Galactic Gardeners

The galaxy is an immense place, with billions of solar systems to colonize, and interstellar voyages to even nearby stars can take centuries. In order to explore and settle those new worlds, we may wish to take advantage of a type of generation ship that stops at planet after planet, colonizing each in turn, and entire colonial fleets that grow as they venture outward from Earth, creating new spaceships as often as terraforming new worlds.
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Credits:
Generation Ships:Galactic Gardeners
Episode 172, Season 5 E06
Written by:
Isaac Arthur
Editors:
Darius Said
Edward Nardella
Gloria Meadows
Keith Blockus
Sigmund Kopperud
Cover Art:
Jakub Grygier www.artstation...
Graphics by:
Bryan Versteeg spacehabs.com
Fishy Tree www.deviantart...
Jeremy Jozwik www.artstation...
Kris Holland (Mafic Studios) www.maficstudios.com
LegionTech Studios
Sergio Botero www.artstation...
Produced & Narrated by:
Isaac Arthur
Music:
Markus Junnikkala, "Plotting a Course" www.markusjunn...
Kai Engel, "Endless Story About Sun and Moon" www.kai-engel....
Taras Harkavyi, "Alpha and...." www.discogs.co...
Marcus Warner, "Wintersong" marcuswarnermu...
Aerium, "Windmill forests" / @officialaerium
AJ Prasad of Dark Future, "Staring Through (Part II)" • Dark Future - Staring ...
Markus Junnikkala, "We Roam the Stars" www.markusjunn...

[@yaldabaoth2]

Imagine travelling to another star system as uploaded and archived data, you finally arrive and you then notice that your WinRAR license has expired after 10,000 years and you can't be unpacked.

[@Nehmo]

WinRar is cracked. Only companies with informants pay for it.

[@frankmeyer8593]

Nah it would just ask you nicely to purchase it - it aint MS-Office, just click away the info and you can use it even 10,000 years after the trial period ended.

[@Calliopa_22]

Dude...

[@nathanjora7627]

Yaldabaoth bold of you to assume there is such a thing as winrare license expiration ^^

[@syferpolski4344]

Software licensing isn't a thing in serious industries - all NASA code is in public domain for example, SpaceX runs on Debian Linux, ESA runs on Ubuntu Linux. Unless the world turns badly, this won't change towards close source.

[@ronwilliams9804]

Issac if You ever publish a science fiction book You will sell at least 338,164 copies the first day.

[@Alexander_Kale]

wow. since you made that comment, he gained 20 subscribers. o.O

[@Akren905]

N since yours 12 more lol ps id buy 3 books, one for me, one for my buddy out west and last for my uncle whos a nuclear engineer who loves space.

[@njnjco]

I'd buy that

[@stardolphin2]

I think of him more as the unpaid (though we are still grateful) researcher, enabling us to possibly write our own...

[@belqinorleaf2655]

Hot dam I'd love a Bobiverse stile book from him SO much!

[@sophiewilliams7582]

As much as I hope that other civilisations exist or have existed in our galaxy, I also think it may just end up being our responsibility to be that first true galactic civilisation. Just as scientists have found inspiration for new inventions and concepts in science fiction; so will future planners look back at the ideas of futurists such as yourself Arthur, when it comes time to make the big push out to the stars. I believe we're up to the task.

[@nathanjora7627]

Sophie Williams me too :) I really hope that humanity will get to the stars. This remind me of a quote « we must [...] ensure that human civilization, not insect, dominates this galaxy now and always! »

[@liberalmonk839]

👍 We have to expand into space. Because life on earth will not be possible forever. Meteorites, climate change, ice age, change in our sun, and so on. Also, it's to risky to bet on only one horse, the earth. If something bad happens, we extinct. So, we don't have a choice but to expand into space.

[@bobinthewest8559]

Earth is perhaps the closest thing to a “permanent home” that we could ever have. Indeed though, it is NOT permanent. Luckily however... it IS at least giving us a darn long time to get our “stuff” together, develop the technologies and skills necessary to reach outward... and ultimately survive for longer than the earth will. We’ve come a long way in our time here so far, and we’ve learned so much. We’ve learned so much in fact... that we know for certain that the earth will not last forever. To know this as fact... without striving to attain the ability to one day leave this place... would be the most irresponsible mistake that we could ever make. I know that there are people who recognize this truth... and I am thankful for them, even though I am quite certain that the earth still has far more time remaining than I do personally. Even though I feel certain that I will long be dead and gone before our civilization faces earth’s demise... I prefer to see some indication that “my” civilization is at least THIS intelligent 😏

[@liberalmonk839]

@@bobinthewest8559 "Earth us perhaps the closest thing to a permanent home" - humankind: "let's destroy it!" 🙂 (pollution, CO2, deforestation, wasting resources,...)

[@jaydrianpieters7718]

@@liberalmonk839 we are not doing that on purpose

[@mjk9388]

Wow! Not only are gardener ships my favorite subject on this channel, but the artistry in the animations is incredible. This might be one of my favorite episodes yet. Way to amaze Isaac and team! Great job!!!

[@DreamskyDance]

The Gardener ships.. or colloquialy known as "The Good Old Fasioned Von Nueman Probes" ( without much this new dodgy liberal nano stuff... only good propper human technology ^^ ) XD Edit: ( not to mention mind uploading that creeps me out now and it will creep me out if i live for 1000 years more XD )

[@mortimas4137]

Gardener ships are a good way to spiral out. They just keep going.

[@endlesshonks2392]

You should write a book on all this stuff, just a great compedium of a golden future It would probably be a fantastic source of income for you

[@maan7715]

Oh damn I'm not ready with the tea and snack, I have to hurry!

[@isaacarthurSFIA]

Yeah a little early today, I'm increasingly viewing "at 11 AM" as "by 11 AM" :)

[@Jameson1776]

Isaac Arthur as long as you keep producing great content as you do . When you get it out is when you think it’s ready. I’ve been told as a child don’t rush the cook.

[@PaulPaulPaulson]

If you haven't chosen a snack yet, remember the motto of this channel: Bigger is always better!

[@Ag3nt0fCha0s]

@@PaulPaulPaulson *looks in my pants* *cries*

[@Jameson1776]

Archaeoptery X yes it is hence my name sake.

[@bradh3292]

90% of your videos very rewatchable. I love the ones with a story arc...the traveler..... The captain....our Favorite science officer..

[@MrJordan179]

Also Robert A. Heinlein's Methuselah's Children, the first tale of Lazarus Long, in which he flies to the stars with the other Longs, biologically-variant human immortals.

[@billmalcolm4291]

"...give a portion of your life over to studying a field of science you can't practice, that no one around you really values, and has a huge number of practitioners centuries ahead of you..." Sounds like my relationship to video games.

[@Calliopa_22]

So true...

[@bobwalsh3751]

Yup my life summed up.

[@JohnPollett]

I found your videos about a month ago and have been binging on them! I look forward to seeing all the past episodes as well as your new stuff. It's really enjoyable to watch something that's not conspiracy BS and wild theories with no science to back it up. Thank you, Isaac!

[@bobinthewest8559]

I remember when I first found this channel. I thought it was cool, and that I might want to watch all of the episodes. 😂😂😂😂😂 Little did I know…. You can’t “finish” this channel.

[@grendelum]

The problem with generational ships is the population having drifted from land-born to ship-born... the scary, dirty and messy life we lead on a planet is *_very_* different from life aboard ship.

[@spaceman6463]

orion khan You can just live in a vr world

[@chrisschembari2486]

@Sheldon Robertson sounds like it was a Carnival ship. 😆

[@EnneaIsInterested]

Presuming they will even come from a planet, interstellar ark tech is likely to come from the development of orbital polities, so presumably most people aboard came from rotating space habitats.

[@linz8291]

lol...if so, ship-born members are galactic generations.

[@nahuel92]

Keep making these videos, please. The animations, the the deep topic development, the duration, your voice; it's just a perfect combination. This is way better than any other sci-fi content on any other platform.

[@clairefreewheelin1530]

Thank you, I can't begin to tell you how much I've enjoyed your channel over this last few months. It's really awesome 😃

[@LarsRyeJeppesen]

Happy Arthur's Day everybody!

[@DeusExMach]

I think I'm finally getting the hang of it!

[@jsbrads1]

Arthursday

[@joey_after_midnight]

Cloud cities always reminds me of the City of Stratos in Star Trek: The Cloud Minders. A key point of that episode was suffocating in the mines on the surface which struck me as odd in that the people in Stratos would no doubt be above the Altitude of Everest and at greater risk of Oxygen deprivation. Gave a whole new twist to the idea of "Getting High" in the late Sixties. And of the 'Untouchables' being 'Out of Touch' with reality. They were.. after all, quite literally 'Overlords'.

[@Nosirrbro]

8:34 Its so very lonely, your're one hundred light years from home.

[@Freakingbean]

Hey Mr. Arthur. I work approx 13 to 17 hours a day for a plumbing supply company in Florida. Life gets tough, but when I'm on my runs I like to plug you into the truck speakers. You really help me get through the day and keep my mind occupied.

[@Freakingbean]

Thank you.

[@Hypercat0]

Happy Arthur's Day everyone.

[@dailyraptv7858]

Your voice is very relaxing and I appreciate that.

[@mortimas4137]

"Heading home on highways of light" - nice

[@ebigunso]

Well that was one of the smoothest transitions to Ads I've seen on KZbin. I'm genuinly surprized how unintrusive that felt.

[@centerbfd]

Sounds like a tremendous series. It wouldn't even need anything going wrong to make it interesting. The social and generational aspects and integrating new technologies and history en route would be very interesting all on its own.

[@AristophMarloque]

It was a full 30 seconds into the advert at the end before I realized it was an advert. I'm undecided on whether that's a sneaky underhanded sales tactic, or just a display of sheer brilliance with the segue. Given how much I love your content, I'm inclined to go with the latter. ^_^ Keep up the fantastic work!

[@stevenschofield8518]

hey! coast to coast am plus my favorite youtube channel.... im so soo excitted to listen to it today, just wanted to let you know im like really really happy..... you the man isaac !

[@sisyphus8870]

So glad i found this channel

[@HuntingTarg]

5:55 "Age does not always bring wisdom and knowledge, but in general it does, ..." Let's make sure it does, one of the last things we need to do is to seed an entire star cluster with idiocracies 😞

[@CitiesoftheFuture]

Great video as always! We love your content!

[@archmauriciobermudez7206]

Cities of the Future I always watch it too!

[@Ryukachoo]

Once he started talking about skill sets, I thought the skillshare plug was coming up

[@rhuiah]

Great episode. I absolutely love the idea of an entire galaxy brimming with life, both people and ecosystems.

[@tsjoencinema]

That ending with the seamless transition to advertising for Skillshare. Pretty good.

[@TRUSTLBLACKMETAL]

Thank you for condensing this information and also for presenting so much of it consistently for years. I'm 3 years behind catching up but so glad there's so much to take in still.

[@dshin6695]

Could you confirm my submitted translation for subtitle, several are pending :)

[@JesseJames83]

Give this lady some cheesecake; she deserves it.

[@againstallodds7074]

Hells Yes ! Happy Arthursday Y'all :)

[@sequoiahughes8536]

It’s great to see more and more science seeping into sci-fi-I hope sci-fi authors watch these videos!

[@oldkid8811]

This channel is a reliable high point of every week. Thank you Isaac!

[@Edenssunlight]

Awesome happy Arthursday!!

[@Felenari]

Good watch. Thank you.

[@NinjaBehindTheScene]

it may be 10 am but im ordering a pizza for this pause

[@alexcaldrone3668]

Hearing you on coast to coast ! Fantastic. Good on you.

[@TheZankoh]

The way you tied in the skill share plug into the topic is brilliant!!!

[@kevincrady2831]

No, Brilliant is one of his other sponsors! ;) Yeah, he is good at tying in his ads to fit with his content.

[@TheZankoh]

@@kevincrady2831 clever, took me a second.

[@joshwaddles9039]

I am addicted to your videos!

[@greygoo5319]

On Thursday I watch new Isaac Arthur. On Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Friday, Saturday and Sunday I rewatch old Isaac Arthur.

[@MrOgMonster]

Of all the youtubers with sponsorship messages in their videos - your's are my favorite, I actually look forward to finding out how you'll do it each video - A smile was on my face when I realised moments before the reveal that the sponsorship segway was in effect.

[@starsilverinfinity]

Time to spread the seed that is Issac Arthur across the galaxy that is Earth

[@iNDREI_Ro]

Verry good content. Keep up the good work.

[@dustinbrandel59]

Imagine a person who got onboard as a young adult, maybe older teen, who never gets off, living to see many generations of drop offs. That person would be like a sage onboard.

[@7lllll]

we here on earth already face the problem of being maxed out, unable to expand. after gardener ships colonized all systems and those systems grew, the inner systems will be maxed out. can arthur do an episode on civilizations being maxed out? especially on the transition from a growing civilization to a static one

[@AlaskanBallistics]

Been waiting for this episode

[@stephescobar575]

Isaac, you mentioned communication as taking centuries. Have you produced anything with the technology around quantum entanglement? Not specifically teleportation, but more the social and galactic impact of possible instantaneous communication?

[@TwistedMesses]

Animations are so amazing these days

[@ronschlorff7089]

Yes, I love them. I wish they made plastic scale model kits of some of these ships, I'd build them. Better than star wars stuff. I suppose one could scratch build them, very complicated to do though!!!

[@larrybeckham6652]

Thought number four: Movie idea! Humankind has built Gardener Ships with near-immortal humans who have built Dyson swarms about 10,000 stars, say 10,000 years in the future. Then First Contact! I believe they be far more advance than us. Of course our recorded human history is but a moment on the herstory of the Galaxy. This can go many ways from here. Will they set limits for our growth, demand that we file to licenses at the Orion Arm office of Galactic Zone permits? Will they have FTL drive and refuse to share because we ready proven to be in their territory. Many ways to go from First Contact.

[@mienaikoe]

The feels at 22:50. I wasn't ready.

[@LetsTalkAboutPrepping]

YAY ARTHURSDAY!!

[@ronwilliams9804]

These videos go great with "snacks" and coffee. Eloquent as always Issac!!

[@cgirl111]

Any speed is a fraction of light speed :)

[@larrybeckham6652]

Thought number three: I love that you taught me about Stellasers! Seems the most sense as a propulsion system to the stars! I imagine the first to arrive to a new star would break with a Bussard ramjet then the build the Stellasers system to break and launch future Gardener Ships.

[@lixxxxit]

Good stuff as usual! Thanks!

[@kelpengineer5303]

I’ve said it before... I want to be an engineer aboard the Unity. Go life extension! Lol

[@wengeance8962]

sometimes i just gotta smoke a big fat doobie before watching issac arthurs videos. Galactic Gardeners? This is gonna be a trippy one boys

[@MrNathanParrott]

Yeeehaw another Isaac Arthur episode

[@ahmedwael3824]

Seriously how do you never run out of new topics?

[@UNSCPILOT]

Endless possibilities, inspiring to watch as a bonus!

[@redvermont1558]

Could you do a megastructures video on solar shields/lenses both for climate change on Earth and for terraforming?

[@mikelfunderburk5912]

Happy Arthursday everyone.

[@kitkat47chrysalis95]

i really hope that i get to see a lot of these things in my lifetime, they should really use this channel as inspiration when we start heading into space

[@JohnJohansen2]

I hope you're very young! And, live to be very, very old. Otherwise . . . .

[@MrWorld-hc5rs]

I think some of the Stargate Destiny sparships used to do this.

[@jupiter554]

Everything these days is sponsored by skillshare

[@Mine0Taur]

Either that or Brilliant and NordVPN

[@spaceman6463]

Jupiter KZbin does it for free lol

[@butteredmap9064]

Have to train people for those skills you need on an interstellar ark somehow

[@fermibubbles9375]

easy market to monopolize. trick is to not be myopic about it like brilliant and skillshare

[@iuriq8527]

If interplanetary expansion happens in our lifetime we're the ones who get the jobs

[@ZanzatheDivine]

Nice to know the White Whale has a proper classification as a data ship. Tis the little things...

[@jan-seli]

*grabs a drink and a snack*

[@adrenjones9301]

Cryosleep would be the best invention ever. I wouldnt even wanna use it for Travel, just freeze me for a couple hundred years.

[@Nabuuug]

I would recommend that you prepare to scale your videos to 4k resolution (maybe in 2-3 years it will begin to be mainstream, so that you can do it bit by bit).

[@bingbongabinga2954]

With the right tech any old dusty airless rock will do.

[@petersmythe6462]

I think it's quite likely that Gardner ships would become ships of Theseus, having few or no permanent crew members or components.

[@jonathanedwardgibson]

Nice. Covering the spectrum from Benford’s near-tech Ocean Of The Night to Banks’ humanity prime Culture ships.

[@CounterPunchGames]

Always inspiring and thought provoking.

[@michaelh5564]

Isaac. Have you read any Alistair Reynolds? More specifically the Revelation Space series? Listening to this video has got me wanting to dive back in a reread the main trilogy. I highly recommend it if you haven't. Methusala style travel, Fermi implications and AI/transhumanism escapades. What's not to love? Just found your channel a couple days ago via Curious Droid and can't get enough.

[@crazyahhkmed]

He's recommended him numerous times.

[@attention6661]

Isaac, thank you :)

[@King_Dogspeed]

Yay Arthursday!

[@johnnodson9442]

The discussion around the prospect of someone leaving and never seeing their friends and family again reminds me of the old Irish traditional called The American Wake (www.encyclopedia.com/international/encyclopedias-almanacs-transcripts-and-maps/american-wakes). It was one last party before the person left for America and was the last time most of the people would ever see them again.

[@ferretfather2000]

I would be a "gardener" in a heartbeat if it were an option

[@rwbrandom1252]

You are quite clever huh?! Good videos. Interessting accent too.

[@EddyA1337]

Next week is gonna be an interesting episode hahaha

[@robertgraybeard3750]

Isaac Arthur - I hope you will include "vacuum balloons" as one of the lifting body techniques in your discussion of Cloud Cities. I wonder if their drag to inertia forces will allow for them to be fabricated at LEO from returned asteroids or lunar resources and then just deorbited.

[@skaltura]

It would be interesting to explore how that society would function and interact with each other once hundreds of planets has been colonized this way.

[@antonymash9586]

The novel Learning the World by Ken Mcleod is based on this very concept. It is very interesting book and the narative is divided between the human colonists of the ship "the sky my lady the sky" and the alien natives they are about to encounter at their destination. The slow realization that the other exists and the implication that it has for themselves.

[@ThomasAndersonbsf]

I firmly expect a reference to the princess bride in the next episode, and if you don't I am going to be disappoint.

[@JoelDowdell]

Isaac, I assume you know about dunbar's number, the general limit of ~150 people that one person can know. I was reminded of it when you talked about how colonies would have a lot in common if they came from the same gardener fleet. At first I found that hard to believe, but then I realized, mind augmentation. I am now pretty sure changing that kind of thing will be common once possible.

[@JefferyCheney]

That segue into your sponsor at the end was smoother than a baby's bum. Lol. In seriousness though, this chanel is just plain fun. Good video, as usual.

[@bobinthewest8559]

I agree…. We should be doing this 😊

[@joejohns3543]

Hell yeah New SFIA! Word.

[@delwin389]

For the next episode how about we focus on new technologies.

[@vladimirsilver2633]

Virtual reality gardener ships with superslow processing to allow video chatting on the other side of the Galaxy and teleporting to other ships, while using existing ships as relays. Sounds good to me. Thoughts?

[@englishcoach7772]

Kudos. Love it

[@jsbrads1]

The energy needed to accelerate past .8c is very high and continues to get worse, but the time dialation benefit of near c speed doesn’t begin until .99

[@haydenbreving9828]

Can you make a video about the warp drive and faster than light travel?

[@crazyahhkmed]

He already did. Search his channel's videos and playlists.

[@SkylerLinux]

Why is it always the Rim? Why not the core?

[@bobinthewest8559]

Technically speaking…. ANY speed is “a fraction of” light speed

[@barkfish6853]

Love your stuff....Listen to all that I can.

[@marksmadhousemetaphysicalm2938]

Same with regards to geologists…perhaps gardener ships only carry a flight and a construction crew…build receivers for specialist AIs from earth including teachers, physicians, nurses, geologists, meteorologists, hydrologists, miners, computer engineers, etc…and cloning facilities for those who would prefer meat…maybe that’s how you pay your way…do a stint as meat on a colony world or something…🤔

[@winpcapper]

I do not think it's necessarily the case that a Methuselah ship would contain crew who are resistant to change. I believe our tendency to resist learning new methods of doing familiar work more efficiently is epistemological, not inborn. I don't think it's a about resistance to learning per se, but failure to understand the magnitude of benefit compared to the effort of learning the new method. As an IT professional, I deal regularly with some truly ancient people, some of whom choose not to learn new methods, and some of whom are magnificent, trolling experts at "Words With Friends." In order to effectively sell a person on the benefits of adopting new methods to improve quality of life or efficiency of work, you must convey information efficiently and with minimal effort for the listener. If the Internet has taught us anything, I believe it's that information and good arguments can be passed effortlessly and instantaneously. Isaac, Thank you for your consistent and entertaining work!

[@feryth]

That's a really smooth transition to the sponsor message, ngl