Space Colony
Oct. 8th, 2017 01:25 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
beccaelizabethIf you're bringing people with you to another planet, people who will literally be 100% of the humans you see for the rest of your life, who do you bring?
There's a lot of different ideas about how many humans you need for a viable long term population. It depends on who is doing the math and what their initial assumptions are.
https://www.newscientist.com/article/dn1936-magic-number-for-space-pioneers-calculated/
http://www.popularmechanics.com/space/deep-space/a10369/how-many-people-does-it-take-to-colonize-another-star-system-16654747/
https://www.space.com/26603-interstellar-starship-colony-population-size.html
80 or 160 works for ten generations if it ends with meeting many more humans. But that only works for a colony if you send generation ships packed with a lot of genetics to unpack when you get there, which has problems on a 10 gen timescale.
But 10,000 to 44,000 is the other end of the scale, to cope with both very long term genetic variability and possible causes of death without progeny. I think GURPS draws the line of outpost (needing outside support) vs colony at 10K, so that's a nice guess.
Obviously you personally are not going to have a list of 10K people off the top of your head. ... or if you do, I am not going to have room in the comments to read them all.
But how would you sort? What people would you need to bring? With a whole planet to choose from, who could you live with forever?
10K sounds big when you're trying to fit them in a spaceship, but my home town is nearly twice that and feels pretty small when you're trying to get anything social going.
And most modern communities are just part of a local network. Everyone goes up to Norwich for most of their needs, and Norwich is waaaaaaay bigger than 44K.
So packing a civilization small? Not simples. Can't just pick a town and go with it.
Also the temptation is to only bring people who agree with your politics. I mean just from them being willing to leave there will be a certain degree of overlap. And there's got to be some shared economic assumptions or you'll be arguing about who owns the ship. And then there's the monarchy, theocracy, democracy possibilities. So, you've got to have a certain amount on common.
But being too much matching would mean leaving strategies and thought patterns behind.
You want a lot of different sorts of diversity, but it's a survival requirement they get along, so whatever mechanisms of civilisation you all sign up to, they better be pretty robust.
Also, just to be clear, LGBT people can of course be included, and people who don't want children, and people whose job it is to sit around and think all day, and disabled people have to be included and planned for because there'll certainly be more of those as you go along. You just need a number of people and diversity of tasks that'll work long term anyway. That's why the higher numbers, they don't assume a precisely managed replacement rate of humans.
I'd be tempted to start with people with shared fandoms.
... no, for serious. They'll have something to talk about, shared focal texts, a starting point that may suggest a shared set of values, or at least a way to talk about values that seems relatively neutral. They'll share a dream.
It has to be easier to get along with a shared starting point.
But with that very familiar context you can imagine all the drama you'd be packing too. The flame wars would be epic, if there was never again the possibility of just leaving...
Also, if you start with space scientists, you get a lot of fandom people anyway.
But F&SF is super popular, so it might not be much of a sorting mechanism.
I'd also be really tempted to bring a bunch of actors too.
... I'd plan to ask them first.
... it's just, I've seen what local school plays and amateur dramatics and cabarets can manage, and while the degree of creativity involved is one of the better aspects of humanity, we are, on the whole, no Hollywood. Because the big productions draw on a far wider pool of talent. So, it gets to seeming nice to just start by bringing the best culture creators we can persuade, same like we'd obviously bring the best scientists. The fact that the best are famous in their respective fields, and actors more broadly, is just coincidence. Bringing skills is logic.
... and now I'm imagining a colony of 10K writers. Epic and *articulate* flame wars...
Culture and science are so much bigger than you can fit in a small town, you'd want everyone to have diversified skills. Like if you could choose between two doctors and only one played an instrument you'd probably want to bring them. Or artists or writers or actors.
... I have a *very good reason* to want to bring Peter Wingfield. Made of logic and everything.
Space Colony, as an idea, is a way of weighing up your priorities and values. Apparently my first thoughts are F&SF fans, actors, writers, and only then medics...
But it's also a daydream of getting away from all them others. Which... is less nice.
Slight improvement on the appeal of the apocalypse, but you have the same math problems after the end. If you need to scrape together 10K survivors to have a chance of human survival, there's really a lot of stories that are just about the slow dying of the light, cause groups that small aren't going anywhere in the long term.
One of the things that make me frustrated about a lot of post apoc stuff. Everyone squabbling for scarce resources, horrible blood drenched conflict, and a waste of the one resource we absolutely know is on its way out, remaining humans. I know its no use collecting more than you can feed, they may well need to be widely distributed to live off whatever's left, but you or your descendants are going to need them or their descendants for certain sure.
... granted most post apocalyptic fic doesn't cover ten generations, but the math is pretty clear...
and it's also no use only having 10K humans on a planet if they can't reach each other.
Communications would be key, transport closely after, and travelling a long way just to meet and marry would make really good sense.
I'd want to bring the widest packable variety of foodstuffs too. I, personally, do not eat meat or dairy, but if the survival of the colony depends on growing food under conditions you can't possibly predict in the relevantly long term, you want all the biodiversity humanly possible.
... on this planet too, but, over that I have no control.
But packing food animals makes all of this a whole lot more complicated, because then as well as generation ship for humans you've got to do the same calculations for cows. And sheeps. And chickens... just for starters.
Even if you're getting there through a Stargate - by far the simplest starting assumption, since it means you can check for basic habitability and breatheable air without sending a ten generation tin can - you need to at least plan as if the gate malfunctions soon as everyone is through it. I mean, gate based societies thus far tend to be small and use the gate instead of going all over the planet and get their genetic variability from other worlds, but then they're stuffed if the gate goes.
It's probably a lot easier just to pack plants. But it is in no way easy.
And you'd need a really spectacular set of gardeners and agricultural specialists to look at a completely unknown set of soils and not waste all your accumulated biodiversity.
... so the ideal colonist is an actor with medical training who can grow some sort of food.
I've thought on plot bunnies that start with having a sf convention through a Stargate, that then stops working. You'd probably have medics and military in the mix somewhere, but you'd very probably not have done the math on genetic variation, and 10K would be a really large con around here.
I've also got one where a planned colony of 200 go through the Stargate partly to make propaganda films for declassification, to sell the world on the universe, but also to build up their own planet with naquada mining and a university with medical school that can trade through the gate. They need to build quickly in preparation for the rest of the 10K arriving. But they have all the usual hostilities to contend with too.
... imagine being a builder and having to worry about... well, building in a war zone, not a new idea, just with some alien whatsits on top.
Builders and plumbers and carpenters and all sorts, you'd need.
... huh, imagine trying to keep the skill of carpentry alive on a generation ship, simply because you know you'll need it eventually. Or lumberjacks...
You wouldn't want to rely on Earth for all your culture because it's going to drift away from locally interesting pretty quickly. It's another country now. Consider how foreign soaps and comedy travel, and then imagine a few light years in the way.
And how would you feel about crowd scenes?
Stargate Atlantis fandom has done a few plans, for 200, mostly as crit of how ridiculously under prepared canon was. Start with olives and honey and sweet potato and all the staples of a thousand years that you just can't be sure are out there...
Colony design is ridiculously tricky, and some of the early ones will fail. We should start practising now. Intentional communities designed for a minimum of outside input, the ultimate in local supplies.
... but I think we'd currently be really bad at this, because even if we allow unlimited data import, there's still so many other things we'd want from the wider world.
How do you even dress yourself without half the stuff being from the other side of the world?
... must pack tailors and seamstresses and people with the knowing of fibre arts...
So much human knowledge, how do you pack it all small?
Appreciation of interconnected specialisation rising...
There's a lot of different ideas about how many humans you need for a viable long term population. It depends on who is doing the math and what their initial assumptions are.
https://www.newscientist.com/article/dn1936-magic-number-for-space-pioneers-calculated/
http://www.popularmechanics.com/space/deep-space/a10369/how-many-people-does-it-take-to-colonize-another-star-system-16654747/
https://www.space.com/26603-interstellar-starship-colony-population-size.html
80 or 160 works for ten generations if it ends with meeting many more humans. But that only works for a colony if you send generation ships packed with a lot of genetics to unpack when you get there, which has problems on a 10 gen timescale.
But 10,000 to 44,000 is the other end of the scale, to cope with both very long term genetic variability and possible causes of death without progeny. I think GURPS draws the line of outpost (needing outside support) vs colony at 10K, so that's a nice guess.
Obviously you personally are not going to have a list of 10K people off the top of your head. ... or if you do, I am not going to have room in the comments to read them all.
But how would you sort? What people would you need to bring? With a whole planet to choose from, who could you live with forever?
10K sounds big when you're trying to fit them in a spaceship, but my home town is nearly twice that and feels pretty small when you're trying to get anything social going.
And most modern communities are just part of a local network. Everyone goes up to Norwich for most of their needs, and Norwich is waaaaaaay bigger than 44K.
So packing a civilization small? Not simples. Can't just pick a town and go with it.
Also the temptation is to only bring people who agree with your politics. I mean just from them being willing to leave there will be a certain degree of overlap. And there's got to be some shared economic assumptions or you'll be arguing about who owns the ship. And then there's the monarchy, theocracy, democracy possibilities. So, you've got to have a certain amount on common.
But being too much matching would mean leaving strategies and thought patterns behind.
You want a lot of different sorts of diversity, but it's a survival requirement they get along, so whatever mechanisms of civilisation you all sign up to, they better be pretty robust.
Also, just to be clear, LGBT people can of course be included, and people who don't want children, and people whose job it is to sit around and think all day, and disabled people have to be included and planned for because there'll certainly be more of those as you go along. You just need a number of people and diversity of tasks that'll work long term anyway. That's why the higher numbers, they don't assume a precisely managed replacement rate of humans.
I'd be tempted to start with people with shared fandoms.
... no, for serious. They'll have something to talk about, shared focal texts, a starting point that may suggest a shared set of values, or at least a way to talk about values that seems relatively neutral. They'll share a dream.
It has to be easier to get along with a shared starting point.
But with that very familiar context you can imagine all the drama you'd be packing too. The flame wars would be epic, if there was never again the possibility of just leaving...
Also, if you start with space scientists, you get a lot of fandom people anyway.
But F&SF is super popular, so it might not be much of a sorting mechanism.
I'd also be really tempted to bring a bunch of actors too.
... I'd plan to ask them first.
... it's just, I've seen what local school plays and amateur dramatics and cabarets can manage, and while the degree of creativity involved is one of the better aspects of humanity, we are, on the whole, no Hollywood. Because the big productions draw on a far wider pool of talent. So, it gets to seeming nice to just start by bringing the best culture creators we can persuade, same like we'd obviously bring the best scientists. The fact that the best are famous in their respective fields, and actors more broadly, is just coincidence. Bringing skills is logic.
... and now I'm imagining a colony of 10K writers. Epic and *articulate* flame wars...
Culture and science are so much bigger than you can fit in a small town, you'd want everyone to have diversified skills. Like if you could choose between two doctors and only one played an instrument you'd probably want to bring them. Or artists or writers or actors.
... I have a *very good reason* to want to bring Peter Wingfield. Made of logic and everything.
Space Colony, as an idea, is a way of weighing up your priorities and values. Apparently my first thoughts are F&SF fans, actors, writers, and only then medics...
But it's also a daydream of getting away from all them others. Which... is less nice.
Slight improvement on the appeal of the apocalypse, but you have the same math problems after the end. If you need to scrape together 10K survivors to have a chance of human survival, there's really a lot of stories that are just about the slow dying of the light, cause groups that small aren't going anywhere in the long term.
One of the things that make me frustrated about a lot of post apoc stuff. Everyone squabbling for scarce resources, horrible blood drenched conflict, and a waste of the one resource we absolutely know is on its way out, remaining humans. I know its no use collecting more than you can feed, they may well need to be widely distributed to live off whatever's left, but you or your descendants are going to need them or their descendants for certain sure.
... granted most post apocalyptic fic doesn't cover ten generations, but the math is pretty clear...
and it's also no use only having 10K humans on a planet if they can't reach each other.
Communications would be key, transport closely after, and travelling a long way just to meet and marry would make really good sense.
I'd want to bring the widest packable variety of foodstuffs too. I, personally, do not eat meat or dairy, but if the survival of the colony depends on growing food under conditions you can't possibly predict in the relevantly long term, you want all the biodiversity humanly possible.
... on this planet too, but, over that I have no control.
But packing food animals makes all of this a whole lot more complicated, because then as well as generation ship for humans you've got to do the same calculations for cows. And sheeps. And chickens... just for starters.
Even if you're getting there through a Stargate - by far the simplest starting assumption, since it means you can check for basic habitability and breatheable air without sending a ten generation tin can - you need to at least plan as if the gate malfunctions soon as everyone is through it. I mean, gate based societies thus far tend to be small and use the gate instead of going all over the planet and get their genetic variability from other worlds, but then they're stuffed if the gate goes.
It's probably a lot easier just to pack plants. But it is in no way easy.
And you'd need a really spectacular set of gardeners and agricultural specialists to look at a completely unknown set of soils and not waste all your accumulated biodiversity.
... so the ideal colonist is an actor with medical training who can grow some sort of food.
I've thought on plot bunnies that start with having a sf convention through a Stargate, that then stops working. You'd probably have medics and military in the mix somewhere, but you'd very probably not have done the math on genetic variation, and 10K would be a really large con around here.
I've also got one where a planned colony of 200 go through the Stargate partly to make propaganda films for declassification, to sell the world on the universe, but also to build up their own planet with naquada mining and a university with medical school that can trade through the gate. They need to build quickly in preparation for the rest of the 10K arriving. But they have all the usual hostilities to contend with too.
... imagine being a builder and having to worry about... well, building in a war zone, not a new idea, just with some alien whatsits on top.
Builders and plumbers and carpenters and all sorts, you'd need.
... huh, imagine trying to keep the skill of carpentry alive on a generation ship, simply because you know you'll need it eventually. Or lumberjacks...
You wouldn't want to rely on Earth for all your culture because it's going to drift away from locally interesting pretty quickly. It's another country now. Consider how foreign soaps and comedy travel, and then imagine a few light years in the way.
And how would you feel about crowd scenes?
Stargate Atlantis fandom has done a few plans, for 200, mostly as crit of how ridiculously under prepared canon was. Start with olives and honey and sweet potato and all the staples of a thousand years that you just can't be sure are out there...
Colony design is ridiculously tricky, and some of the early ones will fail. We should start practising now. Intentional communities designed for a minimum of outside input, the ultimate in local supplies.
... but I think we'd currently be really bad at this, because even if we allow unlimited data import, there's still so many other things we'd want from the wider world.
How do you even dress yourself without half the stuff being from the other side of the world?
... must pack tailors and seamstresses and people with the knowing of fibre arts...
So much human knowledge, how do you pack it all small?
Appreciation of interconnected specialisation rising...
no subject
Date: 2017-10-09 03:23 pm (UTC)https://beccaelizabeth.dreamwidth.org/3304551.html
it might have a limit, it might be indefinite. the colony would get to find out as it went along.
no subject
Date: 2017-10-09 06:48 pm (UTC)