Terraforming in the OTU

[Malenfant]

Originally Posted by Johnny1A.2

'Crazy' is relative. It depends pretty much entirely on one's frame of reference. Settling North America was crazy for the Pilgrmims, too...from the point of view of economic rationality. They had other motives.

This is terraforming a hostile planet, not settling North America a few hundred years ago. It doesn't compare at all.

Do people even understand the magnitude of what has to be done to terraform a world? It's not just "stick some smokestacks on a planet and leave to cook for a while".

Yet human history is packed with activities that make no economic sense, yet happened anyway, because economics is subordinate to culture, religion, and politics, once you're past the hard limits of technological possibility and available resources.

And culture, religion, and politics are infinitely more fickle that technology. Look at the US Manned Space Program - Apollo died because of politics, and the Space Shuttle ultimately died because of that too - and that's over the timescale of a decade or two. You have projects dying and being born every 4 years or so because of elections. Even dictators die and their "visions" die with them when their replacements come along. Does anyone honestly think that a terraforming project that takes decades or centuries would survive that long?

'Worth' is not a meaningful concept unless you have a specific frame of reference for what is and is not valuable.

Time is valuable. Peoples' effort is valuable. Resources are valuable. That is the case in Traveller, as it is now.

There is absolutely nothing that one can gain from terraforming that isn't there already - you want the planet's resources? Then mine them - it doesn't matter if the atmosphere's breathable or not. You want living space? Dig out some caverns, seal them up, fill them with air. Or build space stations or habitats. Or a honking great dome over a large area. You don't need to change the entire planetary environment to do that.

This is why I think it's a folly. Extremely advanced societies who think nothing of largescale manipulation of matter and megascale engineering projects and have near infinite resources and energy, and who also have nothing better to do may start and finish them, but that's not the OTU.