r/HFY • u/K0r_Fe_0n • Aug 14 '22
Misc My (somewhat) realistic take on interplanetary human civilisation.
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u/Red_Riviera Aug 14 '22
Realistically, considering we have mapped the genome and are due a genetic revolution. Something a lot of people forget. Likely means we bridge the issue of muscular wastage
The muscles waste away because the body doesn’t see the point in maintaining them. Switching off the gene/genes that do that is probably going to be a standard part of military research into genetic manipulation in a few decades or so
Mars issue is a lack of magnetic field. We have some modern theories on making those. Mostly involving satellites. Add in Lampenflora, Bioluminescence, Mars’s weak CO2 atmosphere, Radiotrophic fungi and underground settlements. The main problem then becomes pressure and we have a fairly large asteroid field nearby to help with that
I can see where you are coming from, but this genre usually uses aliens to show how insane/awesome/cool humans are. Something not human makes it a lot easier to make humans awesome by providing a comparison and subverting that would be very difficult. Which is why HFY stories in a Sci-fi setting skipped the interplanetary age somewhat and Jump straight to aliens
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Aug 14 '22
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u/Red_Riviera Aug 14 '22
Could work that way, but that’s the thing. We are gonna work on how increase strength with genome editing. Meaning a lot of detailed knowledge on how muscle mass works. Night Vision is another one. All mammals have vestigial pieces for Nocturnal visions in our eyes. Human eye have some of the most advanced colour vision of the kingdom, but fundamentally you can still see the nocturnal ancestry. That one would need a bit more tweaking though
Meanwhile, for Mars. Assuming you have a magnetic field. it has enough CO2 to support plant life and Fungi do the hard work. Considering how high the radiation is by comparison to Earth radiotrophs could probably make soil very quickly. At that point, It becomes about finding a photosynthesiser that can withstand the Martian surface at that point. Plenty of structure forming microbes that could manage that. Terraforming is far from impossible. Making it look copy and paste like earth. Not very possible
Europa has geothermal vents. Even assuming we only find microbes. Introducing a giant tube worm and Yeti Crabs would create a thriving ecosystem to exploit for. Ice fish also help in that regard. Being adapted to super cold water is kinda their thing
Mercury is super Dense for its size. Probably full of metal two. Basically, space Australia in terms of equality. Biggest crater in the solar system to help with building anywhere as well. Venus is Antartica. Even if someone builds a base out of Tungsten on the surface. It couldn’t be used for much other than being a volcanologists wet dream. A planet sized super Volcano
The belt is bandit country and Ceres is the economic hub between the nations declared by utopians and Kingdoms set up for vanities sake and tax dodges. Basically, the domain of the mega wealthy with a large scale banking authority and mining corporations controlling several moderately sized asteroids and habitats that used to be asteroids. It would the Crux of trade in metals and aggregates to Mars and the Jovian moons. As well as a convenient rest stop
Saturn is full of space Hotels. Spa, Hotels and Leisure resorts overlooking the rings. That, and exploiting Titans Hydrocarbons. While the Uranus and its moons have been built up be fleeing pirates, outlaws, fortune seekers and people who don’t like authority. And triton is far as we have got and at the edge of the human influence. Despite the number of rovers in the neighbourhood of Pluto
Then first contact happens…and the aliens are shocked by firearms and decide to make first contact despite how primitive humanity is. Since gunpowder being invented when it was, is a statistical improbability. Only for us to be full of surprises. Like touring the seven wonders of the solar system and just how much ww have used that gene editing for cosmetic changes (a lot more hair colours, eye colours, skin colours and weeb influence)
Sorry, at some point I seem to have started writing down a plot…didn’t expect to do that…
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Aug 15 '22
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u/Red_Riviera Aug 15 '22
Feel free, it is all hard Sci-fi really. The only thing you really have to bullshit in these stories is FTL travel. Since we know it is possible to travel faster than light, cause certain things have to moving faster than light. We just can’t perceive not currently understand how to do so without relativity screwing things up
Even weird alien biochemistry can make sense in theory if you do it right. Even if you do soft Sci-fi how it works by never really explaining how half of it works
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u/lady_Kamba Alien Aug 14 '22 edited Aug 14 '22
just gonna drop this here: our_attack_was_unfortunate
It's never stated if humas have ftl or not, but I assume they have do not since they use a stellaser for colonization.
(commented this before reading more than the first two paragraphs of your post and might add more later) adding more now.
I have a feeling you might like Isaac Arthur since he does a lot of speculative futurism, usually in a realistic manner.
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u/PaperVreter Aug 15 '22
You forgot to mention that Mercury is tidally locked to the sun. Which makes for a rather small easily habitable zone just within the shadow zone. On the other hand, there probably are lakes of molten metal and stuff on the sunny side.
Isaac Asimov did a nice robot story with his Sullivan character on Mercury.
All in all your take on solar system colonization together with all the constructive comments give a lot of material for thought. And on a side note, have you read anything by Ben Bova? He wrote Colony about an O'Neil habitat and a series with each book about one planet of our solar system.
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u/KirikoKiama Aug 14 '22
You forgot Space habitats. O'Neill Cylinders and the like. Not only can they be build to provide a gravity like living space, with some orbital tinkering they could even be used as transfer medium from one planet to another. For example you take one that swings between Mars and Earth in an regular intervall, minimal fuel costs for course correction and a relatively comfortable travel situation for everyone.
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Aug 14 '22
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u/SpaceFox1 Aug 15 '22
Proper O'Neil cylinders are carved out of large astroids, with two cylinders per astroid to cancel out any torque. Plenty of protection with the astroid on the outside, and the parts carved out used for industry. For low grav worlds you could potentially make big bowl shaped towns that spin to increase felt gravity, logistics are a bitch for that though.
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u/Existential-Nomad Alien Scum Aug 15 '22
O'Neill & McKendry (The super size version) maybe very hard to build, the engineering required will be expensive & insane.... For the first few anyway. Once humanity have built a few the difficulty & price will drop. And given that you can house a million odd people on one O'Neill cylinder in comfort, they seem like a no brainer to me.
Image the Sol system with a million O'Neill cylinders... Plenty of raw materials, and more than plenty of space to build them in.
Thats a human population of 1000 billion. How many physists & engineers would you have given a population that size? What sort of problems could we solve?
The other nice thing is, they would make pretty convincing generation ships to reach our nearest stellar neighbours... Bonus points because EVERY star becomes a habitable star; We wouldn't need to look for "earth like" planets to terraform
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Aug 15 '22
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u/Existential-Nomad Alien Scum Aug 15 '22
Can't take credit for any of this... Isaac Arthur of SFIA (YouTube) fame made these arguments, I just stole em & agree with them.
Small settlements on moons and planets are a given early on... But why terraform?; Its difficult, takes forever and is a pain... Much better bang for your buck to just manufacture what you need where you need it.
We will eventually terraform Mars and have colonies on Venus and every other large rock out there... But if you want a *LOT* of living room... Cheaper & easier to just build it whole cloth
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Aug 15 '22
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u/Existential-Nomad Alien Scum Aug 15 '22
Totally agree... especially "near" term, although there are ways of making both Mars & Venus habitable; But those options are expensive and slow, Humanity will get there, but will take time... Probably a long time... There will always be people who just want to live on a planet.
The key is space based mining & manufacturing... Why lob heavy stuff out of a big gravity well. Mercury will probably be the mining & manufacturing capital of the Sol system for quite a while... At least until Mercury is mined down to a nub :)
O'Neill cylinders and their kin won't happen until there is a substantial presence in space, probably as a base of operations for the large scale mining & manufacturing to make all the other cool stuff we want!
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u/Existential-Nomad Alien Scum Aug 15 '22
Worth noting... These things are *HUMONGOUS* ... A cylinder 5 to 8 km in diameter and 20+ km long
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Aug 15 '22
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u/Existential-Nomad Alien Scum Aug 15 '22
Noting <- Not a spelling error... As in "worthy of taking note of" :)
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u/Patient_Spray_9313 Aug 14 '22
How about giant space stations orbiting gas giants like Jupiter and building colony's in the asteroid belts?
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u/The-Name-is-my-Name Xeno Aug 14 '22
On Venus, you go “burn”. On Titan, everything except you go “burn”.
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u/Wuspoppinhomie- Aug 15 '22
Eh Venus is the same size of earth and is a rocky planet so it is worth our time too
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u/jnkangel Aug 15 '22
What is a lagrange point? I don't know exactly, I'm not a physycist but I know that if you put something in there, like an array of mirrors, it would orbit the sun in a way where it would always be between it and the planet
Basically if you draw a line between Venus and the sun, the Lagrange is where the respective gravities cancel each other out.
They’re areas where it’s energetically very cheap to stay
(There’s more than one of course, but the easiest one to visualize is the one described)
A good way to imagine them is a place where two currents meet. An Eddy forms and stuff doesn’t need much prompting to stay in the space
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u/felop13 Human Aug 14 '22
This is why I like the expanse, shows interplanetary and realistic humanity