[Bio-Tech] Template for Female Space Colonists

[Peter Knutsen]

Originally Posted by vicky_molokh

Meh. Those polymaths are likely to be highly successful either in their fields, or in general. If they want to go looking for customised catalogue-wives, they'll have better options doing it without sending themselves into a highly uncomfortable frontier.

That's not the point. The point is, some of the males ones will consider signing up for the colony. None of the female ones will.

[David Johnston2]

Originally Posted by scc

Yeah, really bad title, but it was the best I could come up with. Any way this is an idea that I've been kicking around for some time, this template represents female space colonists from a society that uses genetic engineering on it's colonists. The behind this particular group of modifications is to cause population to grow faster by skewing births to favor female. Because most of the items on this list are features they're listed alphabetically by TL to make reading easier, it also suggests multiple versions as TL progress as technology progress. Format is Trait, (Page number in Bio-Tech, followed by numbers in other books) [Point Cost] and TL

Attractive (45/B21)[4] TL9
Altered Sex Ratio (59) [0] TL9*
Extended Fertility (59) [0] TL9
Increased Fecundity (59) [0] TL9
Light Menses (58) [0] TL9
Sexual Orientation (Bi-Sexual)(59) [0] TL9


Easy Childbirth (58) [0] TL10
Modified Genetic Inheritance (Does not pass Traits on to male children)(59) [0] TL10

Right, the core of this is the Altered Sex Ratio trait, it's basically the whole idea. The Extended Fertility and Increased Fecundity are both the sorts of thing to be expected from such an upgrade, and adding Light Menses whilst making these changes makes a lot of sense. The Sexual Orientation is more the sort of thing that gets thrown in there by someone thinking it's a good idea, probably as some sort of compensation to the girls, or to make the whole thing more livable for everyone.

Easy Childbirth, if available is just a must have on this sort of thing, and given that it's likely to end up making the hips wider and coupled with a breast enhancement you just know someone's going to suggest Attractive makes sense and is likely to be part of a higher TL package. And as for MGI? Well it sort of makes sense, this stuff isn't going to be passed onto guys.

I did consider Extreme Sexual Dimorphism (170) in place of Attractive, but it didn't seem to fit. Likewise Lecherousness was considered, but it also doesn't seem to fit, it's styled for someone who's on the chase, not in a stable relationship.

An alternate version may have a male version which has the Altered Sex Ratio which would make the whole thing self-correcting,

So, thoughts?

Creeeepy. Also I don't see much point to Modified Genetic Inheritance except to keep the guys from kissing each other.

[Frost]

Originally Posted by Peter Knutsen

That's not the point. The point is, some of the males ones will consider signing up for the colony. None of the female ones will.

The problem is that you have yet to demonstrate how this would be an advantage.

This kind of work is going to add time and expense to the project as far as I can see in the hope that it will attract overachievers with harem fantasies. The reproductive 'advantages' are largely redundant at least from a population point of view, the altered sex ratio actualy reduces the effective population size for a given number of colonists* and anyway if we are producing colonists to order why not just breed an entire population with more sensible characteristics.

*The effective population determines how long a population can exist in isolation without undesirable levels of inbreeding. From memory the maximum effective population is usualy produced by having an equal number of unrelated males and females of breeding age.

How big a problem this will be is going to be determined by the size of the colony and the degree of isolation it is expected to experience. The smaller the colony is the less sensible this is going to be. But even in large expeditions with regular contact with home I would suspect that carefull planners would favour a more equal sex ratio, as a contingency.

[vicky_molokh]

Originally Posted by Frost

*The effective population determines how long a population can exist in isolation without undesirable levels of inbreeding. From memory the maximum effective population is usualy produced by having an equal number of unrelated males and females of breeding age.

Of course, you don't need to transport actual male individuals if all you care about is genetic diversity. Your need to carry actual female individuals either (in excess of the required workforce) is dubious if you invest in exowombs.
At TL9, an optimal colony gets split into worker units, reproductive units, and genetic material, and neither of these three needs to be made of full-fledged human individuals at TL9.

[scc]

On exo-wombs, well the suggestion of them first assumes that their available in-universe, secondly it assumes that people use them and don't shun them for some reason (Thinking that the children are unnatural for some reason or whatever). Thirdly it assumes the colony can afford and support them. In a situation where your relying on in-situ generation of colonists via either exo-wombs gender in-balance chances are transport is limited, so spare parts and technicians to maintain exo-wombs may have to be generated internally, which means transporting a factory to make them and maintaining a population large enough to make the whole thing economically viable.

That comment about the transport should shed some light on the bi-sexual thing being used to attract male colonists

[vicky_molokh]

Originally Posted by scc

On exo-wombs, well the suggestion of them first assumes that their available in-universe,

Are they, or are they not? You're the OP/GM . . .

Originally Posted by scc

secondly it assumes that people use them and don't shun them for some reason (Thinking that the children are unnatural for some reason or whatever).

That ships seems to have sailed a long time ago given the other unnatural stuff you list.

Originally Posted by scc

Thirdly it assumes the colony can afford and support them. In a situation where your relying on in-situ generation of colonists via either exo-wombs gender in-balance chances are transport is limited, so spare parts and technicians to maintain exo-wombs may have to be generated internally, which means transporting a factory to make them and maintaining a population large enough to make the whole thing economically viable.

At which point I have to ask whether the whole colony is economically viable.
Exowombs are a relatively cheap item of TL9 infrastructure - compared to other TL9 infrastructural items. Even so, population growth bottleneck won't be in the amount of children born - assuming the colonists actually want to give birth to children. It will be upbringing and education up to TL9 standards.
If you can't afford to spare the required number of technicians for maintaining exowombs, then you can't afford the number of required teachers giving the kids knowledge, and can't afford to have mothers spend any amount of time on upbringing kids: pregnancy and childcare eat up huge amounts of workhours/reduce efficiency of the workforce, as opposed to needing, say, one technician per 100-500 exowombs.
Another related matter: If your colony is too small to afford specialisation, then you have all sorts of problems maintaining it.

[Frost]

Originally Posted by scc

On exo-wombs, well the suggestion of them first assumes that their available in-universe, secondly it assumes that people use them and don't shun them for some reason (Thinking that the children are unnatural for some reason or whatever).

I think that the topic of exowombs may be distracting some what from the utterly flawed rationale for the project.

Ultimately the idea seems to be founded upon an obsession with population growth at all costs, even if this will actualy be detrimental to the survival of the colony. If transport is that restricted then providing the population is over a certain threshold viability and stability will be the primary concerns.

Neither of these is served by this project, I have already covered the issues involving viability (at least in brief) so I will concentrate upon stability. I can see several problems with maintaing a stable colony in the face of this proposal, firstly consider the effects of using this as a recruituing tool. An isolated colony is going to be seeking mature well socialised indeviduals 'Come to the frontier, we have many hawt girls!' won't exactly do what you need it to do.

Secondly I wouldn't set too much store by the notion that any part of this is going help stability. It seems designed to encourage either poligamy or at least fairly agressive serial monogamy both of which can create relitively high levels of social disfunction.

Lastly I think that I have to return to the issue of high population growth rates. Ignoring logistical issues excessively high growth rates are going to bite your colonists on the backside in another fashion, namely increased social unrest. Over the years there has been some evidence of corelation between population growth, crime and unrest. In the relitively constrained environment of a colony this effect is likely to be exagerated.

[Frost]

Originally Posted by vicky_molokh

At which point I have to ask whether the whole colony is economically viable.
...
If your colony is too small to afford specialisation, then you have all sorts of problems maintaining it.

Unless you are going to assume that the setlers are going to be able to live off the land without at least some advanced technology (very dubious) the abillity to maintain a Tl 9 society is going to determine wether a colony is possible at all. By definition if you don't have at least a bare bones infrastructure you don't have a colony at all.

I think that the critical question what is needed to provide this and how does it affect the OP's setup?

[Angle]

If you really want the colony to work the way you outlined, you could just have the colonists be from some sect that doesn't like the idea of Exowombs. Fundamentalist mormons, perhaps?

[Peter Knutsen]

Originally Posted by scc

On exo-wombs, well the suggestion of them first assumes that their available in-universe, secondly it assumes that people use them and don't shun them for some reason (Thinking that the children are unnatural for some reason or whatever).

Exo-wombs may not appear at TL9. In fact I find that increasingly implausible as we seem to be well past mid TL8 now, with nothing like that in sight. But if not TL9 then TL10 for sure. What happens in a natural womb isn't some mystical magical thing that is forever impossible to achieve understanding of.

As for "people using them", what make you think that "people" get a choice?

A government or a corporation controlling the colony, and wanting more genetically average worker bee citizens, can own the exo wombs and churn out as many genetically average worker bee citizens as they wish. It doesn't matter whether "people" want to use those wombs or not, nor is there any reliable and easily accessible way for prejudices "people" to determine whether a newly encountered individual came from a natural womb or from an exowomb.