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Old 10-17-2021, 04:52 PM   #1
Astromancer
 
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Default Starting a Foundation of Interstellar Colonization

Basically, this isn't a debate on whether interstellar travel could ever be possible for humans. We've been through that dead end. This isn't about alternative options that excite somebody. We've had flogged by that debate too. This is about the politics and culture that would surround a serious effort to work towards humans traveling to the stars.

This world is aware of at least a version of its own history. The USA isn't the overwhelming influence it was but anyone seriously thinking about it would see that any group that got control of a star system could become massively powerful and influential.

Some groups would wildly support the idea, others would kill to stop it, or secure it for themselves alone. Given that generation starships are possible in this setting (no we won't argue about it Generation starships are viable in this setting, if you don't like it complain about the setting, and do it somewhere else) it seems obvious that it's only a matter of commitment and resources to get started. So the politics of interstellar flight would be serious. And given the nature of the setting, deadly.
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Old 10-17-2021, 06:26 PM   #2
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Some groups would wildly support the idea, others would kill to stop it, or secure it for themselves alone. y.
Sorry, if you're using authorial fiat to make this true you'll have to use it to determine who has the biggest delusion concerning their collective destiny to survive over the multi-century process that this would require to pay off.

I tend to think the "natural" atitude toward politics in 5th Wave countries is "Nothing matters and what if it did?".

Infosocialism was a recent trend away from that but it wasn't Fifth Wave all that much and it appears t be on the wane anyway.

Chinese authoritarianism survived long enough to crush the TSA but that was because David used his authorial fiat to keep it on life support long enough to do that.

European anti-change-ism could sprout a few terrorists against interstellar colonisation but I don't see much coming from it.

Also, biological organisms of sufficient wealth have attained unlimited lifespans right where they are and don't have to sublimate that drive into something else like the spread and perpetuation of their identity group.

Probably you just chant "Memetics! Memetics! Memetics!" and have whoever you want fighting over this for no other reasons.
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Old 10-18-2021, 09:33 AM   #3
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This world is aware of at least a version of its own history. The USA isn't the overwhelming influence it was but anyone seriously thinking about it would see that any group that got control of a star system could become massively powerful and influential.
Why? Historically most colonization projects are outright failures, or cost more than they return to their homeland. In the case of interstellar colonization that seems even more true and obvious. And even if it would have one, the time horizon for any return is so many decades (or centuries!) in the future you have no idea what the political or economic situation would be like by the time it could matter.

Control of another star system is arguably nice for the people that *actually* get control of it, but has next to no effect on anybody in the star system they came from. Absent a transportation system that will allow stuff to move back and forth in less than years at costs not orders of magnitude more than local shipping, investing in a colony is throwing away your resources to benefit the colonists.

The major political fight seems likely to be internal, with interest groups in your own society that don't want to throw their money away on something ultimately worthless to them. Your ability to sell it at all probably depends on your memetic campaign to persuade people at home that it is somehow better to spend money on "them" than "us". Historically you can get away with that to a degree by convincing everyone "them" and "us" are somehow part of the same thing (clan, nation, religion, race, whatever) but that seems like a hard sell when you are talking about the kind of time frames involved in doing anything interstellar without superscience.
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Old 10-22-2021, 04:22 PM   #4
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Default Re: Starting a Foundation of Interstellar Colonization

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Sorry, if you're using authorial fiat to make this true you'll have to use it to determine who has the biggest delusion concerning their collective destiny to survive over the multi-century process that this would require to pay off.
.
I didn't write the setting. I get that generation starships offend you. Why bother posting then?
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Old 10-22-2021, 08:34 PM   #5
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I didn't write the setting. I get that generation starships offend you. Why bother posting then?
No, generation starships don't offend me. I just don't believe in large numbers of persons caring about them enough to fight over. That was the part you were creating. I wouldn't do.....eh, much of anything to try and stop someone else from launching one.

Of course, I might be personally deficiant in my urges to force other people to do what I want even if I do sometimes spend too much time explaining why what what they want doesn't make much sense.

If there was an actually attractive planet that could be the home to a human civilization many centuries in the future I might even think it would be a good idea in a very abstract sense of 'good" but I wouldn't think it was worth fighting over.
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Old 10-24-2021, 11:40 AM   #6
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Default Re: Starting a Foundation of Interstellar Colonization

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I wouldn't do.....eh, much of anything to try and stop someone else from launching one.
Where you might reasonably object, I think, would be if the efforts of your government were bent entirely towards that rather than, well, anything else a government might do. (And any entity with enough resources to do this would in effect be a government, whatever it claimed.)
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Old 10-24-2021, 02:09 PM   #7
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Where you might reasonably object, I think, would be if the efforts of your government were bent entirely towards that rather than, well, anything else a government might do. (And any entity with enough resources to do this would in effect be a government, whatever it claimed.)
Surely that depends on how rich people are.

After all, I can well remember when spaceflight was obviously so expensive that only a major government could afford it (the classic space race was the USA vs the USSR). Now we have private entrepreneurs with their own space programs, and with aspirations to go beyond what any government has attained.
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Old 10-24-2021, 04:30 PM   #8
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Default Re: Starting a Foundation of Interstellar Colonization

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Surely that depends on how rich people are.

After all, I can well remember when spaceflight was obviously so expensive that only a major government could afford it (the classic space race was the USA vs the USSR). Now we have private entrepreneurs with their own space programs, and with aspirations to go beyond what any government has attained.
Sure; I was thinking specifically of the TS setting since that's where we're having this discussion. While the space tech is very good, something on the scale of a human-crewed generation ship (i.e. able to survive without external support or even much solar power, for centuries) is very substantially harder than any extant space project in that setting.
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Old 10-24-2021, 06:01 PM   #9
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Default Re: Starting a Foundation of Interstellar Colonization

Given the specific tech available in Transhuman Space, I would presume that the most reasonable and most efficient approach would be to have a non-biological crew (i.e. all A.I.). No lifeforms means no life support, and a much higher G-force tolerance. Also, no (or fewer) worries about the "lifespan" of the crew. (I don't recall if this setting established a maximum "lifespan" [i.e. viability] of AIs. Would an AI begin to degrade after a century or so? A millennium? Ten millennia?)

Just my two cents' worth. ;-)
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Old 10-24-2021, 06:22 PM   #10
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Would an AI begin to degrade after a century or so? A millennium? Ten millennia?

Franklin
No AIs are old enough to answer this question. Indeed, no software of any sort it. Even the simplest forms of data storage over the necesary time period is a non-simple question.

At any rate, Astromaner specified a generation ship. This would exclude nanostasis too.
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