Generation Ships

[Johnny1A.2]

Originally Posted by Gold & Appel Inc

Sex: If they're firing those poor bastards off into space in a closed habitat with limited food supplies and no means of birth control reliable enough to keep the population exactly where they want it, no amount of WoW is going to keep things from getting ugly pretty fast...

The birth control part is easy, trivially easy, at any technology level that can make a viable genship anyway.

The hard part is that sex (as part of the general pattern of male/female relations) is psychologically and culturally explosive. When we look closely, we see that a significant part of the cultural structure of earthside societies exists precisely to regulate sexual matters into channels that let the society survive and function.

With the smaller margins for error and higher social 'tension' of a genship's population, this will be a major issue. You are not likely to see the sexual tropes of the modern weathly West in play on a genship. There are various forms it could take, but all of them will be fairly restrictive. Easy marriage, easy divorce, 'sex is a private matter', those wouldn't work on a genship unless it was gargantuan and carried an immense population. It certainly wouldn't work on a genship that could be built at TL8 or even TL9.

Originally Posted by Gold & Appel Inc

I'd try to emphasize hobbies that consume minimal resources, and discourage others. Sex and gaming are probably a great place to start - they contain enough variety to keep me obsessed for over two decades now, at any rate.

But the sex part will be culturally limited, from necessity, and gaming takes free time.

Realistically, a genship probably will be so organized that most people are busy most of the time with something, even if it's only make-work. There are various reasons for this.

One is that constant practice keeps skills up and ready to use in the event of an emergency, when they have to be ready right then. If you want every adult or near-adult member of the complement to be as capable as possible, you'll cross-train them as well.

Another reason is that 'idle hands are the Devil's workshop'. In a tight situation, one thing you do not want is people with a lot of time on their hands. That's why you could expect lots of work, if necessary consisting of make-work, to keep people occupied and out of mischief. Probably all the adult and near-adult members of the complement could expect to spend 90% or more of their waking hours involved in some sort of pre-planned activity. This would not necessarily be as onerous to them as it would seem to us, since it would be their familiar 'normal' throughout their lives.

Still, the whole point (along with maximizing skills and knowledge base) would be to burn up most of the excess social energy that might otherwise become a danger to the mission and survival of the ship. Naval vessels are an example of one form that this can take.

(BTW, on a genship 'near adult' would likely be very young by our standards, they wouldn't have the margin for error necessary for the long extended adolesence of modern rich Western countries. Childhood would necessarily be short.)