Brian said: Personally, I can see better things to do with habitable planets
than use them as prisons. Stick the convicts in asteroid habs, and let regular
people do your colonizing.
[Tomb] How about instead we send them
to hab-less asteroids and let the regular
people do the colonizing?
Whereas Roger said: A different kind of sentence. Put them in a dangerous
environment that needs minerals extracted. They are sentanced to produce X
amount of mineral at which point they are set free. Those with drive that
could be an asset to society get free sooner because they work hard. Those
that are lazy (or stupid) never return.
[Tomb] Oh Good! Roger wants to let the
toughest and most driven hardened scum back into society! Oh goodie! (The plan
is something to think on, but I'm not sure that letting the nastiest, biggest,
toughest, etc. back into society first is the best idea...). Maybe a more
workable version would be doing it "by team" and the
_team_ that got to their target would be
set free. (Perhaps with some psych conditioning to prevent recidivism). That
would promote (some sort) of community
or team spirit rather than tough-ass
individualism. Of course, a team of nasty guys might not be so hot to let
loose, so maybe they are all returned to different planets with no contact
info for one another.
[Tomb] As for the whole issue of
men/women on a colony: If you don't want
kids for the first 2 years, everyone who goes (men or women) gets a 24 month
contraceptive. And you send some fairly draconian law enforcement types with a
fair latitude of power (think Wild West or Klondike Gold Rush or Canadian
Explorations of the West) and let them keep the lid on and keep the rougher
sorts in line.
[Tomb] As far an Antarctica goes, I think
the people who get to go there (correct me
if I'm wrong Beth) are super-select. They
tend to be carefully picked. If I'm sending out 100,000 colonists, I think you
have to imagine a few bad apples in the bunch. So I'm not sure Antarctica is a
fair comparison.
G'day,
> [Tomb] As for the whole issue of
A less savoury solution (and I'm not starting an argument, just making an
observation) maybe the strict enforcement of laws on birth control, in much
the same way as the Chinese enforced their one child laws in their seaboard
provinces during the last decade or so.
> [Tomb] As far an Antarctica goes, I think
Actually I think its a pretty good one as 100,000 or not if you're setting up
a colony that is fairly isolated, but taking a good deal of input
(resource/financial) to start you do want some yobs wrecking it on you.
At least at the start the people with the kinda money to do this are going to
be major nations with millions to chose from so 100,000 still allows you to be
selective. However, that doesn't mean you won't get the odd "things go wrong"
events (which can make for exciting scenarios) because the stress may make
facets of personalities come out that may have gone unnoticed during
the selection process - as has happened in Antarctica a few times even
in recent years. In addition living in confined quarters with a limited number
of people (OK 100,000 is limited, but you're not likely to mix with the entire
group) is gonna mean that things get on your nerves and tempers flare. We
watched a doco on Jamestown the other day, that led to some
interesting ideas for scenarios/future history events to do with
colonies.
Cheers
> --- Thomas Barclay <kaladorn@magma.ca> wrote:
> [Tomb] How about instead we send them
Of course--NRE basically has 4 types of Asteroid
inhabitants: Miner, people who cater to miners, Monks looking for SERIOUS
solitude, and prisioners. Some of the last are on the same rocks as the next
to last.
> conditioning to prevent recidivism). That
Uh, you mean like gangs as opposed to individual criminals? NRE doesn't return
violent criminals to society. Ever.
I recently read a historical novel about the Scottish colony in Panama
c.1600AD. It was entitled "Rising Sun" and covered a lot of the political and
financial intrigues and failures before the First Fleet set sail. Then the
decline and failure of the colony is covered in some detail.
I'm also a sucker for novels written as journal entries (c.f. Brust & Bull's
"Freedom and Necessity", a terrific novel).
> Beth.Fulton@csiro.au wrote:
> G'day,
At
> least at the start the people with the kinda money to do this are going