Political/Religious Space Colonies?

[Xavier Onassiss]

If large-scale interstellar space colonization became possible, there would be a lot of reasons to take advantage of it. We've discussed the economic side of this already here; now I've got another question:

 

What about political or religious groups who want to go Elsewhere?

 

I'm talking about dissidents, fringe groups, governments in exile, 'the opposition', persecuted minorities, or anyone else who isn't satisfied with their existence on Earth due to political or religious problems. If FTL travel enabled them to start over somewhere else, starting now, who would go?

[Escafarc]

Re: Political/Religious Space Colonies?

 

I think groups like the Mormans would have a desire and the funding to start their own colony. Also Hippies/Back to nature types would want to go but someone else would have to foot the bill(unless they steal a Starfleet shuttle:))

[Shadow Hawk]

Re: Political/Religious Space Colonies?

 

Make it cheap enough, with a excellent percieved chance of survival, and there'd be all kinds of groups wanting to build thier perfect/Godly society 'out there'. The list of the currently existing groups would be incredible: Fundamentalists of various stripes, isolationist groups, racial purity nuts, oppressed minorities, minorities who think they're oppressed...

[Cancer]

Re: Political/Religious Space Colonies?

 

Much depends on the cost threshold. There were lots of single-ship (or single-caravan) colonization efforts in Earth's history, mostly because the costs for mounting such things were modest; not much more than a single neighborhood worth of people could muster up such an effort, and more or less all the participants went in the expedition.

 

If the cost is high enough that only a minority of the participants can expect to go on the expedition, that's something else again. That's a very different level of organization and a very different character to the cast of characters who are in the outgoing expedition.

[McCoy]

Re: Political/Religious Space Colonies?

 

If large-scale interstellar space colonization became possible, there would be a lot of reasons to take advantage of it. We've discussed the economic side of this already here; now I've got another question:

 

What about political or religious groups who want to go Elsewhere?

 

I'm talking about dissidents, fringe groups, governments in exile, 'the opposition', persecuted minorities, or anyone else who isn't satisfied with their existence on Earth due to political or religious problems. If FTL travel enabled them to start over somewhere else, starting now, who would go?

Whoever goes, think a lot of them won't make it. Look at how many Utopian colonies tried to make it in the American West during the 19th century. Oneida Community commune is of personal interest to me because of early attempt at human eugenics. I'm not aware of any of the utopian movements surviving except the Mormons and the Hutterites. (I really think the Hutterites have a lot to teach future colonist about organizing groups to mimimize conflicts and work for a common purpose. Unfortunately their methods break down when the group reaches about a hundred people.)

 

The Catholic Church would be among the first to launch a colony, followed by anyone else who didn't want to practice birth control. The hardline Communist would like the opportunity to prove to the rest of us that a managed economy does work. Hutterites, Mennonites and Amish? Maybe a "turn-key" planet with no terraforming needed.

 

Racial seperatist? In my experience would be more interested in getting "the other guys" to leave than going themselves.

[IndianaJoe3]

Re: Political/Religious Space Colonies?

 

Racial seperatist? In my experience would be more interested in getting "the other guys" to leave than going themselves.

 

I find the idea of racial separatists starting a colony with only, "genetically pure" members to be plausible. I can also imagine them running into problems after a few generations when they discover their gene pool isn't as pure as they thought it was.

[Bobby Walker]

Re: Political/Religious Space Colonies?

 

I would consider this, that it probably shouldn't be cheap to colonize because then you basically have a multitude of different groups out there. Instead, I'd consider a situation where several groups, each intent on colonizing a separate part of a new world would all pool their resources to fund such a venture. Over the course of time, such groups may become a blended single type group, or several such groups that aren't easily recognizable to their original counterparts.

 

That to me seems the more likely outcome, and a much more manageable one at that, giving a situation and reasoning for groups having merged and transformed into something different.

[Markdoc]

Re: Political/Religious Space Colonies?

 

Depends on the cost. If it were really cheap, then I can see lots of groups trying. If it were more expensive but not the equivalent of many billions in today's money, I could see the larger religious groups going ... but I don't think they would. When we look at the history of colonisation on this planet, large, established religious groups tended not to send out colonies themselves, though they could certainly have afforded to. Instead, they sent representatives to other people's colonies. They were embedded in their own societies: there was little appeal in establishing an isolated colony of their own. Instead it was the fringe groups like Mormons, Hutterites, Pilgrims, etc, who were escaping real or perceived oppression, or even smaller utopian groups. If space travel were cheap enough for (say) 100 moderately wealthy people to raise the funds, then I can see the modern equivalents of those groups going.

 

cheers, Mark

[Tasha]

Re: Political/Religious Space Colonies?

 

If FTL flight is really inexpensive, I would imagine that many groups would want to colonize a planet. I think that any "Hippie" environmentalists would be more interested in leaving the planet to mother nature, than despoiling it with human colonists. I imagine that this would be far enough in the future that anyone who could remember how bad life on hippie communes actually was. would be far dead. Though you might just get people who want to live in the wilderness and slash a living out of nature etc. How ironic would it be to have a community of environment friendly settlers, Setting up a huge envronmentally neutral city. That maximizes living area for the people while minimizing the impact on the planet. You could have a lot of fun with theme planets. Like H.Beam Pipers' Lone Star Planet (Planet for Texans) where the population lives like they think early Texans lived. You can also have both liberal and conservative utopias.

 

As for people would would want to go. Just take any group that feels like it is oppressed in it's current residence. Show them a place where they can make the laws and where the population is made of people just like them or full of people who will accept people just like them. You will find people that will immigrate. It's how the US got all of it's immigrants (and still does to this day).

 

There will be some Religious types who would go. Also, supremacists (ie White Power bigots etc) if they could control the immigration so it's full of their kind.

[Markdoc]

Re: Political/Religious Space Colonies?

 

As for people would would want to go. Just take any group that feels like it is oppressed in it's current residence. Show them a place where they can make the laws and where the population is made of people just like them or full of people who will accept people just like them. You will find people that will immigrate. It's how the US got all of it's immigrants (and still does to this day).

 

Actually the US got the vast majority of its immigrants because people thought they could make money there. And that's the primary reason most immigrants move there today. Refugees fleeing oppression make up about 1% of the US immigrant intake and as far as I can tell, that's probably always been, more or less, about the proportion. After all, the biggest group of immigrants to the US today are Mexicans. I don't think they are coming to found colonies and make their own laws.

 

Even in the US's own history, people think of the Pilgrim Fathers as sailing off to New England to establish their own colony .... overlooking the fact that that wasn't actually their plan and didn't happen like that. They left Holland, not England. They planned (and paid for) passage to Virginia, to set up just north of the recently-established colonies there. They ended up getting stranded in New England by bad weather: something they were unprepared for. That's partly why they almost starved in their first year. It's also largely myth that they were poor huddled masses fleeing religious oppression. They were nonconformists and had been oppressed in England - but they had moved to Holland more than a decade before deciding to move to America (building up a little colony at Leiden). In the end, they decided to move to America, not for religious reasons, but - as Bradford wrote, primarily for financial reasons (specifically of finding a better, and easier place of living - many of the Pilgrim Fathers were unemployed in Holland and supported by their brethren). Like most colonists who went to the New World, the trip was a business deal: they negotiated with the London Company, received a royal charter and accepted a contract that stipulated that the investors who underwrote the venture, at the end of the seven year contract, would get half of the settled land and property, which the colonists would work for them.

 

In other words, the pilgrim fathers came to America as corporate workers. Amusingly, because the contract wasn't fully ratified before they departed, and because they hadn't ended up where they had expected, they decided that they were no longer bound by the old contract - stiffing the investors back in England, who'd largely paid for their trip. The Pilgrim Fathers: contract breakers and freeloaders. Gives the whole thing a slightly different spin, doesn't it?

 

In truth most of the early settlement in the US was either corporate or governmental. It wasn't until the 19th century that it was cheap enough for individuals to move en masse.

 

cheers, Mark

[Xavier Onassiss]

Re: Political/Religious Space Colonies?

 

I honestly hadn't thought of the 'racial purity' angle. Maybe I should work on being more cynical.

 

However, I'm working on a future history in which humanity has re-engineered itself (or parts of itself, anyway) to survive in alien environments (zero-g, underwater, thin atmospheres, etc.) and there are a number of other 'variants' of humanity in existence. Will racial divisions still mean anything when these things are possible -- or will the old prejudices be replaced by new ones?

 

Then there are the real aliens, beings so far removed from humanity they're not playable as PC's in my campaign. When faced with something that vaguely resembles a 400kg ammonite with a few extra tentacles and a superior attitude, will anyone still care if the guy who just moved in next door has a different skin color?

 

Well... at least I can hope.

[BobGreenwade]

Re: Political/Religious Space Colonies?

 

There are a lot of points here that are both well thought out and well presented. You people have certainly given me some food for thought on the matter.

 

However affordable and commonplace planetary settling may eventually become, it does seem likely that the vast bulk of such colonization will be for economic opportunity rather than the opportunity to practice a specific religious or political agenda in isolation.

 

On the other hand, we do have some history having passed since the Americas were colonized by Europeans. We've learned a lot from history (though opinions differ on what those lessons are), and many attitudes and values have changed.

 

A lot of it will probably depend on how common in the galaxy are planets with conditions close to Earth. Colonists of this type (and of course I'm speaking as a speculating layman in sociology) will not want to go through the trouble of trying to terraform a planet, which can take longer than a person's lifetime. They'll want a place where they need to live out of food stores for no more than a couple of years, while they set up their agriculture. On the other hand, if the planetary conditions are close enough to Earth to be nigh-utopian, someone else will come along and make it into a commercial venture first.

 

So in the grand scheme of things, colonies of this type will be maybe as frequent as one in a thousand. They'll exist, and only the most dedicated and best-managed will survive for long.

 

Of course, the answer will also be affected by whether we meet another starfaring species while we expand into the galaxy. Based on what I've been reading lately, I think it's likely that we'll be the first such species in the Milky Way (possibly not in the Local Cluster, and almost certainly not in the universe, but most probably in this galaxy), but what if we're not? Mutual colonies, competition for galactic territory, and similar issues could make the existence of social colonies must more scarce.

[McCoy]

Re: Political/Religious Space Colonies?

 

There are a lot of points here that are both well thought out and well presented. You people have certainly given me some food for thought on the matter.

 

However affordable and commonplace planetary settling may eventually become, it does seem likely that the vast bulk of such colonization will be for economic opportunity rather than the opportunity to practice a specific religious or political agenda in isolation.

 

On the other hand, we do have some history having passed since the Americas were colonized by Europeans. We've learned a lot from history (though opinions differ on what those lessons are), and many attitudes and values have changed.

 

A lot of it will probably depend on how common in the galaxy are planets with conditions close to Earth. Colonists of this type (and of course I'm speaking as a speculating layman in sociology) will not want to go through the trouble of trying to terraform a planet, which can take longer than a person's lifetime. They'll want a place where they need to live out of food stores for no more than a couple of years, while they set up their agriculture. On the other hand, if the planetary conditions are close enough to Earth to be nigh-utopian, someone else will come along and make it into a commercial venture first.

 

So in the grand scheme of things, colonies of this type will be maybe as frequent as one in a thousand. They'll exist, and only the most dedicated and best-managed will survive for long.

 

Of course, the answer will also be affected by whether we meet another starfaring species while we expand into the galaxy. Based on what I've been reading lately, I think it's likely that we'll be the first such species in the Milky Way (possibly not in the Local Cluster, and almost certainly not in the universe, but most probably in this galaxy), but what if we're not? Mutual colonies, competition for galactic territory, and similar issues could make the existence of social colonies must more scarce.

On the other hand, maybe only the religious/politically fanatical will take the long term view to do the terraforming. Park a few O'Neil habitats in orbit around the unfinished planet, build a few domed settlements on the surface, and work your tails off for ten generations.

[Alverant]

Re: Political/Religious Space Colonies?

 

If cost is a factor, then maybe they can hold a fund raiser. Depending on how disliked the group was, people outside the group would be willing to pay to get rid of them.

[Shadow Hawk]

Re: Political/Religious Space Colonies?

 

If cost is a factor' date=' then maybe they can hold a fund raiser. Depending on how disliked the group was, people outside the group would be willing to pay to get rid of them.[/quote']

 

I can think of a few groups that I'd donate to in order to shoot them off into space.

[Sundog]

Re: Political/Religious Space Colonies?

 

Difficult political/religious minorities might easily find a prime source of funding - the Government.

Would the state government of Utah like it if all those darned Polygamists went somewhere else? ANYWHERE else? You bet. What about the Japanese government and the Ainu people? On a larger sacle, would Sri Lanka contribute to an off-world Tamil homeland if it mean they had less tamils at home to deal with? My bet is very much yes.

[Tasha]

Re: Political/Religious Space Colonies?

 

Actually the US got the vast majority of its immigrants because people thought they could make money there. And that's the primary reason most immigrants move there today. Refugees fleeing oppression make up about 1% of the US immigrant intake and as far as I can tell, that's probably always been, more or less, about the proportion. After all, the biggest group of immigrants to the US today are Mexicans. I don't think they are coming to found colonies and make their own laws.

 

Even in the US's own history, people think of the Pilgrim Fathers as sailing off to New England to establish their own colony .... overlooking the fact that that wasn't actually their plan and didn't happen like that. They left Holland, not England. They planned (and paid for) passage to Virginia, to set up just north of the recently-established colonies there. They ended up getting stranded in New England by bad weather: something they were unprepared for. That's partly why they almost starved in their first year. It's also largely myth that they were poor huddled masses fleeing religious oppression. They were nonconformists and had been oppressed in England - but they had moved to Holland more than a decade before deciding to move to America (building up a little colony at Leiden). In the end, they decided to move to America, not for religious reasons, but - as Bradford wrote, primarily for financial reasons (specifically of finding a better, and easier place of living - many of the Pilgrim Fathers were unemployed in Holland and supported by their brethren). Like most colonists who went to the New World, the trip was a business deal: they negotiated with the London Company, received a royal charter and accepted a contract that stipulated that the investors who underwrote the venture, at the end of the seven year contract, would get half of the settled land and property, which the colonists would work for them.

 

In other words, the pilgrim fathers came to America as corporate workers. Amusingly, because the contract wasn't fully ratified before they departed, and because they hadn't ended up where they had expected, they decided that they were no longer bound by the old contract - stiffing the investors back in England, who'd largely paid for their trip. The Pilgrim Fathers: contract breakers and freeloaders. Gives the whole thing a slightly different spin, doesn't it?

 

In truth most of the early settlement in the US was either corporate or governmental. It wasn't until the 19th century that it was cheap enough for individuals to move en masse.

 

cheers, Mark

 

I probably shouldn't have used the word "Oppression" it has such a political meaning. What I meant is that things at home have to be pretty bad before people will pack up their families to move somewhere else. Yeah, there will always be those who are more likely to move. What I am talking about are people who look toward that new land as a place where they can live better. I imagine that moving somewhere that you have to put everything together and face stark realities like how are they going to feed their family. How are they going to shelter said family.

[Tasha]

Re: Political/Religious Space Colonies?

 

I honestly hadn't thought of the 'racial purity' angle. Maybe I should work on being more cynical.

 

However, I'm working on a future history in which humanity has re-engineered itself (or parts of itself, anyway) to survive in alien environments (zero-g, underwater, thin atmospheres, etc.) and there are a number of other 'variants' of humanity in existence. Will racial divisions still mean anything when these things are possible -- or will the old prejudices be replaced by new ones?

 

Then there are the real aliens, beings so far removed from humanity they're not playable as PC's in my campaign. When faced with something that vaguely resembles a 400kg ammonite with a few extra tentacles and a superior attitude, will anyone still care if the guy who just moved in next door has a different skin color?

 

Well... at least I can hope.

 

There will always be groups who hate those that are different. I don't think that we will ever get past it as a species.

 

If there are REAL aliens esp ones that pose a threat to humanity as a whole will cause all of the different varieties of humanity to work together. At least during the war/ crisis. Once the war/ crisis is over, then things will go back to usual. Oh and even during the crisis/ war time there will be groups what will not work well with the humans they hate (so skin color will still be something). Heck, we might get past skin color/ ancestry and move on to "pure human" vs "altered humans"

 

Yeah, I am cynical. Just seen too much casual bias and bigotry. The ugly thing is that most people who carry biases don't even see it, they really work to fool themselves that they aren't bigots. It's really sad, and quite frustrating.

[Tasha]

Re: Political/Religious Space Colonies?

 

Difficult political/religious minorities might easily find a prime source of funding - the Government.

Would the state government of Utah like it if all those darned Polygamists went somewhere else? ANYWHERE else? You bet. What about the Japanese government and the Ainu people? On a larger sacle, would Sri Lanka contribute to an off-world Tamil homeland if it mean they had less tamils at home to deal with? My bet is very much yes.

 

Hell, the State government MIGHT decide that it's better to move to another planet where they CAN have as many wives as they can support. The Mother Church might decide to move from the State of Utah to the Planet of Deseret.

[Lawnmower Boy]

Re: Political/Religious Space Colonies?

 

Separate homelands for racial minorities have been tried. A lot. And they've failed so systemically that I (well, okay, Claude Levi-Strauss) would suggest that we're mistaking the work that "racial purity" does in people's heads. It's not about drawing clear of the foreigner/other race/other religion. It's about having them around to blame for stuff. That's why separatism doesn't work, and won't. It is generated from within the political process, and the racial refuge is always and only an artefact of the originating politics, until it transcends that role.

 

Take the Pilgrims. We treat them as an export from England, when everyone they did gestured back to the English politics that led to the Civil War --a war which many Pilgrims returned to fight. Everything we read about the Pilgrims similarly has to be understood as speaking to an England getting ready for that war. We read about the Pilgrims as latter-day Culdees, off to found a new monastery in the Western Isles. Just as Culdee hermitages were ways of generating charisma back on the mainland, so the Pilgrim's "Exile in the Wilderness" was a story to be told to motivate people in the ongoing political battles in England, Scotland and Ireland.

 

And while the Pilgrims invite us to understand it as a conflict of beliefs, in reality it was over money. Because religion is about politics is about money, and the signs of causation can be reversed in any part of that equation at our pleasure. In an era in which governments could only tax in a very limited way, when taxes were seriously intended to provide a fabulously well-dressed king and foreign wars, when politics was a blood sport, things were done differently.

 

Did you know that it was common for governments like Britain's to ban emigration? That wasn't because they were too ignorant, crazy or pathetic to fail to notice that fishing boats and freighters left port every day, and that no-one aboard carried a passport or even a birth certificate. It is because people in this era didn't care about fairness or privacy rights, and although they were obsessed with abuse of process, what they meant was that "power/money demands respect."

 

So, unlike, a sailor, a weaver made says that could be exported, and if they could be exported, they could be taxed to pay for the good stuff. So since he had a skill that could be taxed, that guy couldn't migrate. And if he tried,whoever was big cheese in London expected to hear from the weaver's bishop that his parish priest hadn't seen him in church that Sunday, and from a customs officer that he'd clapped the guy in jail on suspicion of being suspicious. And if that didn't happen -again, we're talking about a world where failed politicians got executed, and no-one cared about fairness. If the bishop was on one side of the upcoming expected coup, the big cheese in London smiled weakly and didn't do anything. If he was on the other, he leaned on the bishop and the customs officer and everyone else. Too much was at stake (our necks!) and it was all too unstable for people to be fair and understanding and tolerant.

 

So when specifically a bunch of English pilgrims from the territories of the Archbishop of York suddenly turn up in a suburb of Leyden making says and publishing controversial books, you don't say to yourself, "well, the Dutch have made great strides in reclaiming the countryside in recent years, and created a natural environment for producing woolen manufactures, so it is logical that weavers from around Europe are migrating there, and printing is a natural sideline of weaving in that paper is made out of linen, and small publishers like big sales, so naturally they do provocative subjects like religion."

 

No. You say to yourself, "How do I thwart whatever the heck scheme it is that the Archbishop of York is cooking up, without pushing him into open opposition to my ministry?" And you make a note to think of the most productive way of doing it that comes to mind.

 

So. Hmm. These guys are running amok because the big landowners of the country around Leyden have drained their land and are producing flax and wool and oilseeds (for soap and feeding animals). Naturally they've brought weavers into their town of Leyden so that Leyden can tax them and they can spend that money wearing their other hats as burgomasters of Leyden. That's what gentleman do. The problem here is that they're Dutch gentlemen. I can't touch Dutch gentlemen. I want to substitute English gentlemen for Dutch gentlemen. I want to bring these guys back to England.

 

Only, that's what the Archbishop of York wants! I see it now. B-t-d. I need to find a place that's not-England. And England. We used to do Northern Ireland for that, but it's getting a little out of control. Hmm.

 

No. Ireland. That shows I'm thinking about this all wrong. I don't need England. I need Anglicans. A gentleman under the control of an English bishop covers my needs, at least if it's a bishop in my pocket. Heck, I can pull strings down in Barbary thanks to the big trade we have with it. I even know people who are Muslims when they're down there. That's pretty dodgy stuff. We got rid of the Catholic landowners in northern Ireland because of the dodginess.

 

Well, there are big landowners over in the Newfoundland. No towns, though. And they don't worry too much about religion. I've got this gentleman name of Squanto right over here now. He sees the profit at Leyden, wants weavers to take the wool, beaver, hemp and flax, make his land worth that much more.

 

Solution: Get Squanto onside with Anglicanism, more or less. (Can't be any rougher around the edges than a Highland laird, after all.) Ship him the Pilgrims, build a town. Law says Bishop of London is in charge there, and he's in my pocket. Slap some censorship down on the one hand, taxes on the other. The Crown gets rich, the Pilgrims get rich, Squanto and his kin get rich, we take the tool out of the hands of the Archbishop of York, put it in loyal hands.

 

Now, of course, when Buckingham fell, the political tool of New Plymouth (as opposed to the living community that actually existed), fell into other hands. We have to read the early histories of New England very carefully to see just who's, and I don't think that that has been adequately done. But any reading of those histories will reveal the error of thinking of the Pilgrims as separatists from the sins of old Europe, as opposed to a revolutionary vanguard poised to return from exile.

[BobGreenwade]

Re: Political/Religious Space Colonies?

 

Separate homelands for racial minorities have been tried. A lot. And they've failed so systemically that I (well' date=' okay, Claude Levi-Strauss) would suggest that we're mistaking the work that "racial purity" does in people's heads. It's not about drawing clear of the foreigner/other race/other religion. It's about having them around to blame for stuff. That's why separatism doesn't work, and won't. It is generated from within the political process, and the racial refuge is always and only an artefact of the originating politics, until it transcends that role.[/quote']Most of us know that already. That won't keep the separatists from trying, though.

[Tasha]

Re: Political/Religious Space Colonies?

 

Separate homelands for racial minorities have been tried. A lot. And they've failed so systemically that I (well, okay, Claude Levi-Strauss) would suggest that we're mistaking the work that "racial purity" does in people's heads. It's not about drawing clear of the foreigner/other race/other religion. It's about having them around to blame for stuff. That's why separatism doesn't work, and won't. It is generated from within the political process, and the racial refuge is always and only an artifact of the originating politics, until it transcends that role.

 

The separate homeland seems to be working out pretty well for Israel. It isn't perfect there, but the people there have carved out a place of their own and have managed to defend it pretty well.

 

Also there is a difference between, hard core ideological zealots moving somewhere to build their ideological utiopia, and forcefully shipping malcontents to a new place to live. In the first case, the people who are going are ready to face the hardships to build their new society. In the latter case it's just a bunch of people who may or may not be ready to live somewhere else.

[Escafarc]

Re: Political/Religious Space Colonies?

 

If we're talking about shipping people off agaisnt their will, there is the example of Australia. I may be wrong but it worked out Ok.

[L. Marcus]

Re: Political/Religious Space Colonies?

 

The British only started to Transport criminals/undesirables to Australia when the Americas were closed to them. That says something, but I don't know what. ^^

[Ian Mackinder]

Re: Political/Religious Space Colonies?

 

If we're talking about shipping people off agaisnt their will' date=' there is the example of Australia. I may be wrong but it worked out Ok.[/quote']

 

I'm not offended, but ....

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Convicts_in_Australia

 

To borrow from the above:

 

From 1788 to 1840, 150,000+ convicts were transported to Australia. Dwindling numbers of convicts arrived until 1869 (maybe several thousand total), when transportation ceased completely.

 

HOWEVER, all that pales into insignificance compared to what happened during the Gold Rush era. In 1852 alone, 370,000 immigrants arrived here.

 

Saying Australia was populated by convicts can make for a few laughs, but that's all it is. The truth is considerably more complicated - the first European settlements were (mostly) penal colonies, but all that began changing very early on.