I was looking around but i was unable to find any info on any discoveries of a human settlement found aroud the atlas. Even worse: i didn't find any traces of a search effort either. Has there ever been an effort to find the missing crew of the Atlas? Shouldn't there be a good chance they might still be alife on some planet near the atlas or at least along it's path? We haven't found this colony, have we? Have we even been looking?
So what happened to the colonists from the Atlas generation ship?
- Thread starter cmdr borschtl
- Start date
I was looking around but i was unable to find any info on any discoveries of a human settlement found aroud the atlas. Even worse: i didn't find any traces of a search effort either. Has there ever been an effort to find the missing crew of the Atlas? Shouldn't there be a good chance they might still be alife on some planet near the atlas or at least along it's path? We haven't found this colony, have we? Have we even been looking?
Since (we assume) the colonists made it to their destination safely, then it's reasonable to assume that the colony thrived and went on to become one of the inhabited Earth-like worlds we currently see in Human space today. So there's no need to go looking for crashed spaceships or the descendants of marooned colonists.
I speculated about this in the old Generation Ship thread. I pointed out that there aren't any star systems, let alone colonizable star systems, in a direct line between the Atlas' current position in Charick Drift, and Earth. And it has to be a more-or-less direct line, or at least a narrow tube of space, because Newton's Laws state that a ship travelling at 0.2 lightspeed isn't doing to be deflected off-course very easily, or by very much. It might have made more sense for FD to have put the Atlas a little further away from Sol, but we have what we have. But we do know the destination planet was either Earth-like or easily terraformable, as the Engineer expected his child to walk outdoors on an Earth-like world. By my reckoning, Duamta is the only possible destination system with an Earth-like / terraformable planet that's anywhere near the Sol-Charick line.
How long was the ship in space for? We don't know the date of launch, or the accident date, but we don't need to as we've been given some information in the logs. The ship was in space for (at least) three generations, as the guy left behind indicated he was the third-generation Engineer. Let's assume that's about 100 years travel time between launch and accident - enough time for the second-generation engineer to be born, employed and retired. 100 years at 0.2 lightspeed is 20 LY, so we're looking for a destination star system about 20 LY away from Sol. Duamta is only 10 LY away, so unless the Atlas was an unusually slow generation ship, Duamta is too close to Sol to be a reasonable target.
Of course, this does not answer the question (also raised in the old thread) as to how or why a derelict ship allegedly careening out of control at about 0.2 lightspeed can suddenly come to a full stop in orbit around a white dwarf. White dwarf gravity is powerful, but not that powerful. So if we can explain that, then me might come a great deal towards finding out exactly where this evacuation happened, and thus which world the Atlas colonists settled.
One other idea that occurs to me: the habitat areas of the ship are still spinning. Gyroscopic conservation of momentum means that even if its course has radically changed, the orientation of the ship - the direction it is pointing in - should not have changed much since the accident. So one way to try to find out which star system the intended target was, is to go to the Atlas and find out which direction the ship is pointing in right now. Then look for a star about 20 LY away from Sol, in about that same direction.
I speculated about this in the old Generation Ship thread. I pointed out that there aren't any star systems, let alone colonizable star systems, in a direct line between the Atlas' current position in Charick Drift, and Earth. And it has to be a more-or-less direct line, or at least a narrow tube of space, because Newton's Laws state that a ship travelling at 0.2 lightspeed isn't doing to be deflected off-course very easily, or by very much. It might have made more sense for FD to have put the Atlas a little further away from Sol, but we have what we have. But we do know the destination planet was either Earth-like or easily terraformable, as the Engineer expected his child to walk outdoors on an Earth-like world. By my reckoning, Duamta is the only possible destination system with an Earth-like / terraformable planet that's anywhere near the Sol-Charick line.
How long was the ship in space for? We don't know the date of launch, or the accident date, but we don't need to as we've been given some information in the logs. The ship was in space for (at least) three generations, as the guy left behind indicated he was the third-generation Engineer. Let's assume that's about 100 years travel time between launch and accident - enough time for the second-generation engineer to be born, employed and retired. 100 years at 0.2 lightspeed is 20 LY, so we're looking for a destination star system about 20 LY away from Sol. Duamta is only 10 LY away, so unless the Atlas was an unusually slow generation ship, Duamta is too close to Sol to be a reasonable target.
Of course, this does not answer the question (also raised in the old thread) as to how or why a derelict ship allegedly careening out of control at about 0.2 lightspeed can suddenly come to a full stop in orbit around a white dwarf. White dwarf gravity is powerful, but not that powerful. So if we can explain that, then me might come a great deal towards finding out exactly where this evacuation happened, and thus which world the Atlas colonists settled.
One other idea that occurs to me: the habitat areas of the ship are still spinning. Gyroscopic conservation of momentum means that even if its course has radically changed, the orientation of the ship - the direction it is pointing in - should not have changed much since the accident. So one way to try to find out which star system the intended target was, is to go to the Atlas and find out which direction the ship is pointing in right now. Then look for a star about 20 LY away from Sol, in about that same direction.