Realism of Interstellar Empire

[Darth Wedgius]

Assuming FTL or Nearly-As-Fast-As-Light travel works almost equally well, I think, for colonization, since it would be subjective one-way time that mattered the most.

Going to a new planet won't necessarily be back-breaking. You can send robots ahead to create housing, farms, power plants, mines, more pylons, whatever. You don't need near-magic nanotechnology or AI for something like that, just a few factories that can churn out different kinds of robots. You wait for status updates at home and might have to send out an occasional new factory if unique problems arise. When the robots indicate all-clear, you give or sell (in broad terms) the colony to someone.

If birth rates go to replacement value or less, then the need for an interstellar empire drops a lot. I think even very wasteful people would take a long time to use up one or two solar systems to make a few trillion people happy. But I'll note that (1) cultures change, (2) all other things being equal, people who want to breed a lot will tend to have more descendants , and (3) not all empire-builders are necessarily going to be human.

I also don't like living inside big cities. A lot of people do, but when an employer brought me to the bay area for a couple weeks a month for several months, my time there felt a lot like stay-at-home does now.

But an O'Neill (to Ls!) cylinder with a lot of simulated wild space might work for that, and it might be quicker and easier to build a lot of those in the solar system than to terraform worlds around other stars. Or I could plug my head into a virtual world and feel virtual grass and smell virtual pine trees for a few hours a day, and I can do it without the virtual allergies kicking in later that day.

For that matter, if you have a population used to space colonies and not too dependent on other bodies in the system (for solar power, water ice, whatever), you can move to another system while taking your home with you.

[Riedquat]

True, but industry needs materials, so where do they get it? Even if you have ST style replicators you still need the energy to power them and where do you get that? A lot of the colonies in North America were created to supply raw materials to the growing industries of Europe. Even long after the American Revolution, a large chunk of the US economy was selling materials to the Europeans. So I could see a society doing something similar, establishing colonies to provide the materials to support its large population.

If you've got the technology to cross the stars easily enough to make an empire practical I doubt energy is much of a limitation.

[BridgeConsoleMasher]

Not to mention starships in trek scoop up the hydrogen isotopes needed for warp when it flows through space.

[phantom000]

True, but industry needs materials, so where do they get it? Even if you have ST style replicators you still need the energy to power them and where do you get that? A lot of the colonies in North America were created to supply raw materials to the growing industries of Europe. Even long after the American Revolution, a large chunk of the US economy was selling materials to the Europeans. So I could see a society doing something similar, establishing colonies to provide the materials to support its large population.

If you've got the technology to cross the stars easily enough to make an empire practical I doubt energy is much of a limitation.

Yeah, anytime you have some kind of true 'inter-stellar' civilization, FTL ships are almost a given, otherwise how would it even work? In the movie Passengers they talk about how the company made a huge fortune colonizing/terraforming their first planet. How? It takes the ship 60 years to get there and another 60 to get back. I have heard of long term investments but 120 years seems to be pushing it.

I could see someone like the pilgrims making a one-way trip in a generation-ship or maybe a sleeper vessel with the idea that 'we will build a new home or die trying, because there is no going back.' But then you would have a whole series of civilizations, perhaps technically part of an empire in the same way early European Kingdoms were technically part of the Roman Empire.

[Zargon]

Yes, it's very real...and something the Human Race desperately needes.

Up until about the 20th century you could GET AWAY. If you did not like where you were living...or any other place for that matter...you could just simply leave. This is most often seen in history for religious reasons, but millions of others had all sorts of reasons.

Just think...if there were 20 Earth like planets nearby(and we had FTL)....what would happen? Plenty of people would leave Earth, and all it's politics (and worse) behind.

[Darth Wedgius]

It might also be worth pointing out that colonists aren't always willing. Penal colonies were a thing off and on (maybe still are if you want to stretch the definitions).

They might be again. Let's say your civilization has access to something dangerous, like nanotechnology, something that converts matter to energy (we laugh and mock baryon number conservation!), lets you set off fusion explosions without a fission trigger, red matter, green matter, plaid matter, whatever, and you don't want to live under periodic conditioning, psych tests, and AIs watching your every movement to make sure they don't abuse it. Congratulations, you've just won an all expenses paid trip to Alpha Beta 47, a world where they're just setting up railroads.

[TGLS]

Yeah, well as soon as you're willing to use an authoritarian regime to solve one the problem of futuristic interstellar empire, all the problems are pretty much solved.

Why are we going to all the trouble of settling another planet? Emperor likes space colonies and/or second sons of nobles need fiefs.

Why does a highly industrialized world have such a fast growing population? Three child policy.

You stop needing logical reasons for anything because singular people can make crazy decisions as needed for the setting and it still makes sense.

[Beastro]

It might also be worth pointing out that colonists aren't always willing. Penal colonies were a thing off and on (maybe still are if you want to stretch the definitions).

Penal colonies as we know them came later on in colonial history when the motherlands had greater direct control and largely came after the core period of colonial settling, at least in the Americas. Before then, people were transported and dumped into the hands of whoever ran things in a colony as a variant of indentured servitude.

Related: It's also worth noting that for much of human history, exile was a preferred form of punishment.

[Darth Wedgius]

It might also be worth pointing out that colonists aren't always willing. Penal colonies were a thing off and on (maybe still are if you want to stretch the definitions).

Penal colonies as we know them came later on in colonial history when the motherlands had greater direct control and largely came after the core period of colonial settling, at least in the Americas. Before then, people were transported and dumped into the hands of whoever ran things in a colony as a variant of indentured servitude.

Related: It's also worth noting that for much of human history, exile was a preferred form of punishment.

I could see indentured servants.... I suspect any interstellar civilization, FTL or not, would have automatic capable of pretty much any grunt work. Robots and automated factories might need indentured servants to monitor them, though.

[Darth Wedgius]

Yeah, well as soon as you're willing to use an authoritarian regime to solve one the problem of futuristic interstellar empire, all the problems are pretty much solved.

Why are we going to all the trouble of settling another planet? Emperor likes space colonies and/or second sons of nobles need fiefs.

Why does a highly industrialized world have such a fast growing population? Three child policy.

You stop needing logical reasons for anything because singular people can make crazy decisions as needed for the setting and it still makes sense.

But in the scenario I outlined, what would be crazy about the decision?