RexMundi Posted July 29, 2011 Report Share Posted July 29, 2011 Re: A galaxy of humans That's a lot of Boots Knockin. ~Rex Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
megaplayboy Posted July 29, 2011 Report Share Posted July 29, 2011 Re: A galaxy of humans That's a lot of Boots Knockin. ~Rex Yep, around 20-30 doubling periods. If you use current rates(about 1 per 100), about 2-3000 years. If you use the lowest rate we could measure demographically(probably about 1 per 100,000), then it'd take a few million years to fill the galaxy with humans. Somewhere in between those two would give you that "Space Empire that's been around a long, long time" feel. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RexMundi Posted July 29, 2011 Report Share Posted July 29, 2011 Re: A galaxy of humans Yeah probably better to aim for the Space Empire......works well in a more then a few series...especially when Rising Empire number 5 finds the wiped out ruins of former Empire 4, YET, never an Alien has been spotted..... ~Rex Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lucius Posted July 29, 2011 Report Share Posted July 29, 2011 Re: A galaxy of humans Actually, the trend to smaller families is seen around the world, irrespective of culture. India, Saudi Arabia, China, you name it. People who have the choice, have fewer kids. Actually raising four kids is an enormous amount of work; and the more effort and resources you invest in raising them, the more productive they will be. Everyone gets that. The Catholic countries of Europe, just for example, have some of the lowest birth rates of all. The idea of human explosive demographic potential is a myth, born of the political needs of previous centuries, and the unique historical episode that unfolded between 1500 and 1900 --the Columbian exchange. Well, if you're saying that someone's actually on the brakes.... http://breathingearth.net/ can we get them to step down on that brake a little harder? Please? Lucius Alexander 700 people born between starting this message and reaching the palindromedary tagline Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sundog Posted July 30, 2011 Report Share Posted July 30, 2011 Re: A galaxy of humans Yeah probably better to aim for the Space Empire......works well in a more then a few series...especially when Rising Empire number 5 finds the wiped out ruins of former Empire 4, YET, never an Alien has been spotted..... ~Rex Standard reply to that is that SE4 wiped itself out - civil war, aggravated by an aggressive nobility and Noblesse n'oblige plus - Nobility no longer obligates - and you can get the high-tech elite unleashing bioengineered plagues on their own populace and nuking population centres from orbit to "keep order"... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Steve Posted August 19, 2011 Author Report Share Posted August 19, 2011 Re: A galaxy of humans You could have periods of Galactic Dark Ages mixed in with times of star-spanning civilization. The light of civilization retreats back to small pockets for a century or more then re-expands, and a few millenia later, the cycle repeats. The mind boggles at what a galaxy-wide apocalypse would look like. You could even take many apocalypse stories (Planet of the Apes happens on one, Skynet arises on another, etc) and have them happen in different star systems. If that cycle has been repeating over tens or even hundreds of thousands of years, you could have quite a few dead planetary civilizations and expanding pocket stellar empires. Actually, a galaxy composed of scattered post-apocalypse worlds and pocket empires rising from the ashes of the last collapse wouldn't even need aliens. Taking the Planet of the Apes example as one post-apocalypse star system, imagine if the apes on that world later rose to a technological level that allowed them access to star travel? This would violate my original premise of a humans-only galaxy, but I think it would make for an exciting space setting. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
megaplayboy Posted August 19, 2011 Report Share Posted August 19, 2011 Re: A galaxy of humans In my supers setting, human-alien and alienX-alienY interspecies reproduction is broadly possible...and there's a reason for that(well, beyond the "space opera tropes are awesome" one, anyway). It might be interesting, though, in a humans-only setting, for two groups of humans to have been separated for so long that there actually were issues/difficulties with cross-group attraction and reproduction. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AmadanNaBriona Posted August 20, 2011 Report Share Posted August 20, 2011 Re: A galaxy of humans Standard reply to that is that SE4 wiped itself out - civil war' date=' aggravated by an aggressive nobility and [i']Noblesse n'oblige plus - [/i]Nobility no longer obligates - and you can get the high-tech elite unleashing bioengineered plagues on their own populace and nuking population centres from orbit to "keep order"... Plagues & Nukes spoil resources. Orbital Kinetic Impactors are much Greener Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Steve Posted August 20, 2011 Author Report Share Posted August 20, 2011 Re: A galaxy of humans Biological weapons are pretty green, if they only kill humans. Imagine a beautiful Eden-like world, with everything humans would need to live available, only it has a poisonous plague that still kills humans in the atmosphere, soil and water. I'm sure a way would be found to deal with the situation, given enough time and with an otherwise habitable and resource-rich world as the prize. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Christopher Posted August 20, 2011 Report Share Posted August 20, 2011 Re: A galaxy of humans Biological weapons are pretty green' date=' if they only kill humans.[/quote'] "Civilisation: Call to Power" (the first without Sid Meier) had the "Eco Rover". It was a nanomachine carbomb in flowerpower design, that turned turned an entire city - buildings, population, soroundign area - into a stretch of virgin soil (with grass, trees and everyhting). It was at once the most whimsical looking and most deadly weapon of mass destrcution. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Christopher Posted August 20, 2011 Report Share Posted August 20, 2011 Re: A galaxy of humans Found the video. It was Eco Rangers, avalible after sombody builds "The Eden Project": Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Steve Posted August 23, 2011 Author Report Share Posted August 23, 2011 Re: A galaxy of humans How important would planetary environment be on changes to the human genome? I'm guessing that alien viruses could alter genetics over time, but even after a few thousand years would humans on planet A be all that different from humans on planet B even with differences in the suns in their skies and things like that? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sinanju Posted August 23, 2011 Report Share Posted August 23, 2011 Re: A galaxy of humans It depends on the planet. If the gravity is substantially greater than earth-normal, you'll probably start seeing results fairly quickly. That kind of stress on the whole body is going to start winnowing the population for people who have the right stuff to survive it right away. Gravity never sleeps. If there are plants or animals that prove toxic or poisonous to the inhabitants, you'll probably see a drift toward people who have greater resistance or immunity to it. That's going to be the case even if you have the tech to treat such things; evolution happens on the edge cases. People who might have been saved if they'd been reached in time but aren't will die; those who have enough resistance to survive without treatment--or simply last long enough to GET treatment--will live. Over time, the result is going to be a tendency for locals to show greater resistance than visitors, but it'll be slow. According to Wikipedia, humans evolved 500,000 years ago, and modern humans 200,000 years ago. That was time enough to differentiate into all the various physical types we see around us today. "A few thousand years" probably isn't going to make a big difference except in special cases. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Orion Posted August 25, 2011 Report Share Posted August 25, 2011 Re: A galaxy of humans How important would planetary environment be on changes to the human genome? I'm guessing that alien viruses could alter genetics over time' date=' but even after a few thousand years would humans on planet A be all that different from humans on planet B even with differences in the suns in their skies and things like that?[/quote'] Given how modern science has insulated us from the effects of bad genes, I can see a good case for minimal differences between planets. Everyone is baseline, because there isn't much benefit from not having bad genes any more. Personally, I think the social environment of the planet is likely to have more effect. Some planets value genetic transformations, where others want everyone to look alike. If genetic tech is high level, I can easily see how fashion would regularly change how the people look ("tall and skinny is so last year!") Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Clonus Posted August 25, 2011 Report Share Posted August 25, 2011 Re: A galaxy of humans How important would planetary environment be on changes to the human genome? I'm guessing that alien viruses could alter genetics over time' date=' but even after a few thousand years would humans on planet A be all that different from humans on planet B even with differences in the suns in their skies and things like that?[/quote'] A few thousand years of isolation is enough to become a distinct ethnic group naturally (as distinct as the difference between Africans and Europeans, but it would take isolation. If there's a lot of interstellar travel, then there won't be a lot of differentiation without designed intervention. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Christopher Posted August 30, 2011 Report Share Posted August 30, 2011 Re: A galaxy of humans How important would planetary environment be on changes to the human genome? I'm guessing that alien viruses could alter genetics over time' date=' but even after a few thousand years would humans on planet A be all that different from humans on planet B even with differences in the suns in their skies and things like that?[/quote'] Given how modern science has insulated us from the effects of bad genes' date=' I can see a good case for minimal differences between planets. Everyone is baseline, because there isn't much benefit from not having bad genes any more. Personally, I think the social environment of the planet is likely to have more effect. Some planets value genetic transformations, where others want everyone to look alike. If genetic tech is high level, I can easily see how fashion would regularly change how the people look ("tall and skinny is so last year!")[/quote'] I too think medical Science is protecting us from the effects of "bad" genes. Take most of the genetic diseases. The more people with them we raise to adulthood and the more have children of their own, the more common this "damaged" gene gets hence we will have more people with that trait. It survives despite being a "bad gene", because we prevent the "natural selection". Interestingly the lack of medical Science can lead to certain genes being dominant, despite being the "bad choice" because it makes lifeforms "fitter for their environment". For example there is a relatively common mutation in the Immunes System. More people in Afrikan nations have it, than people in the rest of the world. This mutation makes your immune/healt inferior in many ways. But it has one advantage: Immunity to Malaria. So this gene/mutation is a clear drawback in our civilised world, but a clear advantage in the regions where malaria exists and contraction is common/threatment is little. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sinanju Posted August 30, 2011 Report Share Posted August 30, 2011 Re: A galaxy of humans I too think medical Science is protecting us from the effects of "bad" genes. Take most of the genetic diseases. The more people with them we raise to adulthood and the more have children of their own' date=' the more common this "damaged" gene gets hence we will have more people with that trait. It survives despite being a "bad gene", because we prevent the "natural selection".[/quote'] I suspect, however, that this effect is only temporary. We're still living in the very narrow window (on the scale of the human race's entire lifespan) between not having enough medical science to keep such people alive...and point at which we'll be able to selectively edit our genome to eliminate these deleterious conditions. First, I imagine, we'll be able to edit our offsprings' DNA to prevent them inheriting bad genes, and eventually we'll be able to "upgrade" our OWN genes to modify our own bodies (and our children will inherit these changes). Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Christopher Posted August 30, 2011 Report Share Posted August 30, 2011 Re: A galaxy of humans The problem is, that there will be a lot of trial and error. Like with gene-modification in fish and grain, there are often side effects. We need a hell of a lot more understanding about how our genome works, how to "activate" genes with hormones and then we need to learn how to reliably create gills and integrate them into our respiratory/blood system. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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