL 10 society. The colony largely consists of one city that mostly focuses on maintaining customary standards of living and building infrastructure, but a noteable percentage of the population goes off to settle a frontier around the city because the thing people in the future love most is pioneering. Over time I suspect that while the colony develops so long as it keeps expanding the outer fringe of the frontier stays mostly the same.

So what does the life of these people look like?
1 What level of technology do they have direct access to?
2 How much time do they spend maintaining it?
3 What do they spend the rest of their time doing?
4 What sort of materials or goods would they produce for trading with the main colony?

The fundamental industries that work in un-urbanized areas, are resource extraction, agriculture, and tourism. So you could expect mining installations, farms and ranches and wilderness tour outfits. You might in fact see recreations of Earth's past in some areas as tourist attractions. They've got a TL 10 city right there, so they'll have TL 10 stuff unless the relationship between them is very cold. It is semi-wilderness, with few roads so you might see genetically engineered horses and dogs, quadrupedal pack-robots as well as ATVs, but the weapons in particular will be TL 10 unless the city has restrictive laws that don't allow the sale of modern weapons. Probably a fair bit of helicopter usage if you are following the default UT advancement.

[Sindri]

Originally Posted by fredtheobviouspseudonym

Either it's a very new world or the culture goes ape on ZPG.

It is a very new world or at least a new one with a very new frontier fringe. The parent society also has a tendency towards ZPG but that won't keep the colony from expanding entirely.

Originally Posted by fredtheobviouspseudonym

If you have a world that is very good to the people on it and lots of resources you'll wind up with lots of kids. A few generations and the population pressure will make being a frontiersperson pretty much a historical occupation.

Thomas Jefferson thought that it would take 1000 years for EuroAmericans to fill in the interior of the United States. It was pretty much done, the frontier declared closed, 54 years after he died in 1826. Even if you start with one city and an entire world that might add some 250 years (and I'm being generous) to the time needed to settle the whole planet so that there were no frontier areas left. Exception -- regions just too inhospitable for high-density human life (think the Gobi Desert and Antarctica -- and there are people living in the Gobi!)

Yeah population will increase rapidly. I think that the combination of limited starting population, an entire world to settle, an significant part of the population preferring to hang out in high density areas with easy and frequent access to ultra-technology, and the difficulty of creating infrastructure from scratch will end up with something like your 250 year estimate which is more than enough time.

Originally Posted by fredtheobviouspseudonym

1.)"What level of technology do they have access to?"

What level do they want? You may have some people today living like a Mountain Man & his kin on a ridgetop in Montana, nothing in their homes except reproductions from 1820 and before. But when their kid falls out of a tree they're going to want an up-to-date emergency room, complete with MRI.

So I'd guess that if your sophonts in the future are anything like humans even the most primitive abode will have SOTA (state of the art, i.e., TL 10) communications in case of emergency; also for communication with friends and family, immediate access to data, games, & education for their young-uns. They might not use it often but they'll have it.

Also -- emergency medicine at SOTA, with the ability to call in help ASAP. Someone may be willing to die to live up to their views on limiting technology, but they probably won't sacrifice loved ones to that obsession.

In these areas there's going to be major pressure to supply enough tech to the frontiersfolks, no matter what. In a capitalist society the $ rewards will be enough to ensure adequate levels of production; in a socialist one there will be massive political demand for it. Same outcome. And if the frontiersfolk can't get these basic elements, they probably won't be living on the frontier.

It's a good point about communications and emergency medicine. Those will probably be accessible everywhere but the very edge. State of the art communications will probably be limited to each distinct unit of people being able to either contact the capitol or someone else who can pass along a message. Intra-settlement communications will probably deal with being lower tech. Neither of those really impact day to day life though and they would provided for the frontier even if it can't maintain them and thus doesn't have direct access to that level of technology.

Originally Posted by fredtheobviouspseudonym

1.)Remember also that at TL-10 (at least 3rd Edition TL 10) most "stuff" is going to be made by automated factories, which have the capacity to reproduce themselves very quickly. So the production plant will grow to meet the need PDQ

2.) " . . . time spent maintaining it?" AGain, at TL-10, robot repairer/maintenance crews will cover most of this. You'll have a hard core of TL-10 tech experts who are called in to do the fixing the robots can't -- but that'll be a small percentage of the human population. By TL-10 the number of maintenance issues that a SAI or AI can't handle are going to be pretty few & far between, at least in run-of-the-mill production.

It's true that ultra-tech has an impressive ability to manufacture things however it does cost time, energy, resources which are often required to be highly developed, and wear on the factories. Thus I consider that the capitol will probably focus on maintaining it's ultra-tech for itself, developing infrastructure, and building the things the frontier really needs to an extent that the people who just decide to go off, build a house in the wilderness, and spent their time fishing or something instead of staying in the colony won't be able to just request whatever state of the art equipment they want and have it delivered for free.

Originally Posted by fredtheobviouspseudonym

3.) " . . . rest of their time doing?" What do they do on Dallas? If you don't have to scrape around every day to survive you can create art, live like a Mountain Man if you want (and call for help on your iPad when something goes wrong), explore science, watch stars, whatever!

The settlers won't be living in the frontier unless either they find it intrinsically interesting or useful for what they want to do. As long as they don't miss access to ultra-tech as would be the case for many scientists the first category could do anything. The second category will be doing things that the frontier helps them. Some artistic or romantic types, people who enjoy building something new from scratch by themselves, and unsocial types. Anything else?

Originally Posted by fredtheobviouspseudonym

4.) " . . . trading with the main colony . . . " Depends on what the colony wants & needs. If you're living like a Mountain Man but still need to buy an iPad, pay for health insurance, and cover the datagrid costs, you'll have to find something in them thar hills that people in the city will want. Maybe they want free-range squirrel stew meat? Or pelts? Or paintings of the beauties of nature? Or a guide for their weekend getaway? I'd guess that at TL-10 most prospecting/natural resource discovery will be automated, have robot explorers (maybe microbot) searching for stuff.

Good suggestions, though until the demand for natural resources is entirely filled by automation a mountain man can still pay for his health insurance in natural resources.

Originally Posted by David Johnston2

The fundamental industries that work in un-urbanized areas, are resource extraction, agriculture, and tourism. So you could expect mining installations, farms and ranches and wilderness tour outfits. You might in fact see recreations of Earth's past in some areas as tourist attractions. They've got a TL 10 city right there, so they'll have TL 10 stuff unless the relationship between them is very cold. It is semi-wilderness, with few roads so you might see genetically engineered horses and dogs, quadrupedal pack-robots as well as ATVs, but the weapons in particular will be TL 10 unless the city has restrictive laws that don't allow the sale of modern weapons. Probably a fair bit of helicopter usage if you are following the default UT advancement.

There is also handicrafts for un-urbanized industries where untangible properties allow objects to compete with more efficient methods of production.

As I mentioned above I was going with the idea that the capitol's manufacturing capacity is being used to the extent that it can't give any frontier people much except what they get in trade

[David Johnston2]

Originally Posted by Sindri

As I mentioned above I was going with the idea that the capitol's manufacturing capacity is being used to the extent that it can't give any frontier people much except what they get in trade

Resource extraction, agricultural goods and tourism give the frontier people things to trade, although it's possible that the mining installations will be city operated and that will make them relatively poor if the city folks are for some reason actively averse to wilderness experiences. But of course if they are averse to leaving the city, they will have the settlers run mines and drilling facilities.

[Lamech]

Originally Posted by Sindri

So what does the life of these people look like?
1 What level of technology do they have direct access to?
2 How much time do they spend maintaining it?
3 What do they spend the rest of their time doing?
4 What sort of materials or goods would they produce for trading with the main colony?

1) Assuming they are decently well prepared, and you are using the standard TL 10- TL 10. Basically everything, but somethings (a large computer network for example) might be beyond their reach.
2) They should have AI's and robofacs. So none.
3) I don't know, science? Art? Communing with nature? Something a talented well genetically engineered person beats an AI at.
4) I suppose they probably have the advantage in getting to some sort of resources, but it really will just depend on where they settled, and if they have specialized production facilities invested in. But TL 10 production set ups are pretty versatile. Intellectual property maybe depending on laws.

[Sindri]

Originally Posted by Lamech

1) Assuming they are decently well prepared, and you are using the standard TL 10- TL 10. Basically everything, but somethings (a large computer network for example) might be beyond their reach.
2) They should have AI's and robofacs. So none.
3) I don't know, science? Art? Communing with nature? Something a talented well genetically engineered person beats an AI at.
4) I suppose they probably have the advantage in getting to some sort of resources, but it really will just depend on where they settled, and if they have specialized production facilities invested in. But TL 10 production set ups are pretty versatile. Intellectual property maybe depending on laws.

To clarify, while they have highly developed expert systems they don't have true AIs.

[Polydamas]

The problem with the 19th century US example is that it depended on mass immigration. Russia and Siberia, or Japan and their northernmost island, show that it can take thousands of years before a society even thinks of expanding into nearby marginal, lightly populated territory.

Originally Posted by Sindri

So you've got a planet sweeter than Terra ever was settled by a TL 10 society. The colony largely consists of one city that mostly focuses on maintaining customary standards of living and building infrastructure, but a noteable percentage of the population goes off to settle a frontier around the city because the thing people in the future love most is pioneering. Over time I suspect that while the colony develops so long as it keeps expanding the outer fringe of the frontier stays mostly the same.

So what does the life of these people look like?
1 What level of technology do they have direct access to?
2 How much time do they spend maintaining it?
3 What do they spend the rest of their time doing?
4 What sort of materials or goods would they produce for trading with the main colony?

Three questions you need to think about are "does information move back and forth between the settlers and home?" "do goods move back and forth between the settlers and home?" and "how many settlers arrived?" In a world with realistic economics and less than a billion settlers, its likely that the cities will be TL 5-8/10 and the countryside possibly lower, because you need a lot of people to maintain industrial TLs. Eric Flint and his colleagues seem to have agreed that a few million people hooked into a TL 4 world economy could maintain TL 5-6; I'm not aware of any other studies.