Organization for a Space Colony

Strategos' Risk · Feb 6, 2021

Some time ago I found a Cthulhu Mythos scenario taking place on Mars in the future: Dr. Michael C. LaBossiere's End Time: Call of Cthulhu. Among the Lovecraftian stuff and some interesting world-building (things are... not going too well on Earth), I found a pretty great description of what a Martian colony founded by post-apocalyptic survivors might look like, complete with Executive Divisions:

The colony has six major Executive Divisions: Security, Computer, Medical, Engineering, Science, and Service. Each of these divisions is responsible for some important aspect of colony life. These divisions serve the functions which were performed by the private and public sectors on the pre-End Time earth. Each Executive Division (except Service) is headed up by a member of the colony council and each has its own internal hierarchy. Because of the conditions on Mars, the hierarchy is minimal and even the highest officials are expected to work (in fact, the highest officials are expected to work the hardest).

I took that structure, combined it with my fondness for the Outpost space colony sim/RTS series, the GURPS Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri supplement, a layout description of the UNN Von Braun from System Shock 2, and came up with my own set of branches/departments/Directives for a potential space colony, complete with fancy names for each one as a nod to Outpost 2. This organization is somewhat redundant in parts or sketchy, so I'm perfectly open to suggestions, give or take.

The premise would be a space colony with a toxic atmosphere but potentially terraformable.

Eden - Environmental Engineering: I'll be honest, I think this might've been the first Directive I came up with and I'm not sure why I chose E.E. However, I imagine they'd be in charge of the terraforming efforts, both in terms of seeding the atmosphere to make it more breathable in the long-term, and the immediate work of making sure the colony base structures have life support. These two goals are probably different enough that they should be separate.

Plymouth - Geology: They love rocks. Again, I might've just gone with the simplest rationale based on the name, and maybe this describes a scientific speciality that probably should be distributed across the other Directives.

Arcadia - Agriculture: Growing food for the colony. By the way, do people ever consider space colonies with livestock? Or is all the meat lab-grown?

Jamestown - Service: Basically all the miscellaneous duties that are leftover. The End Time supplement has a nice full breakdown of it: "For example, the farmers, food preparers, janitors, and so forth are all part of the Service Division. The Service Division has a variety of branches, such as Food Development and Preparation, Janitorial Branch, Child Care Branch, Education Branch, and others. It is the Service Branch that handles most of the common chores and jobs of everyday life. There are also several unofficial branches such as the Entertainment Branch and the Religious Life Branch which are made up of people who undertake such activities outside of their normal duties."
But pejoratively you could oversimplify it as Drone work. I figured growing food is important enough and requires enough scientific expertise to be its own Directive.

Penglai - Medical: Self-explanatory.

Maragha - Astronomy: Ditto. Includes aeronautics when it comes to launching satellites.

Zimbabwe - Civil Engineering: Kind of a grab bag of engineering work to augment and maintain the base structures, build infrastructure, etc. Should I simplify it to "just" Engineering?

Moria - Manufacturing: Working in factories and reclamation of waste into reusable resources.

Cusco - Power: Generating electricity from Tokamak reactors to solar arrays.

Alexandria - Archives: Nod to SMAC. In the game it's hinted that Librarians are important, they're both a citizen Specialist and a difficult level, but only the GURPS supplement explains them as researchers and data-retrieval experts wandering through both the Datalinks brought from Earth, and the new info created since then.

Shambhala - Psychology: Psych chaplains, morale officers, and empath counselors of course. Let's say mental health in a high-stress situation is important enough to warrant its own Directive.

El Dorado - Metallurgy: I'll be honest, I probably just added this one for the name as well.

Shinjuku - Transportation: Nod to Outpost's monorails. They could also maintain magtubes, roads, trucks, etc.

Laputa - Computing: Self-explanatory. They probably hate the name.

Metropolis - Robotics: I've only started reading Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri: Iterations, but I previously had an idea of incorporating non-sentient robotic staff as part of the mission. I imagined Neill Blomkamp bipedal bots, though. Also a nod to how in Outpost there's an entire Robot Command building, and in Surviving Mars, too. Also young Will Robinson was head of Robotics in the 1998 Lost in Space remake so I figured it'd be funny as an entire department.

Xanadu - Communications: Originally they were specifically Media - basically the official news/propaganda outlet of the colony, as well as overseeing education and other mass media for the colonists. But I figure there's more important forms of technical communications, such as just being able to radio those out in the field, which should be covered. Though slightly a nod to Penny Robinson's role as head of "Video Mechanics" in the aforementioned Lost in Space.

Shangri-La - Life Sciences: Biologists, exobiologists, biochemists, chemists, bioengineers, basically anyone who can study organic phenomena of planet, and its effects on the species of Earth. This Directive definitely has overlaps with a few aforementioned ones.

Vinland - Scouts: Field recon, surveyors, explorers, basically specialists in being out in the field in inhospitable territory, experts in survival. Wilderness specialty.

Asgard - Pilots: Maintains and flies all of the air- and space- craft.

Kitezh - Emergency Management: Nod to the DIRT facility that appears in both Outpost as well as Outpost 2 - they are crisis specialists especially trained to assist in emergency situations impacting a fragile colony. Name is from Russian myth- does it fit?

Utopia - Security: The typical police force, Sheng-ji Yang's guys in SMAC.

Camelot - Defense: I read a non-canon description of the UNS Unity as having "armouries to equip entire regiment of UN peacekeepers sent a long with the colonists". I like the idea of having soldier types in addition to the security police. Keeps the tension up.

Atlantis - Leadership: The big cheeses.

Thoughts? Am I missing any?

Avernus · Feb 6, 2021

Strategos' Risk said:
By the way, do people ever consider space colonies with livestock? Or is all the meat lab-grown?

The Honorverse novel The Honor of the Queen mentions orbital habitats for raising cattle. Their parent planet Grayson has dangerously high levels of heavy metals, and providing human-edible food is a major concern for them.

She frowned and leaned closer to her visual display, zooming in on an enormous surface dome, a blister of transparency over a kilometer across, and her eyes widened. The designers had used something like old-fashioned Venetian blinds, not the self-polarizing anti-rad armorplast Honor was used to; now the "blinds" were half-open on the nearer side of the dome as it rotated its way towards "evening," and she stared at the image for a long, disbelieving moment.

That wasn't an orbital habitat after all. Or, rather, it wasn't a habitat for people. She watched the herd of cattle graze across a knee-high meadow on what had to be one of the most expensive "farms" in the explored galaxy, then shook her head again—this time with slowly dawning comprehension. So that was why they were building so many orbital installations!

Dahak · Feb 6, 2021

Strategos' Risk said:
Arcadia - Agriculture: Growing food for the colony. By the way, do people ever consider space colonies with livestock? Or is all the meat lab-grown?

You see those little can shaped bits looped around the end of the O'Neill Island 3. Those are for livestock.

Strategos' Risk · Feb 8, 2021

In retrospect, I made the Directives these three ways from the source material listed in the OP:

i. a role that an individual colonist could take up, or a chief rank (thus suggesting the department they head)
ii. a colony building
iii. a field of study important enough to have its own organization

However that runs into some complications. 1) Why would say an explorer scout or a pilot on a mission report to its own scouting/piloting team, rather than the scientific team (say, geology or biology) they're conducting a survey for? 2) Just because a base can have factories or there are workshops on a spaceship, should manufacturing be its own organization rather than a generic responsibility that multiple organizations can be engaged in? This question holds for other facilities that I've given them organizations for. 3) Why do some sciences get their own departments while others don't?

On a different note, I also like the idea of that this colony represents the final redoubt of humanity. These are the last survivors of our species. So that means every scientist needs to be at the top of their field, the most accomplished. Each colonist has to have at least a master's, but beyond credentials they have to have accomplished greatness in their fields. Preferably they are virtuosos with both scientific knowledge and prowess in the humanities, proficient at art and/or music. I don't know if families are accepted, but if so the kids have to be little whizzes as well.

Part of that is that because you're constrained to say, oh, 10k passengers at most, you're not going to be able to have every field represented. Not every field is as critical to survival on an alien planet. So what ends up happening is that you're going to need to prioritize some disciplines first, but others can be hosted from within them.

armentho · Feb 18, 2021

Strategos' Risk said:
1) Why would say an explorer scout or a pilot on a mission report to its own scouting/piloting team, rather than the scientific team (say, geology or biology) they're conducting a survey for?

this one is actually something that happens in buiness

lets imagine there is this plumbing services company,and someone calls to buy a service package,an engineer is working on a building and wishes to adquire some materials

the salesman in the phone is making the deal,but the client keeps asking technical questions (type of metal,how much it dilates and contracts with temperature changes)
usually the salesman call a engineer of the company he works for,ask him the especifications and then answers back to the client

but at some point if the client is asking too many technical questions,is better to pass him directly to an engineer

so there is ''trade/sale engineers'' whose work is to specifically deal with technical focused aspects of things

in a similar vein,while most report a scout makes would be sent to command following a set of protocols and guides (find X ore>report to command>return),and if he needs technical aid,command will ask the scientist and then answer him back

sometimes an scout time might need a direct line to the scientist or command needs to have people with mixed specialities depending on the mission (if you are tracking minerals,having someone in command with a geology degree would save time when it somes to technical support) because they find something unusual

so you would see a lot of scientists working in non-research related areas as support for operations

engineers,geologists,agronomists,economists etc,are the most usual sigth in terms of ''need to be in the field or command supporting teams or the fabric/sales''

Strategos' Risk · Feb 18, 2021

Makes a lot of sense. You would expect there to be cross-disciplinary teams, and it prevents the redundancy of having each science team maintain its own explorer corps and transportation staff.

Upon further reflection, as well as rifling through Trek's divisions for inspiration, I think I've got a better way of setting this up that in my original layout.

Eden - Life Sciences: Instead of skipping to the long-term terraforming considerations, you first need to actually understand this new world. Biologists, exobiologists, biochemists, chemists, geneticists, bioengineers, botanists, ecologists, basically anyone who can study organic phenomena of the planet, and its effects on the species of Earth.
By being neutral on terraforming (at least at first), this also makes the name less of a blatant knock-off of Outpost 2's Eden colony, and more of a reference to a brand new world.

Plymouth - Mining: Just wanted to mention that while their main practical focus is mining and resource extraction, their research focuses include geology, planetary sciences, seismology, meteorology, etc. The geosciences or geophysics, in other words. Name is a reference to Plymouth Rock.

Shangri-La - Life Support: Being able to breathe and drink potable water are fundamental. So I'd focus on this being the operations and engineering teams that maintain all of the in-base systems to make sure the colonists have a stable artificial atmosphere and all of the necessary plumbing in order to sustain respiration and hydration. Name refers to the Himalayan paradise in Lost Horizon, where the air is so clean that people are immortal.

El Dorado - R&D: Pure research into subjects that are further removed than those studied by other Directives. Inspired by the fact how NASA conducts non-space related experiments in orbit (chemistry, materials sciences, biology, etc.), the Hot Labs of Outpost, and Star Trek's ubiquitous science teams. Name refers to how knowledge is worth its weight in gold.

So yeah, 23 directives.

Strategos' Risk · Feb 18, 2021

For kicks, I've assigned the applicable faction leaders from SMAC/SMAX to Directives based on their backgrounds.

Deidre Skye: Eden, naturally. Though her background in bioengineering wheat also works for Arcadia.

Sheng-ji Yang: Utopia, which has creepy connotations.

Prokhor Zakharov: Actually kind of hard to figure out, as he is both a generic scientific genius, but his background is very engineering-focused. Thanks to my above revision El Dorado would work best, but he could probably fit in Zimbabwe as well.

Nwabudike Morgan: Given that the early settler colony doesn't have much of a capitalist structure, this is a bit open-ended. However with both his entrepreneurial brilliance and wealth, he could probably be running his own shadow economy between Directives. The boring answer is he buys his way into Atlantis as a bigwig. I also like the idea of Psychology becoming the Directive that encapsulates many social sciences. So maybe he's in Shambhala heading up an econometrician sub-directive team, observing the market-in-formation of the colony while subtly inserting his own Randian-esque Morganite philosophy into his findings, ruining the colony's economics studies for generations. And making under the table deals with the factory bosses in Moria so he ends up owning all their facilities within a decade.

Corazon Santiago: In my imagining the ship has both security police and defense soldiers, so she'd be in Camelot. With close tie to members of Vinland.

Miriam Godwinson: Shambhala, of course. Ironic given the name- she'd probably want to rename it to something Christian like Salem or Loyola or Hagia Sophia or the Kingdom of Prester John. Would be funny if she ends up as distant colleagues with Morgan, per above.

Pravin Lal: Penglai, which rather looks like his name.

Aki Luttinen: Laputa and/or Metropolis. Depends on the setting if she actually turns into a literal robot.

Foreman Domai (Arthur Donaldson?): Plymouth, and then later Jamestown, if he still suffers from the gas leak.

Sinder Roze: Laputa, obvs.

Ulrik Svensgaard: Maragha, as I like the idea of the ship's astrogation/navigation staff continuing to study space after they become landlubbers. Could also either become a ranking member of Shinjuku who forces them to start a naval program after waterways are discovered, then the captain of his own exploration vessel under the hydro sub-directive of Asgard.

Strategos' Risk · Jan 8, 2023

Minimum Number of Settlers for Survival on Another Planet - Scientific Reports - this paper neatly splits colonist activities into five domains:

d1: In the domain of ecosystem management, the main activities are designing and maintaining systems for the production of appropriate gases, controlling air composition, pressure and temperature in habitable modules, collecting, producing and recycling water, controlling life cycles of all living organisms, processing organic wastes, growing plants for agriculture and finally producing and storing food.

d2: In the domain of energy production, depending on the strategy, for instance if it is decided to use photovoltaic cells to produce electricity and to produce methane for vehicles, the main activities are linked to the extraction and processing of silicates, producing photovoltaic cells, wires, and extracting methane thanks to a Sabatier reactor. Heating also belongs in this category.

d3: In the domain of industry, especially metallurgy and chemistry, the main activities are extracting, collecting and processing appropriate ores, making construction materials, manufacturing objects, and producing tools for other activities (e.g., agriculture). Industry may also be concerned in the production of glass, ceramics and plastics, as well as clothes and medicine depending on the strategic choices for survival.

d4: Building domain. Even if a base is built before the arrival of humans, it will have to be frequently reorganized according to the evolution of the settlement (number of settlers, new industries, new organization of the work, new way of life, etc.). In addition, the lifetime of any construction is limited. New habitable zones with new ecosystems and new factories will have to be built close to interesting local resources. Everything will have to be designed and organized for good living conditions and optimization of the work. All activities linked to the architecture, organization (or reorganization), maintenance and construction of buildings are included here.

d5: The last domain concerns social activities. For survival and for the development of the settlement (without development, a small settlement could easily collapse), it is important to raise children and to educate them. It is therefore assumed that the growing rate of the population is positive. Other fundamental human activities concern health care, preparing meals, cleaning, washing, organizing the work and making decisions. For survival, time for sport, culture and entertainment can be minimized, but probably not totally eliminated.

Conclusion: for their estimate for colonizing Mars, they estimate 110 colonists are necessary.

An original method has been proposed to determine the minimum number of individuals for survival on another planet or in space, using Mars as the example. It is based on the comparison between the required working time to fulfil all the needs for survival and the working time capacity of the individuals. An important parameter of the model is the sharing factor, which is used to take sharing and productivity into account. In the example provided to illustrate the method, the estimated minimum number of individuals for survival on Mars is 110. This is obviously a rough estimate with numerous assumptions and uncertainties. To our knowledge, it is nevertheless the first quantitative assessment of the minimum number of individuals for survival based on engineering constraints. Other assumptions can be made. It is also possible to consider the case of survival on the Moon, with different industrial processes, different energy systems, difference life support systems etc. and to compare the results with survival on Mars. Noticeably, as Moon nights last about 14 days, growing plants might require full artificial lighting, which in turn would have a tremendous impact on energy requirements, suggesting that more human resources would be needed for that domain. 110 individuals could thus be insufficient for survival on the Moon but a more detailed study is needed before drawing any conclusion. Our method allows simple comparisons, opening the debate for the best strategy for survival and the best place to succeed.

Strategos' Risk · Aug 27, 2024

Besides the scientific paper by Jean-Marc Salotti, the Worldbuilding Stack Exchange has several threads on minimum population for sustaining a space colony. (I haven't checked r/worldbuilding but I assume there might be quite a few as well, such as this thread.) A lot of them are just about calculating genetic diversity and a lot of abstract math and stats work for that.

However, this specific thread on the Stack Exchange contains two answers that takes occupations into account.

1) They even used code! (PHP, grody) Conclusion:

Total minimum population: 2,260

Children: 904

Sub-adults: 452

Unassigned Workers: 452

Farmers: 14

Loggers: 14

Miners: 123

Transport: 61

Maintenance: 61

Education: 24

Medical: 25

Administration: 92

Manufacturing: 38

Obviously a lot of the above is environment-specific, so here's some details about logging/mining specifically:

Logging

I thought I could assume if we can get this group to another planet then we can construct with plastic and metal and therefore there is no need for logging. However, it's likely you need crates, paper, rubber, composting, and who knows what other non-foodstuff organics. I can't find statistics for how many people are involved in this. Let's use the farming number and assume one family can serve an additional 150 people with non-food organics. So, another 5:155.

Logging = 5T/155

Mining

This is one of the more problematic issues. Different materials appear in different locations on a planet. This means our colony has many labor centers, all requiring administration, law enforcement, etc. I'm going to define mining as "anything we take from the ground that we can't eat," so it includes petrochemicals.

2) This answer dispenses with the code with a more systematic breakdown of the sub-disciplines within each occupation grouping. Their six groups are Medical, Government and administration, Engineering and Logistics, Agriculture, Science and education, and Culture and Services. Excerpts below:

Engineering and Logistics

As mentioned the colony will depend a lot on technology which needs to be maintained and you will also need the technical expertise to develop natural resources, construct buildings and infrastructure and set up manufacturing facilities you could also argue that farming and food production falls broadly into this category. Again you have a huge array of specialisations to choose from and there will be compromises to be made between specialist expertise and more versatile generalists. Also each discipline will require theoretical knowledge, technical experience and management and planing. To start with you might set up :

Maintenance : technicians who know how the various basic systems work and how to maintain them

Machine and fabrication shop : supporting the other departments in making and repairing parts and eventually setting up a more comprehensive manufacturing base

Infrastructure and mining : building roads and buildings, mapping and surveying, setting up power generation and distribution.

Electronics and IT : maintaining and developing computer, electronic and communication systems.

Culture and Services

As well as the basic services required to keep a society running any permanent colony will need to develop culture and leisure facilities to keep the population effective and sane. It is reasonable to assume that these will develop organically to some extent but a few really good chefs and perhaps some resident artists, writers and musicians could well be a reasonable addition to a colony.

Just as an example typical commercial kitchen which could feed a few hundred people to a decent standard might include

Head Chef

Sous chef

Pastry chef

Assistant chefs (perhaps 3 or 4 to allow for 365 day operation)

Kitchen assistants (could also be trainee chefs)

And here's the conclusion:

you might want perhaps a dozen or so lead experts in specific fields as well as at least the same number of assistants, technicians and support staff. You might also have a flexible pool of labour from the general population. This also allows for some cross training so there isn't too much reliance on any one individual.
So with this in mind we could perhaps guess that you might have

60 or so 'officers' with versatile technical expertise and administrative and organisational roles

150+ skilled, specialist technicians

300+ general and adaptable labour force with varying degrees of specialisation.

Again going back to a military model a battle-group is typically the basic unit which is more or less self sufficient and consists of around 500-800 soldiers with its own organic logistics and support. Obviously this isn't a very strong analogy to a space colony but it does represent a known structure which is able to function independently long term in a hostile environment with a good mix of specialist expertise and equipment, organisational structures, logistics and versatile labour.

So yeah, a lot of interesting skills with which one can pick and choose from to assemble a master list of disciplines.

Strategos' Risk · Sep 3, 2024

From the Colony Builder supplement by Zozer Games:

Communications: Responsible for operating the radio systems used in the colony and across the surface of the world, as well as the systems used to communicate with inbound and outbound ships.

Computer: Responsible for operating the computer systems on the colony.

Engineering: Responsible for maintaining the power generation facilities on the colony.

Extraction: These are the workers that extract the resources that the corporation is paying for. They may be miners, farmers, ranchers or oil drillers.

Food Supply: Responsible for growing the food needed to keep the colonists alive. Some small colonies rely on imported rations, but many maintain autofarms or open field farms.

Leisure: Responsible for organizing entertainments and diversions, including retail stores, bars, nightclubs, casinos, cinemas and public events.

Life Support: Responsible for maintaining waste management, and on some colonies – air, temperature, water recycling and pressure management facilities.

Maintenance: Responsible for the technical aspects of the colony, repairs, routine maintenance, construction and conversion.

Manufacturing: Responsible for operating the factories that produce goods for shipment off-world or to other settlements on the world.

Medical: Responsible for the health of the colonists, at a minimum there is a doctor and a nurse, but larger colonies will have additional doctors, nurses and medical technicians.

Operations: Responsible for management, administration, planning and co-ordination.

Security: Responsible for colony perimeter security against aggressive wildlife, but mainly focused on crimes within the colony, both petty and serious. Most colonies have Protection and Security (PAS) officers. Some can request a Marshal and a couple of Deputies from the Federal Colonial Marshal Service that are capable enforcing US law on extraterrestrial soil.

Science: Responsible for providing geological, survey, weather and oceanographic data to suit the colony and the local environment.

Social Services: Responsible for managing the colony's public assistance programs, providing assistance for families, youths, the sick and the disabled.

Supply: Responsible for feeding and paying the colonists, including the running of canteens and cafes. It also holds responsibility for the laundry and dry cleaning services and it both orders and stocks spare parts for maintenance.

Training: Responsible for educating the colony's children, if present, as well as running briefings, seminars, training programs and news announcements.

Transportation: Responsible for the transport of passengers and cargoes, by ground, air, sea or submersible, as appropriate. Although many colonists can drive, members of this department shift goods and people around on a daily basis.

Organization for a Space Colony

Abomination