Rather than add an odd spin to the existing discussion on space colonies and infrastructure, let me propose the following scenario:
Given an authoritarian culture that bans drugs, narcoterrorist smugglers arise. Assume that many but not all narcoterrorist groups are infiltrated by the law and can be shut down if they do anything seriously weird.
Assume that a non-infiltrated group gets a streamlined starship and discovers a nice, sunny world with lots of oceans.
The streamlined starship lands a submarine with a drilling crew. The drilling crew sets up a pressure tent and starts drilling tunnels in a nice stable part of the ocean floor with a relatively large amount of sunlight.
They might use solar power, or they might use fusion power with exhaust gases concealed by local seaweed. Either way, they are able to drill out quite a few cubic meters of living space every day.
And here is an important part: the underwater bases are pretty hard to detect from orbit. So long as the starship can land the first submersible, it might even be dropping colonists in disposable pods.
The starship ferries in colonists.
The colonists set up self-sufficient food chains. These might be as simple as freshwater tanks with catfish and a few filtration systems. Toilets use a composting method so that valuable nutrients can be immediately recycled.
A self-sufficient infrastructure is necessary. Farming takes little skill -- dump some catfish food in the catfish tank and pull out catfish when you're hungry. Machinists and chemists would be much more important.
Starships continue to ferry in civilians who agree with the narcoterror philosophy. These might be dissidents. They might fake their suicides if they are wanted men back in civilized space.
Soon, one has passed the several thousand mark. The colony has food, water, and electricity. Presumably they have ways of keeping themselves happy -- drugs, weird religions, whatever.
And even if the authorities knew of the correct planet, they would have a hard time hunting them all down and smoking them out of their holes. It would be hard to drain the swamp of terrorism -- especially if the dissidents kept tunnelling every day and thus expanding their living space.
I mention this to illustrate that the minimal colony theme need not be a typical American setting -- it could be done by the opium-selling, anti-American Taliban narcoterror types.
Given an authoritarian culture that bans drugs, narcoterrorist smugglers arise. Assume that many but not all narcoterrorist groups are infiltrated by the law and can be shut down if they do anything seriously weird.
Assume that a non-infiltrated group gets a streamlined starship and discovers a nice, sunny world with lots of oceans.
The streamlined starship lands a submarine with a drilling crew. The drilling crew sets up a pressure tent and starts drilling tunnels in a nice stable part of the ocean floor with a relatively large amount of sunlight.
They might use solar power, or they might use fusion power with exhaust gases concealed by local seaweed. Either way, they are able to drill out quite a few cubic meters of living space every day.
And here is an important part: the underwater bases are pretty hard to detect from orbit. So long as the starship can land the first submersible, it might even be dropping colonists in disposable pods.
The starship ferries in colonists.
The colonists set up self-sufficient food chains. These might be as simple as freshwater tanks with catfish and a few filtration systems. Toilets use a composting method so that valuable nutrients can be immediately recycled.
A self-sufficient infrastructure is necessary. Farming takes little skill -- dump some catfish food in the catfish tank and pull out catfish when you're hungry. Machinists and chemists would be much more important.
Starships continue to ferry in civilians who agree with the narcoterror philosophy. These might be dissidents. They might fake their suicides if they are wanted men back in civilized space.
Soon, one has passed the several thousand mark. The colony has food, water, and electricity. Presumably they have ways of keeping themselves happy -- drugs, weird religions, whatever.
And even if the authorities knew of the correct planet, they would have a hard time hunting them all down and smoking them out of their holes. It would be hard to drain the swamp of terrorism -- especially if the dissidents kept tunnelling every day and thus expanding their living space.
I mention this to illustrate that the minimal colony theme need not be a typical American setting -- it could be done by the opium-selling, anti-American Taliban narcoterror types.
