Setting Jam: Hyperbolic Trajectory

[ericthered]

Originally Posted by TGLS

Question: Who actually won the contract to build the Earth Orbital Ring? What's taking so long?

Uni-Orb won the contract. Unfortunately, earth orbit has some major differences from lunar orbit. The orbiting part of the ring keeps on drifting slightly out of alignment. This initially seemed due to a combination of a more crowded orbital environment and resulting residual exhaust and the changing magnetic field of earth. But its quite possible at this point that sabotage is involved, and embezzlement scandals are making the cost-overruns look more and more suspicious?

Who are the biggest suspects for sabotaging the ring?

Who is funding the contract for the Earth Orbital ring?

[(E)]

Who is developing Mars and why?

The figurehead of the push for Mars is Cedric Nelson, who came to the system's attention when he was chosen to lead the second planet initiatives' first colony on Mars.

The second planet initiative is a organisation nominally dedicated to developing a largely sustainable population of humans off world should a terrible disaster ever happen on earth. It has also incorporated several other groups who want to colonize or develop Mars for other reasons.

The nascent governing body of Mars (specifically Cedric Nelson) has developed a enough of a legal system where immigrants can own land on Mars by occupying an area for a year and a day (as well as a some other conditions)

While the money that can be gained by selling off a land parcel won't make a person fabulously wealthy it wll partially offset the costs. (144 million square kilometers available on the Martian surface)

Questions
How big is a parcel of Martian land?

What are the other conditions that have to be met for an immigrant to earn a parcel of land?

The lunar pro-am golf tournament is due to start shortly, what kind of event is this, a unusual local holiday, a massive sporting event or something else entirely?

[benz72]

Originally Posted by (E)

Question.
Is there a subculture around troubleshooting?

Actually, there are a few subcultures organized along a few separate principles

One is academic, with the members of this organization collecting certifications, professional licenses, and equipment model 'checkouts' as a matter of prestige. This derives from an old habit of including an indexed repair log as a CV appendix.

Another is a proto-union where members (who actually do pay dues to a collective) attempt to collectively bargain with both service companies and equipment manufacturers.

There are rumors of a secret group of Troubleshooters who have been secretly installing 'capture-ware' in back doors of the equipment they service, Some say they are the descendants of the Anonymous movement, but there is little evidence to support this.

[benz72]

Originally Posted by (E)

What are the other conditions that have to be met for an immigrant to earn a parcel of land?

Per the settlement charter, only someone who is present without transport debt or indenture is permitted to claim ownership via adverse possession through 400 continuous solar days of presence on the site. The charter limits individual land claims to 1,000 hectares (10 km^2)* but some groups are organized enough to claim adjoining parcels.
Continuous habitation is allowed to be communally accomplished (e.g. a family can claim adverse possession without every member having to stay on location, only one member at a time is required to be present).
Practically, this means that small, self-sufficient groups lay down well marked claims with the hopes of paying off the investment via mineral extraction, local manufacturing, or via aquaponic farming.


*this needs to scale to permissible claim area within effective control of the chartered settlement.

[TGLS]

Originally Posted by (E)

How advanced is cryogenic or similar technology?

Biostatic technology is very mature. It was developed by Ophelia Hansen, Jamil Abshir and Myriam Omotayo at the National University of Singapore in 2108, and they won the Nobel Prize in Physiology for this development in 2129 (though Ophelia Hansen's prize was only acknowledged in 2144, after biostasis was acknowledged as 'not death'). At first the technology was somewhat dangerous, similar to anaesthesia in the 20th century, by the late 23rd century the mechanism became so well understood that the process could be automated by robotics.

This breakthrough revolutionized the medical industry, by enabling medical staff to effectively delay death in perpetuity while they fixed whatever happened to go wrong. It also enabled humanity to capitalize on the discoveries of their interstellar probes by enabling the construction of small seedships to nearby stars, with trained, human colonists.

---

What are the off-shoot technologies of biostasis? Are there any?

What are the social impacts of biostasis?

Originally Posted by ericthered

a number of colonies have been sent out to nearby stars... maybe a few of them even made it there.

Why is it unknown if the missions to nearby stars managed to successfully colonize the planets, if probes were able to report useful information?

[ericthered]

Originally Posted by (E)

The nascent governing body of Mars (specifically Cedric Nelson) has developed a enough of a legal system where immigrants can own land on Mars by occupying an area for a year and a day (as well as a some other conditions)

Originally Posted by TGLS

What's something common now that's rare in-universe?

Freehold real estate for sale. Over the past five centuries, freehold real estate fell out of fashion, replaced by renting and leasehold real estate. When many modern stations are constructed, there are no or almost no freehold properties sold. With the sale of the last lands on the moon about one hundred years ago, the idea of owning a house to pass down to ones children has fallen out of reach of most people.

These two seem to be at odds: freehold real estate is very rare, yet land on Mars is being parceled out in a very "freehold" manner.

To resolve it, some new questions:

What are public feelings about Cedric Nelson's free land scheme? Is he seen as a radical pushing private ownership of land? Is this a publicity stunt? Or is it just eccentric and people figure the land will all be sold off after the year is over?

How are wealthy people and entities planning to subvert this plan?

Why is it unknown if the missions to nearby stars managed to successfully colonize the planets, if probes were able to report useful information?

This is not an answer, but I was answering vaguely from an author perspective, not from an in-universe perspective... but I guess we can roll with it!

[TGLS]

Originally Posted by PTTG

What's a rumour someone might hear?

I'm telling you man, Halley never left at all! Come May 5th 2525, you'll be sorry!

The False Arks

Given the dearth of information on the interstellar colonization missions, the extreme amounts of money tossed around to fund these projects, and highly influential people involved, it's no surprise that these are huge fixtures in basically any conspiracy theory made up within the last century. They range from the practical: "The companies cheaped out."; to the impractical: "The colonists went into hiding and rule from the shadows!"; to the comically absurd: "Aliens stole the colony ship!", "They crashed into the painted edge of space!", or "It's so utopian there they don't have time to call back!"

The most enduring theory is the so-called "Halley Conspiracy". In 2207, Humans landed on Halley's Comet to construct an interstellar ark that would travel to 61 Cygni, where it is believed a habitable planet is located. Over the 23rd century, the Halley Ark gradually accelerated, and apparently broke orbit with the sun after a close pass of the sun around July 19th 2277. The mainstream version of events is that they exited on a faster schedule and their "goodbye message" was garbled and/or lost.

That's where the conspiracists come in; the general thrust of the theory is that they never exited at all, instead hiding the comet with some implausible stealth technology. The why's are generally vague, but one key detail is common to most versions of the theory is that the Halley Ark has been converted into kinetic weapon that will strike the Earth. There is no consensus why they would do this.

The obviousness of this calamity and a desire to avoid otherwise certain death has led many a conspiracy theorist to predict the collision of the Halley Ark. There have been predictions of a collision basically every year, but the major "canonical" years are 2342, 2404, 2457 and 2463. This year, there's a large roiling of a possible collision date on May 5th 2525. Do you believe that?

[(E)]

Originally Posted by ericthered

These two seem to be at odds: freehold real estate is very rare, yet land on Mars is being parceled out in a very "freehold" manner.

To resolve it, some new questions:

What are public feelings about Cedric Nelson's free land scheme? Is he seen as a radical pushing private ownership of land? Is this a publicity stunt? Or is it just eccentric and people figure the land will all be sold off after the year is over?

How are wealthy people and entities planning to subvert this plan?

Cedric Nelson's land scheme is seen as a worthwhile and trustworthy undertaking. The risk level on the other hand is seen as fairly high with the more sensational failures getting what some might consider an excessive amount of coverage in the news feeds. The cost is also a difficult to overcome challenge to an Earther.

Cedric's motivation is simply to fulfill the charter of the second planet group, which primarily means getting a significant population onto the martian soil, "free" land is just a means to that end, exploiting the limited supply of real estate.

Once the deeds are in the settler's hands the predators begin to circle. There are numerous means to influence the decision making of a person who has just spent a year in frontier conditions on an inhospitable alien world. Pressure is also being applied by THESC to accept more corporate style settlement from companies they have a good relationships with.


Question
What was the last conflict (small or large) in orbit or off world?

[PTTG]

For some grounding, homesteading on Mars is a pretty big pull for our given technology level. We've already established that fast access to the outer solar system is only barely reaching deployment now, and previous efforts relied on multi-year transfers.

It gets easier with shipments that take only months and cost less (while still being higher than, say, air freight), but basic things like air, water, food, and so on are not practical for a frontier family to handle alone. Then there's things like radiation shielding and microcircuit manufacturing which are easier to justify with subtle technology.

Now, if these are groups of a few thousand people, several of them already independently wealthy, it get easier. But now it's not really "freehold," it's a cult of personality or ideology, or just a company town. If you are 100% dependent on your boss for air, radiation protection, and electricity, it doesn't really matter if you "own" the land you're on.

There's a few ways to fit these pieces together.
1: Homesteads aren't practical, but people are trying anyway, and the law of small numbers is helping. There's like 6 surviving smallhold homesteads so far, and each of them has a different extenuating circumstance. One is supported by mass fan donations from Earth as they livestream their lives. One is a reality show full of celebrities. One is more of a retirement community attached to a pre-existing international mars research base. One is actually a legit extended family living in a pressurized cave and whom all have Luck and Serendipity. Another is the family of an Earth millionare, but they've only been on Mars for a few months and there are already problems. And so far, there's been three that failed after touchdown, two of them with no survivors.

2: "Freehold" is a financial myth, and most of efforts involve hundreds or thousands of people pooling resources, usually as part of a political or ideological movement. Good intentions or not, many who go to Mars end up indentured or indoctrinated.

3: There's a lot more automation than previously assumed in this setting; enough so that a skilled hobbyist can 3d-print an EVA helmet in a few hours and a nuclear reactor in a couple weeks. And there's advanced tech to refine materials from regolith.

4: Mars is somehow way more valuable and/or hospitable than we suspect today. Alien artifacts, life forms, or exotic mineral concentrations, and maybe it's way easier to find water too.

5: Humans can grow just fine in low-gravity, and there's a lot of experience from Lunar colonies.

Probably, all of the above. Which, in the end, gives us more adventure hooks and seeds.

aaak out of time. I'm actually in the process of moving... will continue later.

[Astromancer]

Originally Posted by whswhs

Delayed marriage, and chastity till marriage. Condoms, yes, but also diaphragms, sponges, and cervical caps, and also sexual activities that don't impregnate. There's also Fischer's historical generalization that periods when the purchasing power of currency is relatively stable have low illegitimacy rate; perhaps they know how to avoid currency depreciation, whether through strict banking regulation or simply letting banks that issue too many notes suffer from runs.

You're assuming that marriage as we understand it in the 1550-2030 period is eternal. Many societies have have far easier divorce arrangements than the modern West. Others have forbidden divorce.

Modern economies seem to reward equality between the sexs. Wealthier cultures tend to have less formal views on marriage and illegitimacy, with South Korea and Japan being the biggest exceptions with the lowest birth rates. So I don't see a long-term movement towards Victorian middle class marriage norms.

Several new contraceptives have come up which don't have the issues of today's contraceptives. So the environmental issues with contraceptives are likely to go away in a decade or two.