Colony growth rate

[TheDS]

Not sure where exactly to put this, so I settled for here. Here's the situation:

A planet sent out a colony ship on a sublight journey to a far away star. This ship's passengers were:

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• 1000 live crew, rotated through low berths, so that no one had to spend more than about a year awake for the journey.</font>
• a million embryoes of their people, donated willingly, created naturally.</font>
• millions of animal embryoes, plant seeds, and a myriad of terraforming gear.</font>

It was done this way to save space and time and money; it was simply impractical for these people to berth millions of fully grown citizens and animals. They also did not know the conditions of the world they were going to, and so brought along a lot of terraforming bacteria and other tools, trying to prepare for any contingency.

The colony ship arrives. Assuming the world they found is mostly habitable (and therefore there is little difficulty setting up there), and they have a TL of about 10 (no jump drive was available at launch, and contact with the colony ship was lost soon afterward), what kind of population would they have in 80 years? And how long might it take to run the supply of embryoes dry?

Getting the embryoes out and raised and made part of the community is considered a high duty by the people of this colony, but there is a limit to what a person can do, and I don't know how much help can be garnered from robotic assistance in child-rearing.

In my estimation, a law requires that each person must raise one of the pre-made children if they want to have children of their own. This means each family will consist of at least two of these children, as well as how ever many of their own children they have. One other idea is that for each child a set of parents wants to have, they must also raise one of these children.

My best guess is that in 80 years, the population doubles on an average of every 10 years (a 7% growth rate), and therefore would be 25,600. I am needing this world to have a population around a million, so I am thinking that there needs to be 10,000 live crew and the birth rate should be correspondingly higher. I can live with a quarter-half million... I can get by with 100,000 if I have to.

The problem is, I have no idea how to determine how many people there are, other than the very vague population growth numbers in the TNE mainbook. Does anyone have an easy way to figure out population growth rates, and therefore how many people are in this colony?

 

[Tanuki]

How are the embryos "hatched?" Are they grown in a jar or do they need to be implanted?

For maximum population growth they might want to consider an unbalenced sex ratio, especially if embryos must be implanted. Several females to each male will significantly increase the initial population growth.

A kibbutz-style communal setup will lessen the individual burden of child rearing and free up hands for non-babysitting labor. Teams can switch in and out of care-giving duties to avoid care-taker burnout.

Later, couples or groups can head out on their own and move the society into more traditional (for us, anyway) kinds of family groups. These will probably be second or third generation groups -- the initial focus will be on raising as many of the kibbutz children (decanted embryos) as possible as quickly as is reasonably possible.

Once the first batch of kids reaches their teens they can assist in raising yournger siblings. Adults can be spread a little thinner, supervising responsible teens and their younger sibs. Other teens can be put to part-time work as needed farming, manufacturing, etc. in addition to their education.

 

[TheDS]

Originally posted by Tanuki:
How are the embryos "hatched?" Are they grown in a jar or do they need to be implanted?

I suppose that's part of the question as well, as it has bearng on the final answer(s).

You raise a number of points, several of which I didn't really think about well enough. I'll consider much of this as part of the history of the place, but at the current time - 80 years down the road - the family roles will be a little more traditional.

I would imagine having multiple-mixed couples would certainly be the thing to encourage at the start, but I don't want it to be something too overpowering; it should be something "in the past". With contact with the homeworld being lost, as far as these people knew, they were the last of their kind. (Yes, this is a situation vaguely similar to Sid's Alpha Centauri game, and I've drawn a few ideas from it, but there were no factions to split the crew and make a 14-player game out of it. The captain held things together quite well, and no one wanted to bring the mistakes of the homeworld with them.)

Thanks for your insight, and hopefully you and others will have more some for me in this as well.

 

[Richard Saunders]

Hello.
You will probably only get a max of 10 years out of the bottle babies and probably only a max of 20 years out of any high tech equipment they take with them, dont forget inbreading (you dont want any to early in the colonies existence).
The colony will drop to about tech 3 or 4 after one generation (nothing lasts forever and if they didnt have jump drive when they left they would have to assume they will be cut of for a long time).
Minimum 10000 people with another 10000 in bottles (the live colonists will be busy breading like flies the bottle kids will basicaly be for backup if something goes wrong (accidental steralization of people (cemical spill, biological contamination, massive male losses to any cause))(if women lost the colony is toast anyway, so back to the women and children first rule (men may die but it only takes one, if the women die so does the colony).
Animals (horses and cattle must go for food and labour, sheep and goats for wool and milk)the more types of animals you take the more chance of finding one or more that will live and prosper.
Basicaly look at the equipment people took west with them in the 1800's.
Anything higher tech than village manufacture is out, Steel is gone, electricity is gone, antibiotics are gone, any manufactured goods are gone, if you cant do it yourself from raw materials it cant be done.
This isn't a pessimistice view just realistic, if you want a pessimistice view, dangerous wildlife, hostile environment (habitable but just) intelligent natives.
Bye.

 

[Tanuki]

Originally posted by TheDS:
I would imagine having multiple-mixed couples would certainly be the thing to encourage at the start, but I don't want it to be something too overpowering; it should be something "in the past".

Well, the balance between the sexes will be restored as soon as they start having kids. The imbalance should only be in the first generation that arrives and gets things going.

Inbreeding was mentioned -- that's one reason why the embyos need to be decanted and fed into the population ASAP. With only a thousand people, genetic divirsity is quite limited. The faster they can get those other kids into the gene pool the better off the colony will be. If anything, natural children of the colonists are less important than getting the gene pool up to speed. Not that there shouldn't be any, but there should be a real heavy emphasis on decanting ship/crech/kibbutz kids.

 

[jwdh71]

A couple of thoughts, in no particular order.

Unless the colony project was set up by a religious group, or is from a low-tech part of your society, the colonists probably are socially conditioned towards small families, so the number of bottle babies probably needs to be higher per person, say 2 or 3 bottle babies per person. This means in a traditional couple situation, they will raise 4 to 6 bottle babies, plus however many children they have traditionally. Historically, frontier families tend to be VERY large, with 8 or even 10 children not being unusual, and that's only the children living past infancy.

The unbalanced sex ratio is a good idea, possibly as high as 3 or 4 to 1, female to male. If your version of cold sleep allows it, it might also be a good idea for at least some of the women going on the trip to be pregnant, with fathers not along on the trip. This adds slightly more genetic diversity to the mix. Also the unbalanced ratio should also apply to the first generation of bottle babies as well, so multiple marriage might still be a custom 80 years out.

It might also be a good idea for the original colonists to raise 2 sets of bottle babies, one during their first years on the colony, and one when they "retire", or after their original children have reached their teen years, and can help with child rearing. This should also apply to the 2nd and 3rd generations of colonists as well.

Creche raising the bottle babies, unless all the children, natural and otherwise, will be raised that way, is a bad idea. There will be enough social stresses in the young colony without adding an additional social grouping to the mix. The socialization of the children will be much too different as well, and you'll have a stratified society within a couple of generations, with the more numerous creche raised being the dominant social group.

With the 2nd and 3rd generations being raised among large families, they should gravitate to that themselves. There should be a definate continuation of the bottle baby program for as long as the numbers are there. Later there might be less of a need for them, but still some should be introduced in each generation, to keep some "new blood" coming in.

As always, YMMV
John Hamill
jwdh71@yahoo.com

 

[TheDS]

I forgot about the frontiersman aspect, that of having gigantic families. I am of course not used to huge families; having just the three of us was plenty for my mom, and I've taken care of 3 or fewer kids at a time myself, and know that they can be a real handful. I can barely imagine how my grandparents had it. I know one of them had like 10 brothers and sisters, but the rest were 4-6, as were my parents. I was worried that having more than 4 kids per household would be asking way too much. The kids can, of course, help out with a lot of chores, as they used to do.

The Creching idea I pushed was not one in which ONLY "bottle babies" (cool term, I'll use it) were brought up. I envisioned everyone being raised somewhat together.

Having large families is probably the way to go, and I think with that we can easily get to the goal of 1 million citizens. Having so many new members of the gene pool will certainly alleviate inbreeding concerns for me. It still doesn't tell me "how many" people will be around, or rather, how to figure it out, but we're getting closer with all you guys's help.

I'm a little unsure about a massive drop in tech, from 10 to 3 or 4. On the one hand, I don't expect busses and cars and a home computer gaming industry to spring up overnight, but I see no reason why electricity can't be strung up, why the machinery they brought along can't be used to dig up ores (wherever they may be), other machinery can't use it to build still more machinery, and basically build the important tools of civilization building. This agrees with the presumptions in World Tamer's Handbook, although I suppose WTH does suppose continual support fromt the founding world, and these people have only themselves and what they brought.

They may start out needing wagons and horses, grow their buildings out of geneered coral (a favorite tool of mine), and not have indoor plumbing, but as the machinery gets built, I can't see that kind of thing lasting more than a couple years. If I'm wildly wrong on this count, it is rather important that we determine what CAN be made in the requisite 80 years.

It's looking like there's going to be two of these colony ships, one that has no real problems, as outlined above, and another that DOES have some tension. The PCs are members of the former group, and will be opposed to the latter group. I think a little bit of political tension will serve to bump their military tech a little (probably at the expense of other tech), giving the PCs something to worry about besides just the planets they're going to be exploring.

I've pretty much got that idea mapped out, but if I've gone and assumed something really crazily wrong, it would be good to know before I present that part, as I have already started this puppy before I was finished with all the background. (Very sloppy, in my opinion. I hate risking inconsistencies like that, but it was either profane myself like this, or sit through another friggin D&D game, and I think you know which one would cause me to shoot myself and which wouldn't.)

 

[Mythmere]

One aspect of things that might allow you to add more character - everyone has mentioned an imbalanced gender ratio in the first generation. Nobody mentioned what this MEANS in the first generation. Polygamy. Your society will have gone through serious stresses moving from men as stud horses to men as equal citizens. Everybody's grandpa will have been a pampered sex brat, and have attitudes about women that aren't kosher in the new, equalized, society. Jokes about dirty old men will be all over the place.

 

[Morte]

Originally posted by Mythmere:
Everybody's grandpa will have been a pampered sex brat, and have attitudes about women that aren't kosher in the new, equalized, society.

Some sort of selective contraceptives might be used to keep the births predominantly female in later generations. AFAIK this sort of technology is beginning to pop up in our world at the moment.

 

[Jame]

Originally posted by Morte:
Some sort of selective contraceptives might be used to keep the births predominantly female in later generations. AFAIK this sort of technology is beginning to pop up in our world at the moment.

Somehow I suspect this may _not_ be very good for sex equality. I'd call it darn fun, but (1.) that would be unequal, now, wouldn't it? and (2.) even if we did it over here, I know I'd never get any of it. So we shouldn't do it.

 

[TheDS]

While I won't be adding all these suggestions to the current game, because most of the players are high-schoolers (and one is a girl), I do think they will make it into the campaign sourcebook and the novel.

Keep em coming!

 

[zephyrus]

Food for thought, I sappose some of it may not be true traveller but here goes anyways.

Why must the techonology degread so much? I imagine that a Colony ship built well enough could funtion well as highport for space operations. Considering the initive involved with these potential colonists it does not seem unreasonable they would spare no expese (or at least good idea) into taking advantage of every possible resource available. Within its cargo bays include disassembled fuel and mining shuttles to skim nearby gas giants and mine astorides. The main thing would be keeping ahead of the maintence curve. Part of the reason in my oppinion the population of Earth is what it is that our tech (while floudering at times as a result of economies) allows us to do alot more with more limited reasources. If equipment was dedicated to providing insurance (as much as reasonable) that the existing tech wont drop more than one or two levels and can manufacture its own repair equipment/parts They can take advantage of non-terrestial assets such as gas giants, asteroids and the Colony ship itself. In doing so you maintain your tech base which provides something for all those people to do. Standardized education and occupational training etc..

The issue of gender bais does present somewhat of a problem, What would prevent those bottle babies to be more than just artificially inseminated but also artifically birthed. Their might be some risk of having a society like Battletechs the CLANS but I would doubt this as the Artificial womb born children arnt intended to be super soldiers, their ment to be people. The embroys may also be gender typed some so that you may have 2-1 female to male embroy's which which putting population's in favor of female should reduce the overall 'pro-poly' families into a more 'poly-allowed' society. The ArtWomb children are adopted into families and raised naturally. This could spread the bottle babies out over the 80 time frame instead of a powerful push at first which could over burden initial resources. Make for a more 'strong but steady' method and insures steady gender diversity instead of trying to get them all out of the way at once. In addition while their might be a female gender bias in the population those without male or are in same-sex relationships could take advantage of intimation bottle babies to form new families without nessisarly having the need for an equal number of males.

In the same vein as articial womb born children growth accelleration and RNA implants or similar could be employed at least initially to aid in initial set up if nessisary.

realistic socialization should be as important as numbers. If a variety of methods were used (full human cloning, insimated embroys, tank-babies, natural child birth) and were done in relatively equal amounts it might help offset social stimatiation which could stunt or fracture the colony.

I imagine that for such a colony life would be challenging and potentially bizzare socially by current standards.

 

[Anthony]

Some issues with growth rate:

The primary thing which causes a low growth rate for high tech societies is probably not a specific cultural thing -- rather, it's the very high cost of rearing and educating children.

In a farming society, a child is an asset; the labor they provide pays for the cost of raising them to an age where they can provide labor fairly quickly, and it's practical for a single family to raise a large number of children.

In a modern technological society, however, raising children is enormously expensive; a couple with no children is easily going to be wealthier by the time they're 40 than a family with three children.

 

[robject]

I think the points about large families and lower tech make sense. I also really like the idea of the colony ship doubling as a makeshift highport (although it might be more useful on the ground with the colony, or even scrapped for parts).

The canned spam + tech will only spread so far with the original population... tech will not spread as quickly as the colony, and food production will be more important than maintaining the TL, initially. In fact, low-tech solutions or simple-tech solutions may get the job done with fewer points of failure.

Ten kids (avg) per family for four generations? If the original pop. is 2,000, in the 2nd generation there will be 20,000. In 3 gens, 200,000. In the 4th gen, 2 million. Scale as necessary and you're done. And this suits an agrarian society.

But tech doesn't dissipate linearly unless there are factories. Unless you use a handwave and allow high-tech stuff to replicate, which may make things "too easy" on your colonists (I mean, they have to have something to do once they've gotten bored of procreation).

In 20 years, if they have time and inclination, they can establish a solid infrastructure: mining and smelting industries, productive chemistry, and low-tech power generation... say, TL4. Or they can delay all that and fall back to a comfortable TL3 for a time. After they reach TL4, they have to work their way forwards to catch up with their own knowledge base, which is at TL 10. That would speed up their progress, but they still have to build an infrastructure. There will still be TL 10 machinery around -- enough for a thousand people, perhaps -- but a million people can't share one-thousandth of a resource.

 

[TheDS]

I envisioned using the spaceship for parts; disassemble the thing and use it to house the colonists while they build the rest of their stuff. Using the ship as a high-port is an intersting idea, though, and one that can be used when these people go to other worlds to set up further colonies.

I also did not expect to see the entire collection of bottle babies get completely hatched. While raising them is a duty, people work harder when they have their own kids at stake, and was the main reason for the "1 bottle baby per person" idea. 50% might be a good way to go too.

The family-size over time (TL) analysis was quite helpful; we easily forget what it is that seperates us from our predecessors.

Thanks for giving me a clue as to how to calculate population growth. I should have seen something this simple as the answer, but it never occured to me that it could be THAT simple. I had all kinds of craziness, going year by year, counting up the breeding (adults) and non-breeding (children and aged) populations. Boy do I feel like I overanalyzed this!

Everyone gets bonus experience points for proving to my satisfaction that I am an idiot.

 

[robject]

Unless you're a stickler for accuracy, it pays (in time) to use what I call the Burrito Principle: 80% of the 'meat' is in 20% of the 'burrito'. In other words, the substance of what you want to do is in the first-order approximation; just the fact that you're dealing with a human population means there will be a natural slopping of the numbers one way or another anyhow. So the error is swallowed up in inherent Brownian movement. More or less. The Burrito Principle.

 

[Zutroi]

I must beg to differ regarding antibiotics not being home-producible by the tech-degraded colonists. The reason there were no antibiotics in the 1800's is that there was no germ theory of disease at that time. Antibiotics are natural products of various microorganisms, and growing microbes is something that brewers, bakers, and vintners had been doing for centuries before the 1800's! The resulting product might not be as pure as what we deal with today, but it wouldn't be unobtainable.

 

[Jame]

I think part of the assumption of this topic is that the colonists aren't going to have much high tech. That makes sense as a supply issue, but wouldn't they bring with them enough tech to set up enough industry to maintain the tech (i.e. computers, medicine, air/rafts or ATVs and lasers or ACRs) that they would want/need to make a living on a new, alien, hostile world?

Wouldn't they want to build the finest small hospital they could?

 

[robject]

Yeah, Jame is asking the right question here. What would they be able to bring? Just how big *is* that colony ship anyway, and what kind of machines can they pack into it that will help them build up their infrastructure most efficiently? What were their assumptions and plans?

Who's gonna go first?

 

[TheDS]

The simple answer is that the ship is as big as it needs to be.

Of course, the better answer requires details, and we are not going to end up with a planet-sized craft. Think about the important stuff they are carrying: 1000 "live" colonists and 1,000,000 bottle babies. They know nothing about the world they are headed to, so they are preparing for a number of contingencies. (Yes, this makes no sense, because I'm not telling you the whole story, just what you need to know.) The world could have been awful, and they might have been forced to colonize it anyway.

So what is needed to support 1000 people in the short term, and a million or more in the medium term? (They will have to take care of the long term themselves.) Plenty of terraforming bacteria, plenty of samples of animals and plants from home to give a food source and further terraforming. A database of all knowledge. The ability to receive messages via laser from home, and to build one once they've set up. Machines used for building. Geneered coral to rapidly/cheaply build structures for living. Industrial machines for making parts, assembling parts, making bigger parts, making machines, and all that happiness. And it's all TL10 (minus artificial gravity tools).

With 1000 people to start with, maintaining control is fairly easy, especially with a talented and charismatic captain. Feeding and housing them is pretty easy too. And it's not too few to spread work around.

The ship is not going to be huge. Well, bigger than anything else you or I have seen outside a movie, but not that big compared to stuff you can find in FSotSI. Probably between 10,000 and 50,000 dTons. (A Typhoon-class submarine is about 2500 dTons, for comparison.) I would be surprised if 100,000 dTons or more was required, and lean more towards 10,000 or even less, since this thing was needed within a couple years of being laid down. (Yes, I also know I am stretching the bounds of human industrial speed, but again, I have a reason for this which I can't share atm.)

The biggest component is probably going to be the drive system. As much as I like my fusion rocket, I think something more realistic is in order; I have reason to believe that the bottom limit for one is a healthy fraction of a cubic KM, and that doesn't fit. Perhaps a fusion pulse drive, or a one-of-a-kind antimatter drive. The ship needs to get to 20% of light speed to reach the world in the timeframe I set forth (200 years to travel 40 LY).