On the issues of Colonizing New Worlds

[serra2]

The Mail-Order Brides of Jamestown, Virginia


So, the article above is a fascinating look into a small part of the colonization of the New World, and colonization in general, that is often glossed. That issue being the problem of getting the right people to come on your colonization project.
Fiction often has the colonization of other worlds led by a large mixed group containing all of the skills needed to build a new civilization, while also being perfectly happy being far from home and any degree of safety. Yet, as the article discussed, for quite a lot of people the prospect of abandoning the safety of European civilization for the hostile Americas, filled with disease and angry natives, was not something they wanted to deal with. In particular, it was very hard to get single women to come over to the New World, which ultimately caused problems when the colonies filled up with go-getting, angry young men. The solutions to this were varied, from private sponsors kidnapping and shipping women to individual colonists for a fee, to the French Government filling a boat with 500 female prisoners and shipping them to New Orleans, to the solution found by Jamestown of offering economic and property incentives to women willing to come over and get married.

So, imagine a situation where we can colonize a new, alien world. We can easily send groups of people there on a one-way trip, but the return to Earth is unlikely to occur within the lifetime of the colonists. How, exactly, do you incentive people to jump on your colony trip? You're not going to just want the type of strapping young pioneers willing to hop on, no questions asked, but also doctors, lawyers, scientists of all types, engineers, professionals. People who both have the skills and experience you need to both do the jobs and, importantly, teach the next generation are more than likely also the people least likely to want to go on this venture, as they will both have economic and family ties to Earth. What kind of incentives/methods could be used to recruit the type of skilled people actually needed to maintain a colony without immediate access to help from Earth?

 

[Sandy River DL]

Then there's the problem of getting enough equipment to the colony world to establish an industrial society. Better to just start out Neolithic (stone age) and bootstrap up to bronze or iron age with local resources and a ruggedized ship's computer. Shouldn't take more than a decade.

 

[SeptimusMagisto]

Then there's the problem of getting enough equipment to the colony world to establish an industrial society. Better to just start out Neolithic (stone age) and bootstrap up to bronze or iron age with local resources and a ruggedized ship's computer. Shouldn't take more than a decade.

Click to shrink...

That sounds like something even fewer people will sign up for. The closer you can stay to the colonists' original standard of living, the more likely you are to get at least some volunteers.

 

[serra2]

Then there's the problem of getting enough equipment to the colony world to establish an industrial society. Better to just start out Neolithic (stone age) and bootstrap up to bronze or iron age with local resources and a ruggedized ship's computer. Shouldn't take more than a decade.

Click to shrink...

Yeah, Definitely not going to be a ton of "IPod" style tech in the colony gear, unless among personal effects. You would want to focus on survivability and repair-ability over pure amount of function. Analog control when possible, nothing that requires very specialized places/equipment to fix. I doubt you would go all the way back to Stone Age, however. 1900's-1940's is the most likely level you would try and start out with the bootstrap equipment.

 

[Sandy River DL]

The main benefit of a stone age start is that materials are very readily available. And once you get the iron age, you can fairly quickly bootstrap to industrialization. An iron age start is about as high tech as you're going to get unless you can haul massive amounts of industrial equipment along with your colonists.

 

[Gladi]

One way trip? Into worse living conditions? I don't see Even if you lied about the colony life almost anybody who is actually evaluating outside of the paradigm of "INSPACE!1!1", would balk at zero risk management.

If the concerns over return trip are economic, there is a number of tricks you could employ to make the return trip theoretical to most colonists.

 

[serra2]

One way trip? Into worse living conditions? I don't see Even if you lied about the colony life almost anybody who is actually evaluating outside of the paradigm of "INSPACE!1!1", would balk at zero risk management.

If the concerns over return trip are economic, there is a number of tricks you could employ to make the return trip theoretical to most colonists.

Click to shrink...

To clarify, It would be possible to return to Earth, it would just be fairly expensive, timely, and not something you can do on a whim. The type of thing where you pretty much abandon the whole colony location

The main benefit of a stone age start is that materials are very readily available. And once you get the iron age, you can fairly quickly bootstrap to industrialization. An iron age start is about as high tech as you're going to get unless you can haul massive amounts of industrial equipment along with your colonists.

Click to shrink...

Stone Age is right out, mostly due to the fact that, barring the ship and all equipment exploding on landing, we could maintain a mostly 1800's level of technology simply by forging and machining the pieces. If the world is untouched, resources should not be a major problem.

 

[Sandy River DL]

You use the ship to build the colony compound. Critical equipment is brought along on board while everything else is locally sourced. Hence me saying that you could reach the iron age in a decade or less. The colony would be up to date within fifty years.

 

[SeptimusMagisto]

To clarify, It would be possible to return to Earth, it would just be fairly expensive, timely, and not something you can do on a whim. The type of thing where you pretty much abandon the whole colony location

Click to shrink...

Do it like China builds its cities, then: first send in a relatively small number of professionals to actually build the city, then after the city is built send in the people who will actually be living there.

And none of that tech regression stuff. Not least because it sounds like it would lead to a colony comprised of people who are either weird enough or desperate enough to be willing to put up with that.

 

[Tasrill]

To clarify, It would be possible to return to Earth, it would just be fairly expensive, timely, and not something you can do on a whim. The type of thing where you pretty much abandon the whole colony location

Click to shrink...

If someone making enough money to go back is going to lead to the collapse of the colony then you are not going to see a volunteer situation. The closest to that kind of condition was in either prison colonies or ancient greek colonies. Ancient Greek Colonies worked by shoving a bunch of people on a ship and pointing them in a direction. If they tried to come back you showered them with spears till they turned around and got back to the business of founding a colony. They no longer where part of the city and did not come back but if it worked the founding city would send more ships that way.

 

[serra2]

If someone making enough money to go back is going to lead to the collapse of the colony then you are not going to see a volunteer situation. The closest to that kind of condition was in either prison colonies or ancient greek colonies. Ancient Greek Colonies worked by shoving a bunch of people on a ship and pointing them in a direction. If they tried to come back you showered them with spears till they turned around and got back to the business of founding a colony. They no longer where part of the city and did not come back but if it worked the founding city would send more ships that way.

Click to shrink...

Less of one person leaving, more of the effort, time, and resources spent to send a ship back with the colonists early on would likely cause problems to the survivability of the colony. The idea is no easy, quick travel back to civilization because someone got cold feet, but something where, if you want to get back, you had to either contact Earth, get a confirmation that it's okay i.e. no outstanding obligations that can't be abrogated, and then wait until the next scheduled shipment/arrival to be able to get back, or spend the time, money, and supplies to retrofit the initial one way colony ship to be able to fly back, then refuel it, then gather the supplies to last the trip back.

 

[Memphet'ran]

It depends. What is your colony for?

Resources? Hire people and pay them extremely well for spending years or decades of their lives in an unpleasant place doing unpleasant work. You don't need colonists, you just need workers; they'll lose five or twenty years of their life, but when they come back to Earth they'll be rich.

Patriotism project? "In case something bad happens to Earth"? Find some patriotic or altruistic people. Failing that, find some poor and desperate people and promise to make their families rich if they go; that's a standard tactic for recruiting suicide bombers IIRC, and at least this doesn't require the recruit to outright die.

 

[sebsmith]

Ancient Greek Colonies worked by shoving a bunch of people on a ship and pointing them in a direction. If they tried to come back you showered them with spears till they turned around and got back to the business of founding a colony. They no longer where part of the city and did not come back but if it worked the founding city would send more ships that way.

Click to shrink...

While there are certainly stories of greek colonists having an unwelcome reception when they came home – Methone's founding myth comes to mind – there are also stories of people being welcomed back with open arms. I recently read a whole paper which argued that greek colonists possessed a right of return.

Also, city-states seemed to invest substantially more than that. In fact, much of Delphi's importance and wealth came from finding and approving colony sites.

 

[firefossil]

It wouldn't surprise me if a one-way colony ended up rather schizo-tech, due to:
1: Things like medical technology and the means to produce it are going to be heavily prioritized. Less important techs might be dropped or lost.
2: Until and if you can retool, you are going to be limited to basic/limited tools and whatever you can generate with 3D printers. This is probably going to lead to all sorts of "substitutes" that probably aren't as efficient as what you'd make if you had dedicated modern factories.
3: Many of the needs of colonists are going to be radically different. Life in a sealed arcology is going to put much higher premiums on things like space, recyling, food, etc etc. Stuff like highways and skyscrapers and cruise ships and airplanes on the other hand are just not relevant.

 

[Avernus]

Then there's the problem of getting enough equipment to the colony world to establish an industrial society. Better to just start out Neolithic (stone age) and bootstrap up to bronze or iron age with local resources and a ruggedized ship's computer. Shouldn't take more than a decade.

Click to shrink...

More likely centuries, or never. People in Stone Age societies live at the edge of survival at best, and that's on Earth with millennia of experience and in an environment they've evolved for. Not a bunch of modern people shoved out an airlock with no experience and only whatever knowledge you can force on unwilling conscripts (because you aren't going to get volunteers).

It's more likely they'd just all die; if they do progress at all it'll be a long, long time before they get anywhere.

 

[Sandy River DL]

More likely centuries, or never. People in Stone Age societies live at the edge of survival at best, and that's on Earth with millennia of experience and in an environment they've evolved for. Not a bunch of modern people shoved out an airlock with no experience and only whatever knowledge you can force on unwilling conscripts (because you aren't going to get volunteers).

It's more likely they'd just all die; if they do progress at all it'll be a long, long time before they get anywhere.

Click to shrink...

Neolithic does not mean nomadic hunter-gatherers living from day to day. The Neolithic was when agriculture was invented, combine that with a ruggedized 'Idiots Guide to Civilization Building' computer for direction and you've got a very high chance of getting to the iron age or beyond. Unless you sent a bunch of spoiled rich brats to start that colony.

 

[Tasrill]

While there are certainly stories of greek colonists having an unwelcome reception when they came home – Methone's founding myth comes to mind – there are also stories of people being welcomed back with open arms. I recently read a whole paper which argued that greek colonists possessed a right of return.

Also, city-states seemed to invest substantially more than that. In fact, much of Delphi's importance and wealth came from finding and approving colony sites.

Click to shrink...

Got any book suggestions for the colonial period? It is interesting but I have only had touched over in the books I have read.

Neolithic does not mean nomadic hunter-gatherers living from day to day. The Neolithic was when agriculture was invented, combine that with a ruggedized 'Idiots Guide to Civilization Building' computer for direction and you've got a very high chance of getting to the iron age or beyond. Unless you sent a bunch of spoiled rich brats to start that colony.

Click to shrink...

Do you know what neolithic mining and farming was like? Breaking up the ground with sticks, grinding grain with stone and leaving teeth destroying grit, carrying everything on your back was farming. Mining was sending children and people you don't care if they die into a hole in the ground with rocks that are slightly harder than the rock they are mining through. 10 years isn't enough time to mine enough copper to start a proper Chalcolithic period. Neolithic is such a massive loss in efficiency that even knowing what you need to do it would be slow.


This is all assuming that you can even grow earth plants on another planet without modern age or above technology. If earth plants can't compete with the native plants then you get all the fun of doing the most basic 'if I eat this will it kill me' before the long complicated process of domestication can even start.

 

[Q99]

So, imagine a situation where we can colonize a new, alien world. We can easily send groups of people there on a one-way trip, but the return to Earth is unlikely to occur within the lifetime of the colonists. How, exactly, do you incentive people to jump on your colony trip? You're not going to just want the type of strapping young pioneers willing to hop on, no questions asked, but also doctors, lawyers, scientists of all types, engineers, professionals. People who both have the skills and experience you need to both do the jobs and, importantly, teach the next generation are more than likely also the people least likely to want to go on this venture, as they will both have economic and family ties to Earth. What kind of incentives/methods could be used to recruit the type of skilled people actually needed to maintain a colony without immediate access to help from Earth?

Click to shrink...

The way you do it, is you *make* it. You don't just hire skilled doctors, lawyers, etc. etc. to fill your whole crew.

What you do is you find the desperate, poor, and those otherwise willing. Then you make training and teaching them part of the process for preparation for the mission.

 

[sebsmith]

Got any book suggestions for the colonial period? It is interesting but I have only had touched over in the books I have read.

Click to shrink...

I've been using The Rise of the Greeks by Michael Grant, but it's not perfect. This appears to be the article I mentioned above.

What kind of incentives/methods could be used to recruit the type of skilled people actually needed to maintain a colony without immediate access to help from Earth?

Click to shrink...

I'm going to agree with @Q99 above, it will be easier to come up with a system to recruit anyone willing, and then train those 'volunteers' either beforehand or during the journey.

 

[Q99]

And to support that, it's not going to be too hard to get the best and brightest teachers to simply *train* a colony population for a few years rather than leave themselves.