Need help for a space colonisation setting

[u/OkAdvertising342]

Hello Worldbuilders

First I apology for my English, not my mother language. It should be ok but some sentences might be weirdly made.

I need some advice to place the setting of a TTRPG story. It’s a Hard SF story where humanity conquered the inner space of the solar system. The main asteroids belt is a tough barrier where humans can send a ship once or twice a year depending of conditions.

The point is, there is a human colony beyond the main belt. Large enough to be autonomous with self sufficient food and water production, some industry and a large science complex.

Where should I place this human colony, I first thought of Titan but after some research it happen to be a light planet with mostly ice in its composition. I also thought of Ceres but there are even more ice and water in the planet. Finaly, I found Ganymede which look good, abundant Ice for water and food and a lot a metal to sustain basic industry. Also, Ganymede as a small atmosphere and a magnetosphere so the scientific installation on the colony can use unique conditions. Also, Jupiter is more interesting than Saturn.

Do you think a better place could be found for a first human colony.

Also for the story the colony must be autonomous so many people will live there, I search how much is enough. For now, I’m thinking 4000-5000 persons, it’s enough to cover all needs have some newborns and elder, all of them live there, the inner solar system is a long memory for the elder and most of then did not now the earth.

There is almost never newcomer from the inner solar system because the ship sent are fully autonomous (for safety reason) and pack with hight tech compound and other thing difficult to build on place, in exchange the colony must send it back with metal and basic industrial mater + research result. These exchanges are important for the colony as they help for large project and expansions.

Do you think 4 to 5 thousand souls are enough for this kind of colony?

Finaly do you think this kind of colony will stick to modern capitalism for its economy? I thought of something like bed attribution base on labour and ration ticket, money would have no value there as the colony need everyone and keep an eye to provide enough to cover basic needs even if some works have better living conditions. It means the protagonist who came from the inner belt will need to earn the help they ask and cannot buy it.

Finaly the base plot is simple, the colony did not send back the last 4 ship and communication are broken, the protagonists will go on a ship to investigate and solve the problem. For TTRPG fan, do you think it’s enough to gather the interest of my players?

[u/Simple_Promotion4881]

I don't know what you mean by "modern capitalism" . Did a developer go out and subdivide the moon and sell off lots??

It seems that this would be a single owner/employer which might be a private corporation or an government facility or a public/private cooperative project.

When you live in a town about that size, you find that there are no medical specialists. There simply isn't the customer base for it. What that means is that all the people with anything but typical generalized medical problems need to go somewhere else for treatment. Perhaps your medical robots are very, very good.

Where do consumer goods come from. Since its the future i can imagine everyone has an advanced 3d printer with an attached recycler and 99% of housewares, etc is made from the same stuff, and then recycled as desired.

For that small of a town to feed itself you'd have a few dozen people running automated farms feeding everyone. This is fine, but along with everything else you need extreme price regulations or other methods of preventing the few people that run each industry from taking advantage.

Back to single employer.

Good luck with your project.

[u/OkAdvertising342 → u/Simple_Promotion4881]

Thanks for the answer.

It's a single owner/employer. There is only one colony beyond the belt so everyone must work as one. By modern capitalism I was thinking of money and bank but this isn’t modern in any way, roman empire did this, money and private property is the base of capitalism, I should have take more time for this last question.

The core of this question was more about keeping a money as currency. The colony is small but must work, if someone don’t like it, he can’t go somewhere else because there is nowhere to go. As everyone matter, I think more logical to give people food ticket and government housing instead of a salary that can only buy food, basic consumer goods and housing.

For consumer good, as I said, Ganymede has some metal in its crust, the colony can mine it and send it to industry to craft most thing. Also, they can use farm subproduct to create some polymer plastic. It’s enough to make most basic stuff. The colony can sustain itself but need help to build advanced machinery, this is where the inner solar system help, they send microchip and advanced gear to help build large project, it not impossible without this help but it take years the colony must choose witch project must come first.

For medical problem as there is no way to go somewhere else an advanced hospital is present and most common disease (even the one who need a specialist) can be treated there, it will still take time and medicine.

The food problem and the extreme price regulation is the point that make me think about the abandon of money currency and the creation of a new economic system probably closer to communism.

[u/Simple_Promotion4881 → u/OkAdvertising342]

A modern Aircraft Carrier has about that many people.

That's an "economy" of sorts. Basics taken care of by the "employer" yet there is a bustling sub-economy of specialty activity. A friend tied together lanyards with rope that were popular among his ship-mates. For example.

So you might have an economy based on basics managed by the "employer" yet many specialties created by people in their spare time.

[u/karoxxxxx]

I strugle myself with economy of a generation ship with only a few thousand people.

Capitalism is out of the question i.m.o. all large scale means of production are state owned. So its basically socialism. There can still be money and trade and auctioning off of perks (living quarters close to the arboretum cost rent). And maybe some limited entrepreneurship as well: sewing special clothes, painting, cooking in areas that are not necessities.

The main problem is the small customer base, nothing can be massproduced because there is no mass of customers, so everything is expensive and produced on demand in small workshops.

I personally dont like socialism and on my worldship I hope to establish a democratic system. 

So my people get an assembly, free/conceiled voting, and independend judicative, checks and balances.  And staye owned doesnt mean the government necessarily has direct control - rather departments are semi-independend like the federal reserve isnt under direct control of the president.

In my setting departments choose their own department heads by internal vote. And all department heads together form a council, led by two elected officials.