The other challenges of space

[cosmicfish]

A lot of this depends on the level of technology and expertise they brought with them, and that in turn depends on the details of the exodus. If the governments built ten ships to save the best of humanity, then the people would generally be of high competency and the equipment would be of high quality and quantity. Conversely, if hundreds or thousands of "lifeboats" were built then the people on board would probably be of a more average demographic and the equipment would be spread thin. Consider also the time between the exodus decision and the actual departure - was there time for real planning and testing, and to appropriately man each expedition, or are the ships manned by whoever showed up, built with whatever equipment was on hand?

A few other notes:

Originally Posted by Dustin
I have a hard time imagining an automated cryogenic system that doesn't track time somehow.

Again, see my earlier post - a ship would be a complex system, and it is not outside the realm of possibility that a hastily built system could maintain a daily schedule yet fail to accurately track the date.

Originally Posted by Fred Brackin
Even if it did there would be some astronomical way to measure elapsed time. Proper motions of nearby stars, relative positions of global clusters around the galactic nucleus, etc. Whatever the time scale there will be some way to measure it at least roughly.

Originally Posted by starslayer
Also- they should know roughly how fast they were going and just be able to extrapolate the time; doubly so since a second ship showed up- they should have a relatively good number if computer moddeling still exists, or a general number if it does not and they have to rely on traditional astonomy.

All of this depends on these ships having (1) people who understand all of this and make the calculations, (2) a reliable method measuring the position and velocities of the ships in flight (probably a stretch for a novice interstellatr culture), (3) tools for making measurements and calculations (did they bring astronomical telescopes?), and (4) databases of all the appropriate references needed. It is entirely possible that some ships would know exactly what date is was, some might not have any idea, and several others might disagree.

Originally Posted by starslayer
IE- we were traveling at .02c, based on visible star patterns this location is 400 light years away: it has been ~20,000 years since we departed.

No. Your velocity on an STL starship is highly variable, as is your acceleration, plus it is all path dependent. Consider this: if your ship has mass M0 at launch and you consume mass F of fuel every T seconds, then the mass M of your ship at any time t is M0 - Ft/T ... assuming you neither jetisson any waste nor accumulate any additional mass (like dust, collided objects, etc.). Assuming your propulsion system has a perfectly uniform thrust Thr, then your acceleration is Thr/M = Thr / (M0 - Ft/T), and your velocity V is the integral of this with respect to time V = -(T*Thr/F)ln(M0T/F - t), and the position X along your path is the integral of that. How many people on your ship are up for that?

Originally Posted by starslayer
Second problem; even assuming a massive population boom for 14 generations, assuming everyone started breading at ~20 years of age, and then proceeded to have 5 children a piece and no one dies, ever, your population is: 20,000 *5, *14= 1,400,000

Again, no. Assuming 20,000 people initially, a 20-year generation, and every person producing an average 2.5 children per generation (momentarily ignoring the longevity issue), then 14 generations would be 20000*2.5^(t/20) = 5.9 billion people after 275 years. Going by more modest assumptions, a 1% growth rate (current world) would give a population of 300,000, while a 3% growth rate common to much of the third world would give a population of ~68 million.

Originally Posted by Johnny1A.2
This could make sense if you mean hand-weapons, but if you've got starflight tech, STL or FTL either one, then heavier weaponized lasers (or something equivalent) probably will exist. They aren't superscience, they're on the horizon for us now, and any starflight technology will have the energy sources to power them.

They may exist, but did they necessarily make it onto the ships? If all the engineering talent was working on the drives and cryosystems, who would be working on lasers? And who would bring them on board?