Lost Space Colonies

[@BigZebraCom]

So I was going to find all those lost space colonies--but then things got crazy busy at work.

[@mjk9388]

We would’ve had the time if not for all the TCS coversheets.

[@BigZebraCom]

@@mjk9388 Oh those cover sheets are the worst! The Worst!

[@unitedspacepirates9075]

@@mjk9388 technically it was the TPS reports, so... We're gonna have to ask you to go ahead and come in Saturday and Sunday this weekend, ok, that'll be great.

[@mjk9388]

@@unitedspacepirates9075 Great point! As long as I have my red stapler, everything should be fine.

[@ontoya1]

I hate it when that happens

[@Happymars24]

One of my favorite manga is about a lost colony ship, it's called Knights of Sidonia. The premise is that Earth launches colony ships in every direction when a biotechnological alien species invades and destroys the earth. The story takes place 100 years after Sidonia's last communication with another colony ship. Continued pursuit by the aliens makes life very dangerous, and casualties get so high that Sidonia resorts to cloning and genetic engineering to maintain their numbers. The story follows the colony ship Sidonia as they gradually gain strength and begin to fight back. It has so many elements that were in this video.

[@isaacarthurSFIA]

I have got to read/watch that at some point, people keep recommending it to me.

[@johnathan651]

I love Knights of Sidonia! I highly recommend it.

[@VisiblyPinkUnicorn]

Starship AI: "We're moving to a new, habitable planet." Me: "Glad to hear it. I don't want to live entombed in a lava tube or under a dome." Starship AI: "We encountered a critical error: the objective planet can't be found. You'll be entombed in a virtual reality." Me: "What?? NO!" Starship AI: "The virtual reality is LoTR themed." Me: "Let's start the mind uploading process."

[@SolarisPF]

Error 404: Planet not found

[@spaceman081447]

@Visibly Pink Unicorn What is LoTR?

[@VisiblyPinkUnicorn]

@@spaceman081447 Lord of the Rings ;-)

[@whiskeySe7en]

I'm down tho

[@Shenaldrac]

Computer! Does the Balrog in this simulation have wings or not? Think carefully, your answer _will_ influence whether or not you are given a factory reset...

[@Qedhup]

As someone that loves to write sci-fi. Run sci-fi RPG's. And has a background in actual science. This is one of my top channels to visit. I love what you do. Bringing speculative info and ideas to such a wider audience. Keep up the bloody amazing work.

[@digitalnomad9985]

"Master Kenobi has lost a planet. How embarrassing!"

[@stcredzero]

Another thing about Anne McCaffery's writing: When the characters finally find the colony ship of their sophisticated starfaring technological ancestors and fire up the computer...it's running 16 bit MSDOS!

[@RipOffProductionsLLC]

Old scifi drastically underetestimating future computer technology is always a good laugh. I can forgive it easily for TV shows and movies were they have to have visuals within their given budget, but a book is just words...

[@herbiehusker1889]

MsDOS is a great operating system.

[@isaacarthurSFIA]

@@herbiehusker1889 Especially compared to windows 3.x

[@fluffysheap]

I remember the colony ship computer being a semi-sentient system on par with the Star Trek ship computer

[@HrHaakon]

I mean, MSDOS is indeed absolutely dirt stupid, and was so back in the days when it was used. But a lot of server OSes are still text based, and the world wide web is text based as well. It allows much more intricate communication with the computer than the point-and-grunt of the mouse. So having a text based OS with only basic security in place makes absolutely good sense.

[@johnkrappweis7367]

I remember from the Warhammer 40k series that it wasn’t unusual for colony worlds to be lost for decades, centuries or even millennia. Long enough for them to forget they are colonies and then be rediscovered (and reconquered) by the empire.

[@Ditidos]

It would be funny if they revealed the Tau to be a long lost human colony from the dark age of technology that went primitive and forgot Earth. It would also make a lot of sense.

[@cosmictreason2242]

how much do you remember about 2000 years ago, if you think about it? Heck, people are still denying that Jesus existed. That's not an irrelevant observation -- psychology makes a big impact, and when people have religious or other worldview motivations to ignore something, they're not going to teach it to the next generation, and thus the memory will be forgotten over time. I gave an example of a long term situation but you can consider the hollow-caused for a more recent example of something that a not-significant number of people don't know happened. Mid term example: the fact that it was republicans who freed the slaves and democrats who started the coo clux clan.

[@cosmictreason2242]

@@Ditidos it wouldn't make sense biologically. I'm glad they haven't done that.

[@Ditidos]

@@cosmictreason2242 Why not? I think it makes much more sense biologically than them being aliens. The only somewhat weird parts are their noses and skin color which could just be genetic engineering.

[@cosmictreason2242]

@@Ditidos I don’t know how to explain this to you. Are the orks also humans because they speak with a cockney dialect?

[@cannonfodder4376]

Saw this on Nebula the other day and boy it was another great episode for a good Sunday. Loved your storytelling for your hypothetical lost colonies. You have a good mind for stories believe it or not.

[@isaacarthurSFIA]

I ended up doing a fair few of the next month's episode's with stories on a whim so I'm glad to hear they're liked :)

[@Mrcake0103]

Have you ever considered writing SF?

[@Gunthrek]

@@Mrcake0103 I believe he said in a previous response that he's thought about it, but he would struggle with characters. I tend to suffer from the same problem. I wrote the first of a three part fantasy series, and I think the world and events are interesting, but I know the characters aren't good enough to be interesting. A lot of us struggle with this.

[@ophidahlia1464]

@@Gunthrek Well there's always co-authoring, such as James S.A. Corey of The Expanse who is actually a team of two people

[@Gunthrek]

@@ophidahlia1464 Very true. The Dragonlance books did very well that way.

[@Blaze6108]

Previously civilized space colonies coming detached from the empire du jour and descending into anarchy has always been a fascinating topic to me. Also, have you considered a video on subglacial life, as could exist on Europa? Imagine a species of intelligent [redacted]s who live their entire existence under a kilometer of ice thinking that there's nothing beyond the ceiling.

[@yastreb.]

It would be really hard to get intelligent life under ice. There's very little energy for complex ecosystems.

[@derpherp1810]

@@yastreb. same. It’s the reason why I love Rimworld and 40k

[@nyalan8385]

@@yastreb. maybe not for Europa, tidal forces and the sheer amount of radiation from jupiter could theoretically provide enough energy

[@LittleJuanKenobi]

A Darkling Sea, by James Cambias kinda goes down that alley

[@leonielson7138]

John G. Hemry has a series called 'The Lost Fleet', in which the means of faster-than-light travel changed and worlds that were usually connected by the old system are now bypassed by the new system, many of them slowly dying out. Either the systems are abandoned quickly, slowly, or are literally dying out as life-support systems fail, consigning the colonists to death by starvation, dehydration, or asphyxiation.

[@jasonhenry8067]

Love that series!

[@colinsmith1495]

Just a good lesson to be able to manufacture all your necessities yourselves.

[@leonielson7138]

@@colinsmith1495 Yea, some of the systems were only maintained because they were in line to more important systems. Refuel, resupply, maybe rest, and then move on. There are plenty of towns in the US that are nothing more than pitstops between more interesting places.

[@colinsmith1495]

@@leonielson7138 Heck, major cities and trade centers have been built off of barely more than that.

[@leonielson7138]

@@colinsmith1495 It's pretty much the only reason that New York, Chicago, Los Angeles and San Francisco exist.

[@HeavyTopspin]

You made my week referencing the Coldfire trilogy! One of my favorite "fantasy oh wait it's really sci-fi" series that I've NEVER seen discussed by booktubers.

[@mjk9388]

Amazing episode Isaac and team! I love when you guys build stories into these episodes as it makes them hugely more interesting.

[@AnimeShinigami13]

I love Dragonriders of Pern. :D Ever since I was 12 I've been obsessed with it. Then there's Deadspace. oooooh Deadspace. It's a great example of how hard it is to actually squelch information. Not just one, but TWO lost colonies exist over the course of the main three games (there's a mobile version too, which I haven't played yet). And according to the story there could even be at lest one more. Deadspace is a zombie franchise, in which a giant monolith called The Marker is discovered on Earth. It seems able to produce energy from nowhere, and is able to implant the blueprints for itself into the brains of people studying it. There were three waves of colonization from earth in that story. The first carried experimental Markers with them, one landing on the mining world of Aegis 7. The second was a group of secessionist colonies that sought the Markers out eventually in order to keep from collapsing from resource overuse. Colonizing in that world is very hard. And by the time of the main games, Isaac Clarke, the main character, is a technician with the ship Kellion sent out to do a welfare check on the "Planet cracker" ship Ishimura. Planet crackers are solely for extracting resources. This one was illegally mining, you guessed it, Aegis 7, where they found the experimental marker, unleashed eldritch space zombies on steroids, and everyone got killed. In Deadspace 2, we find out the Markers are also info hazards, and Isaac escaping alive allowed him to be kidnapped, held captive and drugged in order to extract the secrets of making one from his head. In order to escape you have to confront not only the necromorphs, but Cthulu style cultists (indeed, the primary icon in their cathedral is almost certainly a reference to the King in Yellow.) Basically Isaac has to live out the rest of his life in isolation with few friends. If he himself isn't closely monitored, someone could use him to repeat what happened in Deadspace 2. In Deadspace 3 we see the logical continuation of it. We find the debris field from a Sovreign Colony fleet sent to try and study the markers on a world called Tau Volantis. Tau Volantis is an ice world that was once entirely water, with the natives eventually sub coming to the insanity started by the markers they covered their planet with, with the true extent of the danger posed by them evident on their surface the SCAF nonetheless decided they were tough military men and could handle it. But as they begin to go mad, their general orders a cull protocol intended to contain outbreak. But they've started going mad, so mistakes are made, last wills and testaments are written, papers are accidentally missed. A few centuries later along comes Isaac and his girlfriend Ellie as well as the cultists from the last game and pandora's box opens again to let hope out. The end of the game's one DLC left us with the creators of the markers, eldritch beings called the Bretheren moons, arriving at earth to punish, torment and slaughter everyone in order to make another one of their number. It's assumed that maybe a handful of people left earth safely. But now everyone is exposed to the info hazard and we were supposed to get Deadspace 4 but never did. The fans didn't take kindly to Deadspace 3, which took the series from Lovecraftian psychological horror where one's own mind was a greater threat than the Necromorphs and turned it into dark Lovecraftian Sci fi. And then Microtransactions and marketing took their toll, along with knowledge of what was actually cut from the game. Both had survival horror elements, but the psychological horror was what the fans had come for. And there are obvious lovecraft references in Deadspace 3. Tau Volantis was strongly based on "At the Mountains of Madness" "Shadow over Innsmouth" and "Dagon" along with the inspiration for the entire trilogy, "The Call of Cthulu." And if you want to know what the authors of the game thought would be the downfall of the human race, well there's one part where the cult leader verbally confronts you and makes a series of statements, presenting them as fact when they're actually assumptions. If you took a shot for every instance of confirmation bias in that scene, you'd be too drunk to play, let alone get to your car to drive drunk. Regardless it's generally assumed that in that series fast or slow, the human race will go exintct, the bretheren moons will harvest humanity, and the universe will continue to be just more dead space.

[@cosmictreason2242]

I played 1-3 recently but not the 3-DLC; all of your first paragraph must be stuff I missed in collectibles (though I got most of them?) and so I wonder how much of that was in those or if you filled in details from imagination? I didn't mind Dead Space 3 as a story but I hated how lazy they were with how short they made the game. I feel like that about almost every franchise in existence. Dead Space 1 had the most game in the game, and I appreciated that. Halo 3, which came out a year before, was the gold standard for how long and full of stuff your campaign should be, and studios have gotten steadily more skimpy over time. I played the halo infinite campaign and despite being 4x the storage space of h3, it was a shorter campaign, the semi-open world is just there to stretch things out and make it feel like there's more to it. I always hated that. It makes me think that the story in these games has had to accommodate lazy decisions by greedy publishers who want the devs to finish the game sooner than they are able to, to make it good quality. When games are a passion project like Halo 1 and Dead Space 1, they are generally excellent, and so it is. What was cut? Also after listening to Isaac (Arthur, not Clarke), the planet cracker thing COULD have been such a good idea but the way they showed it in the game was as if the ship was magically holding a gigaton/teraton-sized chunk of the crust (also completely inconsistent with the size of the crater when you're on the planet) above the planet but in a geosynchronous orbit, although the ship is too close to the planet to be in a geosynchronous orbit, and how then could they be able to tow a chunk of the planet in atmosphere? It made so much more sense to think that they had used explosives to blow chunks of the planet out into orbit for easy harvesting, which seemed to be what they were implying, especially with level 4 and 7 where you go outside to deal with both asteroid impacts and rocks that were being mined in space. It was really irritating that they implied the ship was parked over the same spot on the planet, because that wouldn't make any sense with the decaying orbit. Those were my main physics complaints, although on the subject of clarketech, the idea that malfunctioning artificial gravity panels would result in shoving you into the ceiling/ripping you to pieces is something that for all the times when "inertial dampeners are down" happens in Star Trek, they never played with, which would've made lots of sense. Actually if intertial dampeners go down, there's no way you should be able to accelerate faster than 2 Gs without having the whole crew strapped in, that's kind of the point to why they don't have to be, they're being held in place by some kind of antigravity cancellation of the transfer of momentum from the ship to them, which, if removed, would splatter them across the insides of the bridge within seconds if they're actually moving at 'quarter impulse' for example.... I'm rambling. Hope some of that was enjoyable anyway

[@AnimeShinigami13]

@@cosmictreason2242 You aren't alone they got rid of the DLC almost entirely for the first one. But it still exists, including someone who, just like Ellie, is immune to the marker. Then for the second one, you basically fight your way through Titan station in reverse of how Isaac did, dying at the hospital where he was kept rather than escaping from Earth Gov and the marker. But the third game's DLC is on origin and worth chasing. If only for the psychopathic horror of the bretheren moons. Also, if you have a mass effect 3 completed save file on your computer at the time you buy Deadspace 3 (though I don't remember the exact conditions) you can have an N7 rig.

[@YoghurtKiss]

Over 300 episodes, I think I've watched them all at this point. You are amazing man, hope you keep it up. As soon as my economy allows it I'm going to start contributing somehow, you are the only content creator in my life that I've ever wanted to just throw money at.

[@justandrewthomas]

I've been listening for years... I just wanted to thank you for the consistent phenomenal content...

[@sonicblackhole3559]

One of the megastructures I find most interesting is the super mundane shell world and the idea of a k3 civilization growing inwards towards an ever growing black hole

[@b_hazard]

Is there already an episode that touches on this? If not, I'd be excited to see it.

[@frankroquemore4946]

@@b_hazard yes there is! Hang on I’ll find it for you and post the link

[@ColossalPenisMcgee]

@@frankroquemore4946 hurry up ]

[@LastDollie]

Remind me too.

[@sonicblackhole3559]

I believe he has mentioned it but never done an episode on it or how the logistics would work

[@darkleome5409]

"A minor war on the galactic fringe, that involved few million worlds and few quadrillion casualties" Holy shit, the scales on this channel

[@Ozzy_2014]

Out of a population of quintillions or hexillions, yes only a few quadrillion.

[@michaelpettersson4919]

This is what Star Wars never seem to understand about what a galactic empire means.

[@robertmiller9735]

Imagine how Sargon of Akkad would react to the World Wars. It's a matter of scale.

[@robertmiller9735]

@@michaelpettersson4919 That's a problem with a lot of fiction: everything's done by a dozen or so people. Realistic depictions wouldn't be so fun, I think.

[@michaelpettersson4919]

@@robertmiller9735 With a dozen or so people a galactic war would be a drama show depicting the leadership behind the factions. In Star Wars case that could be the Rebel Alliance leadership for instance but it would still be wierd hearing Admiral Ackbar announcing "I will send a small force to deal with the problem, only a million cruisers, it should be enough as a small diversion".

[@erichtomanek4739]

I'm glad you included The Dragonriders of Pern. It's one of my favourite book series. Another trilogy somewhat on colonisation is The Heliconia Trilogy by Brian Aldiss. Another book on colonisation is the book Ark by Stephen Baxter. Last but not least, The Songs of Distant Earth by Arthur C Clarke.

[@296jacqi]

I just recently read The Songs of Distant Earth. It was so good.

[@erichtomanek4739]

@@296jacqi Should we do to Mars, what the Last One Million, on The Magellan, did to Sagan 2? And, perhaps do the opposite to Mercury and Venus? Should Mercury remain a planet or become a moon of Venus? In the same vein, should Ceres become a moon of Mars?

[@erichtomanek4739]

For water for the inner planets, we can use Stellar Lifting to collect hydrogen and oxygen. For Mars, if it turns out it's too dry, we can set up a shuttle service from Ceres and perhaps some of the other ICEteroids of the asteroid belt.

[@cosmictreason2242]

@@erichtomanek4739 mercury should be dismantled to make the rungworld habitats

[@PhilipMurphy8Extra]

Issac sure knows how to make Sunday better with a KZbin Premiere.

[@SplitZeroOne]

I never subscribed to KZbin Premiere... and I can see this video

[@isaacarthurSFIA]

@@SplitZeroOne I've never actually done a 'youtube premiere' specifically.

[@PhilipMurphy8Extra]

@@isaacarthurSFIA It's the one with the live chat as the video is uploaded I believe.

[@isaacarthurSFIA]

@@PhilipMurphy8Extra Yeah I think so, its been on my to-do list for a while, but I never really saw the difference with it and just replying to some comments directly.

[@Roxor128]

@@isaacarthurSFIA Please don't. The premiere feature is annoying because it results in two copies of the same thing in my RSS feed. One for "this video premieres in x hours" and one once it becomes a regular video. Clicking on the former during the countdown period and finding out the content isn't actually available is really irritating. And no, I'm not going to leave it open and wait. I have way too many tabs open to do that!

[@vaughanjones5933]

Thanks for the video Isaac, you apologised in your earlier vids for your speech impediment; but it is a gift - there is a timbre and rhythm that makes it very relaxing.

[@kobebarka8633]

Will definitely be using this idea in a book I’m writing!

[@stavinaircaeruleum2275]

I am so happy you brought up Anne McCaffrey. Her work deserves way more attention.

[@_Arevan]

Isaac you are always able to uplift my mind and get me thinking of the many possible new shores. Keep up the good work and bless you mate. 🖖

[@isaacarthurSFIA]

Thanks Arevan!

[@ClockworkAvatar]

one of my favorite stories in this sub-genre is the classic The Songs of Distant Earth by Arthur C. Clarke.

[@DG-mk7kd]

Travel is linear and speed limited, but growth is exponential. Even with a high speed (0.4c) and a low growth (0.1%), inhabited space will be effectively saturated, every star a dyson, by the time the frontier is 10k lyr. At that point so many colony ships are arriving at the next frontier star it will immediately be a dyson.

[@theOrionsarms]

I can imagine a strategy in which this impediment could be overcomed, for example original solar system send its demographic growth as colonists to the nearest solar systems, and those colony when they are reaching a optimal population do the same thing but in the direction of low populated stars further away, it could work as a oficial acord but would be in the common interest to preserve such system, because who wouldn't ader to it would be imprisoned and have no possibility to reduce its population by immigration unless could impose them by force to another or send them further away than anyone else.

[@L3r4k]

It is very likely that longevity technologies significantly impact the reproduction rate in a negative way.

[@chimera9818]

Main thing I have problem with Dyson sphere is humans will still want to live on earth like environment or will not want to fuck earth ecosystem

[@cosmictreason2242]

@@chimera9818 you make your own earth like environment inside your rotating habitat.

[@bryanshoemaker6120]

I don't know if I ever said this but thanks for putting these out on podcast. This is one of my favorite things to listen to while I'm working or commuting

[@ZatoichiBattousai]

CS Friedman! So glad to know others have read this wonderfully spooky series.

[@rhemorigher]

First books I ever picked out for myself at a bookstore instead of having them picked for me by parents. At around twelve years old they taught me that books could be exciting, intriguing and beautiful.

[@Kelmorcellus]

Honestly, I think Isaac would be awesome as part of a awesome crack team of writers where he would awesomely create civilizations and world building and have character ideas grow from the world's he imagines based on some real science much akin to The Expanse.

[@alvarohernani6645]

Has anyone comment on this: Let's say that we launch a spaceship to colonize a planet. It's a 2500 years trip, but in that time we develop technology that lets us do it in just 200. What should we do with the first colony ship, how would they react?

[@Lusa_Iceheart]

Well, easiest answer I suppose would be some master list of colony ships calling dibs on certain stars. A central catalog of claims on Earth might be fine for like a 50ly bubble, daughter colonies can organize colonies of their own and still send the info back to Earth (and get approved) in relatively sensible timeframes. Past that tho, I imagine it'd be first come first serve or maybe each of the 'core worlds' around Earth in that first 50ly bubble agree to divide up everything past them, probably just cutting up the night sky into a simple pie. Basically anyone could ignore such treaties and agreements and just jump the line, but they risk angering the much older, much more established and populous core worlds that made the agreements. Assuming life extension and the trends that it'd be young people starting colonies, the people in power (or at least with more clout) would favor the older ships claim over the new one. The core, older worlds would be quite irked if an old slow ship got claim-jumped. The family those colonists on the old ship left behind are now 2500 year old methuselahs and they'd be pissed if some youngins jumped the line just cause they got fancy new ships that could do the same trip in 200. Lots of effort would be made to discourage claim jumping. Anyone who did have a ship that could outrun every ship before by a wide margin might just decide to take that 2500 year trip anyway, except go twelve times as far and found their own "core" region. They would probably start like a normal colony but eventually form their own expanding sphere of daughter colonies sending daughter colonies until it collided with the main sphere expanding out from Earth. It really depends on the margin of the technological improvement. If it is a margin of ten or more times you could expect claim jumping and those that punished claim jumping. If it's just by a few decades with each improvement and each improvement taking decades to innovate, it wouldn't realistically matter much in the long run and they'd just respect the preexisting claims as to minimize conflict. Claim jumping would be limited to disruptive levels of tech advancement and just like every time some disruptive tech comes about there's conflict.

[@cosmictreason2242]

I predict, (this is something people don't really talk about), that IF God expects us to colonize the galaxy, then FTL communications, at least, seems to be in the cards, if not FTL travel, but both would seem highly likely to me. That's based on the expectation from a reasonable interpretation of Scripture that when He returns, everyone alive will see him simultaneously. So either we'll never reach the stars, OR we'll develop FTL, that's kind of my take on things.

[@belmiris1371]

Space is HUGE... unless you're Zaphod Beeblebrox!

[@jeffhoward162]

It was still huge for him....he just happened to be the most important thing in that one. Really froody guy, that Zaphod.

[@t.b.a.r.r.o.]

Ha! Just dug out the DVD and watched the first 2 episodes last night.

[@ronaldreaganwasthedevil]

@@t.b.a.r.r.o. you know if they can be found online?

[@Ozzy_2014]

@@ronaldreaganwasthedevil britbox has them.

[@Ozzy_2014]

Space is BIG! Mind boggingly hugely big. You just won't believe how big it is. I mean you might think it's a long way to the chemist's but that's just peanuts to space...."

[@The_Viscount]

I'm writing a sci fi and have this question in my head: even with fast FTL, I anticipate humans taking a long time to expand simply because of the availability of real estate and limits of population growth. In short, even with Star Trek TOS Warp Drives, I imagine official human space extending to about a radius 50 ly from earth after 200 years. Sure, there are colonies outside the bubble, but these are groups who want out of Human Government jurisdiction. For most, the local systems are more than enough habitable worlds and resources, and even though humans can travel 500,000c, there just isn't much reason to go beyond 50ly from earth.

[@fluffysheap]

It really depends on what limits population growth in your world. We live in a slow growing society now, but it wasn't slow growing as recently as 70 years ago, and it's hard to assume that it will be slow growing forever. Population growth is exponential (close enough, it's better described by differential equations) so it can grow to fill any "container" you put it in, and the amount of time it takes is relatively insensitive to the size of that container!

[@cosmictreason2242]

"limits of population growth" Bruh. You haven't been Isaac-pilled yet. A SLOW growth would see the population increase by 1,000x every 2,000 years. It's been 4200 years since the flood and we went from 10 people to about 50-100 million around 1 AD, to about 1 billion by 1800, to *rounding up* 10 billion today. That's with a 1/3 reduction of the European population in the 1300s and similar experience in the Americas due to smallpox. There really isn't anything that can keep us down for very long. 10,000 years is an overestimate on the amount of time it takes to go from literally zero technology to a full dyson swarm. If there isn't a problem with refueling, there's all the reason in the world to go farther. If you had the ability to travel to Andromeda in a week, on 1/10th a 'tank of gas,' so to speak, you really think you wouldn't? If you personally wouldn't, I assure you there would be plenty of others who would like to see it. The only reason I'm not interested in going to mars now is because it's an inconvenience. Driving 100 miles just to hang out with friends is not an inconvenience, because it happens quickly, comfortably, cheaply, and doesn't require refueling until I return home. If that becomes true with distant stars, I'd go there too.

[@bobinthewest8559]

Whether you’re talking about humans, or other animals here on earth…. There is a direct correlation between population and resource availability. Scarcity = low population numbers, even “die-offs” if resources are depleted suddenly enough. Abundance = large population numbers, even “population explosion” if new resources become available quickly enough. Given the large volume of resources likely to be available in every star system…. The further we go, the more quickly our numbers are likely to grow.

[@nordthernlights6559]

One of the best channel on KZbin!

[@bbartky]

Thanks for the shoutout to Roger Zelazny, Issac! _Nine Princes in Amber_ is in my top five all-time fantasy novels.

[@isaacarthurSFIA]

It was the third fictional series I 'read' [listened to on tape], right after douglas adams and Pern, then followed by Asimov, so those 4 really shaped my scifi/fantasy standards :)

[@why2166]

I remember when I first started listening to you and I could barely make out what you were saying. Now I understand everything clearly, and your voice has brought a level of comfort to me as well. It was odd because over time I just assumed that it was you growing more comfortable speaking on youtube. Until I went back and watched one of your first videos and a popup for captions reminding people unable to understand you confused me for a good few seconds. I used to have to actively try and listen to every word. Im not smart enough to understand a lot of what youre talking about, but these videos that you put out have brought me into a world worth looking forward to. So thank you for continuing on and putting out all these videos for us to enjoy and dream about.

[@Presekaman]

Ahhhh yes, now I have something to watch tonight.

[@wk8219]

Whoot! A mention and full on recommendation of one of my all time favorite novels, Roger Zelazny’s “Lord of Light”. For me personally, this book is second only to Dune.

[@Schlynn]

All ways funny to me how often these ideas get brought up in 40k, that franchise has really introduced me to some amazing sci-fi ideas.

[@cdrain68]

Douglas Adams is right about Space when he said "Space is big. You just won't believe how vastly, hugely, mind-bogglingly big it is. I mean, you may think it's a long way down the road to the chemist's, but that's just peanuts to space"

[@Bell_the_Cat]

Your intro reminded me of something. "Space is big. You just won't believe how vastly, hugely, mind-bogglingly big it is. I mean, you may think it's a long way down the road to the chemist's, but that's just peanuts to space."

[@sandymccabe7670]

I have often imagined that humans are just a lost colony of a destabilizing interstellar empire. What if we where just a distant mining colony to a fallen/conquered galactic power?

[@kleinjahr]

No,no,no. We are mutated Pak breeders.

[@seand.g423]

Welp, then the Grav bomb sure as shit doesn't fall far from the orbital platform...

[@LukSter18998]

certified daniekan classic

[@Andragil717]

We share too much of our genetics with local flora and fauna for that. Unless this planet was terraformed from the get go in the image of our real homeworld. Then again our ancestry doesn't really seems like the type that could have utilized space travel. Can't imagine they were at some point and somehow 'de-evolved' into less intelligent primitive primates. (We have the same ancestry with the chimpanzees but that goes back to 6-8 million years ago.) But who knows maybe that's the case.

[@nothingnobody1454]

Unless it's an interstellar empire of cyanobacteria, it would seem unlikely

[@Narmacil427]

Ahh, perfect timing. *reaches for popcorn*

[@cherokeevolfusa2891]

The idea of a race of smart dinosaurs that simply didn't wind up in the fossil record is very cool. I might try a story about that.

[@LukSter18998]

doctor who’s silurians!

[@nothingnobody1454]

Chronotrigger

[@davidvaughn7752]

I've pondered this often and I don't think it's out of the realm of possibilities. Thanks for taking a serious look at this... very much enjoyed!

[@elizabethdavis1696]

When he talked about a colony deliberately getting lost I thought about the movie mutiny on the bounty

[@cuddlemuffin.9545]

Hello issac, after I have watched your outward bound series, which I love a lot. I noticed that you missed a critical point, manufacturing things in space like fiber optic cable or human organs, the military aspects of this and what technologies can be utilized for build massive mega ton space factories

[@NGCAnderopolis]

These Story-book episodes are some of your best!

[@brookestephen]

I'm curious why the scale of human supporting planets has nothing to do with the variety and quantity of the chemical elements, that we need to thrive. We've quite possibly been born on the most well-seeded planet possible, having been coalesced from atoms of almost every stable element, but that just may be the luck of the draw.

[@mattstorm360]

Eve Online also has a lost colony scenario. Humanity used 'star gates' travel to distant stars. Eventually spreading out across the galaxy and likely to neighboring ones. The discovery of a wormhole, one that could be made stable with a massive gate allowed humanity to spread into a new star cluster far from the galaxies they colonized. They called it New Eden and started setting up on life baring worlds and terraforming operations on planets that needed it. Then suddenly the wormhole collapsed and to make a long story short much of the technology failed. Few colonies would be able to rebuild into their own little empires. Some colonies survived better then others but then later failed. Other colonies managed to survive and rebuild with one such colony actually invading the worlds of another because god told them to. Two colonies actually survived in the same star system and after figuring out each other's languages could start to explore the stars together... and then one decided to explore on their own for a bit pissing off the other, then a terrorist attack leading to a planetary bombardment, and that other colony evacuating to their new star systems. Then some all powerful hipster humans show up and make them all be nice to each other.

[@TheFinnar]

Arthur should create an EVE character.. he may create great videos of EVE lore

[@erideimos1207]

3:46 LOL That is one obscure Fallout4 reference! Great as always! I LOVE SF Sundays!

[@zedf7244]

One thing that wasn't talked about much is that standards for how fast follow-up or unknowing parallel missions to the same star are not likely to be traveling at the same speed. Rather, it is likely that later missions will take advantage of higher tech levels and faster drives to arrive *before* the original mission. This is why early colonists will want to make where they are going very clear to the authorities, to minimize the chance of being claim-jumped by another such group that left later.

[@Ozzy_2014]

Big issue is if you launch fleets with slower than light speeds. Waits centuries to fight a war. Only to wake up and find the war ended centuries once FTL was discovred. Worse when they decide to fight anyway. Wars reerupting centuries after the fact. But that was nothing to the trouble of wars starting centuries BEFORE the issues ever arose once time travel was discovered. 😅

[@verdazair]

I so enjoyed the initial descriptions of "Ship Camino/Coldfire/McCaffrey". I was just like "you didn't!" each time. 🤣

[@charion1234]

I had always thought of writing a story based on one part of the galaxy where each star is at most a few light years apart as an exercise in cultural divergence. Also I was reminded of dragon riders of pern due to this episode and remembered I never read all of it.

[@derstoffausdemderjoghurtis]

it's SFIA time! :3

[@mathilde1974]

Oh I love McCaffrey! Thanks for mentioning her!

[@skeaneable]

Battlestar Galactica,Stargate-SG1,Warhammer 40K,certain stories in Star Trek lore,even Star Wars too

[@egillskallagrimson5879]

I love when Isaac goes full story telling your best episodes👌 btw it could be awesome to have a video list with all your story telling episodes. My favourite setting of lost colonies are from traveller I remember one that was isolated by their own will and they were living in a planet barely livable so very dependent on paraterraforming. The thing is after a few centuries technology stagnate and began to go backwards, colonist forget how to maintain their own habitats putting their civilization in danger, so they hire pirates to kidnap specialist from the interstellar community and engage into slavery to sustain their population of specialist and regain the skills to maintain their way of living.

[@Mrcake0103]

Looking forward to the Silurian hypothesis episode!

[@gravit8ed]

omg @5:10 I THOUGHT I WAS THE ONLY MAN ALIVE THAT HAD READ THAT SERIES!! I would put the Coldfire series right up next to Hyperion, no joke. I had been into very 'hardcore' sci-fi when I picked up this one and it introduced some really great concepts about advanced technology. Ya know what I'm talking about.

[@spacecasebase]

Wow! I didn't expect to hear Coldfire mentioned! Love that series.

[@thinktankdetective8307]

All these videos about space travel and colonies, really makes me wished I was born in the future but then again I don’t know what future lies ahead.

[@GargamelGold]

Isaac Arthur, If Earth really was a lost alien colony and humans were aliens, wouldn’t we have to explain away all of the prehistoric hominids? I mean the fossil record really contradicts that idea

[@gavinboyer4634]

They were put there by the colonists to fool their descendents.

[@GargamelGold]

@@gavinboyer4634, Given the fact that there's zero evidence for that, one might as well say that the Earth is only six thousand years old and the fossils were put here by Satan to fool us into thinking that a literal interpretation of Genesis is not history.

[@zerothis23]

The _currently accepted interpretation_ of the fossils records. More problematic for a colonization interpretation is the biology. For example, all known life shares a portion of the same DNA. Even with the octopus. which is at least 60 percent alien RNA (google it), we share 879 genes. So the lost colony idea requires all life forms to be introduced or the results of few or one form adapting to become the forms we see in the record. However, there is another way. The pioneers could have altered themselves or their descendants to fit the ecology they found upon arrival. In all of this, the colonists were probably not hominids.

[@MalefaxTheBlack]

Unless they were the descendants of said aliens, and we came from them via evolution or genetic drift or whatnot.

[@richardgreen7225]

Perhaps the 'gardeners' show up every few million years and do a little GMO breeding. Earth is not a lost colony just a slowly evolving garden. But what are the gardener's goals?

[@captiannemo1587]

So much content. Never enough time to watch half of it.

[@chaptermasterpedrokantor1623]

Narrated by Will Wheeton of Star Trek - That is no longer a recommendation, as there are a lot of us who hate the little ****. And not because of his role of Wesley Crusher. I can forgive a bad role.

[@erichtomanek4739]

Cool Wwwhip..........

[@larryphillips4164]

Ty for your service to society and keep up the good work

[@ThirdCydonian]

I immediately thought of how more than a few worlds of the Imperium in Warhammer 40k are simply forgotten because some scribe somewhere didn’t write the facts of it’s existence down on the ledger, which itself is then forgotten in some dusty vault somewhere.

[@rhuiah]

Great episode.

[@ApexHerbivore]

When you turn on KZbin and Isaac uploaded 18 seconds ago 😁

[@StarBoundFables]

Fascinating episode, Isaac! I'm re-working my 1st novella atm & I believe I'll change the Galactic Council's official citizen consensus to be 6.9 Quadrillion registered sentient lifeforms (up from hundreds of trillions. This makes quite a bit of sense, even though it's only in the year ~3100CE, especially when counting in extraterrestrial civilizations + sentient artificial-intelligence/robotic-entities) What do y'all think? 🖖🏽 Also, I find that one animation of the spaceship flying away from an asteroid's docking bay seriously cool. (24:48) I could imagine a network of such asteroids of various sizes.. w/ people living full-time on them while others decide to more frequently travel between them & beyond. Some of the asteroid stations could be heavily fortified with artillery and robotic defence systems in place.. to deter brigands & even still there'd be a space-police force to assist as well. 🌌

[@ESL-O.G.]

Everybody on this channel is writing a Sci fi novel

[@StarBoundFables]

@@ESL-O.G. That's so awesome! This comment actually inspired the story entirely 😃 Instead of a network of astroids I'm doing islands and making it about pirates & alchemy. Uploading the 1st writing session for it now, to my KZbin Channel 📖🏝🙏🏽

[@ESL-O.G.]

@@StarBoundFables cool, good luck man

[@cosmictreason2242]

honestly, doug shamblin's youtube video series 'really big numbers' is really helpful for expanding your mind. I think people don't tend to go higher than millions or billions because they just don't have the words so they can't conceive of it. But there's room for 10 trillion people on earth comfortably. There's actually ROOM for quadrillions but the heat gets too excessive. A dyson swarm can comfortably fit sextillions, and more crowded, septillions. That's if you're fully utilizing all the star's energy, if it's like our sun. And unless you're going to introduce killer plagues that wipe out 90% of the population every 200 years forever, or wars that do the same (wwii only did 5% of the world iirc, if I'm wrong then it was certainly less than 15%), then you are INEVITABLY going to result in dyson swarms within 10,000 years. So in 3100 AD, you would have, EASILY, a trillion people in the solar system. Not necessarily on earth. 300-500 years, give or take, can see several dozen rotating habitats housing tens of millions if not hundreds, or even billions. That's guaranteed, without special effort being made to expand. That's guaranteed even with a thousand years of communist dark ages where no one has any money and nothing gets built, comparatively. It will still happen, it will just happen much more inefficiently since only about 1% of the population is productive, or another way of looking at it is that the population is only 1% productive compared to a planned economy (only by a fully interconnected AI or God), and a free market capitalist system would be 30-50% productive. So yeah if your civilization got into promoting parenting and building projects, then you could easily get quadrillions of people in a thousand years. It's a bit ambitious, since a rough estimate is that it takes between 1000-2000 years to multiply the population by 1000. If you consider that there's been 4000 years since the flood and we've gone from ~10 to ~10 billion, that's 4 millennia to multiply by a thousand 3 times. The first million happened quickly, and going from 100 million to 10 billion happened quickly, and in between it was a little slower, it seems. But if humanity were coordinated and not widespread anti-natalist as it is today, then yeah it's definitely possible. That would be essentially 20 doublings in 1000 years, which means the population would need to double every 50 years. Which means every couple on earth would have to have 4 kids, on average. Some could have 8 while others have 2. But the average fecundity would have to be 4+. Doable. But would require incentives, and effort to suppress anti-natalist, environmentalist, doomer, etc ideologies, and you could probably put some time into your story explaining how that was accomplished, as it could be interesting.

[@zhcultivator]

cool idea

[@ponyote]

Ah yes, Reapers.

[@darth_dub_]

Dude! I love this channel and now my favorite story got a mention, great episode sir.

[@codymartinson9518]

Lost colonies are the bread and butter of my stories. Love this trope to death. The general philosophical premise I work from is that a civilization doesn't need a ton of infrastructure to survive and thrive, especially on a world with half-decent conditions; a farm or a school or a town requires little more than plants, which themselves require little more than oxygen and a few generations of diligence. However, it DOES requires an enormous amount of resource and equipment to establish a fully industrialized colony capable of building and re-launching ships. For this reason, the grand majority of colonies end up grounding themselves, turning into metaphorical dead ends in the path of man's expansion, and being forced into simpler lifestyles by the lack of industry. This not by mistake; most people who decide to move a few hundred lightyears away from Earth's niceties have their minds set on freedom, or peace, or a simpler life, rather than grand goals of colonizing the galaxy. Earth is one of the few locations that colony ships reliably spread from. And then, (for the sake of the story and the feel of the world,) after only a few centuries of the colonial age, Earth runs into some kind of overpopulation-based great filter and falls into a dark age. And from that point on for many millenia, there were no more colonial ships. And just a thought, perhaps at some point in man's technological and psychological advancement, he will learn that eternal expansion isn't always necessary or desirable, and will reach some kind of steady state short of filling the universe.

[@marcel1653]

Nice storytelling, you got yourself a another subscriber 👍

[@renownedbandanawearer1345]

I always find it difficult to imagine a “lost” colony forgetting they were from Earth, except in the possible scenario that they go through a truly disastrous collapse to the point a scant few inexperienced survivors have to relearn whatever technology is keeping their colony habitable just in time to stop it breaking down and rebuild from there. Humans have such a fascination with the deep time history of our world and our origins that it’s hard to imagine them losing that information unless they were actively and rigorously suppressing it (which is not entirely implausible either, especially given some of the rogue colony scenarios you present here I suppose). I feel like most colonies, especially ones built through collective efforts rather than a tiny niche of society that wanted somewhere to do shady business like Kamino, would at least remember Earth as the “origin” planet, much like most people can at least name a few dinosaurs and many understand life started in microbial form. But perhaps that’s relying too much on my current sentimental assumptions about humans today, and not whatever new beings evolve from us over such massive spans of time :p

[@TheKjtheDj]

Most people aren’t aware that most of humanity is descended from a small group of steppe nomads that possibly domesticated the horse and lived in the late Neolithic, known to us originally from their language, which we pieced together when we realized that English and Hindi are descended from the same language. It may be something like how the average person has no clue about Earth, while a minority of experts have extensive knowledge of Earth history.

[@tomorbataar5922]

As long as public written records exist I don't see a way for people to forget. If those are lost or wiped though, historical facts gets mythologized pretty quickly.

[@cosmictreason2242]

"I always find it difficult to imagine a “lost” colony forgetting they were from Earth, except in the possible scenario that they go through a truly disastrous collapse to the point a scant few inexperienced survivors have to relearn whatever technology is keeping their colony habitable just in time to stop it breaking down and rebuild from there." I mean, yeah, bingo, that's actually happened. It both proves that we can forget (proof positive, you probably dispute my assertion that we are descendants of survivors of the Flood, but if I'm right and you're wrong, then history HAS been lost, for a significant portion of the population at least, so my point is proven).

[@tomorbataar5922]

@@cosmictreason2242 The Flood as in the Bible isn't something that actually happened but ok weird flex. If you're talking about the possible flooding of the Fertile Crescent which may have began this biblical myth then sure, we've had several resets of civilizations. Best example is the Bronze Age Collapse. But even then myths of what was before survives (Greek legends like Homer's stuff, or a sizable part of the Old Testament), also such collapses happened to primitive civilizations where any writing system was still only used for commerce or religious purposes at best.

[@cosmictreason2242]

@@tomorbataar5922 nope the global flood. You’re proving the point magnificently. In only 4000 years humanity has forgotten to the point of outright denial in favor of something with no evidence. There’s lots of data to document this. Just gotta look

[@nikolaj192]

Thank you Isaac. Hope we get to see a future were we make and actual expanse into space.

[@bigjay875]

Exelent episode, enjoyed it a great deal thanks,. Great Chanel and keep up the good work

[@bobologic6849]

Also don't forget Chronicles of Amber series and Damnation Alley by Roger Zelazny...

[@TheRWS96]

Is there a way to see a livestream (or recording) of the talk at ISDC? I tried to register but it seemed like there was only a way to register for in-person attendance.

[@isaacarthurSFIA]

They'll be doing some of the events on livestream, not all, mine will be broadcast both on their channel and here.

[@Ergand]

I've been slowly pushing myself to write the stories I've been working on since high school, many of which involve lost colonies. Just leaving this here in hopes of one day finishing a book and being able to look back at this comment to remember some of the things that inspired me.

[@TheArtofFugue]

very thought provoking!

[@danzjz3923]

interesting idea

[@watcher805]

Ohh... shit! Isaac Arthur! -packs a bowl and grabs a cold drink- :)

[@wokerobot3183]

If you wouldn't mind, could you disclose where you found the spaceship at 3:00? It's got Macross/event horizon/ISV Venture Star feel to it that might just make it my current favorite spaceship.

[@cosmictreason2242]

a lot of these are concept art done for Isaac specifically

[@LatitudeSky]

Colonies assume there is both a benefit to having them, and that they are required for survival. But if your stellar empire is entirely mobile and based on ships, the need for habitable worlds goes away.

[@isaacarthurSFIA]

Arguably amounts to the same thing, different flavor though, we played with that notion in Nomadic Space Based Civilizaitons

[@saladinbob]

You like to cast doubt on FTL being a possibility, let me remind you that in 40K, it took humanity around 20K years to discover the Warp drive. We've been at it for less than a century.

[@ianmiller6707]

"Techno Barbarians" thumbnail popped as I read this. aDornable.

[@natecw4164]

Lol

[@lefu87williford55]

People just need to keep faith that we will conquer the stars as the Emporer wills it. It's our manifest destiny.

[@virutech32]

oh wow so it took that long in a game? well it MuSt Be TrUe. It taking some amount of time in a game has no bearing on whether it's actually possible or how long it would take to figure out

[@rommdan2716]

What a noobs, Zephran Cofraine discovers Warp drive in his backyard and full of drugs

[@angeldude101]

I've brought up a particular sci-fi story a few times on this channel's video, but it also has a few lost colonies (which it calls "rogue colonies"). One of which was to escape from the society's taboo of genetic engineering. Granted FTL communication exists in the setting and Big Brother seemingly has no limits, so it wasn't really "lost," so much as the government just chose to turn a blind eye and pretend it didn't exist unless things went south and it needed to step in. Given the planet's dense atmosphere, the colony was built in the sky similar to Columbia from Bioshock Infinite. Neadless to say, it wasn't pretty when ideological differences caused a civil war, which made the government step in and end the whole colony, with the survivors given gene therapy to become more in-line with humanity, and a miracle that allowed one of the people to escape the therapy and keep all the modifications, at least under the condition that nobody know about what really happened unless given express permission. Permission is usually given for people who are going after other rogue colonies.

[@MaxRegistrator]

The idea of lost civilazations developing independently always amazed me

[@dram3711]

Damn. Good timing. Bouta hit the road and needed something interesting to listen to!

[@jennifervan75]

I love your content man. Never stop

[@matthewc9934]

i absolutely love your content, I have fallen to sleep listening to your videos more times then I can count. keep up the great work!!!

[@sheldorleconcher8870]

Very interesting episode. Love the Lord of Light recommendation - it's been one of my favs for decades!

[@MagicalMaster]

Isaac, I think you would get a lot of fun out of the game Rimworld. The concept is that you're on a Lost Colony world and you have to escape one way or another. At least that's the end game, the real meat of things is building a colony when you start with nearly nothing. Or even nothing for the Naked Brutality scenario.

[@edpistemic]

28:40 - those dinos really needed some bow ties, top hats and monocles!

[@pocketheart1450]

I write a book series that takes place in the 55th century. Part of the premise is that faster than light travel took a really long time to develop and is basically brand new. As such the solar system alliance which actually includes Alpha and Proxima Centauri and Barnard's star, begin sending ships out to track down human colony worlds in deep space because many generational ships were sent out basically thousands of years ago and not much has been heard from them since. So part of the idea is that the humans in the solar system (which have been genetically altered so thoroughly they are not even homo sapiens anymore) are effectively making first contact with new cultures of humans that have been isolated for millenia.

[@WiseOwl_1408]

I "wrote" a book

[@EliasMheart]

Nice episode! And I got excited about the credit announcements, but man those events are expensive :/

[@fluffyspunsugar]

The Dragon Riders of Pern series is my absolute favorite of all times.

[@billwanchalo6059]

I can't wait for June 9th! the Megastructure series is probably my favorite.

[@Gaia_Gaistar]

Already read the Pern books as a kid in the 90's lol. That kind of scifi/fantasy had a big impact on my writing.

[@wanderingron90]

I forgot it was Sunday and was like is Isaac high or something lol such an amazing channel to open your mind. Keep it up.

[@kenhelmers2603]

Pern is one of my favorite series :)

[@robomonkey1018]

Great stuff as usual

[@DesertRatPainting]

I have never heard anyone reference the ColdFire trilogy in KZbin before. it was one of the first sci-fi/ fantasy series I read outside of LoTR.