Re: What kinds of people would leave the solar system?

In article <e4pMsxT9qEpIFwTO@xxxxxxxxxx>, Bernard Peek <bap@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
In message <g81e67$pcj$1@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>, James Nicoll
<jdnicoll@xxxxxxxxx> writes
In article <ec62d8c3-1517-4178-960a-79b8ed4b1891@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>,
James W <ward.jamesb@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Okay, I know this isn't hard science, but it seemed this was the best
group to post in. And I want to go ahead and thank anyone who takes
the time to try and read and respond to this.

I'm toying with a story idea/thought experiment involving interstellar
colonization. In a nutshell, I want to have colonies in various solar
systems develop on their own, according to how they might want to, and
then suddenly be thrust into direct contact when a FTL drive is
developed.

One thing to consider is that if the first colonie ships are
STL, you almost certainly won't see One Colony Group: One Planet.

Planets turn out to be surprisingly large, though, so this
may not be a serious problem. It could be a century or more before
the Colony of the Angry Men Named Fred encroaches on the Colony of
People Who Thought the Third Aliens Movie was the Best One (Or
longer if the Freds didn't bring women) as long as they park
themselves on opposite sides of the world.

Perhaps it's more likely that the groups will be smaller than that. Less
than the number that could create a self-sustaining colony. So there may
be one colony on a planet but with various "ghettos" that might be as
small as a single large building or the size of a city.

There's also the possibility that the second and third and so
on waves will be faced with a choice between a nice, growing city and
undeveloped hinterland and opt for choice one. Canada has vast amounts
of undeveloped waste lands but immigrants tend to head for Toronto and
other, lesser, cities.


--
http://www.livejournal.com/users/james_nicoll
http://www.cafepress.com/jdnicoll (For all your "The problem with
defending the English language [...]" T-shirt, cup and tote-bag needs)
.

Relevant Pages

  • Re: What kinds of people would leave the solar system?
    ... In message, James Nicoll ... colonization. ... you almost certainly won't see One Colony Group: ... So there may be one colony on a planet but with various "ghettos" that might be as small as a single large building or the size of a city. ...
    (rec.arts.sf.science)
  • Re: Solving the generation ship curse
    ... They study the planet from all angles (meanwhile starting to collect ... gravity well will have to wait until the space colony matures or the ... The surface colony sets out orchards of genetically-engineered plants ...
    (rec.arts.sf.written)
  • Re: Space settlement and genetic bottlenecks
    ... Suppose that a shipload of settles arrives on a planet that has water ... Imagine a ship arriving on a planet with ten million inhabitants. ... valuable - the information that a colony of ten cannot afford to apply ... The genetic diversity of the colony is very small ...
    (rec.arts.sf.science)
  • Re: technological "bootstrap" ROM (Was Re: rebuilding technology, alone)
    ... launching the needed technological level for a viable colony? ... Dott. ... albeit rather unhabitable, but no one seems to have thinked the obvious, that pointing telescopes, sensors & instruments in general in direction of the three Centaur stars, barnard's star &tc. ... Seriously, we already have some sound FTL theory, and the finding of useful planets will shift the entire bleeding edge research into high & very high gear ...
    (sci.military.naval)
  • Re: Interstellar colonization scenarios
    ... I was reading some really old threads about ramjets and colonization ... >> colony ships, distributed roughly evenly in all directions to colonize ... >> priority of each colony would be to launch more interstellar missions to ... > design a human social system that pursues the mission goal ...
    (rec.arts.sf.composition)