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+--- Thread: Up, but not Out? Discussing the lack of exploration fics. (/showthread.php?tid=3045)
- M Fnord - 07-01-2015
Threepony Wrote:Well, I'm planning on messing with this point and upsetting the status quo after a fashion. I need to work on it today after I get my normal ponyfic done to get started on a revised opening (wasn't liking where the first was going), but yeah... the guy isn't going to like most of fenspace just leaving earth and the danes to their own business when they've got the tech to help improve lives all over the place, or barring that offer better economic opportunities to convince a pretty massive swell of danes from all over (including third world/undeveloped countries) to immigrate Up. Maybe pushing the population up to 15 to 20 million by 2021, with trying to make an immigration wave self-sustaining after that.I'm being a bit pessimistic about it, but the Thing With Earth is the central paradox of Fenspace, really--how to space when nobody wants to space, but then how to space when everybody wants to space? Whenever the question of getting Earth more involved pops up, and it does once or twice a year depending, we can build background on it but after it reaches a certain threshold somebody will always start throwing in "(insert country here) starts rubbing its dick over everything, isn't that (great/horrible)" bits and well, this is why we can't have nice things, y'know?
I dunno, at some point we'll square the circle, it'd certainly be nice to work on buying Earth into the setting more that didn't end with "and then the 'Danelaw took over." Maybe ponies will show us the way.
Mr. Fnord interdimensional man of mystery
FenWiki - Your One-Stop Shop for Fenspace Information
"I. Drink. Your. NERDRAGE!"
- HRogge - 07-01-2015
There is of course the point that there is NO PLACE in the solar system (beyond Earth) at the moment where a million people could go... so "emigration" is not only a problem of transportation, but also of life-support at the end of the journey.
I would expect that most Daneverse countries would look more for "already habitable" planets than to build huge orbitals to put people into. Still, with a habitable planet in another star system one country might think "lets grab it"... and sent at least ten thousands people there. Still, getting that many people on a different star is a huge effort, even for a rich nation state.
- ECSNorway - 07-01-2015
Quote:HRogge wrote:It all depends on how you go about it, but yeah.
There is of course the point that there is NO PLACE in the solar system (beyond Earth) at the moment where a million people could go... so "emigration" is not only a problem of transportation, but also of life-support at the end of the journey.
I would expect that most Daneverse countries would look more for "already habitable" planets than to build huge orbitals to put people into. Still, with a habitable planet in another star system one country might think "lets grab it"... and sent at least ten thousands people there. Still, getting that many people on a different star is a huge effort, even for a rich nation state.
A few factions have started interstellar colonies by this point - the Soviets at the places they found the Stargates, Greenwood at Annwyn, etc. But yeah, it costs a metric f**kton of money to do so.
On the other hand, Greenwood City itself has passed the 30,000 population mark by 2018 or so, and that's a single Space Rock. With the right propulsion system that could make a very nice colony ship...
tum te tum te tum...
--
Sucrose Octanitrate.
Proof positive that with sufficient motivation, you can make anything explode.
- HRogge - 07-01-2015
ECSNorway Wrote:It all depends on how you go about it, but yeah.Are they large enough to sustain their own population? Or just small outposts?
A few factions have started interstellar colonies by this point - the Soviets at the places they found the Stargates, Greenwood at Annwyn, etc. But yeah, it costs a metric f**kton of money to do so.
Quote:On the other hand, Greenwood City itself has passed the 30,000 population mark by 2018 or so, and that's a single Space Rock. With the right propulsion system that could make a very nice colony ship...30k people is a huge number, that would be a viable colony ship they took care about genetic diversity and similar stuff.
the three CI installations have still a long way to go.
- M Fnord - 07-02-2015
The largest colony operation the Soviets currently have is the Gallifrey colony (The People's Temporal Republic of Gallifrey), and that tends to be more in the business of landlording for various bohemians that wanted a patch of land away from Sol (notables include: the New California Republic, the Fuck-the-Atreides Fremen, and Night Vale). Yggdrasil and Arda/Valinor are primarily research stations as of 2025.
Mr. Fnord interdimensional man of mystery
FenWiki - Your One-Stop Shop for Fenspace Information
"I. Drink. Your. NERDRAGE!"
- DeputyJones - 07-03-2015
Really, the one most likely to push for colonization are two daneside nations - India and China. The PRC in the Fenverse, however, seems to have collectively read too many Cold War superspy novels.
The 'world's largest republic,' though...
*bites lip* If you give me 'till Monday, I might be able to come up with a Fenwiki entry for an Indian colony circa the early 2020s via use of the NFV Barge?
- HRogge - 07-03-2015
A few Daneverse "prestige" colonies sounds right, some countries will just sink huge amounts of resources into them to prove "they can do it".
Still, getting enough people to an extrasolar place and make it self-sufficient is a huge deal of effort... not making the colony self sufficient and keeping it alive from Earth might be even harder...
- Threepony - 07-03-2015
HRogge Wrote:There is of course the point that there is NO PLACE in the solar system (beyond Earth) at the moment where a million people could go... so "emigration" is not only a problem of transportation, but also of life-support at the end of the journey.
I would expect that most Daneverse countries would look more for "already habitable" planets than to build huge orbitals to put people into. Still, with a habitable planet in another star system one country might think "lets grab it"... and sent at least ten thousands people there. Still, getting that many people on a different star is a huge effort, even for a rich nation state.
Well, yeah. no place currently in existence, hence why the NLR is planning on doming over Plaskett Crater and turning it into a singular dome for the economy of scale, and why they have a long-term goal of fully enclosing Eris. Most of that population growth is intended to be not from the major first/second world countries, but picking up from the real crap-holes of the world, sub-saharan africa, the boat peoples of Australia, the Indonesian island arcs, mexico, etc, with the intent of picking up a labor force to really help build up an economy of scale in their production facilities and for just general 'these people have horrible, messed up lives. We can't ignore their plights, so let's give them a job and a nice place to live and get some help from them in return'.
- robkelk - 07-03-2015
Some of that pool is already being drawn upon for Ganymede and Callisto. Not all - nowhere near all - but some...
--
Rob Kelk
"Governments have no right to question the loyalty of those who oppose
them. Adversaries remain citizens of the same state, common subjects of
the same sovereign, servants of the same law."
- Michael Ignatieff, addressing Stanford University in 2012
- HRogge - 07-03-2015
And building a roof over a moon/canyon is a huge effort... not only that, but it also needs maintenance.
- M Fnord - 07-03-2015
HRogge Wrote:Still, getting enough people to an extrasolar place and make it self-sufficient is a huge deal of effort... not making the colony self sufficient and keeping it alive from Earth might be even harder...The key bit here is that going exosolar is a huge-assed hassle for Fen. At least in the first generation or so of Fenspace, the Fen have sweet fuck-all for infrastructure and most of what's available is going to building up Luna, Mars, Callisto and Venus. A decently sized nation with a functional economy and working infrastructure could plant a colony around Alpha Centauri B (or Lalande 21185, or Epsilon Eridani, or Epsilon Indi, etc.) and maintain a supply chain with orders of magnitude less difficulty and cost than running boats from Barcelona to Veracruz. Centauri B and back is less than a week's round trip--actual cargo ships take longer to reach the US from Japan. The question then becomes 'so why isn't anybody doing this?' and brings up Earth having a bigger role which inevitably leads to us not having nice things, etc.
Mr. Fnord interdimensional man of mystery
FenWiki - Your One-Stop Shop for Fenspace Information
"I. Drink. Your. NERDRAGE!"
- HRogge - 07-03-2015
M Fnord Wrote:Centauri B and back is less than a week's round tripIts more like a month for a single trip... a freighter isn't as fast (sublight) as a car... so I would guess 10 days to the limit, a few days between the stars and another 10 days to Centauri B. Maybe even more, depending on the speed of the freighter.
And still, a large colony is expensive.
O would it solve a few problems for us if a few large nations finally decide to have an extrasolar colony? It could be a good money sink and it could have all kinds of interesting political problems.
- robkelk - 07-04-2015
As I understand it, there have historically been three reasons for establishing colonies:
- Getting away from a government (e.g. the Puritan settlement of Plymouth, Massachusetts)
- Extending the reach of a government (e.g. the British penal colony at Botany Bay, New South Wales)
- Easing population pressure
The first driving force is already in effect. People who are willing and able to get away from "the Man" already have - they're the people who make up the Fenspace Convention.
The second driving force tends to require people present at or near the place the government is projecting power to. Diplomacy ("gunboat" or otherwise) requires somebody to interact with.
If I didn't miss any driving forces, that leaves "easing population pressure" as a reason to colonize extra-Solar worlds. I believe DeputyJones made an offer to write up an example of this back in post 30 of this thread, so I won't say anything more on it for now.
HRogge Wrote:Its more like a month for a single trip... a freighter isn't as fast (sublight) as a car... so I would guess 10 days to the limit, a few days between the stars and another 10 days to Centauri B. Maybe even more, depending on the speed of the freighter.One can cut half of the in-Sol-system time by supplying from Ganymede instead of Earth. As of 2020, that's practical for food at the least.
--
Rob Kelk
"Governments have no right to question the loyalty of those who oppose
them. Adversaries remain citizens of the same state, common subjects of
the same sovereign, servants of the same law."
- Michael Ignatieff, addressing Stanford University in 2012
- HRogge - 07-04-2015
robkelk Wrote:As I understand it, there have historically been three reasons for establishing colonies:
- Getting away from a government (e.g. the Puritan settlement of Plymouth, Massachusetts)
- Extending the reach of a government (e.g. the British penal colony at Botany Bay, New South Wales)
- Easing population pressure
The first driving force is already in effect. People who are willing and able to get away from "the Man" already have - they're the people who make up the Fenspace Convention.
The second driving force tends to require people present at or near the place the government is projecting power to. Diplomacy ("gunboat" or otherwise) requires somebody to interact with.
If I didn't miss any driving forces, that leaves "easing population pressure" as a reason to colonize extra-Solar worlds. I believe DeputyJones made an offer to write up an example of this back in post 30 of this thread, so I won't say anything more on it for now.
I am not sure about point 3... if a nation doesn't manage to stop its population growth on its own, I am not sure they can move people of Earth quick enough that it will matter. If they manage to decrease or stop their population growth on the other side, do they really need it?
If (as an example) China or India decides to do this and move of one million people per year (which is a huge effort)... it would be less than 0.1% of their population, which doesn't change their growth that much... I am not sure Fen-tech is really up to the task moving that many people that quickly.
What is about a fourth point: prestige? Doing a large colony because you can, and then have to deal with all the consequences and trouble...
- Rajvik - 07-04-2015
Fourth point falls under the second one of expanding the government. Virginia was one of those colonies.
- M Fnord - 07-04-2015
Population pressure has never been a historic justification for colonization. Colonies have been used as relief valves, but the pressures were more social or political in nature (transporting prisoners to New South Wales, frex, or the Nonconformist settlements in the Americas).
The missing justification for colonies is the classic "make a shitload of money." Pretty much all the major colony efforts in the Americas, as well as the colonization of India, China and the scramble for Africa, were justified by the promise of gold, silver, spices or some other valuable commodity just sitting out there waiting for somebody to dig them up. Most of these didn't pan out exactly as planned of course, but that was the plan...
Mr. Fnord interdimensional man of mystery
FenWiki - Your One-Stop Shop for Fenspace Information
"I. Drink. Your. NERDRAGE!"
- Dartz - 07-04-2015
There's always the big one.... the one modern big countries like. Dickwaving prestige to make the other countries feel bad.
As in, Welcome to Russian Colony of Putingrad. Especially since Russia already has a Typhoon submarine converted into a heavy interstellar carrier for just such a purpose. And may be converting more.
China's always big on being impressive and doing things just to prove it's earned its spot at the big table.
While America doesn't like looking stupid either while talking about the NASA like English football fans talk about 1966.
There's also the Trump Republic, the usual UltraLibretarians who think their own personal Rapture is a good idea. A few billionaires who think they can run their own world like they run a business.
________________________________
--m(^0^)m-- Wot, no sig?
- LilFluff - 07-05-2015
Speaking of people with possibly more money and ambition than workable plan... I think I now have a seed of a character idea. Someone who was involved in a recent business bubble and was fortunate enough to cash out while their stock options were worth something. Who then spends a few years looking at their bank account slowly climb while asking, "I should be doing something meaningful with this, but what?" The eventual answer being, "Stop having all the human eggs in this one solar system basket. We need a Grand Terran Migration Fleet!"
-----
Will the transhumanist future have catgirls? Does Japan still exist? Well, there is your answer.
- DeputyJones - 07-07-2015
As promised...
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
[table]
(3.587 ± 0.010 pc)
15 A/B, Gi 171-047/171-048, HD 1326, HIP 1475, LHS 3/4, LTT 10108/10109, LFT
31/32, SAO 36248, Vys 085 A/B
Thuvaraiyam Pathi (G 34 A II)Shamballa (G 34 A III)
Kumari Kandam (G 34 A IV)
Mughal (G 34 A V)
target of the 2021 venture between graduate students from the University of Delhi’s new Xeno Studies department and the Nekomi Institute of Technology, as
well as a grab-bag of just over a dozen scientists from across the globe. The
project was supported by the Republic of India and several private donations.
Leasing the eight kilometer mobile station NFV Barge, the expedition left in June of that year for a one year
mission.
Having already predicted the
existence of planets from long-range observations, being carried along were
numerous long-term research satellites, a disassembled, prefabricated base for
use as either a planetary facility or a lunar/asteroidal one, and a quantum
entanglement communicator purchased from Catgirl Industries. This was part of a
secondary goal of the project, in which those members of the DU-NIT Mission
previously volunteered and vetted would establish a research station in the
Groombridge 34 A system.
What the crew found upon arrival
stunned them. At three, the 34 A system remains the current record for
habitable planets.
The Groombridge 34 System
Following the International Astronomical
Union’s moratorium on using Greek mythological names for stellar bodies, the
crew of the 2021 DU-NIT Mission happily used names of locations from the Hindu
faith for Groombridge 34 nomenclature.(1)
Meru
The planet closest to the star is a hot one. This is not only due to its
location, though. Meru is 5.05 time the mass of Earth, making it a
superterrestrial. Furthermore, it is so geologically active (Starfleet Class C
[Supergeomorteus]) that it has no permanent surface and its atmosphere is a
soup of volcanic gasses.
Thuvaraiyam Pathi
The second inner planet is the first of the habitable bodies of the system.
Despite not retaining as much water as it would have slightly further out,
Thuvaraiyam Pathi maintains 45 percent surface water in the form of two salt
water oceans and numerous lakes and oasis. Regardless, just over half of the
land area is near-desert scrubland.
The planet is also clearly a Gardener-affected world. Surveyed geological
strata identified by the 2021 mission display no fossil record whatsoever. Even
more conclusively, plant samples taken by the mission closely match with
samples obtained from Gallifrey.
Shamballa
The second of the system’s habitable worlds, it is the most lush world and has
just over 60 percent water coverage. Extensive river systems carry water across
the planet’s land masses and desertification is minor. It possesses one moon,
Kalapa.
After the examination of the second planet, a similar study of the third
indicates that Shamballa is a natural world. One particular geological sample
was an upthrust cliff along a fault line, examination of which revealed an
iridium rich layer, estimated at 14 million years ago, similar to that
possessed by Earth’s geological record at the K-T Extinction Level Event.
Research Station Deva was founded November 15, 2021 on Shamballa’s western
continent.
Shamballa would become the focus of
India’s 2023 colonization program. By 2024, a population of 20,000 was
permanently established.
Kumari Kandam
“A world of Australias” as described by one observer, Kumari Kandam’s land
is composed entirely of island continents. The land to water ratio is roughly
even at 48 to 52 percent respectively. The environment is analogous to Earth
temperate forests for most of the planet, cooling very slowly eventually to
sub-arctic and polar conditions. It has three moons, all small, captured
asteroids.
Asteroid Belt
Your basic debris belt of leftovers from the system’s creation, estimates
place it at only about half as dense as Sol’s belt.
Mughal
The final planet of the 34 A system is a dark green, ringless gas giant
roughly in the weight class of Neptune. Due to focus on the three habitable
planets of the system, little was observed about the system’s big brother other
than it possessing several cryogenic-type moons similar to Triton.
Groombridge 34 B
The companion to Groombridge 34 A was only observed in passing on the 2021
mission’s trip home. An example of a solar system that failed to form, it
possesses numerous asteroid belts and several dozen dwarf planets. Groombridge
34 B was, however, noted as a possible rich source of space mining.
1: The exception is Mughal, which is named in honor of the empire by that
name.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Edit: Was supposed to be University of Delhi, not New Delhi. Corrected.
- M Fnord - 07-07-2015
Well, that's certainly an interesting system. I'd like to see a more extensive planetological writeup on the three inhabitables, to get a feel for how the planets are different from Earth beyond land/water ratios and Gardener meddling.
Also of potential interest: as Candle readers might remember, we introduced the concept of faster-but-limited "stutterwarp" a couple chapters back. Been thinking about bringing that into the mainline as a gimmick instead of the gates. Anyway, I've got a map of colonies and stutterwarp routes to those colonies and look what the serendipity dragged in!
Mr. Fnord interdimensional man of mystery
FenWiki - Your One-Stop Shop for Fenspace Information
"I. Drink. Your. NERDRAGE!"
- DeputyJones - 07-07-2015
I'll work on fleshing the worlds out a bit more over the next couple of days. Maybe look into the Hindu pantheon for location name ideas...
Also, yeah. I could see stutterwarp spicing things up a bit. *thumbs up*
Edit: Also, I'll try to work a Three Dog Night joke into it. =^_^=
- HRogge - 07-07-2015
But Stutterwarp is only a small part of the debate...
I would be more interested if we can give Daneverse a few extrasolar colonies without breaking the scenario. Take a couple of countries that are rich (or stupid) enough and let each of them try to grab a planet... with all the problems they can get from this. Maybe let it happen in 2025-2030.
This will give Earth some space to fuel resources in without taking the local solarsystem over.
- M Fnord - 07-07-2015
DeputyJones Wrote:I'll work on fleshing the worlds out a bit more over the next couple of days. Maybe look into the Hindu pantheon for location name ideas...I'd suggest leaving the pantheon to major bodies and using more prosaic stuff for place names like small towns, random names, names that're unimaginative as hell but sound great when not translated (the Atlas of True Names is great for this kind of stuff), hell use streets in Delhi.
DeputyJones Wrote:Edit: Also, I'll try to work a Three Dog Night joke into it. =^_^=Good man.
Mr. Fnord interdimensional man of mystery
FenWiki - Your One-Stop Shop for Fenspace Information
"I. Drink. Your. NERDRAGE!"
- Bob Schroeck - 07-08-2015
Quote:DeputyJones wrote:How does your light shine, in the halls of Shamballa?
Also, I'll try to work a Three Dog Night joke into it. =^_^=
-- Bob
---------
Then the horns kicked in...
...and my shoes began to squeak.
- Rajvik - 07-08-2015
US and Russia would get extra solar colonies just to say they did, kinda like going to the moon. That said the question in my head would be would the American one be full of pundits or true believers.