Community Event / Creation Colonization?

[Cmdr Andy B]

was doing a bit of exploring, thinking where i'm going to go after the space station in my book and i got to wondering in the process how Colonisation would work in the elite universe, i figure 1300 years isn't that long a time to get out in to the galaxy and colonize so many worlds unless there was a way of doing it REALLY FAST

as my story is pursuit based i thought i'd have them hide in a system filled with colonists on the way to new worlds in the frontier and started writing about a system i called Colonia but kind of went off on how colonization actually works instead and came up with what i think is a quite good solution as to how it could be done:

Colonia, jumping off point for the millions of colonists heading for the frontier, with its mass of orbital ship yards dotted around the outer system building planetary landers, the ‘instant capitol city’ that made colonisation of a new world so much less of a do or die proposition.

Massive colony ships rested at mooring buoys in orbit around the system’s one gas giant awaiting the next wave of humanity to brave the perils of a new world, each ships clean lines giving no clue to jigsaw nature of these beats; on reaching orbit of their new home they would crack along invisible seams releasing drop ships full of Colonists to predesigned coordinates. They would touch down within safe distance of the planetary landers that had already been deployed.

Behind them the skeletal remains of the colony ships now transformed, linking up in an orbital par de der to form the distinctive square framework of a colossus space station.

Next the agro ships, thrusters still glowing from their deceleration into synchronous orbit. An observer ignorant of the colonising process my react with alarm as the agro ships disgorged their cargo, raining it down into the atmosphere in fits and starts as each release window passed on another section of fertile ground below.

Finally the industrial ships arrived from the asteroid fields; these had a wasted look to them, like a famine victim with rib cage clearly visible. Half their mass had already been left behind setting up mining bases to supply the colony’s metal needs and like the agro ship before them these ships also began to split apart and drop their cargo onto the planet below.

As each ship finished its task its remains broke apart, main engine and drive sections powering out towards safe disposal, a fiery end in the systems sun. The space station like some orbital janitor cleaning the skies after the kids had gone home now collected the remains of the agro’s and industrial ships and added their sections to its own spider web framework.

going to have the station completed using the ore from the asteroids

comment and suggestion welcome

 

[Darren Grey]

Surely you can think up a better name than Colonia?

From the history that came up Frontier it seems that colonisation was pushed a lot by corporations looking for mineral wealth or mad eccentrics that wanted to carve out their own part of the galaxy. An important element is terraforming, which took about 30 years in history, but may be much quicker these days. A major factor in terraforming is finding appropriate plant life to introduce, whilst preferably not ruining any existing lifeforms (though this happens a lot, and colonists tend to not care as much as the interfering Feds). There will surely be a lot of Frontier worlds, with small communities struggling to eke out an existence whilst waiting for their world to terraform over time, hoping their decades long gamble pays off.

One other key point from the history - systems without gas giants used to be ignored, as a good source of hydrogen was needed for travel. These days star-skimming makes this less of an obstacle, though many gas giants will still prove eminently useful to a system's settling if they have good resources of other gases like oxygen or water vapour.

 

[drew]

The pace might surprise you, take America for example.

Discovered (by Europeans) in 1492. First adventurers in the 1600s and by 1770 there were over 2.5 million people living there.

After independence north America was colonised coast to coast in around 80 years.

With 'Elite' technology, I could see highly rapid movement through the local area of the galaxy, which each system (assuming it was habitable) going from nothing to a vibrant economy easily within a hundred years.

Lots of this would happen in parallel, so potentially thousands of 'colonisation' missions could happen simultaneously.

Cheers,

Drew.

ps. Agreed, Colonia isn't a great name!

 

[Cmdr Andy B]

it sucks but it served its purpose in sparking the rest of the ideas, @Darren Grey I plan to cover the corporate angle of it by positioning the colonists as signing on for a 20 - 40 year stretch to work at setting up the infrastructure required for large scale mining and export/exploitation of local resources.

they would be described as virtual indentured slaves toiling on the company's behalf and looking forward to retirement on their new world when their term of service is at and end and the colony is automatically granted independent world status - this explains why the galaxy isn't filled with corporate run worlds as after the debacle with Mars (or where ever the first colony to declare independence is) rules were established that each world had a sort of copyright on it that expires after a set period

As for teraforming I hadn't given it any thought but you would expect that to take place before landing the bulk of the colony, still with the popup city and the agro ships etc if anything is left to do in that department at least the populous will be safe while the agro plants around the planet set up.

 

[Darren Grey]

Uh, the galaxy is populated with corporation-run worlds The corps wield major power in the Elite universe. Between them, the cold war between the Feds and Imps, and all the anarchy on the outer systems the Independents really have it tough!

 

[Cmdr Andy B]

Uh, the galaxy is populated with corporation-run worlds The corps wield major power in the Elite universe. Between them, the cold war between the Feds and Imps, and all the anarchy on the outer systems the Independents really have it tough!

that's a shame, skews the whole political dynamic to a more authoritarian mode and also begs the question of just how did the independent worlds come about and how you fracture into a multi government or feudal system on a wholly owned subsidiarity of a world.

I may even decide to go the 50 shades route yet as the game is starting to get a bit restrictive on the writing in places

 

[Darren Grey]

People can still rebel, and in many places corps hold an influence rather than authoritarian control. And in many systems the corps have no interest as there's no interesting ventures. Plus it's a big galaxy! Plenty of room for all sorts

 

[Susimetsa]

The pace might surprise you, take America for example.

Discovered (by Europeans) in 1492.

I think Leif Erikson and his viking band is commonly said to be the first Europeans to Americas around 1000AD.

 

[PaoloMariani]

Seems to me that in the Elite universe, getting out there to colonize star systems is relatively trivial as soon as the tech to do so exists. A much bigger obstacle appears to be population growth.

I can't be bothered to tally up the total population of the inhabited worlds in FFE, but I wouldn't be surprised if it were in the trillions, certainly hundreds of billions. Is that plausible?

Some industrialized nations on Earth are seeing a net population decrease today, and the entire population of the planet is by some estimates expected to stabilize this century, below ten billion. Will the even more technological society in the Elite universe really be able to produce enough people to form sustainable colonies? With populations that are into the billions after a few hundred years? A random system like Facece has ten billion inhabitants in FFE...

I would like to see a creative explanation for that, one that doesn't involve cloning

 

[Susimetsa]

I would like to see a creative explanation for that, one that doesn't involve cloning

I can see a lot of potential for "frontier spirit" colonization: people who move ahead of the political pressure of Federation etc. wanting to live on planets where the big brother is not controlling their actions. I'd imagine that these sorts of communities would also procreate faster than the families in Federation space (for example) where I imagine that the people's enthusiasm towards procreation is hindered by their wage levels, cost of living and other "artificial" limitations placed upon them by the "big brother".

 

[Darren Grey]

There would definitely be a space baby boom. And many frontier colonies would be started by religious groups looking to escape persecution or forge their own worlds according to their religious laws or ethos. Religious groups traditionally reproduce more. Many colonisers would also be poor and looking for opportunities - again a factor in birth rates.

 

[jptreen]

that's a shame, skews the whole political dynamic to a more authoritarian mode and also begs the question of just how did the independent worlds come about and how you fracture into a multi government or feudal system on a wholly owned subsidiarity of a world.

I may even decide to go the 50 shades route yet as the game is starting to get a bit restrictive on the writing in places

The authoritarian systems you describe are a pretty close analogy to the 'Old World' at the time of the colonisation of the 'New'. The galaxy is clearly sick, and when you can't beat an authoritarian regime - you leave. If there's free space, you set up home elsewhere. It's the wild west, there's always more frontier.

I think there's enough latitude for a lot of interesting happenings within the 'Elite' universe.

 

[Ian Doncaster]

A random system like Facece has ten billion inhabitants in FFE...

Well, a core Imperial system like Facece has ten billion people. Same with Sol, Achenar, Alioth, other really important systems.

After that it drops off pretty fast, though - there's a smallish bunch of 1-10 billion systems (again, mostly in core Fed/Imp/Alliance space), and then everything below that is less than 1 billion. Often much less - many of the frontier anarchies were listed as "less than 1000", and there weren't many frontier systems above "1-10 million". Say 5 systems per sector, and nothing significant inhabited once the sector coordinates get past single figures, that's around 2,000 systems total (mostly frontier independents, too)

So 1 trillion at most, I think, though like you I can't be bothered to count them all. I thought it did quite a good job of reflecting a slowly spreading humanity.

To get to 1 trillion from the current ~7 billion is only 7 doublings in population. A growth rate of a mere 1% would get that in 500 years, leaving plenty of time for slower growth, major wars, entire systems being wiped out by Thargoids, and so on.