2300AD, thoughts and wishes
- Thread starter Colin
- Start date
Colin
Mongoose
On Mars? A couple of small colonies, basically failing. One mining colony that struck Tantalum, so it's doing OK. A few Azanians unwilling to leave their homes.
There's asteroid mining and permanent habitats throughout the solar system, but stutterwarp arrived early enough that there was no real impetus to heavily settle the solar system. Gas giant mining for volatiles and helium-3, some scientific stations. Overall off-Earth population in the solar system would be on the order of 1-2 million.
There's asteroid mining and permanent habitats throughout the solar system, but stutterwarp arrived early enough that there was no real impetus to heavily settle the solar system. Gas giant mining for volatiles and helium-3, some scientific stations. Overall off-Earth population in the solar system would be on the order of 1-2 million.
Colin said:
Why? Stutterwarp allows people to get to the other planets in the solar system quicker too. Yes, those other worlds aren't as habitable as some of the extrasolar colonies, but otherwise they do still have functional resources to be used - why import those from other systems if they're here in our own one?
Colin
Mongoose
On stutterwarp, it takes a couple of hours to go to mars, after reaching orbit. It only takes a few days to reach the nearest habitable system. Mars or Tirane?
Most workers in the solar system can actually return to Earth on a regular basis, so permanent populations are small. The asteroid belt, Mars, and the Earth orbit habitats are the main permanent populations. Workers on the moon typically shuttle down from L4 or L5 habitats for 2 week tours of duty, or even from Earth. There is heavy exploitation, but little actual settlement.
Most workers in the solar system can actually return to Earth on a regular basis, so permanent populations are small. The asteroid belt, Mars, and the Earth orbit habitats are the main permanent populations. Workers on the moon typically shuttle down from L4 or L5 habitats for 2 week tours of duty, or even from Earth. There is heavy exploitation, but little actual settlement.
Colin
Mongoose
Humanity returns to space in the 2050s. Manned flight in the 2060's, back to the moon by the 2070's, and to Mars by the 2080s. Stutterwarp drives are available by, what 2110 or so? No time for Mars to be terraformed, and with Tirane only about 4 days away, no burning reason to do so.
Uninhabitable planets are settled whenever they have resources worth exploiting. Some with gas giants, asteroid belts, moons, KBOs or whatever odd bit of space debris can make a buck. However, (with some exceptions) such objects will not be settled for mere living space, unlike an inhabitable world, and once that resource dries up, whatever settlement will likely go away as well.
Uninhabitable planets are settled whenever they have resources worth exploiting. Some with gas giants, asteroid belts, moons, KBOs or whatever odd bit of space debris can make a buck. However, (with some exceptions) such objects will not be settled for mere living space, unlike an inhabitable world, and once that resource dries up, whatever settlement will likely go away as well.
It's not that I disagree with you, I also think that truly habitable planets (Earth, Tirane, etc) would be way more populated than uninhabitable ones like Luna or Mars or Europa or Venus - it's what I was strongly arguing for in the MGT playtest after all.
But there's 60 years between 2050 and 2110ish - I'd say that's enough time for people to at least spread out within our own Solar System. Maybe by the time stutterwarp is invented, those colonies in cislunar space (or on Mars or Jupiter's moons) have been established for long enough that they can self-sustain and aren't too hindered by people moving elsewhere. Maybe they'd even grow since stutterwarp significantly cuts the travel time to them too?
But there's 60 years between 2050 and 2110ish - I'd say that's enough time for people to at least spread out within our own Solar System. Maybe by the time stutterwarp is invented, those colonies in cislunar space (or on Mars or Jupiter's moons) have been established for long enough that they can self-sustain and aren't too hindered by people moving elsewhere. Maybe they'd even grow since stutterwarp significantly cuts the travel time to them too?
Rikki Tikki Traveller
Cosmic Mongoose
But, after the development of the Stutterwarp, wouldn't those marginal solar system colonies begin dying out? People (especially young and smart people) are going to leave Mars and move to Tirane. What is left within the solar system after 190 years of FTL travel will be either profitable (the Tantalum mine), dying (most of the rest of the outposts) or already abandoned (there are probably a lot of these around).
Rikki Tikki Traveller said:
I think they'd be low population at the very least, for sure.
But I really don't like the idea (propagated by Traveller since it started) that a system is really only one world. Why shouldn't there be small outposts on the other worlds in a star system too? They could be there for research, mining, or just to get away from everyone else.
kafka
Mongoose
EDG said:
While I do agree with the basic sediment of your post EDG. I could see how economics would hinder your idea. The idea of scattered colonies is akin to having a pemanent presence at Antarctica right at the Pole. We can do it. But is it feasible? Better to let machines and the private sector be responsible for this. Hence that is how I see offshoot colonies in 2300AD or Traveller for that matter. Certainly, they will be there but not a permanent presence that may warrant detailing in a system profile.
There is an argument for why small habitat-based colonies (at least) may be more attractive to some than habitable worlds: disease. Few SF games cover this, but it's possible that alien biospheres may have alien bacteria and viruses that can attack Earth-based life. Imagine what happened when europeans came to the Americas - the diseases they brought with them slaughtered the natives very effectively. The same thing could easily happen to colonists arriving at other habitable worlds (and this is another argument against low tech level colonies on such worlds - they'd get wiped out by local diseases in no time).
Maybe this is a manageable problem, but it's a lot MORE manageable if you're in an artificial habitat (be it an O'Neill station or an Orbital or a bunch of tin cans on a planetary surface), because you won't have these things to worry about there. They could be argued to be a safer environment as well because there are no local predators or varied climatic conditions to worry about.
Maybe this is a manageable problem, but it's a lot MORE manageable if you're in an artificial habitat (be it an O'Neill station or an Orbital or a bunch of tin cans on a planetary surface), because you won't have these things to worry about there. They could be argued to be a safer environment as well because there are no local predators or varied climatic conditions to worry about.
Joi Sourcebook
Mongoose
I've always been a fan of Peter F Hamilton (Night's Dawn) colonisation with orbital and asteroid industries so that fits well with Colin's model.Colin said:
Where I'd differ is in the travel.
As I recall the interface was the most expensive part of interstellar travel so factoring would make it dominant in intra system travel. A good simile would be to think of the solar system (outside of 0.1G gravity wells) as a large city where you can get anywhere within a couple of hours relatively cheaply (this depends on common stutterwarp but that's an argument for another day). Thus L5 might actually be a closer neighbour to the Jupiter Trojans than Earth or the Moon in terms of travel time.Colin said:
When it comes to the gravity well however its either slow and relatively cheap by beanstalk or very expensive via interface vehicle or somewhere in between if we're using sky hooks or rotating tethers. My simile here would be trans atlantic travel in 1930s - can be quite cheap but several days via liner or very expensive via flying boat.
So your CEO might visit the Lunar He3 mine for a couple of days but the miner would be there for months if not years. This would mean (I think) larger, albeit still largely transient, populations with both families and support staff (think UK or US forces posted to Germany) and maybe a group of permanent colonists providing support services.
I think this would make the system more interesting and gives more scope for adventure. It also fits with the existing 2300AD look and feel.
Just my 0.02Lv.
8)
Hey, for Mongoose 2300AD - how about some Alien books? For example the Gurps Aslan book was a double alien module with two major alien races in the volume.
The Aslan material was 63 pages long out of a total of 144 pages. The K'ree was the other race and they got 63 pages also. The remainder of the book was several minor races.
Unique to this book is its adventure seeds and the interesting campaign seed "mutant ninja humans"
The Mongoose Aslan module is over 200 pages long - more material than all previous modules combined. The Mongoose one covers the Aslan with more detail than they have ever been covered in.
Maybe the Mongoose Aslan module would be a bit much for 2300AD aliens - but a double Alien module - Pentapods and Ebers with a Ranger adventure included would be cool.
I wonder if this is just going to be one book or a series of books.
8)
Hey, for Mongoose 2300AD - how about some Alien books? For example the Gurps Aslan book was a double alien module with two major alien races in the volume.
The Aslan material was 63 pages long out of a total of 144 pages. The K'ree was the other race and they got 63 pages also. The remainder of the book was several minor races.
Unique to this book is its adventure seeds and the interesting campaign seed "mutant ninja humans"
The Mongoose Aslan module is over 200 pages long - more material than all previous modules combined. The Mongoose one covers the Aslan with more detail than they have ever been covered in.
Maybe the Mongoose Aslan module would be a bit much for 2300AD aliens - but a double Alien module - Pentapods and Ebers with a Ranger adventure included would be cool.
I wonder if this is just going to be one book or a series of books.
8)
Colin
Mongoose
At this point, Mongoose is looking for a spot in their schedule. Other than that, it's pretty much a foregone conclusion. I'll be writing it, bar any bizarre happenstances, and we do plan for a line of books. In fact, I had to submit the outline for the main book, and a short outline for at least another 6 follow-on books.
TravellerArt
Mongoose
With the amount of interest any 2300ad thread seems to generate, its becoming pretty apparent how well this setting should do.
Thanks Matt & Colin for bringing this one back to life (again).
Thanks Matt & Colin for bringing this one back to life (again).
