Another series I'm doing (same setting as the Venus thing). Should be three posts long. First is up:
http://vacuouswastrel.wordpress.com/201 ... h-century/
Colony Worlds of Earth in the 26th century
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Salmoneus
- Sanno
- Posts: 3197
- Joined: Thu Jan 15, 2004 5:00 pm
- Location: One of the dark places of the world
Colony Worlds of Earth in the 26th century
Blog: [url]http://vacuouswastrel.wordpress.com/[/url]
But the river tripped on her by and by, lapping
as though her heart was brook: Why, why, why! Weh, O weh
I'se so silly to be flowing but I no canna stay!
But the river tripped on her by and by, lapping
as though her heart was brook: Why, why, why! Weh, O weh
I'se so silly to be flowing but I no canna stay!
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Salmoneus
- Sanno
- Posts: 3197
- Joined: Thu Jan 15, 2004 5:00 pm
- Location: One of the dark places of the world
Re: Colony Worlds of Earth in the 26th century
For what it's worth, I did finish this off:
http://vacuouswastrel.wordpress.com/201 ... century-2/ (less content, since the younger worlds are naturally less interesting)
http://vacuouswastrel.wordpress.com/201 ... f-earth-3/ (more content, dealing with other types of colonies and with humans living under the dominion of other species)
http://vacuouswastrel.wordpress.com/201 ... century-2/ (less content, since the younger worlds are naturally less interesting)
http://vacuouswastrel.wordpress.com/201 ... f-earth-3/ (more content, dealing with other types of colonies and with humans living under the dominion of other species)
Blog: [url]http://vacuouswastrel.wordpress.com/[/url]
But the river tripped on her by and by, lapping
as though her heart was brook: Why, why, why! Weh, O weh
I'se so silly to be flowing but I no canna stay!
But the river tripped on her by and by, lapping
as though her heart was brook: Why, why, why! Weh, O weh
I'se so silly to be flowing but I no canna stay!
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marconatrix
- Lebom
- Posts: 234
- Joined: Sun Apr 09, 2006 4:29 pm
- Location: Kernow
- Contact:
Re: Colony Worlds of Earth in the 26th century
Scanning the last blog, clearly with my brain disengaged, I saw the words "Teouma bears" and thought, "I wonder if they're friendly?" I'm now stuck with this mental picture of what a Teouma bear might be. A very evolved Tardigrade maybe, I'm told they've already been sent into space ...
https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=tardi ... 28&bih=579
https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=tardi ... 28&bih=579
Kyn nag ov den skentel pur ...
Re: Colony Worlds of Earth in the 26th century
I like it! a lot of the worlds have a real personality to them <in particular I'd love to hear more about the thick-aired jungle world where humans are the gods atop the mountains> and the setting feels... old, which should be quite a compliment. The feel of it reminds me a bit of the firefly universe because of the contrast between the dreams of freedom inherent in our imagining of an interplanetary humanity and the bleak and dirty nature of a nominally-benevolent interplanetary junta justified, as in WH40k, in its taking away of freedoms by a 'the universe is out to get us, we need to stick together and obey those who protect us' narrative <which is probably true>.
Your presentation of this setting has either been, however, either a bit disperse or such that I have missed a big chunk of it: who are these people, what is this invasion, what happened, how it happened, etc. I mean its nice that a lot of the info is between the lines, but it feels like there's a lot that's between lines not yet written <or blogged>.
so yeah, I like it so far, thanks for an interesting read. A few criticisms/questions/blah.
You mention that a lot of worlds have some economic viability to them, but I'm not sure what it is. Like, call me a marxist, but an 'economy' bullet point between history and natural attractions <an odd choice btw> would have been welcome. Okay, some places they mine tholins, and the military is a huge political force so servicing them <both in feeding them and in the form of camp followers, i guess> is a big economic activity, but... surely there's mining, or biotech, or some sort of service economy? who are the guys making all the movies? and what's up on earth?
Like Hong, founded during an exploitative phase of colonialism: what does it exploit? uniquely arved exotic wood figurines? or Elcano? a water-world seems pretty weird a choice for a colonization based on the prospects of profit... surely water is plentiful in the universe, so... why would people do the ruinously expensive thing that was colonizing it? was there like colloidal silver on its waters or something? and if so, does that make its inhabitants blue?
Your presentation of this setting has either been, however, either a bit disperse or such that I have missed a big chunk of it: who are these people, what is this invasion, what happened, how it happened, etc. I mean its nice that a lot of the info is between the lines, but it feels like there's a lot that's between lines not yet written <or blogged>.
so yeah, I like it so far, thanks for an interesting read. A few criticisms/questions/blah.
You mention that a lot of worlds have some economic viability to them, but I'm not sure what it is. Like, call me a marxist, but an 'economy' bullet point between history and natural attractions <an odd choice btw> would have been welcome. Okay, some places they mine tholins, and the military is a huge political force so servicing them <both in feeding them and in the form of camp followers, i guess> is a big economic activity, but... surely there's mining, or biotech, or some sort of service economy? who are the guys making all the movies? and what's up on earth?
Like Hong, founded during an exploitative phase of colonialism: what does it exploit? uniquely arved exotic wood figurines? or Elcano? a water-world seems pretty weird a choice for a colonization based on the prospects of profit... surely water is plentiful in the universe, so... why would people do the ruinously expensive thing that was colonizing it? was there like colloidal silver on its waters or something? and if so, does that make its inhabitants blue?
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Salmoneus
- Sanno
- Posts: 3197
- Joined: Thu Jan 15, 2004 5:00 pm
- Location: One of the dark places of the world
Re: Colony Worlds of Earth in the 26th century
Oh, sorry, didn't notice your reply for some reason.
Regarding Elcano: yes, it was a stupid idea, which is why it's still relatively underpopulated compared to its peers. The only reason to go there is that it seemed kind of cool at the time. And the people whose idea it was originally did, indeed, go bankrupt.
More generally, there are two pillars of colonial economics. First, immigration. People pay to live on these planets - and the Protectorate indirectly pays the colonies to accept new migrants by dedicating more resources to more immigrant-friendly colonies. A big source of revenue is various indirect schemes that get money off people without them actually getting to immigrate - Elcano's revenue was based on a worldwide lottery for the right to buy an immigration berth. There are something like 35 billion people on Earth. If everyone spends 10 ecus a year buying lottery tickets, that's 350 billion ecus...
Second, mining. Even an earthlike world, like Hong, has a huge advantage in mining - all that good shit that we now have to dig deep beneath the earth for on Earth, that's still lying around on or near the surface on the colony worlds. It's way cheaper than sending robots to mine the asteroids. On top of that, a couple of the worlds are unusually mineral-rich - Herjulfsson in particular, but also Battuta and to a lesser extent Nikitin.
Thanks to the mining, they also probably have fairly robust heavy industry sectors.
Having said all that, one reason I got bored and distracted from this project was having to wrestle with exchange rate theory... some elements are subject to change.
Regarding Elcano: yes, it was a stupid idea, which is why it's still relatively underpopulated compared to its peers. The only reason to go there is that it seemed kind of cool at the time. And the people whose idea it was originally did, indeed, go bankrupt.
More generally, there are two pillars of colonial economics. First, immigration. People pay to live on these planets - and the Protectorate indirectly pays the colonies to accept new migrants by dedicating more resources to more immigrant-friendly colonies. A big source of revenue is various indirect schemes that get money off people without them actually getting to immigrate - Elcano's revenue was based on a worldwide lottery for the right to buy an immigration berth. There are something like 35 billion people on Earth. If everyone spends 10 ecus a year buying lottery tickets, that's 350 billion ecus...
Second, mining. Even an earthlike world, like Hong, has a huge advantage in mining - all that good shit that we now have to dig deep beneath the earth for on Earth, that's still lying around on or near the surface on the colony worlds. It's way cheaper than sending robots to mine the asteroids. On top of that, a couple of the worlds are unusually mineral-rich - Herjulfsson in particular, but also Battuta and to a lesser extent Nikitin.
Thanks to the mining, they also probably have fairly robust heavy industry sectors.
Having said all that, one reason I got bored and distracted from this project was having to wrestle with exchange rate theory... some elements are subject to change.
Blog: [url]http://vacuouswastrel.wordpress.com/[/url]
But the river tripped on her by and by, lapping
as though her heart was brook: Why, why, why! Weh, O weh
I'se so silly to be flowing but I no canna stay!
But the river tripped on her by and by, lapping
as though her heart was brook: Why, why, why! Weh, O weh
I'se so silly to be flowing but I no canna stay!
Re: Colony Worlds of Earth in the 26th century
So the main business of colonization is... people want to colonize other worlds?
I guess it makes a fair amount of sense: with 35 billion people on earth it doesn't take a really high percentage of individuals feeling interplanetary urges to support the business, and I guess that whole thing would be supported by the cultural memory of having being fucked in the homeworld by aliens, and also... I imagine the corporations/companies/governments engaged in the business of colonies invest heavily on making inspirational movies about how deeply awesome it is to live in the colonies, kinda like Ocelot and Doite might sponsor screenings of Into the Wild, right ?
I guess it makes a fair amount of sense: with 35 billion people on earth it doesn't take a really high percentage of individuals feeling interplanetary urges to support the business, and I guess that whole thing would be supported by the cultural memory of having being fucked in the homeworld by aliens, and also... I imagine the corporations/companies/governments engaged in the business of colonies invest heavily on making inspirational movies about how deeply awesome it is to live in the colonies, kinda like Ocelot and Doite might sponsor screenings of Into the Wild, right ?