10-28-2017, 01:47 PM | #1 |
Join Date: Jul 2007
Location: West Virginia
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If interstellar Colonies become possible, who goes first?
Like it says.
Assume a FTL drive is developed. It takes roughly half a month to travel a light year. Given the structural and supply limits of the ships, anything within 50 Lys is in easy reach. Anything with in 70Lys is in practical reach. So, who's sending a colony out first? Who'll try to stop them? Will this delay the final war? Or bring it on? Explain your ideas.
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10-28-2017, 05:51 PM | #2 |
Join Date: Aug 2007
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Re: If interstellar Colonies become possible, who goes first?
The Duncanites go first. Possibly Red and Green separately. They're the ones with the pantropic ideology.
Almost anyone has a rationale to explore but the Duncanites are the ones who want to spread humanity everywhere regardless of how much they have to change it to thrive or how long it takes to get there. Nobody has any particularly sane economic motives. Radically important new knowledge could result from exploration but with the times involved 19th century style resource exploitation is going nowhere. It's as bad or worse (generally worse) than TL4 sailing ships to the far side of the world and in economies where light-speed lag disadvantages the L-5 colonies in trading this is simply too far into the future for long-term planning. Eve with an analogue to tea from China it's extremely unlikely that the TS tech couldn't synthesize it much easier than it could be shipped in months or years.
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Fred Brackin |
10-28-2017, 11:48 PM | #3 |
Join Date: Aug 2004
Location: Denver, Colorado
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Re: If interstellar Colonies become possible, who goes first?
The people who go first are the ones who develop the drive, and that's most likely an advanced nation on Earth.
Why do I say that? In THS, the vast, vast majority of intelligent beings -- people, AIs, uplifted animals -- live on Earth. And, since economic power ties directly to population (freshman-level macroeconomics, here, people...), Earth produces and controls the vast majority of the wealth, in the solar system. And that means Earth is the center of technological innovation, although some work gets done, elsewhere (frequently, in biotech research by corporations who don't want to obey the laws of any particular nation). In fact, I'd say that Earth is so dominant, that the only reason to have FTL discovered anywhere else is that the GM wants it to be, for reasons of his or her own. Logically, it would be highly unlikely that it take place, anywhere else. I'd say Europe is most likely to be the first to discover it, although the U.S. and other advanced nations might have a good shot. The French Arm, anybody? :)
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10-29-2017, 05:11 AM | #4 |
Join Date: Aug 2004
Location: U.K.
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Re: If interstellar Colonies become possible, who goes first?
The telephone sanitisers, of course.
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10-29-2017, 09:18 AM | #5 | |
Join Date: Aug 2007
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Re: If interstellar Colonies become possible, who goes first?
Quote:
Preservationist Europe might not even land humans on any Earth-like worlds it finds. Just totally decontaminated cybershells.
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Fred Brackin |
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10-29-2017, 09:57 AM | #6 | |
Untitled
Join Date: Oct 2007
Location: between keyboard and chair
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Re: If interstellar Colonies become possible, who goes first?
Quote:
"It takes roughly half a month to travel a light year" - that sounds like something on the close order of 25c to me. I have various travel times worked out for 500c, so multiply those travel times by 20... Sorting the "interesting" stars (the really-really close ones, the really close ones that we used to think might have life-bearing worlds in the Goldilocks zone back before we started actually looking, and the subgiants) by distance from Sol, and rounding the travel time to the nearest day: Code:
Star Distance from Earth Travel Time in light-years in days at 25c Proxima Centauri 4.22 62 Rigil Kentaurus B 4.39 64 Rigil Kentaurus A 4.39 64 Barnard's Star 5.94 87 Wolf 359 7.80 114 Lalande 21185 8.31 121 Sirius 8.60 126 Epsilon Eridani 10.50 153 Ross 128 10.89 159 61 Cygni A 11.36 166 Procyon 11.41 167 61 Cygni B 11.43 167 Groombridge 34 11.7 171 Epsilon Indi 11.83 173 Tau Ceti 11.90 174 Van Maanen's Star 14.37 210 Omicron (2) Eridani 16.45 240 70 Ophiuchi 16.59 242 Altair 16.77 245 Sigma Draconis 18.81 275 Eta Cassiopeiae 19.42 284 36 Ophiuichi 19.52 285 HIP 99461 19.74 288 82 Eridani 19.76 289 Delta Pavonis 19.92 291 Gliese 581 20.40 298 Beta Hydri 20.98 307 So, yes, nobody's doing this for economic reasons - it's easier to build a habitat somewhere in the Sol system (including the Oort Cloud). Ideology or bust!
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Rob Kelk “Every man has a right to his own opinion, but no man has a right to be wrong in his facts.” – Bernard Baruch, Deming (New Mexico) Headlight, 6 January 1950 No longer reading these forums regularly. Last edited by robkelk; 10-29-2017 at 10:02 AM. |
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10-29-2017, 03:12 PM | #7 |
Join Date: Jul 2007
Location: West Virginia
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Re: If interstellar Colonies become possible, who goes first?
I assume those founding interstellar colonies will want space to grow in and privacy-isolation. If you have a utopian vision, you might want isolation to keep your followers ( or clones and biroids raising parahuman children) in a state of memetic purity.
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10-29-2017, 03:20 PM | #8 |
Wielder of Smart Pants
Join Date: Aug 2004
Location: Ventura CA
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Re: If interstellar Colonies become possible, who goes first?
Nanodynamics has the Starswarm technology and as Duncanites they have the ideology to use it.
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10-29-2017, 09:52 PM | #9 |
Join Date: Aug 2007
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Re: If interstellar Colonies become possible, who goes first?
I'm not sure the starswarms even have the ability to replicate themselves. Even if they do I'm not sure Duncanite pantropic ideology goes as far as colonizing the galaxy with self-replicating nanoswarms. Duncanites actually like flesh and don't seem to have that much interest in doing away with it.
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Fred Brackin |
10-30-2017, 12:07 AM | #10 | |
Wielder of Smart Pants
Join Date: Aug 2004
Location: Ventura CA
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Re: If interstellar Colonies become possible, who goes first?
Quote:
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