10-17-2021, 04:52 PM | #1 |
Join Date: Jul 2007
Location: West Virginia
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Starting a Foundation of Interstellar Colonization
Basically, this isn't a debate on whether interstellar travel could ever be possible for humans. We've been through that dead end. This isn't about alternative options that excite somebody. We've had flogged by that debate too. This is about the politics and culture that would surround a serious effort to work towards humans traveling to the stars.
This world is aware of at least a version of its own history. The USA isn't the overwhelming influence it was but anyone seriously thinking about it would see that any group that got control of a star system could become massively powerful and influential. Some groups would wildly support the idea, others would kill to stop it, or secure it for themselves alone. Given that generation starships are possible in this setting (no we won't argue about it Generation starships are viable in this setting, if you don't like it complain about the setting, and do it somewhere else) it seems obvious that it's only a matter of commitment and resources to get started. So the politics of interstellar flight would be serious. And given the nature of the setting, deadly.
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10-17-2021, 06:26 PM | #2 | |
Join Date: Aug 2007
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Re: Starting a Foundation of Interstellar Colonization
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I tend to think the "natural" atitude toward politics in 5th Wave countries is "Nothing matters and what if it did?". Infosocialism was a recent trend away from that but it wasn't Fifth Wave all that much and it appears t be on the wane anyway. Chinese authoritarianism survived long enough to crush the TSA but that was because David used his authorial fiat to keep it on life support long enough to do that. European anti-change-ism could sprout a few terrorists against interstellar colonisation but I don't see much coming from it. Also, biological organisms of sufficient wealth have attained unlimited lifespans right where they are and don't have to sublimate that drive into something else like the spread and perpetuation of their identity group. Probably you just chant "Memetics! Memetics! Memetics!" and have whoever you want fighting over this for no other reasons.
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Fred Brackin |
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10-18-2021, 09:33 AM | #3 | |
Join Date: Jun 2006
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Re: Starting a Foundation of Interstellar Colonization
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Control of another star system is arguably nice for the people that *actually* get control of it, but has next to no effect on anybody in the star system they came from. Absent a transportation system that will allow stuff to move back and forth in less than years at costs not orders of magnitude more than local shipping, investing in a colony is throwing away your resources to benefit the colonists. The major political fight seems likely to be internal, with interest groups in your own society that don't want to throw their money away on something ultimately worthless to them. Your ability to sell it at all probably depends on your memetic campaign to persuade people at home that it is somehow better to spend money on "them" than "us". Historically you can get away with that to a degree by convincing everyone "them" and "us" are somehow part of the same thing (clan, nation, religion, race, whatever) but that seems like a hard sell when you are talking about the kind of time frames involved in doing anything interstellar without superscience.
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-- MA Lloyd |
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10-22-2021, 04:22 PM | #4 |
Join Date: Jul 2007
Location: West Virginia
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Re: Starting a Foundation of Interstellar Colonization
I didn't write the setting. I get that generation starships offend you. Why bother posting then?
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Per Ardua Per Astra! Ancora Imparo |
10-22-2021, 08:34 PM | #5 | |
Join Date: Aug 2007
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Re: Starting a Foundation of Interstellar Colonization
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Of course, I might be personally deficiant in my urges to force other people to do what I want even if I do sometimes spend too much time explaining why what what they want doesn't make much sense. If there was an actually attractive planet that could be the home to a human civilization many centuries in the future I might even think it would be a good idea in a very abstract sense of 'good" but I wouldn't think it was worth fighting over.
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Fred Brackin |
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10-24-2021, 11:40 AM | #6 |
Join Date: Sep 2008
Location: near London, UK
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Re: Starting a Foundation of Interstellar Colonization
Where you might reasonably object, I think, would be if the efforts of your government were bent entirely towards that rather than, well, anything else a government might do. (And any entity with enough resources to do this would in effect be a government, whatever it claimed.)
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10-24-2021, 02:09 PM | #7 | |
Join Date: Jun 2005
Location: Lawrence, KS
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Re: Starting a Foundation of Interstellar Colonization
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After all, I can well remember when spaceflight was obviously so expensive that only a major government could afford it (the classic space race was the USA vs the USSR). Now we have private entrepreneurs with their own space programs, and with aspirations to go beyond what any government has attained.
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Bill Stoddard I don't think we're in Oz any more. |
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10-24-2021, 04:30 PM | #8 | |
Join Date: Sep 2008
Location: near London, UK
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Re: Starting a Foundation of Interstellar Colonization
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10-24-2021, 06:01 PM | #9 |
Evil Game Master For Hire
Join Date: Aug 2004
Location: Jacksonville, FL
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Re: Starting a Foundation of Interstellar Colonization
Given the specific tech available in Transhuman Space, I would presume that the most reasonable and most efficient approach would be to have a non-biological crew (i.e. all A.I.). No lifeforms means no life support, and a much higher G-force tolerance. Also, no (or fewer) worries about the "lifespan" of the crew. (I don't recall if this setting established a maximum "lifespan" [i.e. viability] of AIs. Would an AI begin to degrade after a century or so? A millennium? Ten millennia?)
Just my two cents' worth. ;-) Franklin
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Franklin W. Cain Evil Game Master For Hire -- Have Dice, Will Travel SJG MIB # 9808; Net.Rep.: Chez G* and Frag |
10-24-2021, 06:22 PM | #10 | |
Join Date: Aug 2007
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Re: Starting a Foundation of Interstellar Colonization
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At any rate, Astromaner specified a generation ship. This would exclude nanostasis too.
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Fred Brackin |
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