Realism of Interstellar Empire

[TGLS]

Let's leave aside a bunch of obvious things; FTL travel can be assumed to exist, tons of eminently habitable worlds exist, easy dirtside transportation, etc. I'm just thinking about 2 things.

One, would there really be at all much of a drive for species to go expand across the galaxy? Unless there are harder limits to growth, it would seem we could make the world far denser and still maintain a high standard of living. Why would there be so many people willing to leave a comfortable life for back breaking labour? In an authoritarian society, it makes more sense, but even in a democratic society? I suppose if the society isn't terribly prosperous you may have many economic migrants, but even if it remains prosperous?

Two, industrial societies have a much lower natural increase than pre-industrial societies. The reason is irrelevant but let's assume that this applies globally. Would an industrialized society fill up a large area of the Galaxy in a short period of time? Would the a new wave of colonialism be able to motivate a return to higher growth?

Maybe space operas set a thousand years in the future make more sense after all.

[Captain Crimson]

I read a great medium article about this.

https://medium.com/@uncertainquark/can-there-be-a-galactic-empire-ab080138630

I think the more immediate issue past building an interstellar empire in this fashion is building an intergalactic empire, since once the universe has expanded past a certain point, we won't ever have the chance again, without real FTL technology. Those galaxies will be too far away to try our hand at that anymore. But then with that view... the universe itself is going to lose all heat energy in the next trillion years, so... hooray?

[Beastro]

Why would there be so many people willing to leave a comfortable life for back breaking labour?

Because (surprise) there is more to life than comfort and happiness.

This is a thing many ponder at today, but people of other times had no issue with. Some would travel simply for the hell of it, if feasible.

Consider many who lived on the US Frontier. They'd settle the recent frontier, then in a few years, pick up leaving everything they'd built and do it again, because that frontier had suddenly become too populated and "soft" for them. They wanted to be on their own with large distances between them and their neighbours and did not like everyone else creeping up behind them.

That might sound odd to many packed into cities, but to someone like myself who can't stand being in one larger than 100,000 at most for more than a few days, I can see why large amounts of people on Earth would want to get the fuck out if FTL and terraforming could become feasible.

[Captain Crimson]

Why would there be so many people willing to leave a comfortable life for back breaking labour?

Because (surprise) there is more to life than comfort and happiness.

This is a thing many ponder at today, but people of other times had no issue with. Some would travel simply for the hell of it, if feasible.

Consider many who lived on the US Frontier. They'd settle the recent frontier, then in a few years, pick up leaving everything they'd built and do it again, because that frontier had suddenly become too populated and "soft" for them. They wanted to be on their own with large distances between them and their neighbours and did not like everyone else creeping up behind them.

That might sound odd to many packed into cities, but to someone like myself who can't stand being in one larger than 100,000 at most for more than a few days, I can see why large amounts of people on Earth would want to get the fuck out if FTL and terraforming could become feasible.

This is so on-point it nearly made me cry. Yes, to the H. My family's moved around a lot, and I can safely say the crowded city life beats the life out of you. I wish people weren't so attached to the abstract concepts like national memorials, monuments, and places of history, so that we could maybe tear down the cities and disperse the population. I mean, I know economically, that would take generations, but within metropolises, you can't possibly take care of everyone there, deal with crime, address mental illness, and more. I would advocate for greater technological convenience, and simple country life. To the life of me, while I love traveling, I don't get how people can stand living in places where one store is bigger than the population of whole towns.

[Riedquat]

This is so on-point it nearly made me cry. Yes, to the H. My family's moved around a lot, and I can safely say the crowded city life beats the life out of you. I wish people weren't so attached to the abstract concepts like national memorials, monuments, and places of history, so that we could maybe tear down the cities and disperse the population. I mean, I know economically, that would take generations, but within metropolises, you can't possibly take care of everyone there, deal with crime, address mental illness, and more. I would advocate for greater technological convenience, and simple country life. To the life of me, while I love traveling, I don't get how people can stand living in places where one store is bigger than the population of whole towns.

Doesn't work for me either but the only way you're going to achieve that (at least in the more densely inhabited parts of the world) is by turning the quieter places more into what you dislike.

Have to say though that if you've got all the technology necessary for things like FTL travel setting up shop on another planet isn't really going to be all that comparable with being the first settlers in a new land centuries ago. It'll be harder than what you left but it's unlikely to be backbraking. If you go with Trek technology (merely for example) there's no reason not to bring replicators and the power sources you need, unless you're deliberately limiting yourself (for the sorts of reasons already given - I see nothing inconsistent with wanting to be largely hands-on but still using enough technology to avoid the real hardships).

[Mecha82]

One option what I have seen is bringing back feudal ruling system that Battletech has for Inner Sphere with (pre-Succession Wars) having great houses that rule they own member nations and several minor houses under them ruling each planet. These rulers of those great houses then form council overseen by First Lord who rules whole thing from Earth and has own powerful military to keep peace and hunt pirates.

[Dargaron]

I mean, if you look at early European colonization, it's clearly not population pressure per say that caused the first Spaniards to move to the New World: Europe as a whole was nowhere near its carrying capacity in the 1500s (in fact, it was at a fairly low population compared to the High Middle Ages). That's partially why importing African slaves was so appealing: European labor had become very expensive in the aftermath of the Black Death, and still hadn't rebounded.

You'll probably have a certain number of extrasolar colonies motivated by ideological/religious factors: while there won't be the proselytizing element that brought the Jesuits to the New World (unless we find intelligent aliens), utopians disaffected with the current cultural/political/religious makeup of the Old World will probably make an attempt to set up their own societies on potentially habitable planets. I bet you that there would be at least one attempt to create the Perfect Communism(TM) on the next habitable planet humans find.

Once there *are* settlements outside the solar system, there will be people who want to sell them things. That means traveling from point a to point b on a semi-regular basis.

[Rocketboy1313]

I think a lot of this comes down to the type of interstellar technology we will all be using. Warp Drive, Jump Gates, Star Gates, or whatever else will dictate the nature of how people expand outward, how connected they will be, etc.

One, would there really be at all much of a drive for species to go expand across the galaxy? Unless there are harder limits to growth, it would seem we could make the world far denser and still maintain a high standard of living. Why would there be so many people willing to leave a comfortable life for back breaking labour? In an authoritarian society, it makes more sense, but even in a democratic society? I suppose if the society isn't terribly prosperous you may have many economic migrants, but even if it remains prosperous?

Yes, there would definitely be a drive. I would argue that one of the reasons humanity is the dominate species on this planet is an innate drive to expand and colonize as much territory as possible, making a go in an many environments as possible.
I don't think back breaking labor will be all that present, with interstellar flight I have to imagine robots being a presence, but even then many sci-fi authors have pointed out that people do like the prospect of living a rural or low technology existence.

Two, industrial societies have a much lower natural increase than pre-industrial societies. The reason is irrelevant but let's assume that this applies globally. Would an industrialized society fill up a large area of the Galaxy in a short period of time? Would the a new wave of colonialism be able to motivate a return to higher growth?

I think that the, "let's have fewer kids" concept that comes from highly industrialized societies would not persist in a space fairing civilization. Once you have effectively infinite living space to expand into (something that does not exist on earth) I think people's brains would just start thinking in those terms. They would want to have more kids.
People talk about the Baby Boomers, the generational explosion that followed World War 2 (and essentially followed all the other catastrophes of the early 20th century, Great Depression, World War 1, and Spanish Flu) imagine the Baby Big Bang generation that comes as a result of all the people who want to have lots of kids being given the resources of a colonizing effort on a another planet.

[Captain Crimson]

I think a lot of this comes down to the type of interstellar technology we will all be using. Warp Drive, Jump Gates, Star Gates, or whatever else will dictate the nature of how people expand outward, how connected they will be, etc.

That's the thing, though. Stuff like jumpgates would only be markers left behind by whoever forged on ahead, braving whatever dangers await them, and the question arises how you do that in the first place. Warp bubble is most likely. If there is an alternate dimension, like hyperspace, something tells me it would be made up of exotic particles like tachyons, and so far there is no conclusive proof they exist. The speed of light is, after all, a universal constant.

Two, industrial societies have a much lower natural increase than pre-industrial societies. The reason is irrelevant but let's assume that this applies globally. Would an industrialized society fill up a large area of the Galaxy in a short period of time? Would the a new wave of colonialism be able to motivate a return to higher growth?

I think there is something you're overlooking here. A high percentage of planets out there are probably uninhabitable, or would require technological dwellings to shield against the environmental effects. Those planets would be easy to mine for raw materials, and... the current estimation for all the planets in our galaxy is 400 billion. So my thinking is that a huge portion of the planets out there would serve merely for mining purposes, alongside moons or asteroids, and any offworld colony or base would be extremely limited in comparison to that, within the habitable zone to any star. In SWL, for example, the Galactic Empire controls 1.5 million member worlds - but also 60 million smaller worlds that as I see it, follow a similar philosophy.

I think that the, "let's have fewer kids" concept that comes from highly industrialized societies would not persist in a space fairing civilization. Once you have effectively infinite living space to expand into (something that does not exist on earth) I think people's brains would just start thinking in those terms. They would want to have more kids.
People talk about the Baby Boomers, the generational explosion that followed World War 2 (and essentially followed all the other catastrophes of the early 20th century, Great Depression, World War 1, and Spanish Flu) imagine the Baby Big Bang generation that comes as a result of all the people who want to have lots of kids being given the resources of a colonizing effort on a another planet.

There was also the issue those came about during wartime, which some schools of science speculate heightens our natural reproductive instincts, with many of those births unwilling. I don't know what factor that played there, though the one you're postulating is hardly one I would diminish either. It's just hard to say.

[TGLS]

I think there is something you're overlooking here. A high percentage of planets out there are probably uninhabitable, or would require technological dwellings to shield against the environmental effects ... So my thinking is that a huge portion of the planets out there would serve merely for mining purposes, alongside moons or asteroids, and any offworld colony or base would be extremely limited in comparison to that, within the habitable zone to any star. In SWL, for example, the Galactic Empire controls 1.5 million member worlds - but also 60 million smaller worlds that as I see it, follow a similar philosophy.

This is fair, but I'm ignoring unhabitable planets for two reasons:
1) If you only have less than four worlds with tons of the space equivalent of offshore oil platforms, it's not really much of an interstellar empire.
2) Whether or not resource gathering operations are viable in space is extremely volatile based on technology. My conditions at the top make it ridiculous viable. Reality with the tyranny of the rocket equation makes it only likely for stuff that doesn't need processing and can't be found elsewhere.

I think that the, "let's have fewer kids" concept that comes from highly industrialized societies would not persist in a space fairing civilization ... People talk about the Baby Boomers, the generational explosion that followed World War 2 (and essentially followed all the other catastrophes of the early 20th century, Great Depression, World War 1, and Spanish Flu) imagine the Baby Big Bang generation that comes as a result of all the people who want to have lots of kids being given the resources of a colonizing effort on a another planet.

So I looked into how the US birth rate has changed over time and found this article: https://eh.net/encyclopedia/fertility-and-mortality-in-the-united-states/

The interesting thing is how non-recent the birth rate decline in the United States is. From 1800 to 1900, the birth rate has just generally dropped (even if you adjust for changes in infant mortality). The only recent increase in birth rates was during the Baby Boom in the 1950s and 1960s. Then right back on course to the trendline. I can't really tell if it makes sense for a drastic increase in living space to be paired with a drastic increase in birth rates.

One thing I have considered is that depending on how post-scracity the civilization, we might see ridiculously spread out civilizations, and that might be normal.