General How do you colonize?

[Tikon]

I always wondered why space exploration shows, always showed colonization as so bare bones.
Yes, it looks good on screen. (Also cheap to film).
But wouldn't it make more sense to bring your home with you, then set it up in your new environment? You're already in a self-contained spaceship. Why not convert it into your new digs when you get there?
This has historical precedence. As in the Conestoga wagons that took homesteaders to their land. Which some took apart and made into their new homes.
Further than that, more than just one home, how about a Township? (See what I did there ) Or a city ship? One where the founding city (say a bid space saucer or tower), lands on the planet, removes its drive section and converts it to storage or hydroponics for self-sufficiency. Alternatively, the drive section could then be removed with the cargo section, and be used as the colony's trade ship.
Now starships are insanely expensive in Traveller. How to pay for it? Have the colonists each buy a share of the ship (like a condo). When all the places are sold. The vessel is paid off, and off it goes.

 

[nobby-w]

A colony ship isn't necessarily a one-shot item, unless you're talking about a sublight generation ship. In a Traveller setting, there's no particular reason it can't be a fairly ordinary freighter, perhaps adapted to the role as appropriate.

Now, if capacity is expensive, the colonists will want to bring things that provide bang for buck, and they will want things that can be maintained in the field with minimal logistics.

If you were planning a colony you might also want to do some up-front survey work to see what resources were available locally and adapt your infrastructure to suit that. For example, if you were going to set up a colony in an area where trees or something similar was available, you might bring sawmill and logging equipment to make wooden structures. Alternatively, you might bring something like the large 3D building printer that someone prototyped recently.

In the early stages there might not be a lot in the way of infrastructure, so colonists might stick with items that are easy to maintain. The preference would be for hand tools, photovoltaic, wind or water power systems and electronics that can be powered from that sort of source. Pack animals such as miniphants, mules or something else might be preferred to machinery because they can be shipped as embryos, they reproduce by themselves and they don't need spare parts. Vets would be in demand in this case.

If fossil fuels are available, a refinery might be set up to produce petrol. This would allow running motor vehicles, small engines or two wheel tractors (which are actually cheaper to run than pack animals if you have the infrastructure). Depending on your tech, electric versions might be available, with interchangeable batteries charged from a PV plant. Low-tech vehicles can be maintained in the field with minimal logistics, and some spares could be fabricated locally. Like other equipment, low tech weapons that can be maintained in the field will be preferred, although laser weapons with rechargeable power packs might be of interest to colonists.

Some heavier machinery might be imported, for example machine shops or earth moving equipment, but this may or may not be easy to keep running if parts are scarce. Bearing in mind that supply ships could also arrive one might assume some (albeit limited) availability of parts for this type of resource. These supply flights might be funded out of the money to establish the colony and if the money runs out the supply ships will stop coming.

Depending on the scale of the programme, basic starport facilities might be set up. If the programme was being run on a planetary scale weather, navigation and communication satellite systems might be set up. On a smaller scale, the colony organisers might set up local cell network for communications or just rely on two-way radio. This will be powered by PV or wind generators installed with the nodes.

Municipal facilities might use local power - maybe a bigger hydroelectric, wind or PV plant, or perhaps a fusion reactor. Depending on your 'verse, smaller fusion reactors might be available to individual colonists but they might not be feasible to maintain in the field without specialised equipment.

Money could be put up by the colonists themselves, from a third party, government grants or various other possibilities. Who might fund a colony and why is a whole discussion in itself. If the colonists still have access to currency from home, or the ability to produce something that can be exported, merchants might sell supplies. If the colony isn't self-sustaining it is likely to run out of seed money and wind up getting left to fend for themselves.

 

[Tikon]

Yes, I wanted to make that point about 3D printers as well.
Nowadays, modern scientist are saying why send men in the first place. Send a robot ship. With manufacturing and stores. Build the colony beforehand, then send people.
In a game called Centauri Knights, basically a transhuman setting (with mecha/anime influences) it takes a lot of power and 6 years to get to Alpha Centauri. Too expensive to send material (unless military) Just human brains in pods, which will later get new bodies or cyborgs made for them when they arrive. Instead, they send the latest blueprints, to be made by nano bots at the colony.

 

[Tikon]

Yeah the freighter coming back and forth was why I thought that part of the ship should detach and become one. Leaving the living area on site.

My other idea was why go to all the trouble of building on site. If you're a space faring civilization, just build everything in space. And move it when you need to.
Of course, I think most people would live in space in the first place. Given that building a colony would be easier than finding scarce habitable planets.

 

[Ulsyus]

Yes, I wanted to make that point about 3D printers as well.
Nowadays, modern scientist are saying why send men in the first place. Send a robot ship. With manufacturing and stores. Build the colony beforehand, then send people.
In a game called Centauri Knights, basically a transhuman setting (with mecha/anime influences) it takes a lot of power and 6 years to get to Alpha Centauri. Too expensive to send material (unless military) Just human brains in pods, which will later get new bodies or cyborgs made for them when they arrive. Instead, they send the latest blueprints, to be made by nano bots at the colony.

It could depend on how much lead-time the automated construction elements had on the colonists themselves.

If you're talking about a TL11 vessel with J2 that is to scout out ahead, the time for it to head out and return could be a considerable period of time. Then the construction vessel need to head out. Would it entirely automated, or do you anticipate it having a living crew to oversee the construction process. That would take a fair bit of time if raw materials had to be sourced on the colony world itself, though depending on the world entirely feasible.

How far ahead of time would the construction vessel need to leave before the colonists themselves? Unless at TL11 it's got the latest drives, the route to the target system may need to be circuitous, which allows more time for construction but then requires more resources for the colonists en-route. That is, unless it turns out to be cheaper to put them into cold sleep.

The 3d printing component would be pretty important. A colony plan would enable the effort to to get there with a lot of what they need already, but any sensible planner would know that they couldn't cover every contingency, so a decent set of 3D printers and machine shops (given Makers may not have been available at that TL) would be pretty essential.

This entry gives a short summary of a possible model for working out the legalities of setting up a colony, and this entry gives a little more info on a colonisation venture.

 

[kilemall]

One reason space station colonies would still find a planet desirable even if it were not particularly inhabitable is solar storms/winds- sheltering behind for radiation safety and not having to have an asteroid/armored hull.

Bonus would be having raw material right there, even if it's a metalpoor- planet, rock can be worked with.

Main issue of course is that if it is a new colony on the edge then by definition there isn't much transportation infrastructure to either ship in needed goods, or local production to pay for that transport (as opposed to a redux in an already inhabited system where terraforming, geneengineeried colonists or a newly discovered desirable resource opens up a previously useless place).

 

[mike wightman]

Tell that to the first colonists on Mars. Unless you shield your colonies you are dead. :devil:

Only planets with a magnetosphere are protected from the majority of stellar radiation.

Living inside an asteroid with grav plates is no different to living underground on Mars - with grav plates

Once you have the technology Traveller postulates for TL9 you have no reason to colonise sub-prime planets - you can build a better city inside an asteroid.

 

[nobby-w]

The nature of a colony would depend on why you might set it up and how it was supported. Some scenarios include:

Dystopian homeworld scenario

If your homeworld (or home town) is an overcrowded dystopia then colonists might find good reason to want to leave. A habitable world with the possibility of owning your own home becomes an attractive destination if you're living in a sleeper cube.

In this case, the impetus and funding comes from the colonists. Building colony worlds might be big business simply because there are enough folks willing to pay Cr100,000 for a one-way ticket to get out. The quality of the colony support when you get there may vary considerably and is probably somewhat at odds with what the brochures say.

Depending on the level of infrastructure put in by the developer there may be a more or less functioning local economy. If the colony isn't self-funding and doesn't have a functioning internal economy the conditions there might be quite primitive. This type of colony would only survive long-term if the local economy was successfully bootstrapped to the point that it could maintain its own infrastructure.

On the bright side, the Leyland-Futanari corporation posted record profits last year.

Economically viable colony

This colony can export something worth enough to ship it back to the homeworld. It might be precious metals, rare earths, luxury goods such as furs from some local animal life or anything that can be produced through cottage industry.¹ As long as it is cost-effective to ship it back home there will be brave souls willing to move out to the frontier to make a life for themselves.

This type of colony is self-sustaining so it can pay to import supplies it needs from offworld. However, conditions might still be quite primitive.

The primary industry will attract secondary industries, and over time this colony might grow into a self-sustaining economy.

Colony on a non-inhabitable world

This is a variant of the economically viable colony. In this case there would have to be some local resource worth the effort of setting up sealed environments for. An example might be Helium-3, or mining anything that is cost-effective to extract and ship back home.

As above, this colony will attract secondary industry, and could eventually grow into a self-sustaining local economy.

Cult or Commune

In this scenario some religious or similar organisation sets up the colony in order to practice their preferred life-style away from the influence of society. This type of colony might be started on a small budget and may or may not actually be viable. If the colonists are deliberately isolationist they might have little if any logistic support from home and could have a very primitive standard of living.


¹ A lot of tantalum is mined by hand through panning it from clays bearing the ore. Also, q.v. the gold rushes of the 19th century.

 

[McPerth]

In a game called Centauri Knights, basically a transhuman setting (with mecha/anime influences) it takes a lot of power and 6 years to get to Alpha Centauri. Too expensive to send material (unless military) Just human brains in pods, which will later get new bodies or cyborgs made for them when they arrive. Instead, they send the latest blueprints, to be made by nano bots at the colony.

Well, the first question is why do you colonize.

If it is to obtain resources, this will not work, as it takes too long to ship them, and if it is to alleviate population presure, it desn't work either, as you don't send humans to live there...

In most settings I know about, those are the main reasons to colonize.

 

[kilemall]

Tell that to the first colonists on Mars. Unless you shield your colonies you are dead. :devil:

Only planets with a magnetosphere are protected from the majority of stellar radiation.

Living inside an asteroid with grav plates is no different to living underground on Mars - with grav plates

Once you have the technology Traveller postulates for TL9 you have no reason to colonise sub-prime planets - you can build a better city inside an asteroid.

Er, I was talking about the space station colony meme. Spacers aren't going to care particularly which, but could get a good cheap start with a chunk of the original colony ship slung in behind the planet.

Disagree on no reason for sub-prime-plenty of potential for metals, and a barely tapped arena in chemical engineering on different atmospheres, literally different minerals for planets that have gone through oxygenation only some other atmosphere, not to mention entirely new bioprocesses from alien ecologies.

 

[Timerover51]

The following comes from Lone Star Planet, also known as A Planet for Texans, by H. Beam Piper, available as a download from Project Gutenberg.

It had been the dissatisfied, of course, the discontented, the dreamers, who had led the vanguard of man's explosion into space following the discovery of the hyperspace-drive. They had gone from Terra cherishing dreams of things that had been dumped into the dust bin of history, carrying with them pictures of ways of life that had passed away, or that had never really been. Then, in their new life, on new planets, they had set to work making those dreams and those pictures live.

The Pilgrims came to the New World to settle and live to escape religious persecution, while that Jamestown settlers came here to mine gold, get rich, and return to England. The Spanish came for the same reasons, although some of them stayed on. Australia was settled by England as a penal colony. My Dutch ancestors came to the U.S. in search of a better life than they had as "dirt-poor farmers", as my Grandfather put it, in Holland. The Irish emigrated to the U.S. in enormous numbers following the Irish Potato Famine. Large numbers of people emigrated from Europe to the U.S. following the revolts that occurred in the late 1840s. The Jews emigrated to Israel for sheer survival following the Holocaust.

People colonize because they are discontented with where they are at. The satisfied ones do not colonize.

As for colonization in the Out Rim, it is based on all of the above. Not any massive colonization efforts on the part of companies or governments.

 

[Ulsyus]

The Pilgrims came to the New World to settle and live to escape religious persecution, while that Jamestown settlers came here to mine gold, get rich, and return to England. The Spanish came for the same reasons, although some of them stayed on. Australia was settled by England as a penal colony. My Dutch ancestors came to the U.S. in search of a better life than they had as "dirt-poor farmers", as my Grandfather put it, in Holland. The Irish emigrated to the U.S. in enormous numbers following the Irish Potato Famine. Large numbers of people emigrated from Europe to the U.S. following the revolts that occurred in the late 1840s. The Jews emigrated to Israel for sheer survival following the Holocaust.

People colonize because they are discontented with where they are at. The satisfied ones do not colonize.

As for colonization in the Out Rim, it is based on all of the above. Not any massive colonization efforts on the part of companies or governments.

One of the problems with the narrative of the dispossessed seeking a new homeland in space is that the cost of transportation and equipping is likely to be a fair bit different from that required to set up a colony in the C16-17. I don't deny that settlers had to save everything they had to cross the oceans and start anew. What I have wondered about is how do they find themselves on a colony ship, heading for a possibly dangerous and likely inhospitable world that requires advanced materials and support for survival, when they may be from a future equivalency of dirt-poor farmers seeking a better future for their families and themselves than they fund themselves in on their homeworld.

Options for colonial establishments could include:

• Corporate establishment - employed by company
• Corporate state - bought shares in company & occupy level commensurate with shares held
• Corporate establishment - indentured employment (borrowed from company to travel out there and work for them)
• Penal colony - straightforward, but I believe rather unlikely in this setting
• State colony - selected for skills and attributes that contribute to community
• State colony - position obtained in a lottery or similar
• Collective colony - group bands together to fund establishment, similar to corporate establishment but without social worth determined by shares held
• PMG colony - politically/socially/religiously motivated group funds and establishes colony, similar to collective colony but with greater internal cohesion and likelihood to refuse inclusion of possible colonists from outside the group

That's just off the top of my head, so I'm sure someone can refine and improve on it. But my point is that simply sending out a bunch of people disgruntled with the way their lone stellar body province has been corrupted by the evils of a federalist system of national government may not, outside of literature where they have the immense advantage of having the author on their side, be all that viable without a whole heap of additional advantages and resources at their disposal.

 

[Timerover51]

One of the problems with the narrative of the dispossessed seeking a new homeland in space is that the cost of transportation and equipping is likely to be a fair bit different from that required to set up a colony in the C16-17. I don't deny that settlers had to save everything they had to cross the oceans and start anew. What I have wondered about is how do they find themselves on a colony ship, heading for a possibly dangerous and likely inhospitable world that requires advanced materials and support for survival, when they may be from a future equivalency of dirt-poor farmers seeking a better future for their families and themselves than they fund themselves in on their homeworld.

Options for colonial establishments could include:

• Corporate establishment - employed by company
• Corporate state - bought shares in company & occupy level commensurate with shares held
• Corporate establishment - indentured employment (borrowed from company to travel out there and work for them)
• Penal colony - straightforward, but I believe rather unlikely in this setting
• State colony - selected for skills and attributes that contribute to community
• State colony - position obtained in a lottery or similar
• Collective colony - group bands together to fund establishment, similar to corporate establishment but without social worth determined by shares held
• PMG colony - politically/socially/religiously motivated group funds and establishes colony, similar to collective colony but with greater internal cohesion and likelihood to refuse inclusion of possible colonists from outside the group

That's just off the top of my head, so I'm sure someone can refine and improve on it. But my point is that simply sending out a bunch of people disgruntled with the way their lone stellar body province has been corrupted by the evils of a federalist system of national government may not, outside of literature where they have the immense advantage of having the author on their side, be all that viable without a whole heap of additional advantages and resources at their disposal.

I assumed that this would be the response, but as I stated, unless compulsion is used, you are not going to get colonists given your parameters. When compulsion is used, your colonists are not going to stay colonists long. You have your universe, and I have mine. Clearly, mine is more than a bit out of the mainstream of groupthink on the board.

 

[whartung]

People colonize because they are discontented with where they are at. The satisfied ones do not colonize.

• Corporate establishment - employed by company
• Corporate state - bought shares in company & occupy level commensurate with shares held
• Corporate establishment - indentured employment (borrowed from company to travel out there and work for them)
• Penal colony - straightforward, but I believe rather unlikely in this setting
• State colony - selected for skills and attributes that contribute to community
• State colony - position obtained in a lottery or similar
• Collective colony - group bands together to fund establishment, similar to corporate establishment but without social worth determined by shares held
• PMG colony - politically/socially/religiously motivated group funds and establishes colony, similar to collective colony but with greater internal cohesion and likelihood to refuse inclusion of possible colonists from outside the group

I assumed that this would be the response, but as I stated, unless compulsion is used, you are not going to get colonists given your parameters.

These are congruent. Save for the penal options.

Take the simple example of when you change jobs. Many folks up and move to "greener pastures". They're not, perhaps discontent with where they are, but they may see better opportunity someplace else. So they up and move the family to another state, another country, another career. The same motivations can premise colonization. The opportunity, or discontentment would obviously perhaps have to be a bit stronger, but then it depends on the short term goals of the colony. How dangerous it will be, how primitive it will be, etc.

We have people today leaving cities and going out in to the woods to be get out of the urban life, become more self-sufficient, build some skills, build a new life, and, many times, these folks have few resources. They may as well be a version of a modern colonist, working the land, living in a shack with a few chickens, a garden, and a water tank, but 5 miles from a gas station, and 30 miles from a Walmart.

In Traveller, there's no reason that colonists have to buy some big ship. They can charter it. They just need to bring as much infrastructure as they're willing and able to pay for.

I look at the housing that the troops seem to have in Afghanistan, seemingly little more than unfinished plywood and 2x4s, with local generators and some kind of water handling system. Functional, but not stupid expensive.

Also colonists can not only charter their transport, they can engage a few traders to make a monthly or bi-monthly stops. They pay him to show up, take orders (or people) back to civilization to buy products, and return. Early on, they subscribe to him simply showing up, rather than as a viable trade opportunity for him. Have standing orders, say, for some things like medicines and such that are perishable. "Bring penicillin every 6 months."

You can have you cake and eat it too as a colonist. Wild lands, dangerous creatures, live by your own hand, meanwhile a fusion powered Sears Roebuck representative shows up every 2 months like an Indian trader. The colony can be as primitive or advanced as they can afford.

Clearly the biggest issue with any colony is the base start up capital to fund the launch, landing, stand up and short term (6-12 months) operation of the colony until the local industries can be stood up. Whether those funds come from corporations, governments or the savings of a lot of bake sales is a detail.

 

[Carlobrand]

As Timerover pointed out, historically the Spanish made a big push because there was gold to be found. The ones that actually made the journey were the ones hoping for wealth and something better than what they had back home, but they were accompanied by the folk who worked for them. That's how my family ended up in the New World.

Alaska opened up largely for the same reason, and that climate killed a lot of the adventurers. The ones who survived were pretty tough and canny.

The local ecosystem may be the source of the "gold" drawing settlement. Tobacco was that lure in the Virginia colony.

Some of the first settlements in the New World were set up as launch points for further exploration, sponsored and supported by the crown. The south coast cities of Alaska grew up supporting the adventurers who passed through on the way north toward wealth or death. If a place has something that is valuable enough, it pays for the effort and might even pay for a bridging colony to get you there, if it takes more than one jump to get to where the "gold" is to be found.

The Scots did something interesting. Back in the 1690's the king tried to set up a colony on the Isthmus of Panama, hoping to set up an overland route from the Pacific to the Atlantic and profit thereby. Failed for a number of reasons, primarily poor planning and the diseases that bedeviled everyone who tried anything in that corner of the world, ultimately because the Spanish expressed their objection to Scots presence by laying siege to the place. Again, on the Traveler scene a bridging colony could support itself by provide fuel and support to ships that try to find profit in going from A to C by way of B - or it might start out hoping to be that and then finding greater challenge than they expected. Some of our smaller Trav settlements might be failed colonies in the midst of their gradual decline.

Planets are actually quite a good place to store people you don't want escaping, assuming you put something in orbit to keep any potential rescuers away. You can put them to work if you feel like committing the manpower, but it's likely to be easier to drop them off and forget about them, let them make their own way, assuming the place is at least (and probably at most) marginally survivable. If they stumble on something worthwhile, you can always come back and assert control, by force if necessary.

 

[Barrel]

"If the programme was being run on a planetary scale weather, navigation and communication satellite systems might be set up."

Second that. I've often read stories where the colonists have communication problems and wondered "You got there is a space ship. Why not drop a few satellites in orbit?"

 

[Barrel]

1) I think ideology should also be figured in. Jews didn't start moving to Israel/Palestine solely to try to find a safe home, there was also the ideology of Zionism. Spanish conquistadors wanted gold, sure, but the Reyes Catolicos also sent priests to spread Christianity and save souls. America had Manifest Destiny. So the colonists in YTU probably read a lot poetry telling them to "go Spinward young man."

2) Also, personal ambition plays a role. When Hernan Cortes set up Vera Cruz he had been in on the conquest of Cuba, had lands and a producing gold mine, and had married the sister IIRC of the Spanish governor/Viceroy. I would have sat on my butt for the rest of my life. Cortes wanted more: more wealth, and more importantly, I think, more social standing. He came from the wrong side of the tracks in Spain, and was never going to be in the top tier of the colony's society. So he started a new colony, and set out to conquer the biggest and wealthiest empire in the neighborhood.

3) The ancient Greeks sponsored colonies to get read of their excess population and unemployed. The mother city eliminated a social problem, and the new city would be likely allied to them, and provide new trading opportunities, and the colonists got a new start.

4) Does anyone know much about Polynesian/Pacific Islander history or anthropology? I've always wondered what drove people on perfectly nice islands to set out in open canoes into the open ocean, hoping to find someplace livable. Where they exiles? Did they lose some conflict?

 

[aramis]

Alaska opened up largely for the same reason, and that climate killed a lot of the adventurers. The ones who survived were pretty tough and canny.

Not so. Alaska was settled by the Russians first, and many of the russian sailors sent were prisoners sentenced to duty; many more, missionaries. It was Fur that the Russians wanted, and that's what they got. Seals, Beaver, Marten, Bear...

The "Gold Rush" wasn't even in Alaska - the Yukon referenced for the Yukon Gold Rush is actually in Canada...

 

[Tikon]

"In Traveller, there's no reason that colonists have to buy some big ship. They can charter it. They just need to bring as much infrastructure as they're willing and able to pay for."

Yeah, except I think I mentioned this before, that's a terrestrial mindset. You can go anywhere on Earth and just set up. In space it's better to bring as much of your ecosystem as possible, along with colony resources. Bring a hab pod to live in, instead of building a log cabin when you get there.

Some one made a good point, why leave? Well the main one being overpopulation. So spread to a new area, or just the desire for someplace not so congested, over urbanized, less intrusive. I think that's some of the reasons said in 2300AD.

But back to my original idea. If your ark ship goes to all the trouble of travelling light years to a new place. Might as well convert it into your new home. A ready made city with life support, power, and rooms already built in. Or at least convert it into the planets new orbital station. Colonists go down side, while the infrastructure stays in place to fix/build vessels. Process mined materials, etc.

 

[Timerover51]

"In Traveller, there's no reason that colonists have to buy some big ship. They can charter it. They just need to bring as much infrastructure as they're willing and able to pay for."

Yeah, except I think I mentioned this before, that's a terrestrial mindset. You can go anywhere on Earth and just set up. In space it's better to bring as much of your ecosystem as possible, along with colony resources. Bring a hab pod to live in, instead of building a log cabin when you get there.

Some one made a good point, why leave? Well the main one being overpopulation. So spread to a new area, or just the desire for someplace not so congested, over urbanized, less intrusive. I think that's some of the reasons said in 2300AD.

I have considerable doubt about over-population being an issue driving colonization. Check out the CIA World Factbook, and look at some of the birth rates verses death rates in Europe and Japan. Japan presently has a negative growth rate, with deaths exceeding births, as does Germany. Industrialized planets may resist colonization as reducing the labor pool.

But back to my original idea. If your ark ship goes to all the trouble of travelling light years to a new place. Might as well convert it into your new home. A ready made city with life support, power, and rooms already built in. Or at least convert it into the planets new orbital station. Colonists go down side, while the infrastructure stays in place to fix/build vessels. Process mined materials, etc.

The Starship Warder in Metamorphosis Alpha, sans the radiation accident.