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...
