10-30-2017, 11:06 AM | #11 |
Join Date: Sep 2013
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Re: If interstellar Colonies become possible, who goes first?
I think if it becomes possible, it would be the result of research at the Shezbeth black hole.
So, Vosper - Babbage, in partnership with Hawking Industries would go out first, with heavy support by Great Britain, the EU (yeah ...) and South Africa. "Spacecraft of the Solar System" states that there are nationalists in GB's space fleet. They could try to make the interstellar expeditions "pure British" enterprises, which would raise the wrath of the rest-EU. IMO, the main opponents would be the preservationists. They would not be happy that transhumanity will spoil the rest of the universe. Other conflicts would depend on what it is out there. Virginia (the planet) would probably visited by an international expedition ("look, but don't touch. At least not until we are sure there are no intelligent natives"), but Green Duncanites like Avatar Klusterkorp would probably try to get their hands on it. This could trigger a conflict between the Duncanites and the forces of order (everyone who is no Duncanite). If there is no life, other stars are just orbited by lifeless rocks and gas giants that contain probably the same stuff found in the solar system. Nothing worth to fight about. Every crack cult could claim it's own star system to live happily by their own memes. The exemption would be stars with "strategic" value, like when the star drive uses jump lines or worm holes that could be blocked. Thoughts? |
10-30-2017, 11:15 AM | #12 |
Join Date: Feb 2005
Location: Berkeley, CA
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Re: If interstellar Colonies become possible, who goes first?
Probably no-one, at least for a fairly extended period; there aren't likely to be any resources out there that are meaningfully different from what's available in the solar system, and there's still plenty of unclaimed stuff in the solar system.
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10-30-2017, 03:34 PM | #13 |
Join Date: Jul 2007
Location: West Virginia
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Re: If interstellar Colonies become possible, who goes first?
Colonies are more likely to be founded for ideological than ecconomic motives.
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11-02-2017, 04:34 PM | #14 |
Join Date: Jul 2007
Location: West Virginia
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Re: If interstellar Colonies become possible, who goes first?
Which religous groups most want total memetic purity? They'd go out. Wouldn't they?
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11-02-2017, 05:53 PM | #15 |
Join Date: Apr 2016
Location: Texas
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Re: If interstellar Colonies become possible, who goes first?
I don't know economic terms but here are my thoughts.
I would think there could be economic reasons for starting a colony instead of every colony being filled with idealogical cultists. (Not saying the latter won't be common - they just need the funds to get out of our orbit.) An economic colony would probably be best designed for a slow-benefit economic idea: the people that put money into the project could expect returns after a large amount of time has passed like, say, 50+ years. Say it's a mining colony whose main mined ore is one of our rare metals on Earth (take your pick as I'm not going to be very specific). They'd probably have other elements or naturally-occuring alloys that they dig up, but their main focus is on this rare metal. After however many years, they have all this ore ready to be shipped back to Earth. A ship comes and gets the ore all at once, takes it back to Earth, and profit, which ends up bottoming-out prices for the rare metal ore and leads to another global depression. Nothing stops them from hoarding it like DeBeers' diamonds and trickling them into the market slowly. That way they could inflate the price of the material. Or, you know, ships could visit the colony every ten years, fill up their cargo holds, and return back to Earth to profit along the years. I hope that makes sense. |
11-02-2017, 06:00 PM | #16 |
Wielder of Smart Pants
Join Date: Aug 2004
Location: Ventura CA
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Re: If interstellar Colonies become possible, who goes first?
You would just mine it in the asteroid belt which has all the rare earth metals in reasonable abundance.
The costs of an interstellar colony are ridiculous, as are the costs of interstellar shipping (and at best you will have a turnaround time measured in decades if not centuries). If you need a significant fraction of GWP in antimatter to make the trip once, selling some ore after a couple of centuries isn't going to be profitable. |
11-02-2017, 06:23 PM | #17 | |
Join Date: Apr 2016
Location: Texas
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Re: If interstellar Colonies become possible, who goes first?
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11-02-2017, 10:26 PM | #18 | |
Join Date: Aug 2004
Location: Denver, Colorado
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Re: If interstellar Colonies become possible, who goes first?
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Another option is a stateless national group, that wants a place of its own, far away from obnoxious neighbors. Yazidis might be such a group, as could the Zoroastrians who live in India, or even Palestinians or Rohingya. Any of those options would require a massive organizational structure of people who were both affluent and alienated enough in their current circumstances to want their own world, far away from anyone. Not sure how practical the notion is, but as long as the group has a lot of money, and several thousand people willing to go, the notion is at least somewhat plausible.
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11-02-2017, 10:38 PM | #19 | ||
Join Date: Feb 2007
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Re: If interstellar Colonies become possible, who goes first?
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The major fifth wave nation-states have the resources...but not necessarily the motivation. They're awfully comfortable and most of them are pretty internally peaceful (unrealistically so, in fact). There are small groups that might be minded to found their own version of Massachusetts Bay, but whether they get to or not depends on how cheap and available star flight is. Probably nobody would actually try to stop them, at least not in 2100. Who knows what things look like in 2125? Things can change very quickly sometimes. The poorer people in the less advanced states might be more interested in moving, if an opportunity looked to exist. The nanosocialist alliance might be interested in founding colonies for ideological reasons, and as a fall-back in case China comes after them again. You might see groups of bioroids or disfavored genemod people looking for a place where they can be surrounded by their own kind (of whatever kind that is).
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11-02-2017, 10:43 PM | #20 | |
Join Date: Feb 2007
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Re: If interstellar Colonies become possible, who goes first?
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The other factor is that 'unclaimed stuff' turns into 'claimed stuff' pretty fast, once things get going. It's slow at first but it accelerates as more and more people gain access to the resources in question. Given the state of the Solar System that we see in 2100, I wouldn't be a bit surprised if just about everything is claimed and owned (if not yet in use) by 2150.
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