Colonization in the UFP

[Nerys Ghemor]

That's kind of what I'm referring to, yes. I'll send you a PM with more details.

 

[Cheapjack]

It has been stated in TNG that humans are not as obsessed with the accumulation of 'things'. Going on from that, I don't think that they will be as bothered about aquiring assets by mining and so on. They would live within their means.

I concede that Picard said that they wanted to seed as much as possible, but isn't there some sort of population control in the 24th Century? They wouldn't seed beyond their means or needs.

And the Q, who, whether people like it or not, is a more evolved being, warned Picard about humans spreading further out in Farpoint, which IMO, is the best episode of the lot.

As to a detailed structure of a colony, I think that they would be more or less autonomous. They would be able to defend themselves and would have much the same constitution as Earth. They would be under the protection of Starfleet, but would not have to pay them with resources to get that protection. They might not even have to have the same constitution as the Federation, in order to get it. Being human and intelligent would be enough, as long as they don't stick people in gibbets!

T'Girl:

To put it another way, how will things have CHANGED by the 24th Century? You're going on templates from history. How will we LEARN the lessons of history, or will we repeat them? Star Trek is about humans have changed,as well as how things stay the same. Humans will change, it's part of evolution. we may even go backward. You're assuming that the American way of life will still be here in 400 years, it may not, you know. Wasn't there a big apocholyptic war in the 21st Century? Didn't that change humans and human thinking and human doing in some way?Wasn't a large amount of it caused by squabbling over land and money and philosophy? I think this had SOME effect on the aquisitiveness of humans.Admittedly, they will repeat the mistakes of the past, as they always do, but how will their stated aims be changed by all of this? I don't think that any of the posts here have addressed that. This is futuristic Science fiction, devoted to how technology will CHANGE people, that we are discussing! Advances in technology do change people, and people do change their way of thinking, too, without it, being more 'progressive', as time goes on.

Also, Humans have bumped into aliens dozens of times in ST who object to them spreading out. This seems to hint it is possible to be intelligent, successful, advancing,technologically advanced and progressive without wanting to spread like a weed throughout the galaxy. There does seem to be a large hint in ST that though this is desirable to 20thCentury audiences, so they can identify with humans from the 24th, it may not be the way of humans from the 30th etc. It's cuased more trouble than enough!

Hasn't it been stated in ST time and time again, that theirs is a mission of exploration?

 

[Penta]

I'm not sure I like the idea that those of the 23rd-24th centuries basically "ethnic cleansed" their neighbors in order to get homogeneity of viewpoints on Earth.

I just....that exceeds my personal creepy threshold.

I'm also curious about the idea of how the hell you'd get people to move out to the colonies, to be honest. Why would they want to? Earth is a paradise if we go by TNG, remember. Why would anyone want to leave paradise?

Do you randomly select people and go "You, you, and you go off on the next colonization mission"?

 

[Nerys Ghemor]

I'm thinking more of a subtle pressure. Also, I should make clear that I think MOST of it happened in the 22nd-23rd centuries, so does not apply as much to the 24th century. If the capacity existed from a technological standpoint (and the Botany Bay suggested it did), then I think it would've been happening in the postwar 21st century as well, which as we know was an entirely different time. After the 21st century, I think you wouldn't see direct pressure so much (certainly not being run out by a mob or the like), but I think there would be an ingrained cultural attitude that the response to a fundamental incompatibility with the prevailing ideology is to leave and found your own colony, or join one that is more suited to you. In other words, I believe humankind will shift from war and violence to exile as the solution to problems of ideas. (Remember, problems of a material nature may be solved, but you will always have dissenters.)

I do not see a random selection process or even forced exile, after the full building of United Earth (i.e. the completed implementation of all advancements). I see, rather, social pressure becoming the means of exile. You're in this "free" society...the government may not be enforcing anything, disappearing people, or creating penal colonies without due process, but social groups can do a damn good job of making people feel unwelcome, and if the culture has turned in a direction where exile is a big part of the mentality again, leaving Earth rather than rock the boat will be a culturally-conditioned response.

Yet even if the MAJORITY happened during the 21st century (and during that turbulent period I DO see forced exiles as occurring)...I do see it as Earth's dirty little secret--the one that, if exposed, will damage humanity's reputation. No, it is not comfortable to consider...it creeps me out too. But it explains the things about the later centuries that creep ME out. And that's why I do believe it happened and that it explains the ideological homogeneity we see among Earth natives. Those who don't agree...get out of town.

(NB: I should be clear that NOT all colonists are exiles, nor were all colonies founded for such reasons. However, I believe that we HAVE seen exile colonies on Trek.)

 

[T'Girl]

It has been stated in TNG that humans are not as obsessed with the accumulation of 'things'. Going on from that, I don't think that they will be as bothered about aquiring assets by mining and so on. They would live within their means.

Unless the replicators work a lot differently than I think, those large buildings in San Fransisco were built with metal that was mined out of rock, although they may be constructed of composites. It's been stated that Starships are definitely built using metallic alloys. In Japan it's very difficult to get permission to cut down a tree, Japanese buy trees from other countries, they don't import lumber, they import entire trees. If environmental laws on Earth no longer permits any domestic mining, resources will have to be acquired from off-world locations. Perhaps interstellar locations.

You're assuming that the American way of life will still be here in 400 years, it may not, you know.

I like "The American Way" of life, I would prefer it was still around. I grew up a military brat and have lived in seven countries, visited almost two dozen more. It's good in America, better in fact than a lot of places. Our institutionalized liberties separates us from a great many nations. A Micronesian style future Earth might be more to your taste, while they do have some consumerism, it doesn't dominate their mindset. It's a more steady/slow growth kind of place where the people are more concerned with family life. And they use rocks for money.

This is futuristic Science fiction, devoted to how technology will CHANGE people, that we are discussing!

The opposite. Despite the technology, the people remain traditional beings. Picard plays the flute. Riker the trombone. Worf sings opera. Uhura sings romance. Data paints. Sulu fences. Folks come together, marry, make babies. They gather in groups for a drink after work, as people have for thousands of years

Even holodeck technology is often used to look backward, not forwards.

Hasn't it been stated in ST time and time again, that theirs is a mission of exploration?

But is it reasonable that if the exploration is successful, they wouldn't do anything with the discoveries? Advance technology would be absorbed, knowledge would be utilized, resources would be exploited, worlds would be colonized, people would be joined with.

 

[Cheapjack]

There has been more trouble caused in ST episodes by man colonising and aquiring than enough!

Actually, I think it would be very hard to find a good planet. I think that they would be VERY scrupulous in making certain that there were no lifeforms, even intelligent grains of salt! And, if it were Earthlike, capable of supporting men, and bare, there would be a chance that it would develop, in millions of years. Our descendants would be 'green' to the point of nausea to us 21st century people. They would take ages exploring before they colonised, and would disrupt the local fauna to the minimum.

I think it more likely they would find a barren rock and terraform it.

I know that a good 40/50% of ST episodes are about colonisation, but they DO state initially that they are not20th century rapacious. It's like the prime directive. They've broken it dozens of times, even Picard has, but they do have it.

Nerys, I don't think that people will leave Earth because they are disaffected. It's a relative paradise, and very tolerant. I direct you to the first opening words of every TOS and TNG episode. Listen to them. People will leave Earth, because they want to EXPLORE,LEARN, and EVOLVE, the same reason why people go to China on holiday and to Peru. Because it's DIFFERENT. At least, some people do. They won't go to enforce their way of living on others.

As to man not changing, he does. Even genetically, over the next 400 years, he will be different to us. Less like an ape. Things will change, but there will be some things that stay the same. You haven't addressed the things that will change. You talk as though 24th century man will be just like 20th, but with bigger and better bombs! I think not. We don't stick people in gibbets, now, 500 years ago we did. Right from the beginning of ST, right from the Cage, it's been stated that man will change, and he is pitted against beings who are even more changed, in order to learn. This is what SF is about.

 

[Timo]

I think that they would be VERY scrupulous in making certain that there were no lifeforms, even intelligent grains of salt!

Why? In all of Trek, a planet is considered "lifeless" if it only has lush vegetation and bugoids, snailoids and creepycrawloids. "Life" is defined as large non-sessile animal-analogues...

Obviously, familiarity breeds contempt. The Trek galaxy is so full of life that none of it is considered particularly precious or worth preserving. Rather, colonial parties would aim to exploit preexisting life, for agriculture. Since all that life seems compatible with Earth life, and since OTOH humans have supposedly learned their lessons about transplanting species across the face of Earth, the settling of an already life-infested world would probably go relatively smoothly. The native life would only have to yield where the colonists wanted it to yield - it would not die out catastrophically at the first cough of a careless colonial, nor would it snuff out the colonists and their crops except in the rare and special case.

We would be extremely scrupulous, in our universe. They would not, in their supposedly very different universe, and visibly are not.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Cheapjack]

I think that they would be VERY scrupulous in making certain that there were no lifeforms, even intelligent grains of salt!

Why? In all of Trek, a planet is considered "lifeless" if it only has lush vegetation and bugoids, snailoids and creepycrawloids. "Life" is defined as large non-sessile animal-analogues...

Obviously, familiarity breeds contempt. The Trek galaxy is so full of life that none of it is considered particularly precious or worth preserving. Rather, colonial parties would aim to exploit preexisting life, for agriculture. Since all that life seems compatible with Earth life, and since OTOH humans have supposedly learned their lessons about transplanting species across the face of Earth, the settling of an already life-infested world would probably go relatively smoothly. The native life would only have to yield where the colonists wanted it to yield - it would not die out catastrophically at the first cough of a careless colonial, nor would it snuff out the colonists and their crops except in the rare and special case.

We would be extremely scrupulous, in our universe. They would not, in their supposedly very different universe, and visibly are not.

Timo Saloniemi

I meant INTELLIGENT life. And again, you are assuming exploitativeness and rapaciousness. They wouldn't need to mould the less intelligent lifeforms to their liking. They have food synthesisers. They are vegetarian. (Oh, my God, I've put my food in it there! I can hear brains overloading already!)

'Life infested' seems a hot word. Though, there again I said humans should not spread like weeds. Do you think all forms of non human life are inferior?

'The Trek galaxy is so full of life that none of it is considered particularly precious or worth preserving'

Are we watching the same TV show? Time and again, it has been stated in ST that ALL life is precious!

 

[Timo]

Time and again, it has been stated in ST that ALL life is precious!

Yet that has always been empty talk. Our Starfleet heroes don't go out of their way to exterminate other life, but they never demonstrate much respect for it, either. They even heavily censor the lifestyles of their fellow humans, never mind fighting wars against aliens whose philosophies differ.

Life may be "precious", but it's not fragile. It can withstand a little bit of rapaciousness.

They have food synthesisers.

Yet they farm. And fish...

They are vegetarian.

And carnivorous. And everything in between.

I don't think we have ever heard of a solely vegetarian species in Star Trek - the urban legend about Vulcans being veggies has no canonical confirmation. Certainly humans have never been indicated to shun meat specieswide. For all we know, there are still people who like to hunt and kill vertebrates. Certainly Will "we no longer enslave animals for food" Riker fishes with lethal intent!

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Penta]

I would be sad if humans no longer ate meat, personally. Or got meat from cows.

And if anybody even suggests taking away the dog...

 

[Cheapjack]

It's just amazing to me that people watch this show and come to the conclusion that people will be exactly the same in 400 years time, they will just have better ways of killing people.

I've been a fan for forty years. I've been to conventions. To me, ST is renowned the world over for being a progressive show. Yes, they can be rapacious, yes, they can kill, yes they can eat meat, yes they can be selfish, but generally speaking, they have evolved. It's not just talk, it's what the show's about! All that stuff is just put in as a coating to get the pill down. They are more evolved and more civilised than people today, and that's realistic, because WE are more evolved than people 500 years ago. Imagine if you had to go to the local towncentre and see a thief or a malcontent's body in a gibbet, as a warning! We did that 500 years ago. We don't now. They do fish, but there are not vast amounts of animals living in misery and being slaughtered, as there are now. They don't need to, they have food synthesiers. You could eat RAW meat if you wanted to, but there's no need for it. They only hunt to keep the old skills alive, in case the food synthesers break down.Yes, there will be have's and have-nots, but the have not's will be able to do what only the middle classes can do now, and that's progression. It won't be at the expense or effort of someone else, it will be so cheap that even the most short-sighted and selfish will not resent it.

I think some people here are watching the wrong show, and I dread to think what ST would be turned into if they got hold of it. Humans would still be here in the 24th Century, I suppose, and that's a good thing. But they woulld not have evolved and that's not realistic, looking at history.

 

[Penta]

So essentially, we're not "fans enough" for you because we aren't as "progressive" as you?

 

[Matt4511]

So essentially, we're not "fans enough" for you because we aren't as "progressive" as you?

Heh, yeah, because nothing says progressive like "Anyone who sees the same show but comes to a different conclusion than I do is inherently wrong."

Might not be what he was intending, but sure as hell what came out.

 

[neozeks]

It's just amazing to me that people watch this show and come to the conclusion that people will be exactly the same in 400 years time, they will just have better ways of killing people.

Who the hell says that? Is anyone disputing that hunger, wars, disease, poverty and many other problems of today are solved by Trek's time? Is anyone disputing that mankind has overcome nationalism and racism, 'speciesm' even and lives united with itself and with numerous other aliens in a peaceful Federation? I'd say that constitutes a lot of progress.

Now, because we think that colonising a world (without it's own intelligent race) and using it's resources (responsibly, I have no doubt people of tomorrow have learned from past mistakes in that area as well) isn't some sort of evil 'spreading like weed' through the galaxy, or that disagreements between people in regard as to how the society should function will always exist and need to be dealt with (peacefully, no one is proposing hanging people), we're somehow backwards?

 

[SpyOne]

It's just amazing to me that people watch this show and come to the conclusion that people will be exactly the same in 400 years time, they will just have better ways of killing people.

Not the same, just similar.
It has been about 2000 years since Julius Caesar walked the earth, and certainly our worldview is very different from his. He came from a society that believed that people killing each other made good entertainment, where we recognize it is only entertaining if the killing is simulated. Well, most of us anyway, and we regard those who don't as sick.
But for all that, we still have a lot in common with him.

Just one example: they seem to have finally gotten a handle on greed. Having done away with want, and having made the acquisition of goods pretty easy, they have stolen some of the charm of acquiring huge piles of stuff. But there are still unique items, and some people still desire to own them: Sisko's baseball, for example.
So greed is much less a motivator in their society than in ours, but it is still there. The people of the 24th century are better, but they are still not perfect.

And some of them, like some of us, like more challenge in their lives. They like working "without a net". They don't want to live where every meal is guaranteed to happen, where the lights always come on when you flip the switch, and where dangerous predators do not attack people who went out for a walk.
If you make Earth idyllic and safe, what do you do with the people who don't want idyllic and safe?

I think maybe you have been watching the wrong show, because from what we have seen on TV people of the 24th century definitely establish off-world colonies. Lots of them. We can debate about why, but that they do it is a fact, and I think we all would agree that their do it, at base, because they either want to or need to (or both). What remains for debate is only why they do it, not whether they would.

 

[Nerys Ghemor]

Nerys, I don't think that people will leave Earth because they are disaffected. It's a relative paradise, and very tolerant. I direct you to the first opening words of every TOS and TNG episode. Listen to them. People will leave Earth, because they want to EXPLORE,LEARN, and EVOLVE, the same reason why people go to China on holiday and to Peru. Because it's DIFFERENT. At least, some people do. They won't go to enforce their way of living on others.

As to man not changing, he does. Even genetically, over the next 400 years, he will be different to us. Less like an ape. Things will change, but there will be some things that stay the same. You haven't addressed the things that will change. You talk as though 24th century man will be just like 20th, but with bigger and better bombs! I think not. We don't stick people in gibbets, now, 500 years ago we did. Right from the beginning of ST, right from the Cage, it's been stated that man will change, and he is pitted against beings who are even more changed, in order to learn. This is what SF is about.

Oh, humans change all right. They sublimate their darkness, learn to hide it better, but it inevitably finds a way to escape. It just finds new ways to do it when the old escape routes are cut off, or bores a new one.

Those opening episode lines are propaganda--no more, no less. While I think some people live by that and bring a degree of reality to the propaganda, NEVER has humanity ever been able to abide truly by its principles. Individuals can. A society? Hell no.

Like I said, by the 24th century, I think most of those who were unwelcome on Earth had already left. The 21st-22nd centuries would've been the main period for this, less in the 23rd century, and even less in the 24th because dissent would've waned from this steady attrition.

Let me offer one last bit as evidence:

So essentially, we're not "fans enough" for you because we aren't as "progressive" as you?

Heh, yeah, because nothing says progressive like "Anyone who sees the same show but comes to a different conclusion than I do is inherently wrong."

Might not be what he was intending, but sure as hell what came out.

I absolutely got the same impression, Matt. And if this is the prevailing attitude on Trekiverse Earth, then the exile scenario becomes ever more likely.

 

[T'Girl]

At the end of one episode of DS9, Ben Sisko is sitting in the alley behind his father's restaurant. Sisko is using a scrub brush to clean the filth off of shell fish. If you don't clean them first, the filth get in the boil water and when the shells open, gets on the meat. Why would anyone replicate dirty shell fish that needed to be cleaned?

Daddy Sisko serves meat in his restaurant.
___________________________________________________________

Imagine if you had to go to the local towncentre and see a thief or a malcontent's body in a gibbet, as a warning! We did that 500 years ago. We don't now.

In Washington State the last time we hanged someone was sixteen years ago (killed three women). Kill another man with poison eight years ago (only killed one woman).

They do fish, but there are not vast amounts of animals living in misery and being slaughtered, as there are now. They don't need to, they have food synthesizers.

I think that Kirk's ship had food synthesizers (or fabricators) solely for reasons to do with storage and room aboard the Enterprise. The Enterprise D had replicators for basically the same reason. Not because they were better (tastier) or cheaper (energy), but because they were easier than the alternatives. Robert Picard grows grapes for wine, if the wine out of replicators was identical to "real" wine there would be no market for Chateau Picard. If real wine tastes better than replicated wine, then we can extrapolate that real food tastes better than replicated food.

In the 24th century I believe that crops are still grown, animals raised, fish (shellfish) gathered. Natural food constitutes the majority of food consumed on Earth. I can see the 24th century knowledge and technology producing food with less resources, can also see the oceans being husbanded to extract more food than nature provides today. When a rare replicator is present in someone's home, they are like microwave ovens. A convenience that produces bad food.

Farmers and ranchers obtain tremendous satisfaction and pride from what they do. My family in Brazil has been working the same farm land for 160 years. When my uncle bought his commercial fishing boat it was one of the happiest day of his life.

Cheapjack, would your future take that away?

People need to feel fulfillment in their existence. Whether it's serving in Starfleet, growing food or building a colony, they expend effort and experience a sense of accomplishment at the results. They did that.

They didn't just calmly sitting a couple of feet away from their replicator waiting for the next hand out.

 

[nahuatl]

Penta raises some interesting ideas, but I take exception to a few of them.

4. The Federation announces a major resettlement program, using various economic methods (whatever the 24th Century version of a subsidy or tax break is) for those willing to resettle on the new world. Upon arrival, they find the planet already protected, with basic utilities ready, and quickly settle.

Breaking from the narrative, I'd ask you all to consider that a geopolitical entity as large as the Federation, assuming it maintains a tiny rate of natural population increase, might still expand naturally by billions upon billions of sentients every year. A planet could conceivably go from first being discovered by the Federation to a fully industrialized world of billions in a few years.

Is that the norm? Perhaps not. Probably not. But it's certainly possible and in some cases, perhaps desirable.

I would think the above scenario would be a priority for the UFP, considering the effect of a fully developed world with a population of billions would have on the UFP's economy and industry. And ultimately adding to the power and prestige of the Federation not to mention security. I wonder do the other regional powers also colonize as much as the Federation?

 

[Cheapjack]

At the end of one episode of DS9, Ben Sisko is sitting in the alley behind his father's restaurant. Sisko is using a scrub brush to clean the filth off of shell fish. If you don't clean them first, the filth get in the boil water and when the shells open, gets on the meat. Why would anyone replicate dirty shell fish that needed to be cleaned?

Daddy Sisko serves meat in his restaurant.
___________________________________________________________

Imagine if you had to go to the local towncentre and see a thief or a malcontent's body in a gibbet, as a warning! We did that 500 years ago. We don't now.

In Washington State the last time we hanged someone was sixteen years ago (killed three women). Kill another man with poison eight years ago (only killed one woman).

They do fish, but there are not vast amounts of animals living in misery and being slaughtered, as there are now. They don't need to, they have food synthesizers.

I think that Kirk's ship had food synthesizers (or fabricators) solely for reasons to do with storage and room aboard the Enterprise. The Enterprise D had replicators for basically the same reason. Not because they were better (tastier) or cheaper (energy), but because they were easier than the alternatives. Robert Picard grows grapes for wine, if the wine out of replicators was identical to "real" wine there would be no market for Chateau Picard. If real wine tastes better than replicated wine, then we can extrapolate that real food tastes better than replicated food.

In the 24th century I believe that crops are still grown, animals raised, fish (shellfish) gathered. Natural food constitutes the majority of food consumed on Earth. I can see the 24th century knowledge and technology producing food with less resources, can also see the oceans being husbanded to extract more food than nature provides today. When a rare replicator is present in someone's home, they are like microwave ovens. A convenience that produces bad food.

Farmers and ranchers obtain tremendous satisfaction and pride from what they do. My family in Brazil has been working the same farm land for 160 years. When my uncle bought his commercial fishing boat it was one of the happiest day of his life.

Cheapjack, would your future take that away?

People need to feel fulfillment in their existence. Whether it's serving in Starfleet, growing food or building a colony, they expend effort and experience a sense of accomplishment at the results. They did that.

They didn't just calmly sitting a couple of feet away from their replicator waiting for the next hand out.

Picard - 'The Neutral Zone'

Rich 21st Century millionaire: 'So where's the challenge?'

Picard: 'The challenge is to improve yourself'!

I always thought that humans in the 24th Century only go back to the old ways, in case their technology breaks down. It's their technology that means they don't have to scrabble and claw and fight for everything. I don't have to fight for the chicken breast with salad that i am going to have tonight. But I have SOME idea how to get it the hard way, if I had to. And, I wouldn't have to spend the past part of a day hunting it. The time I have saved, I can use to watch my DVD of Henry V1th part 111!

The challenge is to educate yourself and improve yourself and be a better person, do all the things you would never get round to doing,or couldn't do in the 21st Century. Write a book, write a song, become a good storyteller, explore the universe, whitewater raft,SEE life. My Gran went to Australia, on money my Grandad saved up, in the 20th Century. Technology gave us that. Four hundred years ago, she would have been a toothless old crone, living on pap and wouldn't even have hoped to visit London. Some people here seem to yearn back to that existence!

Surely it's better to aspire to something better than that? What's wrong with that?

There are conservatives in the 24th Century, I admit. Picard's brother was one. McCoy is the most obvious and biggest. But even McCoy isn't a medievalist, like some here appear to be. You need to be able to know how to cope if the technology breaks down, but technology has extended human lifespans and enabled them to use their brains for all the other things that human brains can do, and that is EXPERIENCE LIFE.

'Those opening episode lines are propaganda--no more, no less.'

Nerys, you're watching the wrong show. Even animals have curiousity. I have a cat that comes in my window and even someone with that low an IQ is doing it because they want to go where no cat has gone before! I want to travel the world. I want to go to Sweden, where my family came from. I don't want to go because I am looking for resources to exploit, because I am looking for people to kill or fight, I am going because I am curious and I want to explore life and see the world!

It IS a part of human nature.

I would bet that those who live off that land, by choice, are just doing it because they are a bit reactionary, doing it because the modern world allows them to do it. I bet if they had to do it, or die, it would be a different story, perhaps?

To be fair, it has been stated that there are conservatives in the 24th Century. I think it's part of ST to have a 50/50 split between conservatism and progressiveness, in order to get both camps on board. I don't think that many of them go the whole hog and live in caves, but no-one would stop them, if they wanted to. They wouldn't have much time to read the complete works of shakespeare if they did, but hey, if they want to have rheumatoid arthritis in the knees at 20, that's up to them! There are probably some in the 24th who are really 'right on'. There was that girl who was going to be a 'Q'! And most people will be just average. But humans will still be here and surviving?

 

[Penta]

Cheapjack: I was going to be polite, but I lost that version of my post. Hence, I'm too aggravated to bother being polite.

You're basically barging into...this is the second thread of mine so far...And saying we're not proper Trek fans because we don't believe as you do. Because we dare to decide for the purposes of something else entirely that the UFP uses standard economics, or that the "evolved society" stuff is propaganda.

Go away. Please. You want to argue those things, create a thread about them. I'll be happy to argue them there.

But don't, don't go about presuming you somehow have the right to declare what a proper Trek fan believes.
---

With that said: I figured it'd be best to put, in Q&A format, what seem to be the most common objections I haven't yet addressed (or if I have I lost track):

Q1. This all takes too long.
A1. Yes, it does. (5-7 years at minimum, I figure, from discovery of the planet to landing of the colonization party.) This is, however, meant to describe situations nearly ideal - where the UFP has the luxury of time to "do colonization properly". Member State colonization may go faster. Colonization of sites of scientific or military interest may have a timeline that is heavily compressed by comparison. Unofficial ventures hardly need to follow this layout. But this is the process that makes a colony an official UFP civilian colony. It has the most support of any of those colony types before the mission sets out, while it is en route, and when it arrives at the planet, not to mention afterward. (Military and scientific endeavors respectively may not have the same pre-mission planning and coordination, among other things.)

Q2. The colonies described here seem really small.
A2. They are. My gut instinct puts the Initial Landing Party of a colony at no more than 2,000 people. This is tiny for a planetary scale. But Trek colonies seem to swing randomly between really tiny and utterly huge. It seemed better writing to describe a colony as starting out small. I cannot explain, not in a way that makes sense, how a colony can get to millions or billions using established TNG-era ship sizes (which generally are less than 3,000 people even on the largest ships) and a time span less than a century. That's with incredibly optimistic natural growth rates, too.

Q3. But....replciators!
A3. Ah, the replicator. Seems to blow everything off course! Replicators for food (by the TNG tech manual, first printing (Nov 1991), page 153-154) are definitely implied to be a second choice over real food. They're like institutional food today, a step above MREs or traditional space-food, but not by much. When any character can get it, they seem to prefer real food. For tools, keep in mind that you need raw materials and you're working at strictly molecular resolution. You can replicate a lot of spare parts, but not everything.

Finally, replicators themselves are said to take a lot of energy. If there are two things a colonization mission does not have, it is spare mass and spare energy. Replicators definitely seem to require more energy than a simple fusion reactor can put out.