human colony

[beccaelizabeth]

So I was thinking about starting a colony on another planet
as you do
and trying to plan out what you'd need.

I went looking on the internet for other people's plans, but I think I lack the keywords. I found some very sketch outline stuff about colonies on planets that were not terraformed. I was thinking something more like Stargate where you could go live somewhere that looked kind of like Vancouver. Big, green, lots of trees. So your basic air and water are covered. But nothing much more complicated than trees, so everything humans would use you'd have to bring with you.

I read a Stargate Atlantis fic where the things you need list started with 'olive trees'. And trying to poke the GURPS rules to make sufficient food for a spaceship come out I found a lot of places saying potato and beans are good to eat. And personally I like eggs and mushrooms so I'd take enough to make sure breakfast was sorted. But basing my plans on things I personally eat will come up against that thing where I'm pretty sure I don't eat all the things that are good for humans. I hear green is a good food group.

So
If you were planning a colony to go to another planet
one way trip
no resupply
take people and supplies and expect to look after yourselves forever after
how would you find out what you'd need?
and what would you take with you?

(The empty planet scenario makes me twitchy in ways connected with the word colonies. On Earth it was never, ever empty. On Earth the story about going to empty places and making them good was a cover for some really foul stuff. Telling stories about the empty planets out there waiting to be colonised gets into some really awkward narratives. But, it's space. Space is big. It might be empty. And if there's any life, it seems to spend a whole lot of time inventing trees. We could go find somewhere in the middle of its tree phase. It's all logically possible. Just... sort of squirmy.)

(Also, intruding on the ecological development of another planet is logically an ethical Thing. But I'm just going to hop over the terraforming phase because it takes forever and doesn't seem to lead to people on the internet talking about how you make a functioning community full of people. People are where all the stories live.)

Comments

[kickair8p]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sweet_potato -- better than regular potatoes in all respects except they're less frost/drought tolerant. And can easily replace regular potatoes in everything, including french fries. And I think I mentioned nettles earlier, as a weed that can invigorate poor soil and be harvested for fabric.

The "empty places" narrative can be a nasty problem, yes. Even if you show up after a small team spent a couple of centuries terraforming, you're dealing with the rights of the terraformer's descendants. I'd suggest automated terraforming probes sent out via quick-travel means not survivable by macro-organisms such as people.

~

[melannen]

If you want to look realistically at an Earth model, the original colonization of the South Pacific islands is our best model - they really were going to unsettled places, and it was very long-distance travel to isolated lands with no guarantee of resupply, ever. And while there were usually some native species on the islands they could use, there often weren't many, and nearly all the widely used plants and animals (especially animals) were carried with them on canoes.

As for the rest of it: I have been trying to get answers to that for years, with no final answers yet! this discussion on my post on writerstorm from last year might be helpful.

[jesuswasbatman]

Since we have only one known example of a planet harbouring life that has had sentient life evolve, and hence it's impossible to assess probabilities, I have problems with people who dogmatically declare that hypothesising a liveable planet with no sentient life forms is in itself an Evil Racist Fantasy.

[beccaelizabeth]

*nods*
it's not that empty planet is a racist fantasy, it's that racist fantasy is its evil twin and hence looks exactly the same until you get to know them.

[baronjanus]

Okay, I'm hoping that what I'm going to say will sound okay, because I'm a little foggy and phrasing is not a big skill of mine:

a, "what to bring" depends highly on "what there is". That is, types of soil, weather, anything already edible there, etc.

b, "ecological development" actually interests me on this, because whatever you bring will try to take over. That's what earth things do. A very picky, detailed, annoying person like me, that no one wants to read, would probably note that if you bring lobster, they will reproduce wildly, and if you bring mushrooms they are likely to infect things. Olive trees are awesome but if you grow them in large numbers for mass production, you need to take care of them or they get in fights with other trees. Humans bring chickens, dogs, pigs, that changes everything. An interesting story would have how things are changed. Maybe.

c, what I would bring even in terms of tools and machines would deeply depend on what's around, what can be used, and a colony doesn't just go without things being researched first, I think. Well, people did do that all along, but it's not usually clever. It leads to lots of people dying of fever cause no one told them which meds to bring along. You can bring a saw but if there's no buildable wood around, it's not gonna help that much.

d, "functioning community full of people" starts at the ship, before the landing, maybe? Or at training, or at anywhere else people are gathered before they start the actual colony.

e, what to bring also depends on how highly-evolved your sci-fi is. "machine that makes food outta soil" and "thingie what heals all wounds" for example are good things to bring along, if your world has them.


and now that I've stopped nitpicking, I could start thinking of a list if you still want me answering :)