The idea of generational ships are interesting to me, mostly because of the number of challenges they provide for world/ship building, and making it feasible that it could support human life for as long as it will. For those of you who don’t know, the concept of a generational ship is a common SF trope: a ship that travels from our planet to another, far distant planet, one that would take many hundreds of years to reach. So, on the ship you support the life of the crew and their generations, since by time the ship lands on the far away distant planet, several generations of the crew would have passed.
So, you need it big enough to contain an exponential number of growing human population (each generation would more than double the number of crew members of the ship), as well as support all forms of life, provide food, have an artificial gravity (else, bones and muscles would be too weak, not able to support us).
You need technology that is re-usable, recyclable. You need a way of providing light, a way of providing constant food and water, a way of providing constantly circulating oxygen.
The technology will be limited. In a way, the social and technological evolution of the humans aboard that ship will be stunted. Fashion will also be stunted, as well as other forms of progress that are lightning fast, here on earth. There will need to be a crew who makes certain the ship itself stays in good shape, as well as a group of people in charge of dispensing stuff that people need.
Manufacture and industry probably won’t be happening. You won’t have the jobs that we have on earth, the roles of society would be different, and they would be different from a normal space fairing crew as well.
It interests me because the limitations provide so many possibilities for such a unique, interesting and creative world. What doesn’t interest me are the common tropes involved with these generational ships. Like, for example, the crew forgetting that they are on a ship with a mission, and start to think that this is life (and then discover- OHMYGOD IT’S NOT). Or, for another example, the society reverts back to medieval/dark ages (which is possible, since there isn’t much in the way of technological progress) and a feudal society of sorts. Again, that doesn’t interest me as much.
What does interest me is what kind of culture would arise from this- it would be unlike anything we’ve had on earth so far recently. Would there be money? Trade of goods? What are the jobs and roles of this society? What kind of weapons would they have? Conflict? Would they have any weapons, or would it take someone creative to re-purpose something else as a weapon? Guns, lasers, missiles, etc would be a non-issue. Why would they allow those on the generational ship when it took off? Also, the ship is more fragile than earth and other planets, its own destruction would be more easy, more simple.
Just some thoughts.
Good post. My two cents is that a society like that would most likely have to be a communistic structure (a true communist society). As time went on and the inherent greediness of people may lead to some interesting conflicts. Add in the tendency of humans to need to rationalize things and I could see after several generations the people elevating the machinery they work with to a technological godhood. Hmm. perhaps a caste system with tech-priests who “speak” to the computer godhead?
That’s an excellent idea. The way I see the citizens communicating with the ship is through something similar to what people are working towards now- a small device that reads brain waves and then sends them out via a radio signal.
So, these people might have small bacterial machines encoding into their DNA (much like how stomach bacteria is encoded into our DNA) that allows them to control the ship through thought (much like a psychic would…)
The interesting point here, though, is that even though the machines exist you still have to train your mind in order to use them (eg, like creating code and running it), so these techno priests would be in charge of that…
this makes me think of Star Trek the next generation? shit, is that what it was called?, the one with Picard and Riker and Data and Worf and everyone, there was a whole city on there wasn’t there? The speed of the enterprise was much faster than you’re talking, but some of the concepts are there.
Would a culture able to create a generational ship be cut off from contact with it? I would imagine it to have scheduled broadcasts to and from the home planet, maybe giant time delays in sending/receiving messages?
The nanotechnology angle, perhaps would be limited to the main crew with those responsible for normal day2day functions, like food growth or recycling, would not have full abilities with the ship, maybe they would just have access to the ship marketplace or ship news?
And how many people would be on the ship to maintain and replenish it with their generations?
Yes. And as people made repairs time after time they could get better and better. There could be great beauty in making the perfect bolt.
I think the ship would have to have a hierarchical structure. I can’t imagine humans putting huge resources into a project and then not having someone in charge. Of course this concept as been visited before when the underlinings get tired of being bossed around. But still, the logic would need to be addressed.
Another concept missing on most generational ships stories are the poor in between bastards. The people who signed up for this would have already lived a lot of their lives and knew what they were getting into. The generations born to just repair and reproduce might not be too happy with Mom & Dad. We aren’t monarch butterflies! Although it might be interesting if the mulit-generational migration monarch butterfly gene were introduced into humans for this trip. Otherwise there would have to be a way for in between generations to live a fulling life.