FTL Civilizations [Space]

[David Johnston2]

Originally Posted by Andreas

The resources in a single star system are obviously limited. Especially for the easily extracted resources. Given continous (and likely increasing) use of those resources, it is not at all strange that you would eventually need interstellar expansion to get more..

Eventually is a long time. It's unlikely you've reached "Eventually" when you have FTL travel and still have only expanded 50 light years.

[AlexanderHowl]

There are lots of resources in just the Solar System. For example, 8 Flora, just one of many large asteroids, possesses a mass of 8.47 quadrillion metric tons. If 20% of its mass is iron (around 1.69 quadrillion metric tons), then it would satisfy the iron needs of human civilization for one million years. And it likely would also supply any non-volatile needed by humans, and that is just one large asteroid. Of course, space habitats would require a lot of resources, but I think that 8 Flora could produce sufficient material to house hundreds of billions of people.

The reason for FTL colonization is likely not wealth, but insurance against extinction. It is likely cheap enough that you can quickly colonize and support any system within a six month journey, so 100c would allow a radius of 50 ly, which gives 1400 systems. Of those, only 5% will likely have suitable terraforming candidates, so you would end up terraforming ~70 worlds, which is a good insurance policy against extinction.

[Rupert]

Originally Posted by AlexanderHowl

There are lots of resources in just the Solar System. For example, 8 Flora, just one of many large asteroids, possesses a mass of 8.47 quadrillion metric tons. If 20% of its mass is iron (around 1.69 quadrillion metric tons), then it would satisfy the iron needs of human civilization for one million years. And it likely would also supply any non-volatile needed by humans, and that is just one large asteroid. Of course, space habitats would require a lot of resources, but I think that 8 Flora could produce sufficient material to house hundreds of billions of people.

It may not be terribly energy-efficient to get the stuff out, compared to digging up more of the Earth, or recycling what we already have available. A great deal of the mineral deposits we exploit are in the form they're in, and in nice concentrated deposits because of weathering and the water cycle, and because of life.

[AlexanderHowl]

Energy is something that you do not particularly lack until you get to ~10 AU (at that point, the cost of solar concentrators get rather too high). At the distance of 8 Flora, there is plenty of solar energy and, on 8 Flora, plenty of materials to build solar concentrators and solar panels. Of course, the moon is closer, but its mines can really only operate 50% of the time, and it has a large gravity well, so 8 Flora is probably better for a FTL civilization.

[Flyndaran]

FTL is superscience, so can appear at any tech level. It's interesting how everyone's making a lot of assumptions not just about the over arching and specific aspects of its TL but also all the societal changes unrelated to TL.
I think we really need more clarification on the setting to make anything other than very contradictory suggestions.

[ericthered]

Originally Posted by AlexanderHowl

The reason for FTL colonization is likely not wealth, but insurance against extinction. It is likely cheap enough that you can quickly colonize and support any system within a six month journey, so 100c would allow a radius of 50 ly, which gives 1400 systems. Of those, only 5% will likely have suitable terraforming candidates, so you would end up terraforming ~70 worlds, which is a good insurance policy against extinction.

eh, today there are still people who go looking for new mineral deposits, despite existing ones continuing to churn out new resources. Usually, prospectors are looking for places where resource extraction is easier than existing deposits.

If you get FTL, even if you have a healthy asteroid mining industry nearly monopolizing resource extraction by being extremely cheap and efficient, you'll get a wave of prospectors going out the the FTL stars, looking for those exotic asteroids that require a tenth of the effort to get large quantities of salable minerals. At least you do if the FTL is cheap enough.

On the other hand, if we're working with current population levels, the asteroid belt itself is likely to be new material enough to cause this "post scarcity"* we're talking about, once we have solid access to it.

I don't think that existential insurance is likely to drive extra-solar colonization. The historical drivers of migration have been economic opportunity and philosophical conflict (which may or may not have turned violent).

I'm skeptical that a full 5% of systems will be have good terraforming canidates. At least if by terraforming you mean able to turn into a shirt-sleeve environment with no domes and terrestrial plants. Most stars are red dwarfs.

* I don't actually believe in post scarcity, not in the long term. "Low-scarcity" isn't a bad term for it, and extreme societal transformations caused by an increase in wealth are a matter of historical record, but any "post scarcity resource" will still have its limits, they'll just be very high.

[Andreas]

Originally Posted by Ulzgoroth

That's true, but it's very eventual, solar systems being quite enormous...and even when it does become relevant, it doesn't necessarily follow that a market system will make reaching those resources worthwhile.

Not likely to take an extremely long time unless the civilization greatly limits their economic activity. Until you meet such resource constraints, you can potentially expand your resource extraction at an exponential rate. As for your second point, it can be worthwile to do so even without that being enabled by any market system.

Originally Posted by David Johnston2

Eventually is a long time. It's unlikely you've reached "Eventually" when you have FTL travel and still have only expanded 50 light years.

A longer amount of time than that will by necessity have passed if you wait with expansion to other star systems until all easily accessable resources in your native system have been taken.

[David Johnston2]

Originally Posted by Andreas

A longer amount of time than that will by necessity have passed if you wait with expansion to other star systems until all easily accessable resources in your native system have been taken.

Even then it makes more sense to move into the systems which have some slightly habitable worlds and export from there than to try to develop every single trash system. The very closest trash systems might be worth mining due to the advantage of proximity but if FTL is easy it makes sense to just bypass the trash, while if FTL is hard, then interstellar trade in bulk goods makes no sense.

[AlexanderHowl]

Not every system without a planet is trash. An Asteroid Belt with RVM+5 can support 32 billion people at TL10, making it worthwhile to develop, even if there is nothing else in the system.

[Andreas]

Originally Posted by David Johnston2

Even then it makes more sense to move into the systems which have some slightly habitable worlds and export from there than to try to develop every single trash system. The very closest trash systems might be worth mining due to the advantage of proximity but if FTL is easy it makes sense to just bypass the trash, while if FTL is hard, then interstellar trade in bulk goods makes no sense.

Depending on how good the FTL is, it does make sense to pick systems further away first, but factors other than habitable worlds might very well be more important considerations for that (how easy resource extraction is for example).

Also, interstellar trade in bulk goods (or even any trade at all) is not a necessity for such endeavours. For example, someone could use the resources in another system to perform expensive research or to build up military forces in order to deter potential attackers.