Terra Nova

[USS Excelsior]

What do you think ultimately happened to the Novans...

As the Federation expanded out and colonized planets, did they settle Terra Nova except for the area that the Novans were shipped to and settled around them, or could the Novans have been absorbed by the new colonists that would inevitably move there.

 

[Guy Gardener]

There's no way they had the breeding stock to create a viable colony. In Battlestar they say that with 50,000 people humping constantly that the human race is still dead but for a glimmer of hope. Inbred deformed mutants will be issued regularly on Terra Nova as cousins start (*&ing, and the federation would have no choice but to sterilize the lot of them for fear of the next tragic 7 toed three eyed generation as Siblings begin to have no choice about who their lovers are going to be.

 

[Frodo Lives]

According to Geoffrey Mandel's Star Trek Star Charts, Terra Nova seems to be a very vibrant coloney by the 24th century with a population of around 347,00.

Now, it's not canon but I'd guess that means that Earth or the Federation did decide to recolonise the planet, since it would be pretty hard for the Novans to go from their tiny population to over three hundred thousand (!!!) in just two centuries.

Not to mention the episode's plot was incredibly ridiculous: The original Novans (All 200 of them) wanted an entire, freaking PLANET to themselves?! They clearly didn't have the population for a sustainable colony - what the fuck was their problem, anyhow? Did Earth, instead of sending its best and brightest, decide to send its worst and most retarded into space?

 

[Guy Gardener]

Probably yeah.

If these people were smart and valuable, then there ability to make a life on earth wouldn't have been undesirable enough to feel the need to scarper.

 

[Timo]

Why wouldn't a colony of 200 be viable? The estimates on the woes of inbreeding so far have all been based on the unavailability of modern medicine. And they seem to be overtly pessimistic anyhow, by some recent reassessments. The colonists of the mid-21st century Star Trek universe might already have available plenty of the miracle cures that we see in the later centuries - cures that can transform a person's entire genome in a matter of hours...

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Frodo Lives]

You could very well be right Timo.

If I recall the DS9 ep Children of Time correctly, the crew of the Defiant were able to spawn a colony of around 3000 people about 300 years down the line, from an original population of only about 50 people. Obviously in no small part, thanks to a little gene re-sequencing from Bashir, I'd say. Though even then, there probably wasn't one person there who wasn't directly related to everyone else. Well, except Odo.

It's just the absolute gall of the Terra Nova 200 not wanting to share an entire planet with anyone else that gets to me.

 

[Guy Gardener]

Timo said:
Why wouldn't a colony of 200 be viable? The estimates on the woes of inbreeding so far have all been based on the unavailability of modern medicine. And they seem to be overtly pessimistic anyhow, by some recent reassessments. The colonists of the mid-21st century Star Trek universe might already have available plenty of the miracle cures that we see in the later centuries - cures that can transform a person's entire genome in a matter of hours...

Timo Saloniemi

I'm not trying to be being rude, and the medical recequencing will stop deformities cropping up when first cousins and closer try to make babies... But honestly, is there any situation thinkable coming about where you would consider marrying one of your First cousins?

The Terra Novans were idiots.

 

[Timo]

Well, it they could, why wouldn't they?

Earth had no doubt spent a king's ransom and then some on the ship that sent them there in the first place. Sending another on a risky mission of forcibly settling the rest of the planet might be too much of a gamble; better expend the second ship on an unopposed colonization run.

That is, if Earth could hope to settle some other planet. At the time, they probably couldn't, which would undermine the position of the squatters somewhat: their efforts would then only encourage Earth to develop a planetary assault fleet to make sure nobody dared defy the Homeworld in the future.

But if Earth could reach 20 ly out at the time, she could probably send another party 40 ly out just a few years later. And doing so might still be easier than risking an "opposed landing".

I do wonder... Did Earth not yet know that the universe was teeming with Class M planets - even if those were more than 20 ly out? Or did Earth know, but firmly believed herself incapable of exceeding those 20 ly, even in the foreseeable future? Or did Earth know the planets were out there, but (mistakenly) thought that they would all be taken already, by superior peoples like Vulcans? Earth should have had access to things like deep space telescopy, Vulcan databanks and so forth. Did they misinterpret the data? Were they lied to?

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Timo]

But honestly, is there any situation thinkable coming about where you would consider marrying one of your First cousins?

Apparently you haven't seen any of them?

Of course I'd marry close relatives if there was no reason not to, and if I happened to be on a mission to spread my seed to the stars, with little access to people who weren't my close relatives. For all we know, the Terra Novans also counted on extensively practicing artificially induced quintuplets, cloning, twenty-plus pregnancies per woman, and other "breeding factory" techniques, at least at the initial stages. Their social mores would be shaped by their reality, not ours. (Indeed, they'd probably think of us and our highest morals like we regard the Nazis, what with there being another World War as a separation mark and all.)

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Frodo Lives]

Well, judging by Enterprise's run-ins there actually weren't that many unoccupied M-Class planets in the close vicinity to Earth. And why bother sending another mission to another planet where you might find who knows what, when you know there's a perfectly viable planet right there, and the only thing stopping you is a bunch of inbred yokels who don't take kindly to strangers round them their parts and are only in a one tiny patch of the planet?

I mean, we can all understand that the reason the Terra Novans were suspicious of outsiders was because they left Earth to form a perfect society where a man was free to marry his cousin (lead by Shelbyville Manhattan, no doubt) but wouldn't Earth have at least tried to reason with them? It's a PLANET for God's sake! It's not like a couple more thousand people are gonna make it that crowded.

Damn rednecks.

 

[Timo]

Oh, I don't think Earth's actions or inactions here are grounds for much debate. The colonists rebelled and said "You stay out!". Earth tried to talk to them, while no doubt preparing to do other things as well. And then the colony fell silent.

We don't know what Earth said, or what else she did or planned to do. We just know Earth decided the colony had failed for unknown reasons, in which case sending another would indeed be quite foolish. Surely the next sensible step would be to send out a scouting mission, something they had thought they could skip on the first try. And that scouting trip was then delayed when the warp 5 engine didn't quite materialize, and the Vulcans kept saying no, and so forth...

As for taking the planet from the 200 rebels, I'm not sure if that would have been technologically viable. Planetary assault would be quite new to Earthlings, and they'd have to do it without any sort of reinforcements. Even if the worst those hillbillies had was that endless cache of submachine guns, they could probably still make short work of any attempt at establishing a second colony: they'd know the terrain, and the second colonist wave would still be just as susceptible to acute lead poisoning as any colonists in Earth history. Starship technology wouldn't alter that any.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[USS Excelsior]

So I imagine it's a foregone conclusion that the planet will be a Federation Colony in the TOS and TNG eras.

But I guess there would be 3 possibilities

----

[*]The Novans will have all died out.

[*]The Novans shall still exist and live the same as they always have and be isolated from the other Federation colonists.

[*]The Novans will have joined the Federation colonists and ultimately be absorbed by them.

 

[mattwitz]

I'm not saying it's very logical, but the original colonists may have felt used and abandoned. I mean, they spent ten years on a transport getting there and then set up what was called the "Great Experiment". As soon as Earth discovered that the "experiment" was a success, they decided to send hundreds more people, no doubt on faster ships. I guess the colonists felt that since they had endured such hardships establishing the colony, that they and not earth should decide whether and how many more people should be allowed to settle on what they considered their new home.

 

[Guy Gardener]

The trip there was 20 years. And when the plans for making that colony were drafted, they must have assumed that it wouldn't have taken them so damn long to crack the warp 2 and 3 barrier like it did that possibly the third wave of colonization would have arrived before the first traveling at just above warp one.

Timo, humanity had no access to the Vulcan database until Enterprise. They had to accept T'Pol as their science officer to get the co-ordinates to Qo'noS just four days out and there hooks into the entire database with T'Pol keeping an eye on them to make sure they didn't go space happy.

 

[ThankQ]

Q made them.


What do I think happened to them? The writer quit writing about them. Thank god.

 

[TheMasterOfOrion]

Guy Gardener said:
In Battlestar they say that with 50,000 people humping constantly that the human race is still dead but for a glimmer of hope.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=87CXVrsNvZU