Cloning for Colonization?

[The Old Mixer]

It's one of the biggest and nicest that we see where any numbers are specified, that I can recall. The whole idea of colonization is to find some space to start new societies. I don't see why there'd be any driving need to get their populations up in the billions. Seems like that's something they'd want to avoid.

 

[Henoch]

It's one of the biggest and nicest that we see where any numbers are specified, that I can recall. The whole idea of colonization is to find some space to start new societies. I don't see why there'd be any driving need to get their populations up in the billions. Seems like that's something they'd want to avoid.

Over on the "Production Order" thread, I just suggested that the overpopulated Gideon use colonization to solve their overpopulation problem. It's better than mass murder via disease. The Federation can help find a planet or two, and provide humane transportation and clean encampments while they develop their new planets. A good place to recruit red shirts.

 

[Henoch]

It's one of the biggest and nicest that we see where any numbers are specified, that I can recall. The whole idea of colonization is to find some space to start new societies. I don't see why there'd be any driving need to get their populations up in the billions. Seems like that's something they'd want to avoid.

Sort of found one more in "And The Children Shall Lead":

GORGON: (echoy voice) You have done very well, my friends. You have done what must be done. You have come aboard the Enterprise. Now our destination is a Federation settlement. Captain Kirk will undoubtedly choose a closer station. Do not let that deter you. Marcos Twelve has millions of people on it. Nearly a million will join us as our friends.​

Marco 12 has millions; when I see millions, I assume more than 2, rather 3+. I assume the million that will join them are all the children. What is the proportion of adults to children on a settlement? If 2 to 1, then the settlement has only 3 million. If 10 to 1, then 11 million. I get the feeling that the settlement is in the 3-5 million range suggesting a low birth rate. Still a little vague?

 

[The Old Mixer]

Good find, but still not in the billions. If anything, it supports that colonies simply don’t have such large populations.

 

[Henoch]

Good find, but still not in the billions. If anything, it supports that colonies simply don’t have such large populations.

We may have played out the TOS references. Summary: "On" a thousand worlds. Presence goes from research team (2-20) to outpost/starbase(?) to settlement(1-5 million) to city(?) to world (?). Speculation: If 10% have settlements, then we only get ~300 million range. Why even have a Federation if they only have 300 million people at risk from Earth? During the (post-WWII) 1960's, the USA has most of its population inside the USA, with populations on territories like Puerto Rico and a few islands in the Pacific. We also have military bases inside many other countries. It looks surprising like the USA=Earth, the UN=Federation and Nato(primarily USA)=Starfleet(primarily Earth). Post-WWII Earth might equate to a Post-Interstellar War Federation, perhaps with the Klingons?.

 

[Timo]

The next spinoff to tackle: DSC. In Burnham's War during the first season, Klingons make immense territorial gains, yet we never hear of high casualties. The initial tally is 8,000 or so Starfleet fallen; this goes up to only 10,000 by the Harry Mudd time loop adventure. No civilian losses are mentioned. Then comes the side trip to the Mirror Universe for nine months, after which the territorial losses are reality but Admiral Cornwell lists 11,000 dead civilians when Klingons destroy the entire atmosphere of Kelfour VI; three suicide raids against starship harbors; and tree outpost raids on border colonies that leave some children alive.

Now, Cornwell is showcasing the diversity of Klingon attacks and the underlying fact that the enemy is not united on a strategy. But it would be unlikely for her to omit even greater losses from her list of examples. Her mention of the 11,000 dead is thus telling both in terms of what counts as shocking, and what counts as loss of total planetary population. Too bad we never learn what sort of a place Kelfour VI was - an outpost, a colony, a homeworld to Kelfourites? Subsequently, Starbase 1 is lost to a Klingon raid, and the 80,000 people aboard are supposedly dead. No higher numbers for civilian or Starfleet losses are ever quoted either for specific attacks or for an overall tally.

Either the part of the UFP facing the Klingons was unusually sparsely populated or then not. In the latter case, smallish colonies are indirectly established overall; in the former, locally.

FWIW, Marcos XII was somewhat close to Triacus which had dealings with Epsilon Indi, basically putting the action in the areas shown conquered by Klingons. We have no idea where Deneva might be, save for the Star Charts conjecture that can sort of be seen on screen if one squints hard enough at those war maps and pretends a lot.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[johnnybear]

Gorgon was a remnant from a race of marauders from Epsilon Indi! Whether he was a real creature or just a projection of their hatreds we don't know! But how many other long dead races in the Trek universe are waiting to return or their progenies? Henoch will attest to this but his race was one of the most powerful in it's day and yet it fell to disaster with only their consciousnesses surviving!
I wonder if the same fate could befall the Federation as well in the far future as well?
JB

 

[Henoch]

Henoch will attest to this but his race was one of the most powerful in it's day and yet it fell to disaster with only their consciousnesses surviving!

Our technology was 10,000 years beyond the current era. It was a civil war of equals that left our planet barren with no atmosphere. Kind of like a "Forbidden Planet" rip-off, but we managed to save a few life forces of our greatest minds in receptacles.

 

[johnnybear]

But I thought Sargon said you were from the other side?
JB

 

[Henoch]

But I thought Sargon said you were from the other side?
JB

There are usually two sides in any civil war. We were on opposite sides but put aside the war to save the last of our kind.

 

[johnnybear]

Somehow I don't see you as that kind of guy, i mean orb, I mean consciousness!
JB

 

[Timo]

Gorgon was a remnant from a race of marauders from Epsilon Indi!

Umm, to be more exact, Gorgon was indirectly associated with a band of Triacus marauders that made war at Epsilon Indi, which was considered "marauding across the galaxy". So the one thing we learn is basically that Gorgon's folks were not from Epsilon Indi!

Doesn't mean there wouldn't be bottled-up spirits in the basements of Epsilon Indi, too. Or here on Earth. I just wonder on their low numbers, in a cloning-related thread. Why wouldn't good folks like Henoch here create a zillion bodies for themselves or their cause, rather than just one pitiful android or flesh shell? If preserved in noncorporeal form on a shelf, a cave, whatnot, I'd certainly chiefly worry about becoming corporeal again - and in overwhelming force, without outside help.

It would be a bit different if I weren't biding my time but were actually transcended to a level I was perfectly happy with. In that case, I'd concentrate on armoring the vault where my urn resides. And perhaps I'd then have second thoughts, and be caught up the creek without a cloning machine. But while Sargon's posse might have gone that route, Gorgon didn't sound like the sort of guy...

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Henoch]

Somehow I don't see you as that kind of guy, i mean orb, I mean consciousness!
JB

Got me wondering. Did Sargon's race obtain their spirit selves in globes before or after the civil war? I get the feeling it was after the war in order to preserve their consciences as a last ditch effort. That's why there was only Sargon and 10 other globes. Out of a whole population, only 11 survive the war and only 3 survive the centuries after that. And then there was one, me.

 

[Timo]

Agreed. If the entire species had elevated itself so high that their culture and power was concentrated in just a couple of dozen divine beings that then slugged it out between themselves,

1) they wouldn't agree to sit on the same shelf even if they were formally on the same winning side, and
2) they would be a bit more divine when emerging.

Instead we see helpless genies stuck in their bottles, striving to become corporeal again as if this were the biggest improvement they could imagine. And the transition seems to be 1:1, one genie for one corporeal being. Were there originally millions of combatants, then all of them being powerful genies from the get-go would be unlikely to result in a dozen survivors in a single globally significant vault; there might be scattered enclaves of genies from all the factions here and there instead.

A project where a few hundred or thousand survivors struggled to leave a concentrated heritage of themselves in the spheres makes more dramatic and logistical sense there... IMHO.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Henoch]

Instead we see helpless genies stuck in their bottles, striving to become corporeal again as if this were the biggest improvement they could imagine. And the transition seems to be 1:1, one genie for one corporeal being. Were there originally millions of combatants, then all of them being powerful genies from the get-go would be unlikely to result in a dozen survivors in a single globally significant vault; there might be scattered enclaves of genies from all the factions here and there instead.

I like the genie comparison. I'd look good in a turban with a circle beard.

 

[johnnybear]

The other entities probably had had enough of being stuck in those globes and set themselves free onto the wind! Henoch was from the enemy camp and waited for his chance even after all of that time! I wonder what they were doing in those receptacles in all that time? Dreaming of whatever their hearts desired I'm guessing?
JB

 

[Commishsleer]

The other entities probably had had enough of being stuck in those globes and set themselves free onto the wind! Henoch was from the enemy camp and waited for his chance even after all of that time! I wonder what they were doing in those receptacles in all that time? Dreaming of whatever their hearts desired I'm guessing?
JB

You'd have think they'd gone insane from sheer boredom.

 

[johnnybear]

You'd better ask Henoch about that, Commish!
JB

 

[Henoch]

Insane? Bored? Never! I had 500,000 years to plan my revenge on Sargon, steal his wife, and crown myself Master of the Universe all in a day. It's all really quite easy, JB.

 

[johnnybear]

I like the sound of all that sleep time myself!
JB